Chapter 346
Chapter 346
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Translator: Ebonarch
Chapter: 346
Chapter Title: Pride and Prejudice (5)
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1.
"Are you feeling really unwell?"
"No, Mom. I'm really fine. I'll just lie down and rest a bit more...."
"Can Mom really head out to work? Should I stay home with my daughter today?"
"No, I want to be alone...."
"Sigh, alright.... I'll pick up something delicious for dinner, so perk up. I love you, my daughter."
"Yes, I love you too."
-Click
As soon as Countess Yesode left for work and the door shut, Diana buried her face back between the pillows.
It had already been two full days of groaning in torment and anguish.
Because she had witnessed an utterly absurd scene right before her eyes—one that had brutally shattered a belief she had held sacred until now.
"It can't be... How could they do such a thing...."
Recalling the twins' heinous act of French kissing, Diana bit her lip amid the mental shock and overwhelming confusion.
Their lips had clearly touched.
A man and an apprentice witch had kissed.
Yet the twins' vessels remained perfectly intact.
"Ugh... Blech...."
Reliving that moment, Diana felt a wave of nausea.
Unclean.
Repulsive.
An indescribable revulsion churned in her chest, like watching a lion devour a gazelle.
"But I can't just let this slide...."
Diana pulled herself upright.
She combed through her thoroughly tangled hair and dressed properly.
It had already been a solid two days since she had secluded herself.
Something was wrong with this world.
Diana could feel it.
That left two choices.
Settle into the happy falsehood she already knew.
Or confront the truth, no matter how horrific or cruel.
Diana was House Yesode's apprentice witch.
She took pride in that.
Blindly looking the other way was the path of mere mortals.
A witch who delved into the demonic arts and blazed unknown trails had to choose differently from common folk.
The rift between ideals and reality.
To probe that distortion, Diana strode boldly outside.
2.
Her first investigation targets were the live-in servants of the household.
As a side note, House Yesode employed no male servants.
Which made it far easier for Diana to broach such an embarrassing subject.
"Good afternoon."
The two maids carrying laundry and chattering down the mansion hallway bowed their heads in a hurry the moment they spotted Diana.
"Di, Diana, miss."
"Hello. We were just, uh, heading back to work...."
It was rarer than one might imagine for ordinary servants to cross paths with Diana.
For starters, she rarely stepped beyond her own room's threshold into the rest of the mansion, spending most of her time in the pool directly attached to it.
And since she'd spent nearly all her childhood alongside Countess Yesode, casual run-ins for chit-chat were even less likely.
So the maids stood frozen stiff at Diana's sudden approach.
"I have one thing I'd like to ask."
"Yes!"
"Ask away!"
To the maids standing ramrod straight like green recruits, Diana posed the question that had been nagging at her.
"Please don't take this the wrong way. And promise not to breathe a word to anyone. It's purely academic curiosity."
An apprentice witch steeped in elite education asking maids about her "academic curiosity"...
It sounded downright bizarre, but the maids nodded anyway.
"Yes!"
"We won't spill a secret."
Diana hesitated for a moment.
Truth be told, she knew this wasn't a normal question.
It was downright embarrassing and mortifying.
"Ahem. Do you know how babies are made?"
"......"
"......"
The instant Diana's question landed, the maids' faces went rigid.
They exchanged glances and broke out in cold sweats.
"Ah, we... we have to get back to work right now..."
"Sorry, we'll be going..."
"Ah..."
And with that, they bolted at top speed.
As if she'd asked about forbidden magic, Diana's eyes went wide.
She had agonized before asking.
Was it really that taboo?
Granted, it might be unseemly coming from the countess's daughter.
But their plague-like terror made it seem more than mere distaste.
Their reaction was unmistakably fear.
"......"
And that only fueled Diana's curiosity further.
Humans always crave the forbidden more.
Shaking off her laziness and steeling her resolve, Diana pressed on with her inquiry.
But the laundry maids at the washroom.
The cooks prepping dinner in the kitchen.
The servants arranging flowers to decorate the mansion.
All showed the exact same response.
As if they'd overheard something forbidden.
Faces draining white under an unspoken gag order, they scrambled to flee.
By then, Diana was certain.
This wasn't just because her question was odd.
"Mom...?"
A gut feeling flashed that the countess herself was involved.
She didn't know why.
But judging by the servant who ditched her flower arrangement mid-task to run, others would react the same.
"Then it's the library."
Books held knowledge passed down through the ages, after all.
Diana marched determinedly toward the mansion's archive.
3.
House Yesode's archive dwarfed the average bookstore.
Every single volume crammed onto its three floors of shelves was an academic tome on magic.
Without a magical indexing system like in the private collection, finding what Diana wanted was like hunting a needle in a sand dune.
But she already had her lead.
'And who said a little lip-lock damages the vessel?'
'Then it's sex. Sex.'
The twins' very words.
Diana's long-held "truth"—that lips touching, i.e., kissing, could produce a baby.
The twins' rebuttal naturally wove in the "real truth."
So the keyword was set.
"Sex... sex... sex.... Sex...."
Climbing the ladder, Diana scoured the top shelves for any book titled with "sex."
She usually just grabbed whatever caught her eye from below.
Seeing the full collection now left her in awe.
Works on barrier theory penned by past Yesodes, compilations of unpublished paper reviews.
Even rare bound volumes translating ancient texts in lost scripts.
But no matter how she searched, nothing on male-female relations.
"This is weird...."
Suspicious, indeed.
Of course, men couldn't bear stigmas.
They couldn't even hold mana innately.
No womb made it a given.
Yet they weren't entirely divorced from magic.
As half the world's population, research on them was only logical.
Otherwise, witches wouldn't use men as test subjects.
But not a single volume here touched men and magic.
Only strictly vetted books had made the cut... that was the rational conclusion.
By whom?
Who else? Diana's beloved mother and mentor, Countess Yesode.
"Why, Mom...?"
Diana furrowed her brow.
Even so, sharp-minded Diana had already mapped her next move.
If meticulous Mom had led the censorship and info lockdown, Diana wouldn't find what she wanted here.
But there was another way.
Mom was out on business in the capital.
Mom's chambers had their own private archive.
No way she'd tossed or sold everything.
A search there would turn up something.
Diana climbed down and headed for her mother's study.
4.
If the central archive matched a municipal library, Countess Lucy's private one was downright cozy.
Think small neighborhood bookstore.
Constant maintenance spells kept optimal humidity and temperature, so even centuries-old books stayed crisp as fresh print, ink unmarred.
The sunlight creeping pleasantly through the window frames mingled with the scent of paper, soothing the soul unbidden.
'ㄷ'-shaped shelves ringed a central table.
Papers scribbled with magic formula calculations littered the desk.
Truth be told, Diana visited this archive often.
Countess Yesode would never turn away her visits.
But sneaking in like this was a first, so her heart raced needlessly.
"Phew...."
Yet after thirty minutes rifling the shelves.
Diana deflated quickly.
Nothing here either.
The only difference from the central archive? Far more advanced, esoteric magic texts.
"Did I get it wrong...?"
What if there really weren't many books on men?
What if she'd misjudged Mom entirely?
Guilt nipped at her.
Diana let out a small sigh and started shelving the books she'd pulled.
-Clack!
It was a mistake.
She'd only slotted the thick book back and meant to leave.
But she brushed a small statue perched on one side of the shelf.
A silver crescent工art piece symbolizing Yesode.
It let out a sound like a clockwork mechanism winding.
"...?"
Diana set the book down and peered at the statue at eye level.
Were these decorations usually loose on the shelves?
"This is..."
Something clicked all at once.
Diana twisted the crescent this way and that.
Gears meshed with metallic clicks as the shelf began sliding backward.
Not mere decoration—a hidden mechanism.
Once fully retracted, the wall's void yawned open like a doorway.
The shelf had doubled as a door.
"A secret room...."
Diana held her breath until it fully opened, then stepped inside cautiously.
For a secret chamber, it looked utterly mundane.
Same shelf layout, same table setup as Mom's study.
But the books were different.
The secret archive's volumes screamed "novels" from their titles alone.
Diana hurried over and began scanning them carefully.
"Bored Witch's Dangerous Prank.... Debt-Ridden Witch's Repayment Life.... How the Butterfly Flower Falls.... Malkuth Gallery's Tailor.... Sweeter Than Cocoa...."
Just the titles oozed a sticky, unsettling vibe.
Like stumbling into a pit writhing with snakes?
Chills spiderwebbed down her spine unbidden.
What kind of titles were these?
"What is all this...?"
Every last one was like that.
Colorful bookmarks tucked into each suggested more than storage.
Novels were trivial tales, unfit for refined tastes—that was consensus among witches.
Orthodox witches, who prized magic above all, even relegated Shakespeare to lowbrow fare.
Countess Yesode ranked among the ultra-conservative orthodox, tradition incarnate, the epitome of nobility.
Shocking that she indulged such a clandestine hobby.
But Diana felt no real disappointment.
She herself dreamed of goofing off endlessly once she became a full witch.
Everyone hid some secret side.
Best not pry further into Mom's privacy.
Diana turned to slip out quietly.
Then something snagged her eye.
A crimson leather cover on the table.
Title in ornate script:
'Devilish Deliveryman Volume 3'.
Diana stretched her arm toward the book.
"This is..."
Because the handwriting adorning the cover was unmistakably her mother's.
Diana couldn't conquer her curiosity and opened the book.
From the first page to the last.
Every line in Countess Lucy Yesode's handwriting.