CH 158

The capital, Pelmonium, was certainly very different from the North. Especially the climate.

Situated just above the south, it was exceptionally hot here. After all, it was late summer, so limp Damia was drooping on the sofa.

For her, a native of the North, the heat here was too harsh.

‘I feel dizzy.’

She had no energy, and her head was aching with dizziness. Damia had been sleeping for the past few days. Even though she slept for a long time, she had frequent nightmares, which made her feel drowsy during her waking hours.

The reason was obvious. Kael Roysten and Akkard Valerian. The two men who mutilated her self-esteem in the most brutal way were grating on her nerves, appearing alternately in her dreams.

‘Please watch out for him.’

Sometimes Sienna’s warnings came back to life with a distant echo. Damia was very curious as to what ‘him’ she was referring to.

‘But I don’t want to think about it now.’

Her head hurt. Maybe that’s why her body kept putting her to sleep so much. To protect her mind.

Damia did not reject the defense mechanism, but willingly accepted it. In fact, she was just about to go back to sleep in her airy, windy second-floor balcony-facing bedroom.

Suddenly, she thought she could hear a small commotion from the front door, and then her maid came up.

“Miss.”

“What’s the matter?”

Her nap now distrubed, Damia couldn’t help but grimace as she asked with a drowsy expression. Then, apologetically, the maid spoke while glancing at the front door.

“Sir Akkard Valerian has visited again… … What should we do?”

“I said I didn’t want to see him. Say I’m not home,”

Damia said impassively, burying her face in her sofa.

For the past few days, for some unfathomable reason Akkard kept coming to apologize. But just thinking about his face made her heart race and made her feel like she was about to vomit.

Therefore, it was only natural that she continued to reject Akkard’s visits. Damia didn’t even want to see him in private anymore.

However, Akkard, unrelenting even in this heat, came to visit her every day while also delivering a bunch of presents to express his apology.

Naturally, Damia sent them all back, and when Akkard didn’t receive them back, she threw them away. Nevertheless, his ‘apology’ showed no sign of ending.

‘Why are you torturing me like this?’

Damia frowned and rubbed her eyebrows with her hand. She was getting a headache.

‘I thought you said you’d distinguish between public and private matters.’

It was obvious why Akkard was doing this. Presumably, he was worried that she might be angry and wouldn’t cooperate with the investigation because of him.

So, it was clear he was acting like this to apologize to a woman who had little to offer but her body. Naturally Damia’s tone upon giving her orders to her maid, was chilly:

“Send him back.”

Normally, the maid would have taken the lead to drive out Akkard, but she didn’t do that today.

“But, miss….”

The maid, deeply troubled, hesitated and then continued to explain,

“I’m still trying to send the guest back… But he’s in very bad shape today. How should we handle this… … .”

It seemed it was fated she wouldn’t get to sleep no matter what. Standing up with a pale face, Damia asked,

“He’s unwell? What are you talking about?”

“It’s been too hot lately, so it seems like he’s been exposed to too much sun on his way to the mansion. So he seems to have symptoms of heat stroke… … .”

Not knowing what to do, the maid looked at her. Apparently, Akkard’s condition was really bad.

“… … Ha.”

Dumbfounded, Damia couldn’t help but shut her eyes tightly.

Certainly, as she looked out of the balcony the sunlight pouring into the garden was formidable. Yesterday, the gardener’s dog inadvertently stepped on the marble floor in front of the front door, and she was startled and even let out a screaming yelp from the hot stone.

However, in this sweltering heat, Akkard came and went wearing a knight’s uniform for several days, so no matter how strong he was he would feel the effects.

‘What kind of whim is it?’

It felt too much to be a show-type play. Damia couldn’t understand why Akkard was doing this.

The Akkard she knew was a man who didn’t know how to send a letter of apology, nevermind how to spell sorry.

A wicked man who doesn’t lift a finger and pretends not to know the other person’s resentments until the other person can’t suppress it anymore and has an outburst. A man of a vicious selfishness that neither knows how to relate to others nor apologize.

So Damia thought that when he was first beaten back from her door, he would never come again. However, Akkard seemed to have lost his mind in the heat.

Like someone who had been under a some terrible curse, he visited Damia’s mansion every day and was repeatedly turned away again and again. Then, finally, this happened.

“Miss!!”

In addition to the maid standing in front of Damia, another maid rushed into the room. She was still gasping for breath when she reported bewildered,

“The guest at the front door has collapsed!! What should we do?”

Instead of answering, Damia buried her face in her cushion and groaned. In her mind, whether he collapsed or not, she just wanted to send him home.

But suddenly, Sienna Valerian’s face came to mind. She remembered her apologizing for her younger brother’s wrongdoings and recalled her silver eyes that helped her lost self and gave her shoes.

After a while, a suppressed voice came out of Damia’s mouth, who did not bother to raise her head.

“Take the visitor to the guest room on the first floor, and call the doctor. And forbid him from coming to the second floor where I am.”