The Grand Warlord’s Accidental Marriage

Chapter 007 – Coughing up Blood

*****

At this moment, Nicholas neither moved nor blinked.

He just stood there staring blankly at the “room” in front of him, momentarily unsure how he was supposed to react.

Truthfully, he hadn’t expected much before opening the door.

After all, Kelly already didn’t seem particularly concerned about his comfort from the way she had spoken earlier.

Still… what he was seeing right now genuinely caught him off guard.

The room was tiny… roughly six by seven feet at best.

But somehow, the size wasn’t even the most shocking part.

Looking at the space right now, dust and cobwebs covered everything… the walls, floor, ceiling, corners, and even the air itself, making it look like a room that hadn’t been opened in decades.

A ridiculously tiny bed was squeezed tightly against one side of the wall, so narrow that an average-sized person probably wouldn’t dare turn too much while sleeping unless they wished to wake up on the floor.

There was barely enough walking space inside.

A small dusty dressing table rested in one corner, while cobwebs hung across the ceiling above it.

And because of all this, the entire room felt so cramped and suffocating that someone with claustrophobia might suffer a panic attack the moment they stepped inside.

‘Did I accidentally open the door to some completely different space?’ he muttered to himself suddenly.

And before he could even stop himself, he slowly stepped back and turned around.

Outside the room, the villa remained spotless and elegant… the same as when he first entered the villa.

Seeing this, Nicholas stared silently for a second before turning back toward the tiny dusty room again.

In the next moment, he didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

“I am Nicholas Wellesley, for goodness sake,” he muttered under his breath with a bitter smile. “The Grand Warlord of the Republic of Stars.”

He scratched lightly at the bridge of his nose, still unsure how things somehow developed into this situation.

Normally, millions of troops stood beneath his command.

If he so desired, countless luxurious mansions around the world could easily become his residence overnight.

In fact, the most luxurious villa in Wellington Manor already belonged to him.

Yet now…

Not only had he been assigned a tiny room beneath the staircase by his contractual wife, but the room itself looked abandoned.

The last time he cleaned anything other than himself was so long ago that he genuinely couldn’t remember it anymore.

Usually, everything around him was handled by others, and yet…

“I guess I really married my own boss,” he muttered helplessly before chuckling softly, the thought strangely amusing him.

After standing there for another moment, he finally sighed helplessly and turned away from the room.

Soon, he found a small cleaning corner near the kitchen entrance.

Without hesitation, he picked up the vacuum cleaner, duster, and cobweb brush before walking back toward the room again.

At this point, he no longer cared much about appearances or reputation. Well… not that he ever did.

Before entering, he placed his backpack neatly outside the entrance. Then he carefully cleared away the cobwebs hanging around the doorway before finally stepping inside.

With that, Nicholas began cleaning the room himself.

He neither rushed nor delayed unnecessarily.

Instead, he cleaned patiently and thoroughly, almost as though he had accepted the situation already.

First, he activated the automatic vacuum cleaner and allowed it to repeatedly clean the dusty floor while he carried the tiny mattress outside.

He dusted it carefully until most of the dirt was gone, set it aside, and then returned inside again.

Once there, he quietly cleaned everything himself… the walls, ceiling, dressing table, and every single surface.

If anyone were to witness Nicholas at this moment, they would most likely mistake him for an ordinary janitor or perhaps a professional cleaner hired to tidy the villa.

However, if the people happened to be those who knew the real him, the scene before them would be enough to shatter their minds.

They would suspect they had gone insane, and some might even rub their eyes until they turned red, convinced they were hallucinating.

After all, who would believe that Nicholas Wellesley… the only living legendary Grand Warlord whose mere name once terrified entire battlefields, was currently rolling up his sleeves and patiently scrubbing dust from a cramped little storage room beneath a staircase?

It sounded less believable than a drunk man claiming he had seen dragons flying over the Republic of Stars.

Yet Nicholas himself appeared completely unbothered.

There was no frustration, humiliation, or unwillingness on his face.

Instead, he cleaned seriously and methodically, his movements unhurried as he continued restoring the miserable little room until every trace of dust, cobweb, and grime disappeared entirely.

Nearly two hours later, the cramped space no longer looked abandoned.

The dusty scent had vanished.

The tiny bed had been cleaned thoroughly and arranged neatly against the wall.

The dressing table, though old, no longer looked miserable.

And even the suffocating atmosphere from earlier had faded significantly.

Though still small, the room at least looked livable now.

Once he finished, Nicholas silently returned the cleaning tools to their original corner near the kitchen entrance before heading to wash himself up.

Not long after, he returned, still wearing the same clothes, which surprisingly didn’t show even the slightest trace of dust or cobwebs.

He placed his backpack neatly inside the room, removed his shoes casually, then climbed onto the small bed and sat down cross-legged in a lotus position.

Soon, he slowly closed his eyes, and almost instantly, his breathing changed.

Each inhale became deep and steady, each exhale slow and controlled.

The entire room gradually sank into silence, and then suddenly… something strange began to happen.

The air itself seemed to shift subtly, and following this, an invisible force flowed quietly through the surroundings before converging toward Nicholas little by little, almost like streams returning to the sea.

With every breath he took, that strange energy gathered more densely around him, and soon, visible changes appeared.

The faint exhaustion hidden beneath Nicholas’s relaxed demeanor gradually eased.

His complexion became rosier and healthier, while the tension buried deep inside his body loosened slightly.

For a brief moment, he appeared peaceful and in the best state ever.

But then suddenly…

His brows twitched violently, and almost immediately, the rosy color drained from his face as if an invisible hand had wiped it away.

Instantly, his tightly shut eyes narrowed sharply in pain, a faint tremor running through his body.

Then…

“Hack!!”

Nicholas coughed harshly, a streak of blood spilling from the corner of his lips, staining his hand red.

His eyes snapped open, and at once, the dense atmosphere in the room.

Silence returned.

Nicholas lowered his gaze toward the blood in his palm for a brief second before wiping the corner of his mouth, his expression unusually composed, as though coughing blood was something he had long grown accustomed to.

But beneath that calmness… There was heavy bitterness.

“To think that I, Nicholas Wellesley…” he muttered softly, a self-mocking smile forming on his lips, “would end up reduced to this state.”