To Get Away from an Ex’s Obsession

Sister…?

Asralda chewed on the word that had not come out of her mouth and realized that it was referring to her.

‘He met my sister before?’

Asralda looked at Aiden with a strange expression. No matter how much she tried to remember, the first time she met him was when she was brought to the barracks as a prisoner.

Did he know me before that?

Aiden stared at Asralda’s eyes and spoke with a voice full of strength.

“You look just like her. That’s why I don’t want you to die.”
“……”
“So I want you to survive. By any means necessary.”

Asralda couldn’t understand what he was talking about. She still remembered what Raphil had said to her before she was stabbed to death.

‘He said it would be better to kill me instead of letting me go and causing trouble later.’

How could she forget? It was a scar engraved on her heart that would never go away.

Asralda gripped the blanket until her fingers turned white.

Oscar was destined to die in three years, anyway. It wasn’t a fate that she could change.

And if that happened, Aiden would probably abandon me just like before. Saying that I was no longer useful. Perhaps even the process of my death would not change a single bit.

Asralda looked at him. His inner thoughts, which she couldn’t detect no matter how hard she tried before, now seemed to be clearly visible.

It’s obvious.

‘I just liked your smiling face, that’s all.’

It would be difficult to persuade her with sweet words since she wasn’t a woman, so this time he pretended to be friendly while trying to persuade her.

“You want me to survive?”

She laughed inwardly and coldly parted her lips.

“It sounds like you deliberately spared me because of some personal acquaintance with my sister, who is a prisoner of war of the enemy. I wonder if you were close to her.”
“……”
“But it’s strange. If you were really close to her, the younger brother, me, would have heard about it for sure.”

Despite Asralda’s blatant sarcasm, Aiden showed no response.

He just stared at her for a while as if observing her. Then he let out a low sigh and turned his head. He stood up from his seat.

At the same time, Asralda flinched unconsciously. Then she bit her lip, blaming herself for her reaction. Reacting to Aiden’s every move was her habit in her lifetime.

His lips, which had not moved at all, twisted nervously. He blurred his words.

“Never heard of it before….”

Now that she thought about it, his expression when he looked up was strange. His lips were smiling, but he also looked angry and disappointed.

“Well, your sister probably knows better.”

Then he left the room without looking back, as if he was angry about something.

Asralda, who was left alone, knew that what he had said was a blatant lie, but she still couldn’t help but think about it.

‘He thinks I should know better?’

For some reason, she felt like the words were telling her to think for herself.

***

He had boasted that he would confidently tame her in front of the emperor.

But after his false persuasion on the first day, Aiden had not entered the room at all.

Asralda seized every opportunity to escape while keeping an eye on the food brought in by the maidservant without touching it.

The maidservant always came in with the knights and the door was tightly locked when she left.

It had already been four days since then.

What was she supposed to do?

She knew that the ultimate goal was to use her as bait, but she couldn’t understand how he would tame her right now.

On the fifth day, Asralda finally couldn’t bear it any longer and opened the window.

A chilly early spring wind blew in fiercely as she opened the window. Asralda looked down under the window with tension as she faced the wind.

Her room was in the center of the third floor. Each floor was quite high, so it was a dizzying sight.

Asralda had always watched Aiden leaving from here. His destination was mostly House Muriel’s place. Even though she knew he was going to see Marinda every time, she had never been able to stop him.

‘I never thought I would use the window I always watched him from for this purpose.’

But there was nothing else she could do. Even if she fell to her death on the ground like this.

Asralda made up her mind and climbed onto the window frame.

There were maids and servants wandering around the duke’s mansion, but fortunately it was midnight, so it didn’t seem easy to get caught. The problem was her trembling hands rather than the possibility of being caught.

As Asralda stepped on the window frame and climbed up, the dizzying landscape looked even more creepy. The garden lights looked like small fireflies.

Asralda quietly looked at the edge of the building far away from her window. There was an ivory-colored pillar on the corner. The only thing she could step on and climb down was that pillar.

Asralda moved along the wall border that extended long on each floor as a foothold. Every time she took a step, her body shook like a bamboo tree. She glanced down and it looked so close that she flinched, thinking the ground would collapse.

After crossing about five windows like that, a voice from inside was heard as she tried to cross the sixth window.

“What are you thinking?”

Asralda stopped her foot that she was about to put down at the familiar voice. This voice…

‘Iyres?’

Another familiar voice was heard from the other side.

“We’ll proceed as planned. There’s no change.”

It was Aiden. There was no mistake. The two were talking across the window.

Asralda unconsciously listened to their conversation, holding her breath.

“There was a rumor that Oscar was frighteningly obsessed with his bloodline. Now that Oscar’s whereabouts are unknown, he’s the only clue we have. We have to bring him along no matter what excuse we use.”
“But the situation is not good. If we continue like this, the plan will be completely messed up and then…”

Iyres spoke in a worried tone, but Aiden cut him off.

“We’ll have to kill him.”

As Iyres’ long silence continued as if he was very surprised by those words, Asralda, who was listening to the voices, felt her hand sticking to the outer wall getting cold.

Eventually, Iyres cautiously asked, “You will kill him?”

“If we don’t kill him?”

Aiden replied immediately to the question. Then he added in a cold voice as if it was a natural situation.

“He’s an enemy prisoner. Besides, he’s Oscar’s bloodline. We brought him here because we needed him, but it’s useless to keep him if he becomes worthless.”

As Asralda heard those words, she felt her chest, which she thought had completely dried up, becoming stuffy as if it was being squeezed tightly.

She thought there was no remaining attachment that persisted stubbornly, but was there still some lingering attachment?

Asralda stuck to the outer wall and looked up at the sky with a suffocating face.

At this moment, of all things, the most unwanted memory came up.

‘Can you smile just once?’
‘… What?’
‘Once is enough.’

On the day she first met Aiden, he ordered her to be locked up in a barracks and came to her unexpectedly in the middle of the night and made such a request.

It wasn’t a request that could be made to a woman who had been brought in as a prisoner, and moreover, the daughter of a notorious knight from the enemy faction. However, for some reason, Asralda couldn’t refuse that request.

At the time of making that request, his pupils looked much more tired and desperate than those who had been brought in as prisoners.

So Asralda smiled. Although it was a forced and awkward smile, she still fulfilled his request.

After that, she didn’t remember what expression he had. But he didn’t seem to be smiling.

Aiden’s endlessly cold voice from inside echoed in her ears again.

“We have to kill him, of course.”

It was enough to wipe away even a trace of emotion that remained deep in his bones. It even turned the one strand of memory hidden deep inside her soul into mere debris.

‘Get a grip, Asralda.’

She looked down at the dizzying ground again.

Whether she was caught and lived as bait or ran away and got caught, it wouldn’t be any different from her previous life.

Even if she was lucky enough to escape his gaze right now, she would have to live her whole life being chased and hunted in Mimart.

If she didn’t like that, she would have to run to a far-off country where she wouldn’t be caught, but how guaranteed was it that she would safely cross the border?

Moreover, Asralda no longer had any desire to return to Lucias.

Both Lucias, where her father was, and Mimart, where Aiden was, were equally terrible.

Her goal was not to die miserably like in her previous life.

‘My goal is to survive.’

Asralda made up her mind like that. And she engraved this moment countless times in her heart.

Soon, Asralda began to retrace her steps.

***

After Asralda left, Iyres asked with a perplexed expression that was hard to understand.

“Wouldn’t it be better to report the truth to the emperor? Then the situation would be much smoother.”
“What do you mean?”
“…Don’t you already know?”

Iyres said to him.

“The man is Oscar’s daughter, in other words…a woman.”