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Why Did You Do That? (3)
“You can see it, can’t you?”
“…What?” Lily’s stomach churned as if she had swallowed a handful of flour.
“My appearance is so ugly that it’s hard to look at. As you can see.”
“…Yes?”
Are you kidding me now? Is this a new way of joking?
Lily managed to swallow the words that were about to jump out of her throat.
Surprisingly, he was sincere. He had an expressionless look that held no humanity.
His handsome forehead was revealed as he ruffled his hair awkwardly. “Isn’t it similar to my mother’s?”
“…What in the…?”
Am I supposed to know what the duke’s mother looks like, even if he’s five years older than me?
It was Vlad who was mesmerized by Lily’s expression again. Soon, he let out a shaky breath. “You… Of course, as expected, you wouldn’t.”
It felt like a labyrinth had entered her mind.
As he said, she knew nothing. She didn’t know that her friend would be executed, or that the mysterious knight was her husband.
But wasn’t it natural? No one ever gave her a chance to find out the whole story.
Vlad stared blankly at Lily’s white hands. “Lily, what are the rumors you’ve heard about me?”
Her body stiffened visibly.
The rumors about him that she had heard so far passed and went quickly. There was nothing to say definitively.
“Anyway, I know everything, so please feel free to tell me.”
Lily looked into his eyes and carefully opened her mouth. “They said you were an ugly man, a war maniac, a murderer…”
“Didn’t they also say that I’m an illegitimate child with the blood of a monster that eats human flesh?”
Even though it wasn’t a rumor he came up with, Vlad laughed out loud at Lily’s embarrassed and apologetic reaction. He wanted to kiss the forehead that had become pale due to the fever. In the end, he endured the urge within himself, and continued, “None of them were lies.”
As if reading a report, his tone was dry and clean.
Lily needed a longer time to understand him. “What…?”
“I am a child borne of the emperor’s rape. To be precise, it is bestiality.”
Her bloodless lips parted slightly.
Lily thought that the public’s treatment of Vlad was too harsh.
Even in aristocratic families, there were so many illegitimate children that came from rape. Furthermore, he was a war hero.
He was speaking incomprehensible words.
Unlike Lily, who was bewildered, his expression did not waver. He seemed to be annoyed by his own explanation. “My mother is a monster.  A huge snake with the upper body of a limbless female. That is the creature that gave birth to me.”
A woman’s torso, and in fact, the skin above the torso was all snake scales.
How serious was the offense done to the Sun Emperor? He eventually died from a sexually transmitted disease since he mated with a monster.
Their offspring was not a human, beast, nor monster, but something with a terrible appearance. Despite burying it in the ground, cutting it into pieces, or setting it on fire, it did not die.
It was so ugly that even the monster that gave birth to it hated its young.
It was something that would have been difficult to forget even if one only heard it once, so he didn’t know that Lily was ignorant of his birth.
That story was even known to people on other continents across the sea.
Seeing Lily confused, only then did the corners of his mouth curl up bitterly.
She suddenly remembered the sensation she had felt in his office. A foreign feeling that touched her fingertips.
Hard and cold like snake scales…
But she still couldn’t believe it.
Even when a white dog and a black dog mated, they often bore a puppy that had each of their genes.
But except for that texture, he did not look like something a bizarre monster created.
This handsome man with enchanting eyes had no traces of it.
Lily’s face darkened even more before asking the question. “Then the human flesh…?”
“…”
As if he didn’t know that she would ask that question, he frowned slightly. “It’s because of the long post-war period.” Slowly, he regained his calm, indifferent expression.
Lily, who had grown tired, nodded her head painstakingly.
“You can ask me if you really want to, but it’s not a good story to hear. Especially with your body that has just recovered.”
“Oh, it’s okay, it’s okay.”
Yeah. You said you’ve been on the battlefield for 15 years. What you went through…
She struggled to recall the story of a traveler who was lost in the middle of the sea and ate his friend’s flesh with tears in his eyes to survive.
As she thought to convince herself, Lily licked her lips.
All the rumors are true, but…
“Husband… Are you okay?”
Vlad’s handsome eyebrows furrowed slightly. “…You don’t have to think about my face.”
He believed deep within his bones that he was ugly.
To be precise, he thought he was closer to a monster.
He didn’t want to show his ugly appearance to me, his wife, so he covered my eyes… right?
Lily wanted to get her heavy body up right away, grab his cheek and appeal.
Calm down, Vlad.
You are such a handsome man that it is impossible to find someone on your level even if you search all over the continent.
Are you sure you’re not deceiving me again?
Did you look at yourself in the mirror!?
But the words that wanted to come out of her mouth reflexively were something else altogether.
“If that were true, it must have been really hard. Every time…”
“…”
Vlad’s gray eyes flickered.
Lily turned her head away from him and shut her mouth like a clam.
She still couldn’t quite believe it though.
If what he said was true, he would have lived in a hellish sense of shame. What kind of life was it for someone to be able to get used to being despised?
In fact she also knew that feeling well.
After hearing the reason, it made sense in her head. However, the problem of the mind was in a whole different realm.