Chapter 6.1 – My Name Is Valia Dean
Unlike the temple in the kingdom where Valia came from, the temple of the Empire was enormous. The interior was not lavishly decorated, but the white marble and the many glass windows were clearly of high quality. Normally Valia would never have been able to pull her eyes away from such fine craftsmanship, but things were different now.
“This way, Your Excellency,” a priest said with a gesture.
Valia was snuggled in the Marquis’ warm arms. No, was more apt to say that she was squeezed tightly in his embrace like a corpse. Granted, Valia couldn’t breathe much.
‘What if I’m too heavy?’
It was only natural that she worried, as he had been carrying her all this way from the backyard. However, the Marquis continued to stride along the long corridors without any sign of fatigue. After some time, they entered the Honored Guest Room.
The priest turned towards the other two. “I’ll bring you something simple to fill your hunger.”
The Marquis nodded at the priest’s words. At last, the priest closed the door and left, leaving only the two of them left in the spacious room. Valia was itching to get off, but she could only wriggle her fingers as the Marquis showed no signs of letting her down.
‘Why won’t he let me down? Should I ask him to put me down?’
The problem was that it was awkward to talk to him. Fortunately, the Marquis eventually set Valia down, but it was a bit embarrassing that he laid her on the bed, and not the floor or the sofa.
Valia curled up and prayed for him to leave quickly. She wanted to be left alone as soon as possible so she could curl up in a blanket. When a person was embarrassed, they could spend the whole night agonizing over their humiliation, and she was certain she would spend the whole night awake. But God was cruel.
“…”
The Marquis did not leave. Far from that, he instead sat down next to Valia. She did not have the courage to face him, so she sucked in a small breath. She ducked her head as if she had done something wrong, and the only thing she could see from her point of view was the man’s hands.
Oh dear Lord.
The hand was reaching towards her body. At that moment, a flood of thoughts rushed through Valia’s head.
The bed. And the dress she wore. The cape that protected her modesty had long been dropped in the backyard. The only thing she was wearing now were the flimsy garments.
Valia swallowed dryly. The speed at which the hand was approaching was so slow that it was reimagined and redrawn from her point of view.
Just when the Marquis’ hand was about to touch her skin, Valia shut her eyes tightly.
“Ermm, God is watching,” she managed to eke out.
Shuden paused for a moment, then raised his head. Valia saw his red eyes close-up for the first time. He had enchanting red eyes with a pale rim. At one point the red eyes turned into a pleasant hue and soon he burst into laughter.
“You seem to have misunderstood,” he chuckled.
“…”
“I was just trying to take my clothes off for you to put on.”
Valia’s face turned red in humiliation. She thought that men had no resistance, but she had severely misunderstood! She cursed herself a hundred times over, and managed to open her mouth.
“I—this is how the dress is supposed to look…You’ve misunderstood,” she stammered.
“I’m not rude enough to treat people differently depending on how they dress,” Shuden answered simply. He lifted the lace that had flowed down her skin but did not touch her. “Are you going to talk without looking at my face?”
“Ah…”
Only then did Valia lift her head. She saw that the Marquis was excessively close, due to the fact that he was offering her his clothes. At that moment, everything turned black and white for Valia, but oddly only the view of the Marquis remained in color.
“What’s your name?” he asked.
Valia stared at the Marquis without answering. She felt something akin to…enchantment. She had seen him in the past, but not from this close. A man as handsome as this was truly rare. The princes she saw while working for the Imperial Family were also handsome, but they couldn’t be compared to this specimen. This man wasn’t just good-looking. As if to show what a man’s body was, his shoulders were broad and his hands looked sturdy, as expected…
But the Marquis interpreted Valia’s silence differently.
“It seems I’ve been rude to you. My name is Schu—”
He was about to say Shuden Garth, but he shut his mouth. He was not so arrogant as to make assumptions about his reputation. However, this young woman had to be aware that he was a noble aristocrat. A recent continental war had led to him being known as the Murderer, and the name of Marquis Garth had become more famous beyond being part of the Imperial Family of a kingdom.
However, the Marquis had no intention of revealing his identity yet. There was no particular reason—he just wanted to talk comfortably with her. He recalled a recent banquet hosted by the Imperial Family. The royals he met there generally had two reactions: terror, or brown-nosing. Neither was Shuden’s preferred type.
“Shu…I think you can know me as that for now,” he said slowly.
“Did you say Shu?” she asked.
“Yes.”
The woman blinked. Then she smiled.
Valia already knew of his identity from her past life. She found it amusing that he lied, although it was poorly done. Surprisingly, the name “Shu” was cute too.
“Schu. That’s a pretty name,” she remarked.
Pretty, she said…
Shuden, who had never heard such a thing since his birth, wordlessly stared at her. The woman blinked once more, then opened her mouth and said,
“My name is Valia Dean.”
“Lady Dean,” he said.
The Great Holy Priest had put up a considerable amount of money as a reward for the princess selection, and the Marquis naturally assumed that a certain type of woman would have applied to receive the money. The value of the wealth offered in the temple would entice a commoner, but most aristocrats would’ve said, ‘I cannot offer my daughter away for that amount…’. It was an amount that would garner such thoughts.
Marquis Garth considered that a fallen noble, who barely held the title but lost his morals, might have sold his daughter, but the Marquis’s assumption was wrong. The woman in front of him seemed more educated than he expected.