After I Died, My Husband Went Mad [EN]: Chapter 25

Gren couldn’t hide her expression. Dihart, staring at her stiff face, said dryly.

“Even now, can you say you are innocent of her death?”

Silence descended upon the room.

Dihart read aloud the letter soliciting murder, written in Gren’s handwriting. It was partially burned, so the content was incomplete, but it was enough to confirm the suspicion.

“I…!”

“Take her away.”

“No, really, it’s not true! I admit I once harbored such thoughts, but I’m being wronged. I really…!”

“How pathetic.”

Gren belatedly protested, but it was already too late. Dihart sighed and shook his head. He regarded her protests as a last-ditch effort.

“Dihart!”

“Escort Lady Gren to the tower. Treat her with respect so that no untoward incidents occur.”

Ryan dragged her away. Gren struggled, but it was not enough. Rache, who had been blankly watching the scene, was also taken away.

Half an hour later, the news spread throughout Hillend Hall that Rache and Gren had been confined to the tower.

* * *

“You know this isn’t enough.”

“…….”

“Soon, the two of you will be released again. Perhaps family executives like Lord Lims will make it so. And when that time comes, it won’t simply be covered up as a family feud.”

Ryan warned in a low voice. Dihart nodded heavily.

“Yes. It’s not enough to be evidence of murder.”

Dihart thought Ryan was half right and half wrong.

“But it’s enough to add certainty to the assumption that her death was not a suicide. And that’s what I want.”

Dihart said, spitting out the words as he walked through the creaking main building hallway, damaged by the fire.

“That suspicion—that a dirty plot is lurking in her death—the suspicion that stirs people’s hearts. I need that.”

Ryan silently followed him. Whenever partially destroyed building materials fell, he blocked them with his body.

“Wedden drove her to the abyss, and this great Hillend Hall killed her.”

A hollow voice echoed through the hallway. Dihart stopped in front of Rache’s room as he walked aimlessly.

“Then we need to know how they killed her, what pain she suffered as she died.”

Dihart said in a sharp voice as he entered the room, which had only a door frame left.

“I was her husband, after all.”

Ryan spoke to Dihart, who was rummaging through the broken and scorched room.

“Leave it to me.”

“No. Even if my eyes can’t distinguish truth from falsehood, I can tell what’s right in front of me.”

Dihart rummaged around, not caring that soot was getting on his face and hands. And finally, he got what he wanted.

“Fire can be helpful sometimes.”

The evidence of Rache’s machinations to tarnish Sebelia’s reputation was in the safe, where the intricately intertwined lock had melted.

“If I had known this while she was alive…”

Golden eyes trembled, and a rough voice poured out with difficulty.

“Then I could have thrown those devilish people in jail and comforted her, who was hurting alone all along.”

But Sebelia was already dead, and all that remained in his hands was this disgusting pile of documents.

“Your Excellency…”

“It’s okay.”

Dihart handed Ryan the documents and a few valuables from the safe and got up.

“Ha.”

The once luxurious room was engulfed in flames, creating a scene like a vision of hell. This was the true face of Hillend Hall, which the Inverness family was so proud of.

“…How ironic.”

Dihart murmured, looking down at his soot-covered hands.

“If she hadn’t married me, she wouldn’t have had to go through this.”

“That was decided by the previous generation.”

A political marriage to strengthen ties with the Central [likely referring to a central governing power or region]. It was the will of the previous Duke, Dihart’s father.

“Yes. He always loved that ridiculous peace.”

Dihart sneered. Ryan approached him and quickly added.

“It’s no one’s fault that Sebelia came to Hillend Hall. It’s just the way things were. So…”

“You don’t have to try to comfort me with your tongue that doesn’t even roll well, Ryan [meaning Ryan isn’t good at comforting].”

Dihart stared at Ryan with dry eyes. A bitter smile appeared and disappeared on his lips.

“The result would have been the same no matter who came to me.”

“That…”

“She was unlucky.”

Dihart sighed and swept back his hair. Beneath the black hair, tired golden eyes were covered by his eyelids.

‘It was the greatest misfortune of her life that she married someone like me.’

Dihart muttered with dull eyes and rummaged through the pile of books scattered near the bookshelf.

Yes, if she hadn’t married me in the first place, she wouldn’t have had any reason to be a spy for the Central.

‘It was a bad meeting from the start.’

Dihart barely closed his dry eyes, recalling the day he first met her. He should have refused to accept such a marriage back then. He should have brought someone else, saying he couldn’t trust a bastard like her.

“Why did I take her hand back then…”

Dihart slumped down on the chair that didn’t even have a shape left and covered his face.

“Ha, it’s exhausting.”

It had already been more than three days since he had suffered from insomnia. Herbal remedies to relieve tension were of no use for insomnia.

Ryan stared at his master groaning in pain with numb eyes. This was an area he couldn’t easily touch [meaning he couldn’t easily help Dihart with this problem].

“Go and do your job now.”

Dihart issued an order to leave.

“Go and investigate your aunt’s room further and gather their servants and interrogate them separately. And… yes, track down and bring that Peter Hanson.”

He must be an accomplice too. Dihart added.

Ryan had a thoughtful look on his face for a moment. But soon he steeled himself, tightening his jaw and bowing his head.

“I will report as soon as I get results.”

Dihart didn’t answer. Ryan slowly turned around and left Rache’s room. The last thing he saw was Dihart clutching the ashes with both hands.

* * *

After that, Dihart did not come out of the main building, which was burned and in terrible shape.

“Your Excellency, dinner…헉!”

The servants went in to look for him several times. But they could only barely escape the suffocating murderous intent.

“This is not enough. Proper evidence…”

Dark circles under his eyes and a prominent jawline from not eating and sleeping properly. Unkempt hair and clothes dirtied with soot. His appearance of rummaging through the wreckage destroyed by the fire was like that of a madman. But no one could stop him.

His obsession with finding solid evidence that Sebelia had been murdered had already exceeded ordinary levels.

So, by the next dawn and morning, Dihart did not come out of the main building, which was creaking as if it would collapse.

“Your Excellency!”

When Ryan, who couldn’t stand it any longer, finally went out to search, he was not in Rache’s room or Gren’s room….

“Get a hold of yourself!”

He was found unconscious in Sebelia’s small, stuffy, warehouse-like room.

* * *

Sebelia had a strange dream last night. It was a dream of waking up in a small room in Hillend Hall. As if she had never left the mansion, she naturally got out of bed and started her day.

She ate the soup and bread that the maid had thrown in front of the door, mended the clothes with half the sleeves torn off, and spent time looking at the wall. Then suddenly, she felt strange.

A strange sense of incongruity—that someone was with her in this room.

“…Ah.”

Sebelia suppressed her fear and turned her gaze. And she got up in embarrassment. Someone was standing blankly at the door, not knowing when it had opened. Sebelia hesitated and approached the person. At that moment, the world turned upside down all at once.

Whoa-!

The small room, which had been all gray, was suddenly engulfed in flames. Black smoke surrounded all sides.

“What is this…!”

Sebelia unknowingly took a step back. When she turned her gaze, black flames were already rising between her and the other person.

Only then did Sebelia realize that the only person who would come to her room was Denisa.

“Denisa, is that Denisa?!

She cried out in a desperate voice.

“Don’t stay here, run away!”

The acrid smoke filled her nose and mouth. Sebelia felt her mind fading. And then she heard a very small voice. A faint echo, as if barely squeezed out of pain.

“Sebelia.”

It was a faint call that she couldn’t recognize whose voice it was.

“Heok!”

She opened her eyes. Not the transparent sunlight like the ice of the North, but the soft and warm sunlight was tickling her cheeks.

“Ah….”

It was a dream. Sebelia raised her head with an astonished face.

“Haa.”

With a sigh of relief, Sebelia got up.

“I’m glad it was a dream.”

To dream of not being able to escape Hillend Hall and burning to death with Denisa… It’s too much. Wiping away the tears that flowed down her cheeks, Sebelia gave a faint smile.

* * *

“Heo-eok!”

Dihart gasped for breath like a fish lifted out of the water. Cold sweat was pouring down his body as he regained consciousness.

“Sebelia.”

He called his dead wife’s name and frantically looked around. But Sebelia was nowhere to be found, as if what he had seen was a mirage.

“Sebelia, where are you? Wife…!”

He got up with his ailing body and crossed the room. The sight he had seen just before he collapsed was still vivid in his memory.

It was the ‘real’ Sebelia. It was her in her lifetime, who was afraid of him and at the same time trying to approach him.

Dihart could be sure.

The fake Sebelia, the illusion that can only be seen when smoking hallucinatory grass, only said what he wanted to hear and only showed what he wanted to see.

But the Sebelia he encountered this time was not like that. She didn’t recognize him and acted as if she had an independent ego.

At that moment, Sebelia’s last cry flashed through his mind.

[Denisa, don’t stay here, run away!]

“Denisa, Denisa… Wait a minute.”

He stopped in his tracks as he wandered around the room. He called Ryan out loud. And he asked in a tone that did not erase his urgency.

“Where is that woman who was Sebelia’s nanny?”