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Thank you orihime for the kofi~!
***
Reinhardt.
She knows that’s his name.
However, Valletta did not call him by his name just in case.
She was worried that calling him by his name may create an unknown relationship.
She fears that an emotion like a feather coming down would sprout and take root without her knowing.
Like Valletta in the novel, she was afraid that she would fall in love with him and act as if she had given him a liver and a gallbladder, then be decorated like Valletta had in the end.
“You don’t know how miserable it was for you to not be able to endure hunger and the pain, so you’d eventually get down on your knees and bow your head to your stupid father.”
“…”
Valletta bowed her head.
Seriously, she did not expect him to remember all those embarrassing and shameful things.
I want to erase his memories by hitting him in the back of his head. Valletta thought sincerely.
To be honest, those were behaviours that she did not think too much of.
Count Delight liked it whenever she would get down on her knees. He wanted her complete submission.
She didn’t have to keep her pride as she thought she would either die early or escape by marrying later on.
If she kneeled down and apologized, then things would quietly end, so she chose the easiest way.
“Master.”
Reinhardt rose from his seat, circled the table and approached Valletta.
“I will allow you to be my one and only master from now on, so stay by my side.”
He carefully wrapped her cheek with his hand, came up to her and whispered.
“Huh?”
Valletta’s eyes widened.
“You refused everytime I asked you to run away.”
At Valletta’s words, Reinhardt’s eyes slightly widened. He put on a slightly bitter smile on his lips.
“If I had run away from there, I would have suffered even worse.”
“… What?”
Reinhardt smirked at Valletta’s question. He slowly opened his mouth again.
“Magicians are born with an energy that is fundamentally different from that of ordinary humans. That heterogeneous energy makes ordinary humans feel disgusted and uncomfortable. That is why newly born magicians are hated for no reason. Human beings find it inherently difficult to accept something that is different from themselves, and newborn magicians are vulnerable.”
Reinhardt said, stroking Valletta’s cheek gently with his thumb.
Valletta could not say anything. She never thought that there would be something like that.
Reinhardt spoke again.
“However, you weren’t like that.”
“… I!”
‘I was afraid of you too!’ Valletta tried to shout. If only Reinhardt’s thumb had not suddenly come down and pressed down on her lips.
“My master always made eye contact with me, talked to me, listened to me and never avoided my touch.”
“That’s…”
“My master didn’t call, not only mine, but everyone else’s name. You didn’t give room to anyone. Did I look the same as everyone else in your eyes?”
“…”
“A human being just like them.”
The voice whispered in her ear. Valletta did not say anything.
No one was able to properly meet Reinhardt’s gaze and have a conversation with him.
Everyone wanted Reinhardt’s looks, his sweet voice, or the feeling of the tongue inside his mouth.
She was the only one who wanted nothing and solely looked out for herself. Even though she had a cold and almost disgusted look on her face, she never pushed him away whenever he clinged to her.
“Why didn’t you run away from there? The best option for me is to obediently kneel down and…”
Reinhardt pressed his face close up to her nose.
As she narrowed her brow, she gently pushed his shoulder away. Reinhardt obediently backed away at Valletta’s weak gesture and opened his mouth.
“I won’t be able to get my hands on you if I left there.”
As he answered, she could see him licking his lower lip.
‘For a moment, I thought we were going to kiss.’
The most horrifying thing was that she tried to accept it without realizing.
She didn’t know if it was because of his angel-like and innocent face, or if the instinct of Valletta from the novel was still here.
“It’s obvious, but…”
He blurted out.
“I wanted to have you, Master.”
It was a gentle smile.
Valletta blankly stared at his pretty yet crazy smile. Does this madman know what he’s talking about? She sighed deeply.
“Master doesn’t want to be a spectacle as well, right?”
“What spectacle?”
“Even though spirit art is unknown, how many people does Master think would want to covet your alchemy even if you try to hide it?”
“…”
“My naive Master, you have no idea what your stupid father was trying to do to you.”
Reinhardt’s hand stretched out and gripped the back of Valletta’s wrist.
His slightly slanted finger moved slowly along her blue veins over her transparent skin.
“They tried to sell your blood and…”
Valletta’s eyes widened.
“Soon, in the name of recuperation, you will be locked up in a villa in a distant country and will give birth to an unknown child…”
The sensation of his fingertip tracing her vein gave her goosebumps.
However, she was unsure if it was because of his finger or because of the other unexpected truth about Count Delight.
“For that reason, I put a name for the auction that the master knew well behind your back.”
His finger that was tracing her veins, reached the back of her neck. Reinhardt’s thumb gently rubbed her neck.
“Once you marry the Crown Prince, they will have you constantly produce potions, and the Emperor and that greedy pig will share them half and half…”
Then Reinhardt’s thumb pressed against her neck. It did not hurt much, but it felt terrifying.
Valletta stared blankly at his lips.
“You didn’t know anything.”
“… Crazy.”
A sharp word escaped from Valletta’s lips.
She thought the Count was crazy for money, but it was horrifying that he would even think of doing that to his own flesh and blood.
“How much I wanted to break their necks whenever I saw them.”
His indifferent expression receded, and his face was completely distorted.
His red eyes, that were usually full of lies and emotionless, were burning with anger like flames.
Valletta looked surprised at his explicit murderous aura.
It was an emotion that she had never seen in Reinhardt before.
He always had a fake smile on his lips and he was always smiling with a kind expression. Of course, his eyes were usually not smiling.
“No, I’m engaged to the Crown Prince, what child?”
“The amount of money he received was apparently significant, so he was planning to delay the wedding for a year or so and send you elsewhere in the name of medical treatment.”
“… Was father really planning that?”
“Yeah. Master is an aristocrat and had the qualities of an advanced alchemist, so you must have looked like a goose laying golden eggs”
“That’s terrifying.”
Valletta narrowed her brows and said indifferently. He’s already dead and there’s nothing else that he could do. She did not regret at all that he died like that.
Valletta let out a sigh.
“It’s dangerous outside, so I should just stay here?”
“That’s the way it’s going to be.”
“I don’t want to,”  Valletta said to the smiling Reinhardt. “Who knows what you’re going to do to me.”
For her, the man in front of her was equally dangerous.
Reinhardt shrugged his shoulders at Valletta’s harsh words. He sighed and sat back down on the chair opposite to her.
He propped up his chin and looked at Valletta.
“I won’t harm my master. If I wanted to, then I would’ve already killed you.”
“…”
He casually said something so brutal. Valletta knitted her brow.
“If you promise not to run away, then I’ll let you out of this room.”
“I understand.”
“… You won’t run away?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s obviously a lie.”
Reinhardt snickered and said. Anyone else could see that it was a ‘I have to get out of here first’ lie.
Her intention of getting out of the tower once she had the opportunity was obvious. She didn’t even show any signs of trying to hide that thought.
Reinhardt smiled bitterly when he saw her confident expression.
Even from before, she was never the type of person who would act the way he thought she would, and she still hadn’t changed.
Reinhardt spread out his palm, and a thin ring-shaped bracelet formed on top of his palm.
It was a ring-shaped, rough silver bracelet that was as thin as a ring and had no jewels in it.
“Please wear this. If you wear it, you will be able to leave this room whenever you want.”
“Is this also going to forcefully repatriate me?”
Valletta looked at Reinhardt with her eyes full of disgust. Reinhardt shrugged his shoulders and shook his head.
“No way, I’m not as incompetent as that b*st*rd pig.”
“Ah, sure.”
Valletta bitterly replied. She was speechless by his confidence.
Besides, Reinhardt must have a really bad mouth. She can only wonder how the hell he acted the role of a kind and innocent slave.
“Anyone can get out whenever they want, but only me and that watchdog from before can enter.”
“Ah.”
He said that if she uses that, she can also enter.
Valletta took the bracelet from Reinhardt’s hand and put it on her wrist.
“If you wear this and call my name, I will go to meet you wherever you are.”
“What? If I wear this, won’t I be able to go back and forth in this room?”
In response to Valletta’s absurd expression and question, Reinhardt bent his eyes into a half moon.
He opened his mouth as he watched Valletta staring at the corners of his eyes that were folded.
“What a stupid thing to say, my foolish master.”
Ah, I really want to hit him at least once. Valletta thought with a frown on her face.