Acidity of Regret Ch 90
- Feb 9
- 7 min read
[Hayden] "Vanessa."
He reached out, but the sight of her brimming eyes froze his hand mid-air.
Her spirit lay in ruins, leaving no room even for guilt toward the man before her. A tidal wave of emotion, far more violent than anything she had ever endured, crashed over her.
News of Declan’s impending death snapped the tension within her like a frayed thread. Terror, remorse, and a thousand nameless agonies suffocated her.
A strange pain flared in her chest, distinct from the familiar weight of her fire-illness. While her usual ailment felt like a stagnant heat clogging her lungs, this new sensation felt as though a razor-sharp blade was ruthlessly carved into her heart.
[Vanessa] "I... I cannot."
Her lips parted as she gasped for air through the agony.
[Vanessa] "I lack the strength to live this marriage without regret......"
She stood at the edge of a cliff. If she continued to bury her honest feelings now, she would cross a threshold from which there was no return.
She had been a fool. A marriage that lost its meaning the moment he vanished should never have begun.
Only now did she possess absolute certainty: even if the Covenant bound their souls together, she would never love Hayden. No matter how tenderly he cared for her, her heart would remain a cold, unmoving stone.
[Vanessa] "Forgive me, Your Highness."
[Hayden] "......"
[Vanessa] "I am so deeply sorry."
Her lips could offer nothing but a desperate plea for a different man’s forgiveness.
A pungent scent of antiseptic clawed at his consciousness.
The sharp, chemical odor forced Declan's mind awake. He struggled to open his eyes. Through a blurred haze, the relieved faces of Shiron and Julian slowly came into focus.
They exchanged words, but a strange deafness muffled their voices. It felt as though his ears were stuffed with cotton.
As clarity returned, he grunted and attempted to sit up. His body refused to obey.
[Julian] "Stay still. You aren't in any condition to move."
Julian’s voice finally reached him a beat late.
He abandoned the attempt and stared blankly at the ceiling. As he traced the intricate patterns above, his final memories surfaced like ghosts.
It had been a month of ceaseless slaughter, a time where night and day blurred into a single, bloody campaign.
One could never allow a battle with monsters to become a war of attrition. Unlike humans, who possessed physical limits, monsters pushed forward with an inexhaustible, mindless power.
These abominations, born of dark mana, would gladly incinerate their own bodies just to swallow their prey. Speed and efficiency were the only paths to survival.
Yet, this time, the usual tactics failed. The monsters multiplied faster than his sword could reap them. The sudden internal chaos within the Duchy had nearly overwhelmed them.
However, humans possessed the ingenuity to find a way out of the dark.
Monsters hid among the ice-flowers of the deep canyons because they loathed the warmth of day. As creatures born of shadow, they feared the sun’s heat.
Thus, the Ducal army lured the horde away from the Tyrelle Mountains, where the ancient, dense canopy provided a natural shield of darkness.
A rational enemy would have recognized the trap. Monsters, driven only by malice, lacked such foresight. They followed the bait with gaping maws, mindless in their pursuit.
It was a suicidal gamble. The plains beneath the Tyrelle Mountains led directly to the Great Castle; if the line broke, the city would fall in heartbeats.
Julian and the other nobles worked feverishly to evacuate the citizens to distant villages and seal the castle gates.
The bold maneuver succeeded. The vast majority of the monsters perished under the sun or retreated into the depths.
[Declan] "......How long?"
His voice came out like a rasp against sandpaper.
While Julian stepped away to fetch water, Shiron answered.
Much more time had passed than Declan anticipated. The moment he heard the date, a crushing sense of defeat settled in his chest—all because of the woman who haunted his every thought.
He raised an arm wrapped tightly in bandages and covered his eyes.
She must be married by now.
[Shiron] "Did you do it on purpose?"
Shiron stood like a monolith near the bed, his voice sudden and sharp.
[Declan] "What?"
[Shiron] "You could have dodged that attack."
Though the knight spoke in fragments, he understood the accusation perfectly.
[Shiron] "Were you trying to throw your life away?"
No commander could lead a month-long vanguard without sustaining wounds. Yet, thanks to his peerless skill, Declan had suffered only minor injuries until the very end.
His current state—bedridden and broken—resulted from a single, inexplicable moment.
Shiron remembered that moment with harrowing clarity.
Faced with a feral monster lunging for his throat, Declan had lowered his sword. He had accepted a blow that would have been devastating even if blocked. To Shiron, it looked like nothing less than a suicide attempt.
The Royal Physician had called his survival a miracle.
[Declan] "Yes."
[Shiron] "Why......!"
Shiron, a man who rarely betrayed his emotions, let his face contort in anger. He knew this was no way to address the lord who had saved his life as a child, but the words wouldn't stay down. To him, Declan’s life held more value than his own.
Declan kept his eyes shielded.
[Declan] "I lacked the courage."
[Shiron] "What......?"
[Declan] "I lacked the courage to watch Vanessa marry another man."
Even as he recognized the urgent need to end the crisis, a vivid, selfish desire had taken root. If the chaos subsided, she would walk down the aisle without a single obstacle.
Hayden would look upon the Vanessa of his past—the version that no longer existed.
Declan could still see her: draped in an elegant white gown, walking with the grace of a butterfly, a smile blooming like a flower on her face. But in that vision, the groom was never him.
He wanted to prove his sincerity to her. That desire had fueled his stubborn refusal to request Imperial reinforcements, even when his captains begged. In that moment, he was not a ruler; he was a man consumed by ego and arrogance.
Yet, he knew this crisis was his only opportunity.
He used his jagged jealousy as fuel, hacking and slashing through the monsters with a relentless, morbid energy. Unlike the monsters his silver sword cut in half, his jealousy was a bottomless well.
Only when the tides finally turned did reality sink in. Once this ended, Vanessa would belong to someone else. The moment that thought took hold, his frantic will vanished, replaced by a cold, black resignation.
He was a coward.
The fact that she would become another man’s wife rendered every struggle meaningless. Living would be a hollow imitation of life. He would become like the father he hated—perhaps worse.
He would follow her like a shadow, a pathetic dog begging for a single scrap of affection that would never fall his way.
He didn't even mind the indignity. If she permitted it, he would gladly act the part of a loyal hound, groveling at her feet.
But even if she forgave him from the arms of another man, would that ever be enough?
Having held her once, the eternal thirst for her would eventually push him into a personal hell.
He lacked the confidence to avoid his father’s fate. He feared the seeds of his own misery would sprout and infect everything around him.
Death seemed like a graceful exit. If his demise could finally prove the depth of his atonement—if Vanessa would only recognize it—then his death would be more than meaningful. It would be an honor.
The moment his thoughts reached that dark conclusion, his sword arm had dropped. Agony followed.
And then he woke up here.
A weak, self-mocking laugh escaped him. It seemed the Goddess harbored a profound grudge against him. She refused to embrace him even when he threw himself into the abyss of death.
[Shiron] "The national wedding ended in cancellation."
His fingertips twitched. He pulled his hand away from his eyes and stared at Shiron with a frozen expression.
[Declan] "......What?"
[Shiron] "The wedding between Lady Rohawk and the Crown Prince has been cancelled."
The words felt like a hallucination. Yet, knowing Shiron’s stoic nature, he knew the man never joked.
He forced his broken torso upward, only to collapse back down as a searing pain erupted in his solar plexus. He clutched his abdomen, gasping.
Julian rushed back into the room, his face pale with alarm.
[Julian] "I told you to lie still! Why are you thrashing about?"
Julian tried to force him back onto the pillows, looking as though he wanted to strike his friend’s head. But he gripped Julian’s arm with surprising, painful strength.
[Julian] "You're half-dead, where do you get this power......?"
[Declan] "Is it true?"
[Julian] "What?"
[Declan] "The wedding. Is it truly cancelled?"
Julian looked surprised that Declan already knew, then glanced at Shiron.
Shiron offered a silent nod.
Julian tried to hand him a glass of water, but Declan ignored it, staring at his friend with the intensity of a drowning man clutching a fraying rope. Even if the world ended at that moment, he needed an answer. The wild, unhinged look in his eyes was impossible to ignore.
Julian sighed heavily.
[Julian] "To be precise, it isn't cancelled. It's postponed."
[Declan] "...Postponed?"
[Julian] "The palace announced a delay due to a sudden decline in Lady Rohawk’s health."
The elation that had begun to lift his spirit plummeted instantly.
Julian tried to offer the water again, but his grip on his shoulder tightened, the pressure nearly crushing bone. Julian almost cried out in pain, but the terrifying light in Declan’s eyes made his blood run cold.
[Declan] "Why? What happened? Why is she ill?"
Her health declined.
Worry, anxiety, and desperation blurred his vision.
He began to tremble. He knew with agonizing certainty that if she was suffering, he was the sole cause.
Comments