When I Asked My Husband for a Divorce, He Said He’d Be Bringing Home a Young Woman, So I Left - 6

Visiting the front lines required state permission, but entering the town was unrestricted.

For the time being, I decided to stay in town while waiting for my permit to visit the front.

Upon arriving, I sent a letter to my husband.

Would he be surprised and happy to hear I was already in town, when he thought we wouldn’t meet? Or would it trouble him? The uncertainty made me a little uneasy.

At the same time, I also wrote to the officer in charge of the front, thanking him for looking after my husband and informing him of my stay in town, along with my intention to visit the front as soon as permission was granted.

The moment I sent that letter, the officer stood in the parlor of my rented lodging, his face as pale as a condemned criminal. I offered him a seat, but he remained standing.

“Does this mean my husband isn’t here?”

“Y-yes. Lord Excel Duel is currently on leave…”

“Leave? My husband told me he couldn’t return home this year, which is why I came here.”

The officer sucked in a sharp breath.

How rude. What about me could possibly frighten him so much?

“That’s all I can say…”

Wiping away the sweat that kept beading on his forehead despite his efforts, the officer spoke in a voice so faint it might have vanished.

Evil rumors spread fast—I hadn’t believed the whispers about my husband that reached my ears.

I hadn’t wanted to believe them.

But perhaps I needed to brace myself.

I exhaled quietly, careful not to let it show, and asked the officer.

My voice trembled slightly.

“Is Charlotte here?”

At my question, the officer’s face turned ashen.

Charlotte.

The reason my husband had repeatedly delayed returning home despite my pleas, saying, “Lottie hasn’t received her Revelation yet.”

Lottie, huh?

Did my husband intend to remain on the front until Charlotte received her Revelation?

It had already been eight years since she was supposed to receive it. Charlotte was now eighteen. How much longer would this go on?

From the perspective of national security, the affairs of a single viscountcy might be trivial. But even as Duel, my husband was still the lord of his lands. Did he value that woman—Charlotte—more than the territory he had cherished, more than his own wife?

At first, it was just a small discontent. But now, it had festered inside me like a bottomless swamp emitting miasma.

And yet, I had swallowed it all, never voicing these feelings to my husband as he stood on the front lines as Duel.

“…So they’re both on leave together, is that it?”

The officer could only bow his head in silence.

Faced with the legitimate wife, he couldn’t simply dismiss me by saying it was confidential. Nor could he lie to a family member of the Duel.

Silence was his only option.

And that was answer enough.

“They’re both on leave, so they’re not here. …A trip, perhaps? …Together?”

The eighteen-year gap between them was like parent and child. But considering my husband had become Duel at twenty-eight, freezing his age, the difference between eighteen and twenty-eight was the same as between me and him.

Even if they had started as comrades bound by duty, it wouldn’t be strange for friendship, affection, and then love to blossom.

In fact, over the past year, their closeness had become so well-known that even I had heard the rumors.

Everyone knew the nation’s defense relied on the Duel, and those who stood on the front lines battling monsters were revered above all.

A married man falling for a younger woman would usually draw scorn, but this was a love born in the crucible of war—transcending status, age, and even marriage. It was quietly becoming accepted as a grand romance.

The only reason the gossip-loving masses weren’t squealing in delight was because of me.

I had helped rebuild the territory since our engagement, bid my husband farewell the day after our wedding when he became Duel, and since then, as the lady of the land, I had protected it in his stead. My story was well-known across the nation.

The decent folk watched in silence, while the vulgar ones secretly amused themselves by calling me “the other one.”

My vision darkened, and my knees hit the floor.

I could tell the officer and the guards were saying something, but the ringing in my ears drowned out their words.

On my birthday—the anniversary of our marriage, the day we had sworn our love—my husband had chosen to be by another woman’s side instead of mine.

That reality was here, now.

When I was eighteen, my husband left my side.

Even when the weight of our people’s lives threatened to crush me, I gritted my teeth and stood firm.

No matter how lonely, scared, miserable, or angry I was, I straightened my back, ensuring my voice didn’t shake and my hands didn’t betray me. And yet, my husband wasn’t there.

But when Charlotte turned eighteen, my husband—Excel—was by her side. Excel had chosen to be there.

Had he not chosen his nagging wife (me), always harping about heirs, but instead followed his heart to Charlotte’s side?

My heart, already cracked like thin ice, shattered into pieces.