To the Love Born in the Lowest Place

As Walter’s door opened, Liv, who was hiding her body behind a decorative cabinet in the hallway, raised her head. She could see Walter leaving his room and heading towards the dining room.

‘7 AM, breakfast.’

It was a time Liv, who spent every morning in bed enduring the voices of the gods ringing in her head, could never imagine. The reason Liv got up at this time today was because she woke up coughing blood.

Liv hid near the dining room, waiting for Walter to come out. Soon, the Hamelsvoort couple entered the dining room, and she heard Walter greeting them as he came out.

After leaving the dining room, Walter headed to the library. Since the library was easy to hide in thanks to the bookshelves, Liv went inside. Walter sat down at the desk, piled up several books, and began to read intently. As she grew bored watching him endlessly, Liv crouched down and sat on the floor.

‘8 AM, reading.’

After that, Walter didn’t get up from his seat for a long time. Eventually, Liv began to doze off without realizing it. Her head nodded precariously.

At that moment, Walter got up from his chair, making a scraping sound. Liv quickly opened her eyes. Walter headed straight for the dining room. Liv checked the time on the wristwatch Emmett had given her as a gift.

’12 PM, lunch.’

After that, Hildegard, who was about to enter the dining room, stopped when she saw Liv. She asked with an uneasy look, pointing at the dining room:

“Is Walter in there?”

“Yes.”

“…Then I should eat separately.”

Hildegard, seeming uncomfortable with Walter, headed towards the kitchen. Liv saw a maid following behind Hildegard carrying a tray, and her eyes unconsciously turned in that direction. Come to think of it, Liv hadn’t eaten anything today because she was observing Walter.

“…Are you hungry?”

The maid, receiving Liv’s piercing gaze, awkwardly averted her eyes and asked. She was one of those who had apologized to Liv recently.

“Yes.”

“Are you feeling a bit better? You should go back to your room…”

“They said moving around a bit is better. Can you bring me some porridge?”

“Yes, I understand. …But aren’t you going to eat in the dining room?”

“Shh, pretend you don’t know anything and keep it a secret!”

Since it was an order anyway, the maid brought Liv a bowl of porridge, but her pupils were shaking. Eating porridge suspiciously in front of the dining room door, Liv waited for Walter to come out.

After eating, Walter headed to the garden. He started walking leisurely, basking in the sunlight.

‘1 PM, walk.’

Perhaps because Walter’s stride was long, his pace was quite fast. Liv followed behind him, panting while wearing her dress. At some point, Walter’s pace slowed down, so Liv could comfortably follow him.

Walter seemed to like the garden. He occasionally stopped to observe flowers and stared intently at birds in the trees. Then his steps stopped in front of a flower. He looked at that flower for a long time.

‘Geranium!’

Liv smiled brightly as she recognized the identity of the flower. It was something she had asked the gardener to plant in the garden after seeing it in the Lartman Duchy.

“…Haah.”

Walter sighed deeply while looking at the geranium, then walked on.

‘2 PM, reading.’

When he returned to the library, Liv quickly became bored. Perhaps because she had stayed up all night, drowsiness came over her again even though she had dozed off earlier.

“Mmm…”

When she came to her senses, Liv found herself dozing off leaning against a bookshelf. She quickly opened her eyes and looked at Walter, who was reading a book without changing his posture at all from before.

‘I can’t figure out what he’s thinking.’

Liv had tried to understand Walter’s feelings towards her, but she couldn’t learn anything from this. Well, what good would it do to follow Walter around hiding like this? She would probably have to confront Walter to understand.

But Liv was also reluctant to speak to Walter first. Her conscience ached when she stood before him.

‘Should I try talking to him anyway?’

Just as Liv was thinking about gathering her courage, she felt something rising up inside her.

“Ugh.”

When she spread her palm that had covered her mouth in front of her eyes, she saw the now-familiar dark red blood. Blood coming up meant the curse was taking effect, and it meant her body would soon have a fever. Thinking it would be better to quietly return to bed and lie down, Liv stopped observing Walter and headed for her bed.

* * *

Only after hearing the sound of the library door closing did Walter raise his head.

“…What on earth?”

He thought someone had been following him since morning, like a spy had attached themselves to him, but that wasn’t it. The one following him was Liv. Every time he turned his head, she hurriedly hid herself, but her white hair was sticking out from behind the wall.

Moreover, when Walter was leaving the dining room after finishing lunch, he discovered Liv eating through the door crack and had to return to the table to kill time. In the garden too, he deliberately slowed his pace because of Liv panting behind him. His sister really had a knack for making people tired.

‘Her dress will get stained green.’

He thought as he saw Liv’s white dress brushing against the grass. Doesn’t Liv’s dressmaker make clothes to fit her body? The clothes looked too big. Or are women’s dresses supposed to drag on the ground like that? It seemed too inconvenient to live in such clothes all the time.

As he walked through the garden like that, Walter suddenly thought of Liv’s eyes when he saw a nameless pink flower. Round and small eyes, always anxiously looking around in front of him…

“…Haah.”

When he suddenly thought this flower resembled Liv, Walter sighed, feeling a little crazy. This was all because of the divine punishment. The divine punishment was making his way of thinking strange.

Later, when he went to the library, he could feel her dozing off as she had in the morning. Later, it seemed she was sleeping too openly, so Walter walked close and stood in front of her. Even with a shadow cast over her head, Liv didn’t seem to notice anything.

“What am I really doing…”

Finally returning to his seat, he had to sigh once again. Sometimes he found it ridiculous that he was wary of such a stupid child.

At that moment, he heard her retching. He unconsciously craned his neck to look at her and discovered blood on her hands.

‘Damn it.’

He had only heard she was sick but didn’t know how sick she was, but coughing up blood was serious. She left her place, staggering as if dizzy.

Why didn’t she just lie quietly in bed when she was so sick, and instead came out to observe someone else? She probably didn’t even know her own diagnosis, so where did that energy come from? No matter how much he thought about it, Liv was really a difficult being to understand.

“This is driving me crazy.”

Unable to concentrate on his book at all, he grumbled and closed it. Anyway, nothing good ever came from getting involved with Liv.

* * *

Finally, August reached a conclusion.

“I should eliminate Hamelsvoorts.”

From before, Hamelsvoort had stood on the side of the temple, irritating him. Saintess, a being loved by God… Everything that annoyed him belonged to the Hamelsvoort family. So it seemed better to eliminate Liv Lartman, who had now become the Duke Lartman’s wife, along with her family at this opportunity.

“Chamberlain, issue an order for Duke Lartman’s wife to enter the palace.”

Duke Lartman had left for the Lartman Duchy to find a doctor to cure his wife’s illness. The Emperor planned to call Liv alone during this time and provoke her to make a verbal mistake. Then he could use that as an excuse to charge her with insulting the imperial family and imprison her.

However, unexpected words came from Louisa, who was standing next to him with her hands folded.

“Your Majesty, Duke Lartman’s wife will die soon.”

“What?”

“I have already used ancient magic. She will die soon without knowing the reason, so you don’t need to worry.”

“Then her being sick…”

Only then did all the puzzle pieces seem to fit together. August’s face instantly turned fierce.

“Louisa, you dare to interfere in my affairs?”

Of course, he knew well what Louisa’s intentions were. She wanted to kill Duke Lartman’s wife herself before things got bigger and backfired on her.

If she had been a subject, the Emperor would have beheaded her long ago. But after all, Louisa was his daughter. August had a desire to pass on the throne to his own bloodline, so he had forgiven Louisa’s willful behavior several times before. It’s a story that would make others laugh if they knew how the Emperor treated his daughter, but he was showing Louisa his own kind of mercy.

“Well, if that’s the case, her severe illness isn’t feigned, so I can’t call her to the palace…”

Rumors said she was coughing up blood, and if he called someone that sick to the palace and imprisoned them, he would be criticized by the temple. He was confident he could win a war against the temple, but it was troublesome to create and deal with unnecessary noise. Instead, he decided to turn his attention to someone else.

“Come to think of it, I heard Hamelsvoort’s eldest son has returned to the Empire?”

“Yes, I heard that too.”

“Chamberlain!”

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

August’s eyes, plotting a conspiracy, curved sharply like a snake’s.

“Issue an order for Hamelsvoort’s eldest son to enter the palace.”