The Obsessive Male Lead Is Jealous Of My Doll - Chapter 39
20 — 1
Ignis leaned against the large window as he turned a delicate glass ornament. Joseph, who was watching him, made a sound of inner turmoil.
“Report.”
Even as he briefly felt relieved to see that Stella was safe, Ignis’s gaze turned cold at his changed younger sister’s attitude.
‘Is there something that bothers him?’
In the atmosphere that was sharp as a well-honed blade, Joseph found himself taking a deep breath continuously in the atmosphere that was sharp as a well-honed blade.
How could he explain this?
Joseph suppressed a prickling unease that felt like there was a thorn stuck in his throat and quietly opened his mouth.
“Actually, a problem arose the day after Your Highness departed for the subjugation.”
“What kind of problem?”
Joseph mentally crossed his fingers as he heard Ignis’s perspicacious voice. He recounted everything that had happened truthfully without a single lie. It was because he knew well that no amount of excuses for letting his guard down wouldn’t suffice with Ignis.
“Handmaid Timothia orchestrated everything, with the Imperial Consort behind it.”
“…I apologize, Your Highness.”
Having nothing else to say, Joseph just bowed his head deeply.
Smirked slightly, Ignis ignited flames that melted and destroyed the delicately carved glass ornament. Joseph, who was observing his unchanged expression, concealed his dismay. He realized that Ignis was deeply enraged. Even though the indoors maintained a constant warmth from the magic stones, a chill settled that made him shiver.
As Ignis slowly straightened himself up, Joseph let out a small sigh and followed behind him. Their steps halted at the cell where Timothia was imprisoned.
Thud, thud.
As the sound of cold footsteps echoed down the corridor, Timothia, sensing a presence, weakly raised her head. Seeing Ignis in front of her, she was trembling in fear. The people across from her were unconscious.
“D-Did you think I would be afraid of a mere doll?”
Timothia, whose fists were trembling, clenched her teeth. Ignis glared at her for a long moment before he finally parted his lips.
“It seems you confused me with someone else. Are you confusing me with the Princess’s doll?”
Timothia’s eyes shook mercilessly at the voice different from Zion’s.
“Y-Your Highness the Crown Prince?”
Ignis read despair on her face.
“Your, Your Highness! It’s all a misunderstanding. They’re trying to slander me. I’m innocent. It’s unjust!”
Her desperate voice echoed through the prison.
“You tried to kill Stella by draining her of her magic.”
“N-No. That’s absolutely not true.”
Joseph pressed the button-shaped magic stone at the cuff of his sleeve.
「 The Princess’s magic power will be put to good use by the Prince, who will ascend to the throne in the future. It’s a very honorable thing. 」
Timothia’s voice from the recording device echoed several times in the prison. Joseph couldn’t bring himself to tell Karentina that he had recorded this.
“Your Highness… Mercy… Have mercy…”
She muttered like a mad person.
“I’ll let you live.”
Timothia’s expression brightened in an instant.
“For now, that is.”
As soon as Ignis finished his words, a fierce blaze erupted in the prison cell where she was.
“Kkyaaaak! I-It’s too hot! Please spare me.”
“Sorry. I don’t know how hot it would be.”
As the flames surged as if to engulf everything, Timothia slumped unconscious. Ignis, casting a cold gaze down at her, turned away. Joseph also followed silently behind him without looking back.
“….”
Once out of the prison, Ignis quietly gazed up at the night sky.
“That woman…”
“Yes?”
“The woman who dared to speak Stella’s name carelessly is Princess Lorraine.”
“Oh, you mean Young Lady Karentina? Yes, she’s a really good person.”
Ignis’s gaze shifted towards Joseph.
He knew better than anyone how harsh Joseph, who was known in the knight order as the red bear for his stern and demanding temperament, was of people, yet he praised her without hesitation like this.
He thought quietly of Karentina.
“She saved not only the Princess but all of us. She’s a lifesaver.”
A lifesaver.
The image of the woman who had rescued him in the forest faintly overlapped with Princess Lorraine.
“It was Young Lady Karentina who looked into everything to help Her Highness recover from her illness and took care of the lonely Princess.”
Joseph continued speaking, unaware of Ignis’s expression.
“Gemma was very happy to hear that Her Highness the Princess, whose heart might have been hurt, brightened up so much after meeting Young Lady Karentina.”
“…I see.”
Ignis thought again about Princess Lorraine, whom he had met earlier—a delicate beauty with silver hair and blue eyes, just like his friend Damion.
‘She had the same eye color as the woman I’m looking for.’
Even the way she trembled like a frightened small animal was reminiscent.
‘But it’s not her.’
Ignis shook his head firmly.
The woman who saved him had black hair. Moreover, the Princess didn’t have the scent of Freesia like his mother.
‘Was it a violet?’
Ignis’s eyes tinged with longing as he recalled the memories of his mother, who loved flowers and once gave him purple violets when he was young.
Above all, what made him certain more than anything was that there was no magic mark that he had secretly left behind on the woman who saved him. Only transcendents or those with vast magical powers could recognize or erase the mark. Karentina wasn’t transcendent, nor did she possess greater magic power than himself.
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