I’ve Become a S*ave Bride - Chapter 50
‘I have to hurry and let them know so Kus will be safe!’
After all, she wouldn’t be of any help with her own strength.
She threw off her shoes, which kept slipping off, and ran toward the banquet hall.
“Ugh, ah!!”
“Save me!!”
From behind, she heard the screams of humans and the roars of beasts.
But as she moved further away, the music from the banquet replaced the screams and echoed around her.
Confident that she was getting closer to the banquet hall, she pushed herself to run even faster.
And finally.
“Lady Leneta?!”
“Lady Leneta!”
She encountered Nazan, Hosanta, and the palace guards who had been anxiously waiting for her in front of the banquet hall!
“We’re in big trouble! It seems the assassins have appeared again!”
They were not assassins; they were Rahim’s guards.
However, saying that would make the explanation lengthy, so Lenette used the provocative word ‘assassins.’
“……!”
“……!”
“……!”
These were the guards who had suffered from assassins in the previous village. Upon hearing Lenette’s words, they immediately drew their swords in anger.
“Those bastards!”
“Where are they?!”
“Kus is fighting alone! In front of my room with Kazen!”
“Understood! Lady Leneta, please stay here!”
The guards vanished in an instant. Nazan, who remained by her side, took her and headed straight into the banquet hall.
As soon as they entered, what they saw was Sabia, who kept leaning against Kazen, and Kazen, who was pushing her away without hesitation.
“Kazen!”
At her shout, the music that was flowing stopped. The dancers, who had been moving gracefully with their fluttering skirts, abruptly halted as well.
It was no surprise.
Everyone could only be astonished at the sight of Lenette, who was barefoot and sweating, looking utterly disheveled.
“What’s wrong with you? Why do you look like that?”
Upon spotting Lenette, Kazen rushed over in a single step.
“Who did this to you?”
Lenette, out of breath from running without stopping, couldn’t explain.
Then Nazan stepped in.
“There are intruders. The guards have gone ahead.”
“What?”
His face contorted in shock as he tried to leave the banquet hall.
“Wait, haah, haah.”
Lenette quickly grabbed him and moved closer.
“They’re not assassins.”
“Then who are they?”
Lenette, standing a step away from him, glanced at Rahim, who was trying to sneak away.
Kazen’s gaze followed hers.
Then, finally.
“…Rahim.”
He called his brother’s name in a low voice. Rahim, who had been trying to escape, flinched and immediately attempted to bolt.
Kazen grabbed his brother’s arm and twisted it.
“Brother! Aah!”
“Explain.”
“I-I’m not like that, aah!!”
“Do you need to get beaten so badly that you can’t lie anymore?”
“Really, really, it’s not like that…! Aah, my arm, my arm, my arm…!”
Kazen twisted his brother’s arm even more mercilessly.
Watching this scene, Lenette thought,
‘Hmph, serves him right.’
* * *
The ‘Lenette Kidnapping Incident’ was quickly resolved, thanks to Kazen and the palace guards.
Once everything was sorted out, Kazen dragged Rahim and Sabia in front of him and made them kneel.
“Brother… it’s not like that…”
Kazen glared at Rahim, who was trying to explain himself, looking aggrieved.
“Who said you could speak?”
Rahim, kneeling with a bruised eye, lowered his gaze.
Kazen clicked his tongue at his brother and then looked at Sabia, who was also bowing her head in the same position beside him.
“Even if he told you to do it, do you really follow that?”
“Ugh… I’m sorry…”
She kept repeating her apology, as if she had nothing else to say.
Seeing her like that seemed to frustrate Kazen, who let out a long sigh and turned his gaze away.
“This is why I didn’t want to come here.”
“Brother…”
“Shut your mouth.”
“……”
“Haah…”
With a long sigh, Kazen stepped back and approached Lenette, who was sitting with Kus.
“Is your foot okay?”
“It’s just a little scraped; it’s not a big deal.”
He sighed again, running his hand through his hair with a face full of embarrassment.
“I’m sorry.”
Just a moment ago, he had heard an apology, and now he was hearing another from him.
Perhaps feeling awkward about it, he wet his dry lips with the tip of his tongue and glanced around.
He seemed to want to explain something, but the words weren’t coming out easily.
Finally, Lenette spoke first.
“Shall we talk for a bit?”
Kazen gestured to Nazan. He then took Rahim and his wife outside.
As they left, Rahim looked back at his brother with anxious eyes. Lenette could roughly guess the situation from his expression.
A younger brother who overly adores his older brother.
Yet that younger brother had attempted to kidnap his brother’s fiancée. There could only be one story behind that.
‘He must not like me as his brother’s wife.’
So he might have wanted to eliminate me and place another woman by Kazen’s side.
Sabia’s constant flirting with Kazen could have been an attempt to create a rift between him and Lenette.
While she was piecing together the situation, Kazen began to speak.
“Rahim is my half-brother.”
Since he had a different appearance, she had somewhat guessed it. So, she looked at him without showing any surprise, and he forced a bitter smile.
“No one wouldn’t know that. We look different.”
“True enough.”
Kazen sat near Lenette and continued the conversation.
“Even though he’s my half-brother, I care for him quite a bit.”
Not “I used to care for him,” but “I care for him.”
This meant that it wasn’t just in the past; it was true even now.
“Why is that?”
Why do you care for such a scheming, perverted, and foolish person?
Although she hadn’t asked the entire question, Kazen seemed to understand what Lenette wanted to know.
“Both Rahim and I are weak.”
“Are you saying that the maternal line is weak?”
As she grasped the meaning at once, Kazen raised an eyebrow slightly. Lenette spoke in a small voice, looking at him.
“Kazen, it’s obvious that you are mixed race. And in the Tazetra Empire, Northerners are usually…”
Slaves.
Though she didn’t finish her sentence, Kazen smiled bitterly and nodded.
“Right. If you think about it for a moment, you can guess how precarious my position as a mixed-race person is.”
Kazen looked at the door where Rahim had exited.
“Rahim’s maternal family is a merchant clan that traded my mother.”
“That means…”
“Exactly. Among merchants, they are the most despised—slave traders.”
In the Tazetra Empire, slavery is legal.
However, most of those who engage in slave trading are thieves or scoundrels, so the perception of them is poor.
“Only Rahim and I do not have noble blood.”
“So that means the others all come from noble families on the maternal side.”
“Right.”
Kazen smiled bitterly.
“Of all things, the firstborn carries the blood of a slave, and the second son carries the blood of the someone who gave that slave, so we faced a lot of disdain, resentment… and bullying.”
Lenette’s eyes widened in surprise.
“Kazen, you were the firstborn?”
“Yeah.”
I didn’t know.
All this time, Kazen hadn’t mentioned anything about his father, let alone his mother, and he hadn’t shown any signs of communicating with them.
‘So I just thought of him as the youngest member of a collateral branch or something like that.’
He had been completely neglected.
“But unlike me, who was born safe, that guy Rahim was quite weak.”
“But you said your maternal grandfather was a slave trader. Even if the perception isn’t good, doesn’t he have power?”
“That power is easily overshadowed by the strength of other families.”
“Ah…”
“So, Rahim’s biological mother and grandfather turned a blind eye even when he was beaten to the point of death.”
Lenette muttered in confusion without realizing it.
“If it were me, I’d want to raise my grandson and have him take over the heir position, so why…”
Kazen chuckled softly.
“Not everyone has that kind of courage.”
“Courage?”
Is this something that requires courage?
Not fully understanding, she looked at him quietly, and he began to speak openly, as if resigned.
“My mother was a slave from birth. What do you think would happen if a family with immense power was handed over to someone like that?”
“Well, I guess they’d be consumed by greed?”
“No, it’s the opposite. Rather than coveting power, they tremble in fear.”
“Tremble in fear?”
“Yeah. She barely escaped slavery and started living comfortably. But then, suddenly, a firstborn son came from her. That put her life in danger. So, would a woman born as a slave really welcome the ambiguous possibility of having a child?”
“Ah…”
Perhaps for Kazen’s mother, the extent of her ‘greed’ might be limited to simply being well-fed and living comfortably.
‘A challenge’ would probably just mean trying food she hadn’t tasted before.
“Rahim’s maternal family is similar. They focus more on what they might lose by taking unnecessary risks rather than on the future success of my grandson.”
“……”
From Lenette’s perspective, who had always lived seeking upward mobility, their behavior seemed somewhat strange, but she could understand it.
‘People who are set in their ways can even turn a blind eye to greed.’
Kazen, having shared a long story, frowned as he spoke.
“He’s a boy full of tears, affection, and sensitivity.”
“Who? Rahim?”
“Yeah.”
“I don’t think he’s sensitive…”
At Lenette’s muttering, he corrected himself.
“……He was sensitive in the past.”
A moment of silence settled between them.
Then he said,
“I felt sorry for a kid like that. So, after taking care of him a few times, he started to warm up to me. When he was young, it was kind of cute, so I took care of him quite a bit.”
That was the beginning of this farce.
