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18.
Robert nervously swept back his long bangs. ‌‌‌‌
Memories he had spent years trying to forget began to weigh upon him.
'Even there, they couldn't escape the Kadir Faith....'
Before the Defrian Church was designated as the official state religion, the Rotandus Empire was home to countless faiths coexisting in harmony.
Among them, the Kadir Faith—devoted to Kadir, the god of wisdom—flourished most prominently.
Aligned with the Empire's conservative traditions, the Kadir Faith permeated the hearts of Rotandus's people with ease.
The priests and devoted followers of the Kadir Faith bore a tattoo in the center of their foreheads, symbolizing wisdom.
It was a mark inspired by the eyes of an owl, the emblem of wisdom itself.
Those who bore this tattoo were meticulous about their conduct wherever they went.
The ‌‌‌Kadir ‌‌Faith warned against excessive indulgence and blind fortune.
'You reap what you sow' was the doctrine that permeated the ‌‌Kadir Faith.
As time passed, certain rules of the Kadir Faith—once merely guidelines—gradually became coercive.
From clothing to the foods prescribed for each day of the week, everything became regulated.
The faithful competed with one another, obsessively adhering to these rules, and shunned those who did not comply.
Discontent with the Kadir Faith's conduct was mounting among the people.
A rebellion erupted in the Empire.
With the change of power came the designation of a new state religion, and all faiths save the Defrian Church found themselves cast adrift. ‌‌‌
The temples of ‌‌‌the Defrian Church gleamed ‌‌‌with gold throughout the year. The Pope himself indulged in luxuries that rivaled the Emperor's.
True ‌‌to the goddess of fortune, the Defrian Church prized sudden, unexpected luck above individual ‌‌‌‌effort.
Even the monthly donations to the temple were determined by casting two sixteen-sided dice.
Before the randomness of fortune, both ‌‌noble and commoner stood equal—a doctrine diametrically opposed to the Kadir Faith.
The people ‌‌‌‌cheered for the new state religion. And simultaneously, religious persecution began.
The persecution, strangely enough, targeted ‌the Kadir Faith with singular intensity.
It was as ‌though a concerted effort was underway to erase every trace of the Kadir Faith from existence.
Every temple of Kadir was demolished, and in their ‌‌place rose temples to Defria. Even the small shrines in remote villages were not spared.
The Pope of the Defrian Church declared the Kadir Faith a religion of charlatans, claiming they had fabricated absurdly strict doctrines merely to extract donations from the faithful.
In the great temple of Kadir, there had once burned an eternal flame of wisdom—one that neither spread nor could ever be extinguished.
The Pope exploited this.
Before the assembled masses, the Pope extinguished the ‌‌‌flame of wisdom. Some of the high priests of the Kadir Faith knew the flame he had snuffed out was counterfeit.
But they were already imprisoned and had ‌‌no ‌‌‌means to prove it.
After that, the true flame of wisdom vanished without a trace.
The Pope did not stop there, unleashing a torrent of cunningly fabricated ‌‌evidence.
Thus, countless disillusioned followers of Kadir converted to the Defrian ‌‌‌Church.
Yet there were those who held fast to their faith.
But nowhere welcomed the few remaining followers of Kadir. The persecution persisted for a long time.
And so the years ‌passed.
All religions save the Defrian Church faded from memory, as though they had never existed.
Only the damning record remained—that the Kadir Faith had been a ‌fraudulent organization.
Now, the owl tattoo that once symbolized wisdom had become the mark of misfortune.
No one believed in the existence of Kadir.
Because of this, the Kadir Faith followers who barely survived and maintained their faith all wore headscarves or grew their bangs long to hide their tattoos.
Most of them could not settle down and either wandered or formed small villages in mountain valleys.
Young people from such families who rejected their religion would burn away ‌‌or slash off the forehead tattoos their parents had inscribed upon them.
Robert was one of those young people. His ‌‌‌family had produced priests for the Kadir Faith Temple for generations.
Even under cruel persecution, that bloodline had never been severed.
Robert had endured an unfortunate childhood because of his family's ‌traditions.
He denied the existence of Kadir's god. All ‌the deity had ever given him was misery.
If a true god existed, his family could never have lived this way.
Yet Robert could not easily escape the doctrine carved deep into his bones since before his birth.
Though I had torn away my own tattoo and fled my family, the teachings ingrained in my body from childhood tormented me relentlessly. ‌‌‌
Every time I caught myself unconsciously acting like a believer of the Defrian Church, I wanted to kill myself.
Then I met Zeppelin.
After leaving my family, I worked as an informant.
I was in the midst of investigating a ‌series of requests regarding puppet masters who had gone missing consistently over several years.
I realized that most clues pointed toward the Count's Mansion and approached it, only to be caught by the hunting dogs.
Zeppelin valued my ability to gather information rather than punishing me.
He spared my life on the condition that I become his hunting dog.
I could not refuse. Zeppelin had already taken my family hostage.
Zeppelin hid my captured family somewhere and handed me censored letters and photographs as if bestowing rewards.
Even though I had already abandoned them, could I ignore the bonds ‌‌‌of blood?
I eventually ‌‌‌‌submitted to Zeppelin.
A long time had passed since then.
Thus I became the oldest hunting dog in the Count's Mansion.
Then Alicia arrived. Most of the hunting dogs attached themselves ‌‌to her to break her in.
Zeppelin assigned only the most capable—myself—and a few other hunting dogs to Rebecca.
After Rebecca's fall down the stairs, even those were reassigned, and now I alone remained responsible for her.
In truth, my purpose was stronger in watching Kanna than in handling Rebecca, who was already broken in.
A young ‌‌hunting dog needed an experienced one, after all.
From what I had observed of Kanna so far, she was not Zeppelin's person.
For reasons I could not fathom, Kanna seemed to pledge her loyalty more to Rebecca than to ‌‌Zeppelin.
And that suspicion turned to certainty when I saw Kanna embrace Rebecca and leap from the second-floor window.
Rebecca was tall for a ‌‌‌woman.
Yet Kanna caught her—a woman a full hand-span taller than herself—in both arms and landed on the ground with ease.
I let out a whistle of admiration without thinking.
'The Count's eye for talent ‌‌‌‌is undeniable.'
I immediately followed the two of them.
The existence of ‌‌the god ‌‌‌‌that had tormented me all day, or matters concerning my family, slipped from my mind for a ‌‌moment.
My instincts told me that Rebecca was plotting something.
But even if I discovered it, I had no intention of reporting it to Zeppelin.
Robert had witnessed every moment of how Zeppelin came to marry Rebecca.
That was not love. It was merely obsession over a possession.
That was why he had always pitied Rebecca, occasionally turning a blind eye to her mistakes.
Yet his interest in Rebecca stemmed from more than mere sympathy.
The Rebecca he had observed thus far was a woman who embodied the Kadir Faith's doctrine perfectly.
She did not speak carelessly, indulged in no extravagance, and carried herself with humility.
And her beauty was such that even angels would envy it.
Had the Kadir Faith still flourished, Rebecca would have been venerated as a saint ‌‌‌‌by her very existence alone.
Witnessing Zeppelin's brutal treatment of her, she appeared to Robert like a pitiful saint fallen into the hands of a demon.
For a long time, he had harbored the desire to save her.
Whether this impulse stemmed from simple chivalry or from the Kadir doctrine that one must not turn away from those in distress, he could not say.
Regardless of its origin, Robert believed he had a duty to prevent her from committing foolish acts.
* * *
"Good evening, madam."
It was Robert who emerged from behind the tree.
Rebecca's eyes widened briefly in ‌‌‌‌‌surprise before narrowing again.
A sudden gust of wind swept through, rustling Robert's bangs.
Rebecca caught sight of the large scar running across the center of his forehead and smiled faintly.
During the time she had been confined to her room, Rebecca had sorted through memories of the past.
Among them, Robert's family ‌came to mind.
His family had knocked upon the firmly sealed iron gates of the Count's Mansion after Robert's modest funeral concluded.
"How could you do this! He had only just been freed from the island! Robert is dead? And you've ‌‌already held his funeral! Robert was riding horses from the moment he could walk! Please investigate again! If you do not, I shall report this injustice to the Emperor without fail!"
The gatekeepers had quickly silenced ‌‌them and dragged them away before she could hear more.
Yet Rebecca had seen them clearly.
Robert's family wore garments made of black cloth and white collars, bearing the mark of an owl's eye carved into the center of their foreheads.
Rebecca had once visited a village of Kadir Faith believers during a journey ‌‌she took with her father ‌‌‌‌in childhood.
They had told ‌‌‌her stories of the Kadir Goddess and their history. ‌‌
As Rebecca gazed upon Robert's scar, she recalled the history of persecution she had heard then.
Zeppelin seized people's weaknesses and extracted loyalty from them. The fact that Robert's family served the Kadir Goddess would have been ‌more than sufficient prey for Zeppelin.
Rebecca's lips curved into a smile.
Robert stared at her blankly for a moment, dizzy from her smile ‌and the intertwined scent of lilac.
"Robert Crowley. Were you eavesdropping?"
"Eavesdropping? It ‌‌‌‌‌was mere chance. The moonlight was so lovely tonight that I simply came for a walk."
"What a faithful servant you are, attending to my affairs even at this late hour."
"I am merely strolling through the garden. It is not work, but a moment ‌‌‌of ‌‌‌respite.
"Crowley. I am ‌‌‌not a fool. I am well aware that every servant in this estate is watching me."
Robert's eyes widened as he looked at ‌‌‌‌‌Rebecca. There was no hint of reproach in her demeanor.
Robert tilted his head in confusion.
For Rebecca, this must be quite a precarious situation.
If he so much as mentioned to the Earl that she had slipped away, Kanna could be whipped immediately or something far worse could befall her.
Yet Rebecca did not beseech him to keep silent. Instead, she straightened her shoulders with quiet confidence and gazed up at Robert.
Though she remained seated while he stood, Robert found himself oddly convinced that Rebecca was looking ‌‌‌down upon him from on high.
Seeing the bewilderment cross Robert's face, Rebecca spoke.
"Do not be so startled. I harbor ‌‌no intention of reproaching you. You are merely fulfilling the duties assigned to you, after all."
Robert replied, ‌his expression somewhat dazed.
"Then... what of it...?"
Rebecca lifted her ‌‌‌‌gaze toward the luminous moon above.
Her pale, delicate neck gleamed with ethereal radiance.
The Runaway Countess Returns
E-book Publication

January 12, 2022
Author

Ginbamhaneul
Publisher

Desert Fox
Published by

Woongjin ThinkBig Co., Ltd.
Submission Reception

naver.me/54VzzLSn
Blog

blog.naver.com/wj_fennecfox
Twitter

@wjt_fennecfox

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Brought to you by ‌‌‌‌Valir Scans! To support our team and enjoy the latest releases, please read directly on our official site: valirscans.org
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