The Villainess Proposed a Contractual Marriage

"Elphisia Luminel!!!"

Snap!

The servant snatched a fork from a nearby table and brandished it menacingly. He then charged forward with violent fury, his eyes blazing with rage.

"Huh...!"

"Eek?!"

The man's sudden action elicited screams from bystanders. The malice of attacking an unarmed lady in a light dress was enough to spread terror. However, Elphisia Luminel remained internally calm.

'I'll dodge and subdue him appropriately.'

Even a rotten fish is still a fish - Elphisia was the head of a martial arts family. The servant's clumsy ambush seemed as slow as a crawling ant and as awkward as a child's first attempts at writing.

It's an insignificant commotion.

The assassin, honed by rigorous training and obsession, slipped between the attacker and the target like a gust of jet-black wind.

- Slash!

A brutal slicing sound followed.

Simultaneously, the servant's head flew into the air. Warm, damp blood sprayed like rain.

"... Huh?"

As Elphisia let out a gasp, thud! The servant's body slumped lifelessly to the floor. It twitched briefly before all signs of life vanished completely.

"You, you...?"

Elphisia pointed accusingly at the assassin who had intervened. His jet-black hair and eyes, barely concealed by the hood, revealed his identity unambiguously.

Glen Baskhill.

The man who admired, pitied, and hated Elphisia stood there.

"You...! What are you doing?! Why... How could you kill someone so easily?! You know full well this level of ambush isn't a threat!"

"... Pardon?"

Meanwhile, Glen's expression hardened as if faced with a difficult math problem.

Then he spoke, as if stating an obvious fact.

"You ordered not to spare assassins previously, so I acted accordingly. If I've made a mistake, I'll gladly accept punishment."

"I... ugh."

Elphisia was unable to argue.

Who was it? The one who conditioned Glen through brutal punishment?

Who was it? The one who forced torture upon a tender child who refused to kill?

... Who was it? The one who regarded the boy as nothing more than a convenient tool?

All questions pointed to a single person.

Elphisia Luminel herself was the culprit who had trampled on an innocent child's humanity.

"Ah... Aah..."

Had she been intoxicated by a midsummer night's dream?

She had forgotten. Her own true nature.

Drawn by Harte's purity, she thought she was becoming more like him. She deluded herself into thinking she was atoning for past sins by occasionally sprinkling good deeds she'd never done before.

Unless time could be completely rewound, the seeds of evil left in the past were steadily sprouting, blossoming into the lotus of karma without her realizing.

"Haa... Haa..."

Elphisia's breaths produced a rough, grating noise. Glen could only flounder, unable to act as he witnessed his master's unsettling state.

It was at that moment a woman's cry dredged up Elphisia's past.

"Aaaaaaah...! Lukren!"

She was an employee - hired for today's charity event along with the attacker - Lukren.

When she glared at Elphisia with murderous intent, Elphisia was able to recall the name Lukren from deeply buried fragments of memory.

"Lukren... Lukren Melton?"

"Hick..."

Judging by the sobbing woman's silent glare, it was the correct answer.

"Why is he here...?"

"Do you really not know...?"

The woman immediately responded to Elphisia's vague question.

Soon, the female employee desperately trying to tend to Lukren's corpse began to scream, choking back tears.

"You... You made him like this!!!"

For a moment, Elphisia's lips clamped shut.

Because the woman's resentful cry was the plain truth.

Also, because the Lukren Melton depicted in the scattered fragments of memory was undoubtedly the person before her eyes.

"How... How can a person be like this...? Being so high up, you don't remember the ants you've stepped on?"

"..."

About 7 years ago.

Emperor Rupehit, who had just ascended to the throne, promulgated an unprecedented evil law.

The law was named 'Special Privilege Law for Reporting Nobility's Violations of Good Customs'.

The gist of the new law was simple and clear. Half of the confiscated assets would be given to those who reported nobles' corruption.

At first glance, this law seemed quite progressive in promoting noble integrity and filling the national treasury. Moreover, as the discussion of the bill was preceded by stories of a lord squeezing his territory's people dry, the capital's atmosphere was tense, and the public supported the new law.

However, just one month.

That was all the time needed for it to lose the support of both the people and the nobility.

The person who exploited this unprecedented evil law most maliciously was none other than Elphisia Luminel.

[Infiltrate spies into all the houses on the list.]

If she had placed spies to discover and report corruption, she could have at least claimed some semblance of justice. But Elphisia's malice looked a step further ahead.

[And create corruption. Even inducing minor tax evasion by manipulating the books will suffice.]

Ready to burn the entire paper if even a single drop of ink stained the pristine white sheet.

[It wouldn't be bad to reduce the number of nobles while we're at it.]

... Thus, Elphisia tarnished countless houses and amassed enormous wealth. Even the Empress Dowager couldn't put the brakes on a law initiative led by the imperial family. If it were a humble house, they might have tried to push back, but the opponent was Elphisia Luminel.

After sluggish procedures in the House of Nobles and the imperial family's face being thoroughly disgraced, the unprecedented evil law was finally abolished.

During that time, House Luminel grew into an unrivaled power, reaching a point where independence as a principality wouldn't be an issue if they so desired.

In other words, Lukren Melton, killed by Glen, was an innocent victim caught up in Elphisia's machinations.

Though from an insignificant house barely noticed, his very life was confiscated under the pretext of reporting corruption. Moreover, for alleged tax evasion he had neither seen nor committed.

Afterwards, Lukren fell to the status of a commoner, scraping by day to day on the streets.

This was the story behind why he, originally a noble, was working as a mere servant.

"Ow... Sob... Lukren..."

Even as he fell into the abyss and lived a hard life, spring came. He happened to fall for a pretty girl and promised a future together. This charity event, in particular, paid well and would have been a substantial help for their household.

They had planned to receive the money and return to their tiny home, incomparable to when he was a noble, to share trivial complaints with each other.

If Elphisia hadn't attended, or if she had recognized him at a glance...

Though there might have been a commotion, at least his life would have been spared.

"... Hey."

Click. Click.

Elphisia approached the woman embracing Lukren's corpse and wailing. At this, the common woman, not even of noble birth, shrank back. Only then did she seem to grasp her place, fear overtaking anger.

Elphisia, utterly oblivious to the victim's perspective, advanced until she was about to step on the woman's skirt hem.

Then she asked.

"... How much would suffice?"

"Pardon...?"

"How much compensation would balance the scales for that man's life?"

"..."

The woman fell silent.

Shock had stripped away both reason and instinct.

The noble lady before her was casually committing the atrocity of placing a human life on one side of a scale and wealth on the other.

It couldn't be possible.

A human life could not possibly be converted into money.

The future they were to paint together should have been more precious than a bathtub filled with pink diamonds and gold. Only someone who had never truly met a precious person could weigh such a future against money.

But this woman with ruby-like eyes, so breathtakingly beautiful, who seemed to possess the whole world... What on earth was she?

Utterly devoid of emotion or righteousness.

A self-centered existence without compassion or principles.

The woman, having grasped the true nature of the human called Elphisia Luminel, clutched her lover's cold, stiff corpse and promptly fainted.

---

---

Elphisia hastily returned to the ducal residence from the charity event.

It was essentially a flight. Her uncharacteristically panicked appearance stirred anxiety among her attendants.

"I'll have tea brought," Glen said calmly as he escorted Elphisia. But she frantically waved her hand.

"No, don't. You can't."

"My lady?"

"Don't worry about me... No more, you, you... You shouldn't be like this to me anymore..."

"You need to pull yourself together, my lady."

"How much would be enough?"

"Pardon?"

Glen, irreverently, asked back as if dumbfounded.

"How much would it take?"

Elphisia grabbed Glen's shoulders and repeated obsessively.

"For me, for me... How much would it take to compensate for your life? Tell me. I'll... I'll give you everything. Okay?"

"My lady, you've lost your senses."

"I'm asking you... Hm?"

Then Elphisia raised her voice.

"I'm asking what I should do to make it up to you!"

Apart from Elphisia losing her mind, Glen was equally confused.

He couldn't find the answer to the question she was asking.

Glen knew nothing of the world.

Captured as a slave in his childhood, he had lived his entire life as Elphisia's pawn after being inducted into her service. Even if she were to suggest a different direction in life now, it would be pushing Glen into a darkness where he couldn't see an inch ahead.

So, Glen answered honestly, prepared to fall out of his master's favor.

"... I don't know."

"..."

The person who created a young man who had forgotten even how to pursue happiness was none other than herself.

The assassin with a festering heart was the most directly observable manifestation of her karma.

"What... have I done?"

Elphisia muttered dejectedly.

The clock hand was ticking towards the time Harte would arrive.