A Bitter Diagnosis
Mathias was far more clever than Odeliana had imagined. Teach him one thing and he would effortlessly master ten. He carried out his duties with far greater skill than the other servants who had spent their entire lives repeating the same training and education in this place.
He was stronger than the rest, his movements agile, his instincts sharp. On top of that, his strikingly handsome features ensured that within a week of his arrival he had monopolized the attention of every servant in the annex.
Of course, the interest was entirely one-sided.
The male servants and maids who worked alongside him kept trying to strike up conversations and grow closer to Mathias, but he remained merciless. He ignored them outright, refusing to grant them even a single grain of acknowledgment.
It was a rare spectacle: the many being ostracized by the one. And those receiving such contemptuous treatment were the children who were practically natives of this estate, all of it coming from an outsider boy.
“It’s because he was raised without any proper learning. I heard the young lady picked him up from the slums. What would he know about basic human etiquette?”
“Still, ignoring people to their faces? That’s too much.”
“Just look at how he wags his tail like he has a hundred of them whenever the young lady is around. The boy isn’t ignorant—he’s cunning. There’s nothing to gain by attaching himself to us, so of course he acts like that.”
“……Is there really anything to gain by attaching himself to the young lady? Ever since the young master was placed under house arrest and locked away, not a single visitor has come here. He’s like a shoe whose laces have snapped.”
Did they not realize the annex building was so old that it had no soundproofing at all? Or did they simply not care whether anyone heard them? Unfortunately, every servant assigned to this place was young—peers of Mathias—so there was no suitable example to set before them.
Their gossip had been going on for more than a day or two, so it was nothing new.
“House arrest……”
Odeliana decided it was useful to occasionally overhear such unexpected information.
So that’s why there has been no contact until now.
Blair had not visited this place even once since arriving at the ducal residence. When she had asked Head Maid Mcdalin about him, the only answer she received was that he was very busy. This annex was completely cut off from the outside world, making it difficult to learn what was happening beyond its walls.
Moreover, the servants who worked in the main building were far more solemn and cautious than the children here. They never spoke recklessly about their masters’ affairs and kept silent unless absolutely necessary, so there was almost no chance of information leaking.
Nor were the children here particularly friendly or obedient. Whenever she asked about the situation outside, they simply evaded her with a curt “I don’t know,” leaving her no choice but to rely on the scraps she managed to overhear.
Her only confidant, Mathias, was versatile but hardly suited for the role of spy.
It had been the same in her previous life. He simply did not know how to mingle with others. Despite not being of noble birth, his exceptional appearance and innate noble elegance often won people’s favor at first—yet what came afterward was the problem.
He had no skill at carrying a conversation. His habit of giving short, terse answers and speaking no more than necessary made it impossible for dialogue to flow smoothly, especially when he had no interest in the other person.
And as the servants’ complaints just now proved, that tendency was still very much alive.
Blair had been placed under house arrest on the very day he arrived at the capital, yet Odeliana had only learned of it now, more than a week later.
So this is how isolation makes a person stupid……
Adela’s warning that Blair would be unable to help her here suddenly felt painfully true. Blair was currently locked away, and without him she was no different from a blind and deaf person whose limbs had been severed.
She had to do something. But what could she learn without Blair’s help? The future suddenly looked pitch black.
The maids here regularly reported her daily routine to the Duke. After discovering that fact, Odeliana could no longer trust them. Yet she was not free to move about as she wished, so slipping past their surveillance to come and go in secret was impossible.
She was already like a sighted woman whose arms and legs had been cut away.
Feeling the weight of the crisis, Odeliana reached a clear conclusion: she needed more people to serve as her eyes and ears.
She hurriedly began writing a letter to Blair. Inquiring after his well-being and asking him to hire new servants from outside filled three full pages by the time she finished.
Odeliana sealed the letter and hid it beneath her pillow. At that moment the door opened and Mathias stepped inside.
“I have returned, Master.”
“Yes. Was your outing pleasant?”
“There were many tasks you assigned me, so I was quite busy.”
Mathias had been pulled into kitchen assistance but ended up being tasked with purchasing ingredients. He had therefore obtained an outing pass and gone to the market. Since such opportunities were rare, Odeliana had given him every pending matter to handle at once.
“I disposed of all the precious metals you entrusted to me and purchased a small abandoned warehouse. This is the remaining money.”
Odeliana accepted the heavy pouch and smiled with satisfaction.
“Well done. And the apothecary?”
Mathias pulled a crumpled sheet of paper from his pocket and held it out.
“It is the component analysis report. I also located the place where the servants obtain the medicine and acquired the transaction ledger from that same apothecary.”
Odeliana began examining the medicine’s component analysis and the transaction records.
The medicine she had commissioned was the one served with every meal. It had seemed far too suspicious to consume something whose type and ingredients were unknown, so she had deliberately avoided taking it and saved the doses instead. She had planned to have it appraised at some point, and Mathias’s outing had provided the perfect opportunity.
“……Contraceptives?”
The list began with the absurd contraceptives and continued with heart medication, sleeping pills, treatments for mania, and more. Among them, the ones that seized her attention were, without question, the contraceptives and the heart medicine.
The contraceptives were obvious. They were likely prepared in case anything happened with the two male servants here. She suspected it had something to do with keeping Mathias close recently.
Heart medicine…… Why on earth was this prescribed? So this body wasn’t only afflicted in the legs?
Right after her regression, her physical condition had been so terrible that she had already guessed there might be other chronic illnesses besides her leg disability. She had been unable to walk properly on her own, and her muscles had been practically nonexistent.
But heart disease? It explained why even crawling across the floor for a single minute left her drenched in sweat and dizzy. She had wondered how a mere disability could render a body so irredeemably weak, but if they had avoided exercise out of fear it would strain her heart, it made sense.
Yet the doctor Blair had summoned last time had diagnosed that there were no abnormalities besides memory impairment. Did that mean the physician was a quack?
Her mind fell into complete chaos. Accepting the life of a cripple had already taken time; if she also suffered from heart disease, the despair might be too much to bear. It meant this body was like a bomb that could explode and kill her at any moment, in any way.
Even if I can improve the leg disability somewhat through my own efforts, heart disease is……
Was there any point in struggling so desperately to survive? She would die soon no matter what she did.
Odeliana gazed at Mathias with hollow eyes.
If I die, what will become of this child I dragged onto a path of thorns out of my own greed?
The boy before her—the one she was responsible for—weighed heavily on her heart.
Heart disease was incurable. Because it could not be completely cured, it was essentially a death sentence. One never knew when it would strike, and patients generally died young. Everyone eventually reached the end of their life, but for those with heart disease, that end came far too soon.
She had already died once before, yet the weight of a sudden death and a death that slowly faded away felt entirely different.
“……Ah.”
Odeliana staggered and collapsed. As the soft bed shook, Mathias’s hand immediately covered her eyes.
“Why are you crying, Master?”
Only then did she realize tears had formed. Mathias kept gently wiping the moisture from her eyes, watching her with clear worry.
Odeliana pulled him into a tight embrace. Like a child desperately clinging to their mother, she held onto him with all her strength. Even amid the chaos, the only person she could rely on quietly opened his arms to her.
“In any case…… I need to find a doctor and receive another diagnosis. What if I really am suffering from a terminal illness……?”
It was the moment Mathias was trying to comfort her.
With heavy, thumping footsteps, the door burst open.
“……You filthy—”
A low voice thick with contempt struck her ears.
At the same time, a hulking man standing in the doorway with a viciously hardened expression and Blair, frozen stiff with panic, entered her vision.
……Hermann von Grusewald.
The uninvited guest who had stormed into the quiet annex—where even outsiders rarely set foot—was none other than the eldest son of this family, Odeliana’s older brother.