Duke Ashillean’s Contractual Marriage

Chapter 10

First, he had to show the Queen and the First Prince that he was not greedy for the throne at all.

Callena’s rebellion was a far-fetched danger now, and the Queen and First Prince’s assassination attempts were still imminent.

The way to survive the danger in front of him to get a chance to avoid the danger in the future. Using his failure of his first life as his mirror, Louismond resolved the boundaries between the two in a completely different way this time. He became a quiet, good-natured fool. No matter what everyone said, he would laugh at them like hehe. In particular, he died at his words for the First Prince.

“Ah, he is the best heir to the King’s throne.”

“I really admire him so much.”

“I saw him from afar yesterday, and my heart is still racing with how excited I was.”

No matter who he met, he would start praising the First Prince. Whether the First Prince was good or bad, Louismond unconditionally sided with him. It wasn’t long before he earned the eccentric nickname ‘The First Prince’s Rattle’. The Queen and the First Prince, surprisingly, quickly disassociated themselves with him in this way.

At some point, the Queen smiled at him and waved her hand at him. The First Prince spoke first to him. Louismond was a bit disappointed though. He could have learned how to write even if it was too late.

“You are still one of His Majesty’s bloodline, so shouldn’t you be able to write your name?”

It was the generosity of the First Prince.

‘I would have been like this if I had known things would be like this. How did I not know? That the Queen and the First Prince were weak to flattery.’

He lived his past life promiscuously and people pointed their fingers at him, as he drank alcohol he didn’t like and didn’t reject any woman that approached him.

Louismond took the gold coins the First Prince threw away while thoroughly praising him. It looked quite ugly and greedy of him – except for his beautiful appearance – to carry a bag of gold coins that were only a few pennies, without any hesitation.

‘It’s impossible that a person who was protected by Count Graham has no money. He only has this big contribution. I can’t believe he thought of me as dangerous.’

The First Prince looked at Louismond’s attitude and looked down at him even more.

‘Let’s rake up as much as we can and use it as a runaway fund. Thanks to the Prince whose lungs were filled with my bluff, my escape funds are piling up quickly.’

There was a limit to tampering with Count Graham’s wealth. The Count, his grandfather, and his uncles didn’t involve him in any significant part of the family’s affair, apart from pushing him to become the next Great King. In other words, ‘In the future, he will be a person who will take care of the country’s affairs, but we cannot make him care about the Count’s works’, but deep inside, he was the one who was ignoring Louismond more than anything else.

A pretty, well-spoken, dumb puppet.

This was what Count Graham’s people wanted Louismond to look in front of the people. For this very reason, even after his coming-of-age ceremony, Louismond didn’t receive a budget that he could freely spend. He had to personally go and find Count Graham and ask permission to spend money whenever he needed anything.

[‘Don’t forget why I’m pouring money on you.’]

He heard this when he bought a wrinkled cravat, and there was no way he could have saved money and run away. In such a situation, the First Prince’s rewards for him whenever he felt like it, was like a gentle rain in the desert, a shower in a dry drought.

‘Let’s go to another kingdom, buy land and a mansion in a moderately remote place, and play and eat for the rest of our lives. If I ask around for a fallen noble family, give them enough money, and ask them to enroll me in their genealogy, I will be able to spend the rest of my life eating and playing. I shouldn’t sleep with my head pointing in the direction of the Imperial Palace.’

Louismond dreamed of a future where he wouldn’t die while watching his slush funds grow thick. For reference, it was thanks to the love story he came across by chance that he was able to come up with such a detailed plan – .

Reading the title, he found it quite interesting how the female lead ran away from the male lead, the Emperor’s younger brother, and the cold Grand Duke of the North. Louismond desperately read through all the books placed on the shelf. , , , , , , and so on.

(T/N: These books must be fiction too. I did a search but there was nothing coming up [bunny shrugs])

Those books taught him how to safely escape, and what to do after escaping to ensure that he wouldn’t be found out.

While he was only thinking of running one day as the First Prince’s footstool, Count Luxen of the South, Callena, revolted. It was two years earlier that Louismond remembers. As soon as he heard about it from the Imperial Palace, he pretended to be sick and returned to the mansion. He screamed as he shoved his money and clothes he had saved up into his bag.

“Why! Why!”

Although Louismond didn’t have any idea why the rebellion was hastened, it wasn’t at all his fault. As Louismond gained the trust of the first prince and took a seat next to him, a nobleman who had just been in the position of Louismond in his previous life lost his place and was pushed out of the capital.

Since it was the First Prince’s power, he wasn’t that pushover in any case and even took a post of managing and supervising tax collection in the South. It was originally a comfortable place for a person to only eat while receiving pension without doing anything special, but this nobleman abused his authority to return to the capital by raising a slush fund for the First Prince.

It was the beginning of an era of great extortion, which was so serious that not only the people in the South, but also the nobles went bankrupt one after another. The Count Luxen, as representatives of the southern nobles, went to ask for a tax cut, but they were killed by robbers on their way back. The central nobleman who became the tax collector, announced that it was a simple robbery, but the Southern nobles thought that the Count Luxen was killed. So were the two daughters of Count Luxen.

Count Luxen’s second daughter then revolted on the night of her coming-of-age ceremony. They killed the tax collectors, gathered an army, and cried out for the overthrow of the tyrant. Again, the tyrant did not take the rebellion of Count Luxen seriously. The First Prince was even furious that Count Luxen killed the central noblemen.

Only Louismond, who was living a second life, feared the fiery rebellion. He didn’t advise the First Prince to beware of Count Luxen’s rebellion. Even if he does, the First Prince would probably not listen to him, nor would Louismond have the loyalty to tell him.

Louismond ran out with the money he saved that night. No one in the capital knew of his escape until ten days later – because Count Graham and the First Prince’s faction only said that Louismond was important and precious. No one really cared or concerned about him.

Louismond wasn’t sad that they didn’t chase after him. He was just grateful.

‘Leave me like this forever. Please.’

Wouldn’t it be great if he could just run away and leave his name, Fen Lux Amel behind, and live as Hans or Chris in a rural village?

Louismond’s escape was unfortunately unsuccessful.

His escape process was perfect as Louismond thought, because he only moved according to the successful escape method that appeared in the romance novels. He exchanged his gold coins for coins, dyed his hair to a dark color, smeared mud on his face, wore dirty clothes, stayed in shabby inns, and drank rancid soup and chewed hard, black bread. He didn’t make the mistakes the female leads always make when they were caught.

He didn’t sow gold coins to save someone in danger, didn’t buy bread for a hungry child, didn’t speak elegantly as typical of nobles, and didn’t reveal his name. He was so vigilant as if someone was looking for him, so he didn’t even reveal his original face. Nevertheless, just before he could cross the kingdom’s border, he was captured by Cadric, the western Margrave.

Classified as ‘loyal subject of the First Prince’, Louismond was subject to summary conviction.

“H-how did you find me?”

Why did I get caught? What went wrong? Louismond cried out in panic, but Cadric asked him ‘Are you crazy?’ coldly.

“The Prince’s clown, did you think no one would know that face?”

As soon as his words were finished, his sword spit out a silver afterimage and decapitated Louismond.

“Ah!”

To get caught for a look that can’t be covered by dirty clothes, rough hair dye, and a mud pack – this was why it didn’t appear in any of the novels he read.

In the book, no matter how pretty the female lead, no one recognized her if she wore maid clothes and robes.

“D**n…it.”

Thud.

Louismond’s body fell to the ground helplessly. So, Louismond died for the second time.

And when he opened his eyes again, Louismond was back when he was fifteen – in the corner of Count Graham’s garden, back in the day when the Countess Illencia was taking his clothes off.

∘₊✧──────✧₊∘

Life kept repeating itself. The only difference was when he died. Every time he opened his eyes, the Countess Illencia was attacking him, and no matter what he did, his throat was cut off to death.

Cadric, Duke of Feltharg and Rudante, Duke of Dominent. The two took turns slashing Louismond’s head.

His seventh life was the one that lasted the longest. Though it was his most impulsive life, that was why he was able to live the longest.

Louismond escaped under Countess Illencia with her jeweled headdress. There was no more time to wait for a few years to run away. He hid at the maid’s quarters, changed into maid clothes, and stole their identity cards. The women’s clothes sadly suited him perfectly. The skirt was a bit short though.

Rather than being in a state of ‘I am a very handsome man, but I tried to hide my identity by putting mud on my face for unavoidable circumstances, but still boasting a beauty that cannot be hidden’, it was better to hide his identity.

It was a tip given to him by the Duke of Feltharg, who beheaded him in his second and third life. If you ask him why he was taught the same tip twice, it was because he stupidly reflect on his second life and ran away with mud on his face in the same way in his third life.

There is no future for those who forget history. This precious truth could only be learned by dying twice, rather than dying once.