My Fiancée Hates Me novel Chapter 31

[Past Life]

I woke up to a familiar ceiling. At my side was a sleeping Erik holding onto my hand.

"E-Erik..."

He suddenly woke up.

"Ari, you are awake," he said as he hugged me.

"How long have I been asleep for?" I asked as Erik helped me sit up.

"Two days..."

Erik had informed me that Garett along with five other men had been captured and held captive by the Balik Empire. The ransom was the Book of Ruth Chapter 313, a book about how to make superior mass killing weapons.

"Just give up the book!" I told Erik.

"We deciphered the book with the decoding formulas your family provided. Someone from our side leaked our deciphering techniques to the other side. Anyone can read it if they have the book. The contents are...It is not a book meant to be seen in the light. Is Garett's life worth more than the life of millions?"

If it was my life, surely Erik would not hesitate to give up the book...

"...Are we supposed to let him die?"

"I am ready to do that," Erik said resolutely.

I placed my hands over my eyes as I began crying.

"...I hate you, Erik."

Erik pulled me into his embrace and continued holding onto me for what seemed like hours.

More than hating him, I hated myself for agreeing with Erik's decision...

About a day later, Garett's head along with the heads of five other soldiers arrived at the front gate of the fortress. I broke down crying at the scene of seeing Garett's decapitated head skewered and stuck onto a long wooden stick in the ground alongside with the other five soldiers.

For the next three days, I locked myself in my room at the capital without any contact from the outside. I simply just lied in bed without eating or sleeping. I continuously wished that someone would bring me news that everything was just a ruse and that Garett was not actually dead.

I eventually got back on my feet and began pulling all-nighters and overworking myself day in and day out. The war with the Balik Empire was imminent from how they killed off a relative of royalty and began attacking our trade ports. This meant that I had to undergo war campaigns and make do with preparations to gather rations as well as soldiers for our cause. There was nothing but more work to be done. Being sad was the least of my worries.

Before I knew it, six months had passed me by. When I finally had a day of rest, I used my time to just lie in bed without doing anything.

Erik had crawled over me while I was napping and woke me up. It had been a while since we last shared a bed awake together. Our schedules did not align. When it did, we would just sleep side by side without exchanging so much as a word to each other.

"Erik?"

"Ari, let's have a child," Erik said suddenly.

We had not tried anything again since that incident...

"Let's not..." I said as I turned my head away from him.

"It has been six months."

"The preparations for war will not get done by themselves."