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After Jane finished speaking, a palpable silence filled the room.
No one spoke for a period of time.
Finally, Jane’s voice broke the silence,
“She is a pitiful woman.”
“Pitiful?”
“Because,” Jane replied,
“I met her yesterday and she was crying as if the world was ending. She’s plagued by fear and insecurity and doesn’t trust easily. Since she got a lover, her anxiety has only grown worse.”
Jane recounted her relationship with the deceased woman in a composed manner.
She described her as someone who desired to trust in the love of a man, but was plagued by doubts.
The man tried to reassure her and professed his love endlessly, but grew exhausted from trying to earn her trust.
In the heart of the woman, who was hurt by the man’s attitude, the suspicion of another woman grew like poison.
“What happened yesterday?” Investigator asked.
“As we talked, she was so emotional that she sobbed and beat her chest in pain,” Jane replied.
“Did she physically hit her chest?”
“It felt as if a dagger had been pierced into her chest, due to her anxiety and doubt. I did my best to comfort her, but ultimately it was to no avail.”
-Tak.
The investigator slammed the documents onto the table and grabbed a new stack.
“These documents show that the victim died from a branch impaling her back,” he said.
Jane and Smith both nodded in agreement.
“That’s odd,” the investigator muttered as he closely examined one section of the papers.
“What’s the problem, investigator?” Smith asked.
Despite Smith’s inquiry, the investigator remained silent and continued to peruse the documents.
Frustrated by the lack of response, Smith pressed further.
“Investigator, what’s strange?”
Finally, the investigator spoke up, still scanning the documents.
“If we only consider the condition of the corpse, it could be a murder… but,” he paused,
“The fatal wound was inflicted by a branch in an upward direction.”
He lifted his finger, pointing upward to emphasize his point.
“Not front or side, but upward.”
The room fell silent as the gravity of his words sunk in.
“Upward?” Smith repeated in horror.
The investigator nodded solemnly. “It’s certain.”
Smith was speechless, but Lyna seemed unfazed, having already suspected something was off after examining the corpse.
The cause of death, a tree branch pointing upward, was highly unusual.
If it was murder, it would imply that another person was involved, yet it would be near impossible for a person, no matter how strong, to inflict such a fatal wound.
The upward direction of the branch further added to the bizarre nature of the incident.
Lyna thought to herself, if the victim wasn’t lifted and dropped from above, the only explanation left was that the branch was pushed from above.
“And there’s another strange thing,” the investigator added.
Lyna clicked her tongue at the investigator’s words.
In the end, this isn’t a murder case after all…….
The investigator theorized that the woman likely fell from a high place nearby, and had been fixated on that particular branch.
If the true motivation behind the suicide was to make it appear as a murder, then it could be driven by jealousy and resentment, as Jane had mentioned.
– I’ve never seen so many clues in a murder case before, but thanks to them, it seems like it will be solved quickly.
As they entered the room, the investigator’s words seemed to indicate that all the clues and unusual aspects of the case were pointing toward one person.
Out of the two suspects, the woman who loved the deceased woman’s lover appeared to be the most likely culprit.
The deceased woman seemed to be a person whose personality had been destroyed by selfishness until the end.
At that moment, Jane spoke,
“It turns out like this in the end. I wanted to protect her…”
But before she could finish, a short laugh interrupted from nearby.
“Hahaha!”
Lyna shrugged, her expression cynical.
It felt as if the laughter that had been building inside her had finally erupted.
But it wasn’t Lyna who had laughed, it was Ainar, who had been quiet until now.
Everyone’s attention immediately shifted to him as he looked at Jane, who avoided his gaze.
“You wanted to protect her,” Ainar said.
“Yes,” Jane replied.
“That woman?” he pressed.
“Yes. I didn’t think her life would be thrown away so recklessly,”
Jane said, her expression crackling.
“But isn’t that woman the murderer?” Ainar asked.
“What?” Jane exclaimed.
Until now, Jane’s face had been composed, but now it was showing signs of cracking.
“No, she committed suicide, so she can’t be the murderer,” Ainar clarified.
Ainar’s words caused confusion and shock among everyone in the room, except for Lyna.
“Trying to turn suicide into murder and blame someone else, that’s even worse than being a murderer,” Ainar said.
“In this case, one after another the evidence kept pointing towards that other woman. In the end, by putting too many clues, the tail is caught instead,” he added.
The investigator nodded in agreement, tapping the stack of documents with a sound.
“As His Highness says. There are many evidence at the scene that points to one woman,” the investigator said telling the name of the woman to Jane,
“Is that the name of the other woman in the story?” Ainar asked.
“Yes,” the investigator confirmed.
Ainar, who had crossed his legs and leaned back in his chair like Lyna, turned to Jane and asked,
“It was ultimately revealed here. Why did you not say anything even though you already knew?”
“I already said it,” replied Jane.
“You wanted to protect her?” Ainar asked.
“Yes. She couldn’t handle the reality she was in and committed an act due to severe emotional turmoil, ultimately losing her life. So she is the victim. I wanted to protect her because I understood her,” Jane explained.
After listening to Jane’s story, Lyna pursed her lips and swallowed a sigh.
– I understand you. You’re a victim because of me. So…
Jane always responded this way, taking on all of Lyna’s blame and understanding and forgiving her.
But that was poison.
It was toxic and ultimately suffocated Lyna’s breath.
When people hold intense resentment and anger towards someone, they end up destroying themselves.
After some time, when someone else tells them “you’re not strange, I understand you,” something inside of them breaks.
Lyna had already experienced this even without anyone telling her.
But even so, not everyone will try to harm others in a situation where they experience severe emotional turmoil. That’s just the extremely selfish behavior of a twisted woman.
It’s the same as her before regression.
“You’re even worse than her. You can’t distinguish between understanding and protecting the weak, and recognizing and normalizing emotions that lead to harming someone. No, you just hide behind the word ‘protect’ and have no intention of distinguishing it at all,”
Ainar said, his voice low and echoing as if from deep within a cave.
His deep-set eyes, which were focused on Jane, met Lyna’s at some point.
As Ainar was about to speak, Lyna interrupted him.
“It’s over,” Lyna said.
Ainar, who had momentarily paused, accepted her words.
“Yes, it’s over,” he said.
Even Smith couldn’t deny that it had ended and stood up stiffly with a cold expression. Lyna also stood up, glancing at Jane.
“That woman, she never once looked in our direction. As if she had absolutely decided not to look this way. She’s as strange as a ghost,”
Lyna’s shoulder ached again. As if reading her thoughts, Ainar accurately expressed Lyna’s thoughts aloud.
Jane was just a commoner now. Such a person met people she may never have seen in her lifetime.
It was not something a commoner could dare to do, but even as a human being, one would look out of curiosity.
‘What is she thinking behind that expressionless face?’ Lyna thought.
She never understood it even before regressing and probably never will even after regressing.
Lyna will leave the family as soon as Jane enters the Bolsheik family as a shadow to assist her, the next duke.
‘Exactly when was it…’
“Investigator,”
Lyna, who was trying to shake off her memories, returned to reality with Ainar’s voice.
“Yes, Your Highness,” the investigator replied.
“What kind of punishment will the person who aided the suicide of someone who was trying to frame someone else for murder receive?” Ainar asked.
“I apologize, your Highness. There’s no punishment…”
“So, she’s just a witness, huh?” Ainar said.
When the investigator bowed deeply, Lyna moved first.
After Lyna, Ainar, and Smith left the room, only then did Jane turn her head in the direction they were.
“Lyna Bolsheik,”
Jane said Lyna’s name between her lips.
“Jane… Bolsheik,” Jane muttered, adding Bolsheik to her name.
Jane looked at Lyna’s tall back as it moved away through the open door for a while – just like the last time Lyna saw Jane’s before regressing.
But unlike Lyna, who couldn’t speak because she drank the poison, Jane spoke.
“In order to have Bolsheik, that woman has to disappear,” she said, her voice only audible to herself.