The Villainess Wants to Make Her Husband Slim Down

CHAPTER 113

6 – 3

Immediately after Camilla left with the envoys, Klaus galloped into the duchy's capital.

Without even giving Camilla time to prepare, they insisted she leave with them straight away. Arriving at the mansion almost as if he and Camilla had been swapped, amongst the throng of depressed looking servants, Klaus immediately spied Alois in particular.

Even though there were so many people around, the mansion had a strange aura of sullen silence blanketing it. Everyone's faces looked melancholic. They spoke in hushed tones, their voices tinged with despair. 'The Montchat family is facing ruin, even the royal family has become their enemies,' they would say.

Klaus used his imagination to fill in the gaps of what he had missed. He was too late. Camilla wasn't here anymore, and he'd be willing to bet that Gerda wasn't in town anymore either.

"Oi, oi, Klaus!? The hell are you doing here...!?"

The first one to finally speak out to him as he stood in the entrance hall was Günter, his former boss. That rugged face of his was full of some barely contained passion, as he looked at Klaus as if he was hallucinating.

Well, that was only natural. Klaus was a member of the Lörrich family, after all. The same Lörrich family that was in open rebellion against Duke Alois, alongside the houses of Meyerheim and Ende.

The eyes of the people who turned to look at Klaus as he entered the hall were not warm. But, more than suspicion, rather they looked bewildered by his sudden appearance.

"Just what did you come here to do- no, wait a sec. You... what in the blazes happened to your face?"

"What? Did I become even more handsome?"

Günter looked astonished as Klaus flashed a fearsome smile, despite the scar running down the left side of his face.

After leaving Günter, who was stunned into silence, Klaus approached Alois.

Alois' fringe hung low over his eyes, casting a dark shadow across his face. He could barely see those red eyes of his, slowly blinking as he stared at the ground. His hand was over his mouth, and it almost seemed as if he were hyperventilating.

"Oi, Alois."

He looked totally depressed. No, rather, that doesn't even cover the scope of it, does it? Klaus found it hard to imagine just what kind of torment Alois heart must be going through, considering how badly it was torn apart like this every time he tried to take a step forward. He struggled to even find the words to say.

"Alois, this isn't the time to give up. It isn't over yet. Camilla is still-"

"...I know that."

Alois answered, but didn't raise his head. Klaus was surprised by how calm his voice was.

"She was taken back south for 'protection' by royal decree. It sounds reasonable on paper."

Abusing royal prerogative like that, the Ende family could order whatever they wished. They didn't even need a pretext like that to take Camilla away if they so pleased. If they didn't care about indignation or criticism, they could wield the power of the state like a cudgel.

Yet, despite that, they still prepared such a pretext. It was a hard thing for Alois to refuse, and to anyone who heard about it, it would seem like an example of royal benevolence.

Then, why? The answer was that they desired to retain legitimacy. They still felt the need to proceed as though they were in accordance with the 'law'. To present a supposedly logical case in a seemingly upright way, that was how they would maintain their image.