DUFE - 1

Chapter 1. Renie Valois

The Valois Marquisate had only one heir: a daughter, Renie Valois.

There were several reasons for this, but decisively, the Marchioness’s poor health played a significant role. Her condition, already not good before giving birth to Renie, worsened drastically after suffering from puerperal fever following the delivery.

In fact, even setting aside the health issues, it was nearly impossible for Renie to have any siblings.

The Marchioness had been quite healthy before marrying into the Valois family. The reason for her fragility was her marriage to the Marquis of Valois.

The Marquis of Valois appeared outwardly very gentlemanly and aristocratic, but in reality, he was a hot-tempered man overflowing with unnecessary greed.

Unfortunately, the Marchioness only realized her husband’s true nature after their marriage.

He would often take out the stress he received from business or state council meetings on his wife when he returned to the mansion. Starting with insults and eventually escalating to blatant violence, his cruel side, hidden from the outside world, was always enough to turn the mansion into a sheet of thin ice.

The Marchioness was slowly dying, trapped beneath that icy surface. It was impossible to know whether it was fortunate or unfortunate that she had borne his heir before his true colors were fully revealed.

Renie’s earliest memories of her mother were always of her lying in bed, asleep as if dead.

Renie was young, but she could sense that her mother was afraid of her father.

Occasionally, when her mother regained consciousness and opened her eyes during her illness, she was always trembling with fear. This was especially severe when she looked at her daughter, who resembled the Marquis of Valois. Having stayed by her mother’s side frequently, Renie could vaguely guess the depth of that fear.

That fear did not spare Renie either. When she went to greet her father upon his return from outings, a cold gaze always replaced a warm greeting.

Her father’s eyes seemed to say just that.

‘Worthless thing.’

No, not ‘like that thing,’ but he actually called her that from time to time.

Renie could confidently say that it was the word she had heard most from her father since birth. Perhaps she was even more often referred to by that stinging epithet than by the name he had given her.

‘Having given birth to a useless little girl.’

She realized the reason her father disliked her at a fairly young age. It was because she wasn’t a son. Because a boy, who should have carried on the Valois Marquisate for generations, hadn’t been born. That was why her father was so unwelcoming towards her.

Since a daughter could also inherit the title, it was, in a way, a very trivial reason. Of course, it was an extremely unusual and rare case, so for a conservative aristocrat like the Marquis, it might have been a shocking situation.

Renie constantly tried to make her father love her, to become a beloved daughter.

She never neglected the lessons with the tutors her father provided and worked hard to master aristocratic grace. Unlike children her age, she never threw tantrums and always lived with patience. Nevertheless, she never even came close to meeting her father’s expectations.

No, it seemed he had expected something else from the start. For example, a son-in-law who would become a strong pillar and reliable supporter for the future Marquis of Valois.

As soon as the Marquis harbored that twisted expectation, Renie had to take lessons not for herself, but to become someone’s perfect wife.

To make his only daughter a ‘useful person’ who met his expectations, the Marquis of Valois did not hesitate to use a long and thick whip on her.

Never talk back. Never raise your voice under any circumstances. Maintain proper posture. Be careful with your gaze. That series of rules were the code of conduct for a noble lady, which Renie heard so often she could have recited it by heart.

If she dared to talk back, she would be struck hard enough on the back of the head to make it tingle. If she didn’t maintain proper posture, her waist would be pinched. It was commonplace for red welts to appear like thin lines on the back of her hand if she used her knife and fork incorrectly at mealtimes.

Yet, she couldn’t even make a sound of pain, because doing so would only result in another stinging blow. The young girl learned quite early how to suppress her pain.

Amidst the pain of abuse, Renie’s only refuge was by the side of her sick mother.

From some point on, her father, disgusted by his bedridden wife, never even went near her bedroom. So, Renie could only breathe freely there. Here, she didn’t have to be so tense that she couldn’t even swallow easily.

But that happiness didn’t last long. Her mother, who had barely held on as if to comfort her only daughter, began to fade away. Watching the doctors and servants busily going in and out of the bedroom until the doorframe was worn, Renie felt fear for the first time. Fear of death.

No, it was more accurate to see it as a threat to herself rather than to her mother’s death.

If Mother dies, I won’t be able to breathe properly anymore. And if I fall out of Father’s favor, if I truly become a worthless human being whose value has plummeted to the bottom. Then, then...

Her vision darkened.

Renie couldn’t bear to stay inside the mansion any longer and ran out of the main building. She spun around in the garden, where flowers bloomed profusely, but she couldn’t calm down. No, her insides were becoming even more of a mess.

She stepped on the vast land again and again until she suddenly reached a place she had never seen before. It was a dilapidated chapel built during the reign of a former Marquis.

This place, the Kingdom of Evreux, was a country where the power of the church was comparable to that of the monarchy. There was even a separate Holy City, distinct from the royal capital.

Not only in the Kingdom of Evreux, but throughout the world, the authority of religion was steadily increasing. It was said to be due to strange phenomena occurring in various places, but Renie, an ordinary noble lady, did not know the details of the reason.

In any case, it was not unusual for a chapel to be installed in a noble’s mansion for such reasons.

Renie looked up at the wooden crucifix and cautiously entered. The dry doorframe creaked.

The interior, filled with a hazy dust as if it had been neglected without care, had cobwebs in every corner. However, the sacred and noble atmosphere unique to a chapel did not easily fade.

Renie walked stealthily, as if testing the waters, and sat on a chapel bench. And for the first time, she put her hands together and tried to pray. In the Evreux Empire, a sacred festival was held every year, but the Marquis, who considered his daughter not as a child but as a defect, naturally did not take her along.

So, for Renie, religion, believing in God, was quite unfamiliar. But now, she had nothing else to rely on but that unfamiliar thing.

‘Oh God, please have mercy and save my mother.’

The desire, as if it were her lifelong wish, gradually grew.

‘I’m afraid of Father. I don’t like being beaten either. I don’t like being sick... I don’t want to be here.’

Someone said that home was a very warm and comfortable place, but it was not at all like that for Renie. It was always a place that pointlessly tightened her breath, like the feeling of a trapped animal.

Awkward wishes gathered and disappeared in her head like a murmuring tide. The desolate silence of the chilly chapel felt as heavy as the hell that was soon to come.

Sniffle. Renie swallowed her tears and lowered her gaze.

She carefully took off the gloves she was wearing.

Originally, gloves were only worn when attending banquets or special events, not on a regular basis. Above all, they seemed too mature for Renie to use.

But Renie wore them almost every day. It was to hide the scars on the back of her hands from the eyes of others. All of them were evidence of the abuse left by her own father.

The torn and split skin where new flesh had grown was bumpy. It was like a trauma she couldn’t show to anyone. Looking at it made a vague fear swell up inside her, and eventually, tears welled up in her eyes.

It was then.

‘Child.’

The voice came suddenly, out of nowhere. It wasn’t so much a voice as a resonance.

‘Your crying sounds so sorrowful.’

Renie’s head snapped up. Her startled eyes trembled. Perhaps it was the weight of the place, but it sounded exactly like the voice of the Supreme God.

‘Who is making things so difficult for you?’

It was a soothing tone. Despite not knowing its identity, the warm comfort that permeated it made something surge up within Renie. Her father was violent, and her mother was sick; it was a comfort she had never experienced from her parents.

Even though the voice reached her ears, it felt as if her heart was being caressed.

With just those three words, young Renie buried her face in her hands and cried for a long time. The resentment that had been building up in her heart endlessly poured out. Meanwhile, the voice gently consoled her repeatedly.

“If Mother passes away, I’ll be alone forever. Then Father, Father will...”

Her complaints flowed out incoherently. Renie confessed as if telling on someone to the voice she didn’t know where it came from.

After a while, the voice asked very sweetly.

‘Do you want to save your mother?’

Renie, her eyes wide, nodded her head rapidly as if she believed it could happen just by answering.

‘Come closer.’

“Closer?”

‘Yes. To me, to where I am.’

As if possessed, Renie stood up and walked towards the platform.

‘Closer, come closer.’

The voice that had been gently coaxing Renie just moments ago began to mix with a gradually growing urgency. Its tone was as sweet as melted sugar. It felt like she had put several candies in her mouth that her father wouldn’t allow, so Renie swallowed her fear and stumbled forward.

She climbed onto the platform and drew back the curtain. There, a square painting was placed.

‘Let’s make a deal, child.’

As Renie drew closer to the painting, the voice became clearer. The painting was a portrait, with someone vaguely depicted. The light had faded, making it difficult to discern clearly, but one thing was certain: the pupils of the subject were a deep crimson.

‘I will save your mother and help you escape this place.’

“Really?”

‘Yes. But there is a price.’

“A price?”

‘You must become mine.’

At that moment, the crimson eyes in the portrait seemed to flash. Young Renie, unable to understand the meaning of becoming ‘someone’s,’ hesitated.

“I don’t understand what you mean.”

‘There’s no need to think of it as difficult. You will escape from those who trouble you and enjoy freedom. In return, you will owe me a debt.’

“A debt... I was told it’s a bad thing.”

‘An unpayable debt is indeed improper, but if it can be repaid, could there be a more excellent bargain?’

The dark voice gently coaxed her.

“Who... are you?”

‘I am a god. One who grants your wishes.’

The truly lofty do not usually reveal their own existence, but Renie, completely captivated, did not keenly recognize him.

“Why are you offering me such a deal?”

‘Because your misfortune is so very lovely.’

It was a vague answer.

‘Don’t you want to escape this place?’

Renie’s wavering heart crumbled like a sandcastle before that sweet question.

In fact, someone a little older would have thought it was a ridiculous deal, but Renie was still an immature child. So, it was perhaps natural that she feared the immediate threat of her father’s whip more than a vague future.

She didn’t know how she would escape this place, but somehow, the alluring voice gave her a strange certainty that it could definitely accomplish it.

Renie finally nodded.

‘Reach out your hand to me.’

She silently obeyed. As Renie’s slender fingertips touched the painting, a radiant light spread out like a halo.

She inadvertently squeezed her eyes shut.

A chilling wind blew fiercely in her heart, and her heart pounded intensely as if it were about to shatter. It was a strangely spine-chilling sensation.

And, and... nothing changed. The chapel returned to its previous quiet and static atmosphere, as if the light had never spread.

It felt like she had been bewitched by a strange being. Renie, in a daze, returned to the main building and encountered a maid looking for her.

“Where have you been, young lady! Madam’s condition is not good. You must go see her at once.”

As the maid reported, her mother was on the verge of death. Seeing her mother gasping for breath as if barely clinging to life, Renie’s hazy reason quickly returned to reality.

“Mother, no! Mother!”

Moisture welled up in Renie’s eyes. She desperately begged her to live, not to die.

The moment her pitiful tears streamed down her cheeks and fell onto her mother’s hand, a brilliant light spread in all directions, just as it had in the chapel earlier. Everyone squeezed their eyes shut at the blinding flash, then opened them with dumbfounded expressions.

Even Renie, who had caused the phenomenon, was surprised and stared blankly down at her mother. In the silent bedroom where no one knew what had just happened, the first to speak was the attending physician, who had been checking the Marchioness’s condition.

“Her pulse...”

The Marchioness’s pulse, which had clearly been faint and flickering, suddenly beat normally as if it had revived. Along with that, her gasping breaths softened as if she had simply fallen asleep.

“Madam’s pulse has returned!”

“Good heavens. What in the world is going on?”

“That light just now...”

Amidst the confusion over the strange recovery, a maid asked as if shouting.

“Does the young lady possess divine power?”

Yes, divine power.

It was as if they had witnessed the manifestation of that sacred power that repels the wicked things of the world. The fact that a dying life had been revived made it impossible to dismiss it as mere nonsense.

While everyone murmured amongst themselves, the tightly closed bedroom door opened, and the Marquis appeared. Everyone quickly straightened up and showed their respects, but they couldn’t hide the subtle air of disarray.

“What is all this commotion?”

“Sir, that is, the young lady just now...”

The head maid, who had been watching the situation from the beginning, reported the earlier events in detail to the Marquis of Valois. The Marquis, who had been listening silently, snapped his head up at the word ‘divine power.’ His exposed pupils flashed sharply.

The Marquis of Valois immediately sent word to the Holy City, and the auxiliary bishop arrived at the mansion within a few days.

“Such beautiful and pure divine power. It is as if I am seeing the late Pope in his youth.”

The auxiliary bishop, who had examined Renie, said in an admiring tone.

“Do you have any intention of coming to the Holy City in the future? With this level of divine power, it can be seen as an extremely precious talent. If you have any thoughts on the matter, please feel free to contact the Holy City at any time.”

Renie, who had been bewildered by the events as if they were happening to someone else, finally recalled the strange moment in the chapel. She blankly looked down at her hands. At that moment, the voice that had brushed past her ears echoed repeatedly in her mind.

Perhaps this was the method the voice had spoken of.

In the Evreux Empire, where the power of the church rivaled that of the monarchy, becoming the master of the Holy City was an extremely honorable thing. And the Marquis of Valois was not foolish enough to miss that opportunity.

The Marquis’s eyes gleamed greedily. It was the same look he had when he realized that an old, broken object could finally be used for something else.

The Marquis of Valois prepared things step by step, and secretly.

With the auxiliary bishop as his guarantor, he enrolled Renie in the temple, removed all obstacles that stood above her, and placed his only daughter in a glorious and noble position.

Over a long period, everything went as the Marquis of Valois wished.

The Marquis was not a person who could wield great influence over the church, but the reason he could was because the timing was exceptionally perfect. It was due to the fact that the Pope’s seat was vacant because they hadn’t found a suitable person, and that Renie’s divine power was so pure that it reminded people of the late Pope.

And so, at the age of eleven, she left the Marquisate and went to the Holy City.