“That man did not kill me because of his reputation.”
“Huh…?”
Kael frowned.
“His reputation?”
He couldn’t understand.
What does that have to do with anything?
“That man ‘loved’ me more than anything. He was a ‘loving father’ who would go to any lengths, break any rules, and do anything to put a small smile on his daughter’s face.
A man whose health depended on his daughter’s mood, that was what they called him.”
Lavinia laughed, her disdain for those words couldn’t be more apparent. Vitaria, however, could see more than her disdain.
The Fox could feel her heart churn as she said those words; the amount of pain she was currently feeling was on a similar level as Kael every time he recalled the first Vision where he saw the dead Igni, just that…
Unlike Kael, who started having panic attacks, Lavinia held on.
Yes, she had strengthened herself to the point where her face didn’t crack even when she felt the same intensity of emotions that would make Kael gasp for air.
Kael, oblivious to that, waited for Lavinia to continue.
“What do you think would have happened if such a man killed the daughter he loved so much?
The mask he uses to hide his true self from the rest of the world would be destroyed.
His reputation would crumble, his own people would turn against him, and he would lose power.
It was a cost he couldn’t pay.
So, despite there being a chance of someone like you rescuing me and learning the truth, he decided not to kill me.”
The Princess explained.
Kael, however, shook his head.
He wasn’t a fool; he knew the bits about how reputation worked. Politics was the same back in his own world. Politicians had an image to maintain; he knew that.
However, that image didn’t have to be strong all the time.
No matter how Kael saw it, Lavinia was a threat to Alden. She was the only person alive who had seen his true self.
Reputation may be important, but it wasn’t absolute.
People’s opinions could be changed quickly. Kael still remembered how politicians who had the worst images, with some people even calling them outright fools, had hundreds of thousands of people following them into rallies, calling them well-educated, qualified leaders in just a few years.
Even if his reputation would be damaged a bit, the King could easily recover it, especially when he had a strong reason.
“Couldn’t he have killed you because you were Corrupted?
I loved my daughter and I would have protected her till my last breath, but that girl is not my daughter. She is a threat to humanity.
He could have easily said something like this, and while there may have been questions, in the end, he would have been able to suppress it.
Heck, it might have even strengthened his image as a selfless King who puts people above himself.”
Kael countered. Lavinia stared at him in silence; she seemed a little taken aback.
Kael thought it was because he had given her a new perspective to look at things. Soon, however, Lavinia shook her head.
“What you said would have been possible if I was actually Corrupted.”
She answered.
“But I was not.”
Kael narrowed his eyes at those words. He knew Lavinia couldn’t be corrupted, so he knew it was true.
But if killing her wasn’t possible if she was Corrupted, how was… enslaving her any better?
As if knowing what he was thinking, Lavinia continued,
“Saying, I killed my daughter because she was Corrupted would never have worked—it raises too many questions.
The punishment for being Corrupted is not being killed, it is being executed.
The two are different.
Execution is public.
It’s ceremonial and political.
They follow their own set of formalities, formalities where that man had to prove I was Corrupted using the Verdant’s Omen before he could execute me.”
“Which was not possible.”
Kael spoke.
Lavinia nodded.
“It was much easier to believe that the King could not bring himself to execute his daughter, so he chained her in private and sold her off as a slave.
To the people, it would spread the message of how falling to Corruption would be the end of them, since even the Princess didn’t come out unharmed from it and had her life changed. And the nobles would never doubt the King, since they were used to him bending the rules for his daughter’s sake.
This would also allow him to deal with the entire thing in private, without having to prove anything, since no one but the men most loyal to him would be the only witnesses to the entire thing.
It was his words against mine and…
No one would even dare to question whether the Princess was actually Corrupted or not. After all, everyone knew how much the King loved his daughter.
He would never do anything to hurt his daughter.”
Again, Lavinia was laughing disdainfully at those words, but Vitaria could sense her restless, almost uncontrollable emotions.
The Princess was on the verge of breaking down.
“He… used his reputation to put you down without giving you a chance to fight back…”
Kael muttered.
He seemed…
Shaken.
He knew the King betrayed his own daughter, but now that he was actually analyzing the entire thing, his heart couldn’t help but feel an overwhelming dread.
That man…
He had been hiding behind a mask for decades, and he still hides behind it now.
Lavinia’s entire life had been a lie.
The man she trusted and loved the most… turned out to be her worst enemy…
Just thinking about what Lavinia must have felt when it all happened to her and the world as she knew it broke down sent chills down his spine.
Honestly, right now, Kael wanted nothing more than to get near her and hug her as tightly as he could. However, staring at those hollow, emotionless eyes…
He knew the instant he did something, the woman would attack.
The last thing she wanted right now was pity, and she was too emotionally broken to see this action in any other way.
Heck, she might even think of it as him trying to attack her or emotionally scar her.
So Kael stayed back.
“This is what I am trying to teach you.”
Oblivious to his thoughts, Lavinia continued her lesson.
“One’s reputation is a much, much stronger weapon than you believe.
I…
I never stood a chance.”
The woman then looked into Kael’s eyes and,
“Do not make the same mistake I made.”