The Survival Strategy of the Contract Duchess - Chapter 105

Kyler silently bowed his head in greeting. And, without waiting for Midienna to acknowledge his greeting, he tried to pass her by without a second glance.

“Kyler!”

But Midienna’s urgent voice calling his name stopped Kyler’s heavy footsteps. Turning back to look down at her, a hint of annoyance flickered in Kyler’s eyes.

Midienna, who had always looked directly at him, couldn’t possibly miss it.

His reaction when she called him had always been cold, but the fact that he had momentarily revealed such raw emotion chilled Midienna’s heart.

“Your Majesty, I must return quickly. Is there something you wish to say?”

Perhaps saying this to an ordinary empress would be very rude. But he had grown cold because she had rarely stopped him like this, and the things she had said when she did were very personal and revealed her heart.

It was also the first time he had so openly rejected her with his words and reaction, so Midienna looked up at him with a bewildered expression.

“No… ahem, I heard you’re looking into the demons. I’ve recently become very interested in the demons that have been troubling you, so I’ve been looking into them as well. If it’s alright, could you share the progress you’ve made with me?”

Midienna spoke with a trembling voice, as if she had been preparing. And Kyler could no longer restrain himself and furrowed his brow.

Kyler was famous for being cold and never showing any expression, even to the young ladies who admired him with sparkling eyes. Even in front of Lydian, his expression did not easily soften.

Yet, he smiled easily in front of Sasha, and that smile even seemed warm enough to break and melt the thick ice that had surrounded him.

“The reason I haven’t said anything until now is because you are the Empress of Derma.”

And he, who had never wavered in the face of this heart, which all the nobles knew and which he had shown with all his might even without saying it directly, opened his mouth for the first time.

But as expected, it was not in the direction Midienna wanted.

She had never been able to express her feelings directly, but the first reaction she received from him was a complete rejection and even a negative emotion she had never seen before. It shattered even the wall that Midienna had been holding onto until now.

“Why, why am I not allowed to love? Did I even ask you for anything? Have I ever even said anything?”

Kyler’s eyes darted back for a moment at her voice, which had suddenly risen. He didn’t know if Lydian was still in the audience chamber, but if he was, he might hear it.

But his action only fueled Midienna’s heart even more.

“Let me show you, even if it’s just once! Or if even that’s not possible, just be like you are now. No, if I could be a little greedy show me a smiling face too.”

Midienna, who had never exploded with emotion before, completely lost control and burst out at Kyler’s annoyed gaze.

Without realizing that Kyler’s face was hardening even more at the sight, she looked up at him with tears welling up in her eyes.

She was tired of just watching from afar, suppressing and suppressing her feelings. She could endure it when he was someone no one could have at all. But now there was a woman who would always be by his side, a woman who was officially recognized. And she could no longer bear the fact that it was not just a public relationship.

Kyler, who smiled warmly at a certain woman and was so actively involved in defeating the demons he hated so much.

“Why can’t it be me! It was an unwanted marriage, and I had already filled my heart with you even before the marriage. Why can’t I love as I please, why!”

The feelings she had been building up until now snapped, and they poured out endlessly.

No one had been on her side until now. There wasn’t even anyone who would listen to how she felt.

Leaving the Medilan estate was also something that was decided without any regard for her feelings. Everything was unfamiliar in the capital she arrived in, and she had to adapt and absorb it, but she couldn’t even open her heart and become close with anyone because of the stones thrown at her heart.

The lonely and deeply buried emotions could not be cut out, and they became the strength that sustained Midienna’s palace life.

“I knew very well that everyone treated me like a pathetic woman. That’s why I couldn’t become close with anyone. You, my heart that looks at you has kept me going until now.”

Her desperate and earnest hands were trembling with clenched fists. The tears that had filled her eyes were already streaming down her cheeks.

As desperate as she was, she was also complicated, and as pitiful as she felt, she also accumulated resentment. She didn’t want to say these things in front of him. She wanted to dress up beautifully, smile softly and beautifully, and carefully take out and hand over her heart, but how could it be like this.

Midienna, whose chest was so overwhelmed that her lips trembled as she bit them, could not take her eyes off Kyler, even as her whole body trembled.

She hoped that her earnestness would be conveyed. She didn’t even know what she ultimately wanted him to do for her, but she was filled with such earnestness that she felt she had to keep looking at him until the end.

Lost in her own emotions, Midienna had no time to examine Kyler’s condition, and she stared at his tightly closed lips even as she sobbed out her heart.

Open your mouth. Tell me thank you. Tell me I’ve worked hard until now. You don’t have to say you like me. Just acknowledge this heart.

But his lips remained tightly closed as always. He didn’t say anything until the bomb she had detonated subsided and finally became quiet. The blinking of his eyes was all the movement he made.

When the sound was heard, when the tears flowed Only the dust from the carpet that had briefly risen with her footsteps disappeared as it settled.

The heart she had worked so hard to reveal disappeared like dust.

“Have you finished pouring out everything now?”

And a quiet voice, as if not even dust would rise above it, echoed. Even the annoyance he had briefly shown had now disappeared, and he had returned to the icy Kyler she had always seen.

A cracking sound came from her heart. As if a frozen mass had cracked.

“In what you called your heart. I saw nothing about me.”

And he brought up an incomprehensible story.

“That there was no heart for you. My heart beats only for you, and I have rushed to the main palace several times, setting aside all my work, just to see you, even if it was from afar. Are you even trying to deny this, this heart?”

Her voice, filled with injustice, was mixed with sobs again. But Kyler, looking down at her, continued to have a hardened face.

“Then, in those moments, what did you do for me?”

” What?”

Kyler did not open his mouth again. Only his tightly closed lips urged her to answer.

She would not be able to give any answer. And she would make excuses. That she was bound by the shackles of being an empress and could do nothing for him.

“Sasha gave herself for me. She firmly filled the space next to me, who was like an ice block. She smiled for me and in the forest we took together to understand the habits of the demons she hid her tension and fear and reassured me with a smile.”

In fact, she was already incomparable to anyone else to him just by her existence, but even so, she silently stayed by his side. And she carefully nurtured this heart, conveyed it to him, and understood all his pain and suffering.

“If I had the chance, I would have done the same. Why can’t I do what that woman did! I would have firmly protected your side, and the demons yes, what’s the big deal about demons.”

But she simply superimposed herself onto Sasha. The words he wanted to say were not conveyed.

“Your Majesty! Lydian has been steadily protecting the back of a woman who doesn’t look back, waiting for that heart that doesn’t seem to come. Despite his position as emperor, he fully allocates his lunchtime to spend time with the empress, and he forced a marriage on his longtime friend in the hope that she would put down the heavy burden of a troubled heart.”

In the end, Kyler had no choice but to bring up this story.

Midienna had only been slightly startled when he mentioned Lidian’s name, and she hadn’t even thought about what he was going to say. But as his words continued, her face hardened.

The person Lydian had poured his heart into so much was none other than herself.

“The Emperor did.”

“If you say you don’t know, I think His Majesty will really hate you, so don’t say such things carelessly.”

Kyler was aiming at Midienna’s heart with a hammer that was breaking the ice. It was not a movement to break and destroy her heart but a movement to break the heart that she had frozen herself.

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