TSMMT Ch 184

A Chain of Cruelty

On that day, Dianna had finally found the key to his shackles in her father's desk drawer.

She still remembered the cool weight of it, a smooth sphere carved with intricate magical runes. How she had rejoiced when she found it.

Yet despite her excitement, that was the first day Guiscard ever got drunk. Where he had stolen the liquor, she never knew.

[Guiscard] "Foolish..."

He wrapped his arms around his frail shoulders, slurring incomprehensibly as he gulped down the harsh spirits.

[Guiscard] "Ann..."

She didn't know why her name escaped his lips, whether he was calling for her or merely spouting meaningless curses.

[Guiscard] "Ann..."

He uttered her name once more. The word sounded foreign on his tongue, and catching his own awkwardness, he let out a bitter smirk.

That stupid girl will grow up to occupy the highest seat in the realm anyway. She'll become queen and bask in the praise of the masses.

She's someone far beyond my reach. A person I can never touch and should never touch. Even dreaming of touching her is an insult to her existence.

What on earth am I thinking?

Watching the original Guiscard, Dianna suddenly felt his inner thoughts flow directly into her mind. As she witnessed his past, his deepest emotions washed over her.

Guiscard thought endlessly about Dianna standing beside Prince Ferdinand.

Though those memories brought Dianna Brienne no joy, through Guiscard's eyes, she and Ferdinand had looked splendid together.

Guiscard scoffed. He chuckled as if something were hilarious, yet a chilling darkness settled in his eyes.

After lingering in thought for a long time, he eventually fell into a deep sleep. Only then did the younger Dianna arrive. She unfastened his shackles and pressed a soft kiss to his forehead.

When Guiscard awoke, it was dawn. Feeling the sudden emptiness around his neck, he reached up to touch his bare throat.

While the entire house slept, he slipped away into the night.

Before departing, he paused to stare at a specific window of the estate, the room where Dianna Brienne lay sleeping.

---

Even after escaping, his life remained wretched. Though he possessed gold, pursuers quickly closed in on his trail. Dianna's goodwill had unwittingly left a path for his captors.

Gren Brienne was relentless, sparing no expense to hunt down the runaway slave.

Surrounded by constant peril, Guiscard grew suspicious of everyone. He shunned human connection and lived like a solitary wolf.

With pursuit as his daily reality, he found no stability. He desperately needed power.

He killed countless men and served an elderly mercenary who taught him swordsmanship in return.

Recognizing his talent, the old man took all the money Guiscard had saved and paid other mercenaries to train him further.

Thus, he mastered the blade. Perhaps because mercenaries existed only where violence raged, his pursuers strangely vanished. Amid the bloodbath of the battlefield, he finally found a grim sense of peace.

Shortly after mastering the sword, he awakened his aura.

With his earnings, he bought the finest, cleanest clothes in every town he entered. Only then did he gain the luxury to think, to contemplate who he was and why his cursed life had begun.

At some point, men began gathering around him. Like wolves following an alpha, they were raw, untamed beasts.

Dianna recognized them. Most of the current Vargrhati knights had been among those men.

Once a sizable force assembled, Guiscard issued his decree.

[Guiscard] "We kill the dragon."

[Guiscard] "We kill the dragon, and I will claim the throne."

Leading his savage band, he slew Fafnir and drenched himself in the beast's blood.

The prince returned bearing its severed head.

---

He pulled out a letter he had cherished for years.

[Guiscard] "So, who is it?"

It was the note left by the person who set him free. Because he was illiterate at the time, he never knew who wrote it.

Who had saved him? He had asked a few people, but most commoners couldn't read. Thus, he turned to Revius, the cleverest among them, for an answer.

[Revius] "Looks like a maid fancied you."

Guiscard curled his lips into a cold smirk. Of course. He failed to notice the subtle, twisted contortion on Revius' face.

[Revius] "Ah, and about that letter... the paper was so decayed it tore to shreds the moment I opened it."

Guiscard let out a low sigh. Since he knew it was not her, the paper no longer mattered.

[Revius] "Either way, we must use this opportunity to strike Panborough."

[Guiscard] "..."

[Revius] "And obliterate that wretched house once and for all."

[Guiscard] "..."

[Revius] "You understand, don't you, Guiscard? You are the justification for this war."

Guiscard stared out the window for a long moment before answering.

[Guiscard] "Of course."

[Guiscard] "Not a single day passed where I didn't imagine slaughtering those bastards."

Somber hatred dripped from his words. He had been trampled again and again. Now, the time for vengeance had arrived. The blood he spilled flowed like a river.

Whether it was true revenge or a grueling trial to claim what he coveted, no one knew.

---

Yes, he had succeeded. He crushed hated Panborough beneath his boots and slaughtered his enemies. And then...

He saw Dianna Brienne. Wearing a white dress, she walked toward him. Yes, he had succeeded.

His bride approached with an expression as grim as a funeral, yet she remained beautiful and heartbreakingly sorrowful.

She is mine.

My woman.

My wife.

A twisted smile touched his lips.

You may wear shackles, but you occupy the highest seat.

You will hold this lowly slave's hand, become his wife, and spend the rest of your life bound to him.

As he kissed his bride, her face frozen in despair, he reveled in pure ecstasy.

---

Something was wrong.

Something had gone terribly wrong.

Indeed, something was wrong.

The Dianna Brienne that Guiscard Lodbrog knew was proud and impeccably dignified.

Homesickness? She suffers from something like that?

Yet he knew how delicately Dianna had been pampered. She was like fine glassware, exquisite and fragile. He knew how easily she could break, yet he had overlooked it.

Is it not the exact same queen's throne?

Having placed her on that high seat, he watched her fade away, wasting away as if he disgusted her. She withered, slowly dying.

Just then, Duke Levian suggested bringing a maid from Panborough to comfort her. Guiscard personally selected the maid. Among the candidates stood a familiar face: Mirva, a woman he remembered from his time as a slave.

[Mirva] "I—I will serve the young lady with all my heart."

[Guiscard] "..."

[Mirva] "I raised her at the estate since she was a child."

Something nagged at his conscience, but no one in Panborough knew Dianna better than Mirva did. Seeing his wife wither day by day, Guiscard ultimately allowed the woman to stay by her side.

Afterward, Dianna's wardrobe changed, and reports arrived that she was finally eating. Mirva possessed an uncanny ability to discern exactly what Dianna desired.

Duke Levian then offered to appoint his daughter as lady-in-waiting. Guiscard welcomed the gesture, since a queen required noble ladies to serve her.

Yet Dianna always looked at Guiscard as if she were dying, her eyes filled with raw hatred. She detested him so intensely that she vomited the moment they shared a bed.

The only consideration he could offer was distance. Staying close would only deepen her hatred. Yet he failed to realize that he was the one running away.

He was not fleeing the blood he had spilled or Dianna's cold gaze. Unable to face his fading wife, the woman he could no longer bring himself to call Ann, he sought refuge on the battlefield.

Then came news that she was planning to flee. He heard she intended to escape.

Why couldn't she understand? As his wife, he wanted to grant her everything. Even though she was the daughter of a traitor, he had spared her life and elevated her to queen.

He interrogated Mirva, the mastermind behind the escape. Every contact she bribed was a slave trader. The maid who claimed to care for Dianna most had intended to sell her into slavery.

[Mirva] "Why?! Why did only that bitch survive?! When everyone else died, why her?!"

She shrieked during the interrogation, glaring at Guiscard with venomous hatred.

[Mirva] "Do you have any idea how disgusting she found you? She said having a filthy slave touch her felt like insects crawling over her skin!"

[Guiscard] "..."

[Mirva] "Every time, every single time you touched her, she said it was a humiliation! Is she trying to protect her pride before the man who slaughtered her father and brother? She's just a whore who spread her legs to survive..."

She cackled hysterically.

[Mirva] "Surviving under a lowly dog, as you ruined her! I know her; she'll never open her heart to you! She's that kind of bitch. Pretending to be kind, but arrogant, looking down on others, stubborn and vicious..."

He knew all of that without her telling him. So what?

Knowing full well, Guiscard brought Mirva to the execution ground anyway. Before his beautiful wife, who had dared to run from him, he personally executed Mirva.

[Guiscard] "Look at her."

[Dianna] "Please!"

He turned a deaf ear. He had no reason to listen to Dianna's pleas.

Looking at her pale face, he felt something was wrong.

But was it that wrong? Her father had forced him to watch his mother burn alive. He had decapitated her family.

Why was she weeping and begging over the brutal death of a hideous woman who tried to sell her into slavery?

Only after interrogating Mirva did he remember that she was the woman Dianna used to complain about. They had been enemies all along, the maid clinging to Dianna like a venomous snake while eyeing her throat.

What was the big deal about killing a traitorous maid? Why was she so pathetically fragile?

[Guiscard] "You are my wife. You will wither and die by my side forever."

He kissed pale Dianna, whispering empty words of love as he took her body.

[Guiscard] "No matter how disgusting you find me, no matter how pure you pretend to be, you are my wife."

With his own hands, he permanently sealed her heart.

Watching the memory unfold, Dianna clutched her head in agony.

It was an endless chain of cruelty, a vicious cycle of inflicted wounds. The suffocating weight of his twisted emotions crushed her soul.