For My Birthday, I Was Gifted Five Husbands - Chapter 103

She was really pissed off right now.

More than when Apollin demanded her own room at the Norton mansion, more than when she brought up May, more than that day when her father didn’t even try to back her up and kicked her out when it was convenient for him.

More than when Empress Silvea brought up her mother and insulted her.

The man tilted and then collapsed to the floor.

Would one strike be enough? Eugenie climbed on top of him and, with all her strength, used the holy bullet like a primitive axe, striking again.

“How dare you, you perverted bastard, read someone’s thoughts like that.”

“Ugh!”

Alokes groaned faintly in pain as the searing agony burned through his left shoulder. He took a deep breath, struggling to open his blurry eyes.

“Hah, ha…”

Alokes frowned at the sensation he hadn’t had in a long time. This was physical pain. When he was still young, he had tried to escape this feeling, and from the moment he became immortal, he had become numb to such stimuli.

But strangely, instead of discomfort, a thrilling sensation made his waist twitch.

“If you don’t want to die, answer me properly, you perverted long-haired bastard.”

Despite still being a mess, a woman with eyes gleaming like lightning ordered him around. She wasn’t even from the Schroder family, so there was no reason to listen to her.

Alokes unknowingly licked his lower lip. His heart, which he thought had become dry and withered, was beating rapidly.

Eugenie shuddered at the sight, but she couldn’t afford to miss the opportunity.

“You said you killed the Fay clan, right? Then did you kill Sabnac too?”

“Ah…”

“What was the reason? Who told you to drop me in the hunting grounds…?”

In the middle of her rapid-fire questions, she suddenly stopped.

She didn’t know why he had killed other wizards, but she already had her answer to the last question.

‘Thinking about it was sad? In this respect, she is different from Tristan.’

“…It was Tristan.”

“…”

“That bastard told me to die.”

Even in pain, the pervert only smiled faintly. Eugenie ignored the unsettling expression and sharply turned her head.

‘Did Tristan have the power to command wizards?’

But if Tristan had such power…

‘…He surely could have killed May and Alfred without leaving a trace. Not a single shred of evidence.’

Back then, Tristan hadn’t received any magic help.

That wasn’t possible then, but now there was one reason why it might be.

‘Just like I would have been in big trouble if I had gone to twenty-four without a man, is there some age-related restriction?’

She had never heard of such power in the Imperial family, let alone the Howard family. If they had it, they would have mobilized it just like the Troys did with their gilded family resources.

After all the reasoning, there was only one possibility left.

“You’re connected to the Schroder family, aren’t you?”

“…”

“What Tristan bastard did for you was because Schroder blood flows in him. So, before that…!”

Eugenie gripped the holy bullet still lodged in the man’s shoulder tighter. The heat rising within her body surged.

Alokes sensed the approaching danger.

‘Ah. She’s trying to kill me.’

But instead of desperately struggling, he was more intrigued by the woman’s reaction, which had awakened the long-forgotten pain in his body.

“You’re in league with Empress Silvea, aren’t you?”

As she reached that conclusion quickly, his face twisted by memories, he realized after a long time what it felt like to think something was ’beautiful.’

* * *

Amid berating the pervert, a question from Professor Racquet suddenly came to mind.

“Miss Norton. Why are you so fixated on this topic?”

“Because I think it’s socially unjust for one family to monopolize an important substance like the magic stone.”

“Are you really insisting on this topic for such altruistic reasons?”

As expected of a mentor. His insight was truly extraordinary.

Eugenie had no interest in high-minded words like the endless development of society or fair benefits for all. That was something the imperial family should handle, not ordinary people like her.

However, a graduate thesis needed a convincing introduction, grand aspirations, and a well-organized outline.

So Eugenie had always lied.

Even though she hadn’t managed to escape from graduate school life, and despite knowing that eventually her thesis would end up in the palace, she still stubbornly insisted on it.

There was a reason for her foolish persistence.

‘Rather than living pitifully like this, wouldn’t it be better to just go live alone in the countryside?’

It was because, on Eugenie’s debutante day, Empress Silvea openly mocked Theodora Norton in front of other women.

While her mother was away to meet someone from the northern provinces, the Empress and her court ladies were nearby in the lounge, which became the catalyst.

At that time, Eugenie had never visited the palace before and didn’t know.

‘To be struggling without even being able to hold onto a man. Viscount Norton surely endures a woman obsessed about him for so long.’

‘In fact, there are rumors that she’s not even of noble birth, Your Majesty. There’s talk that she couldn’t even send a handwritten reply to an invitation, so she had to send a servant instead.’

‘Really!’

Among the Empress and the high-ranking ladies, her mother was like a dog bone that wouldn’t lose its flavor no matter how much it was chewed. They were deluded into thinking they were extraordinary just because they were more beautiful or there was a miserable woman among them.