It Seems Like The Infamous Trash Can is Right Here! - Chapter 92
His heart pounded harder, far beyond what he had felt before.
Serenia Solen’s small face, once stained with tears, was now smeared with blood. The unfocused light in her dulling eyes burned itself into Lionel’s memory.
She had stopped breathing, but it was Lionel who felt like he was dying.
A pain unlike anything he had ever known gripped him.
He clutched his chest, gasping for air. His knees buckled.
It was as if dozens of swords and spears had pierced through him at once. His eyes were wide open, but blood vessels burst within them, flooding them red.
Why.
Why…?
The reason escaped him completely. He was so confused, so lost.
Thump.
Thump.
The erratic, ominous beating of his heart seemed to shake the very world itself.
Maybe it was fortunate—the unbearable agony did not last long.
Serenia.
The moment Lionel spoke her name, time stopped.
Everything in the world froze, except for one thing. The only thing his eyes could still see was her, drenched in tears and blood.
And then, finally.
The familiar moment of regression arrived once more.
The sound of reality being ripped apart echoed through his ears, like a world shattering into countless pieces.
And among those fragments, Serenia Solen existed.
A pitifully thin body, a small face stained with tears and blood. Her once-soft, baby bird-like pink hair lay tangled, limp against the dirt.
The final image of a woman he had never spoken a word to… her last moments shattered into fragments and disappeared.
In that instant, Lionel knew.
The key to his endlessly repeating regressions lay with that woman, Serenia Solen.
At last, he had found the clue.
By sheer stroke of luck.
And so, life began anew.
As always, Lionel returned to the moment of his father’s funeral.
A supposed accident during his travels with his mistress.
“Hey, hang in there.”
Something was different from the start this time.
Dantère Ortatum, handing him a handkerchief, offered words of comfort.
Only then did Lionel realize that his cheeks were damp.
He couldn’t even remember the last time he had cried.
Perhaps it was fortunate that, in the eyes of others, he was simply a grieving son who had lost his father, so nothing about his reaction seemed strange.
Lionel stared at Dantère for a brief moment before slowly turning away.
He could feel countless eyes on him. Heads of other noble families, the elders of Luanax, and distant relatives.
Their expressions were carefully composed with sympathy, but he knew better. They were scheming. Unlike the late Duke, his young successor seemed weak, emotional, and easy to manipulate. They were already calculating how best to coax and exploit him for their own gains.
They had no idea he had ruled House Luanax for lifetimes beyond what they could comprehend. In every cycle, Lionel had been given many names. But among them, the most frequent were the Tyrant of Luanax, the Mad Dog, and the Warmonger.
With his heavy, tear-dampened lashes casting shadows over his eyes, Lionel thought to himself:
‘Being underestimated can be quite entertaining.’
Instead of waging unnecessary territorial wars, it would be far more efficient and amusing to let them come to him, let them try to deceive him… then crush them and seize everything they had.
Unlike his previous lives, where he had only stolen from them just enough to keep things interesting, this time, Lionel intended to give it his all.
‘If my opponent is the Imperial Family, it’s only proper to fight with everything I have.’
This was the first real clue he had ever found regarding his regressions.
And from what he had observed, the Imperial Family’s obsession with Solen ran far deeper than he had anticipated.
They had spent decades using and exploiting them, and yet rather than letting go, they clung to them at any cost.
He sent a letter to Solen, with a message informing them that the Imperial Family had already begun to suspect their disloyalty, and was watching.
So, on that very day, Lionel made his first move.
