Chapter 482
Chapter 482
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Translator: Ebonarch
Chapter: 482
Chapter Title: Housewarming (8)
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1.
The new year dawned.
Lucy Yesod paced restlessly in front of Diana's bedroom door, her face etched with worry.
"Diana."
"……."
Diana's condition had been off ever since the Harvest Festival.
Her naturally lazy daughter, the adorable girl who rarely emerged from her room unless Lucy practically begged her to.
She'd seemed a bit more lively lately after Shin Si-woo started tutoring her as a home instructor, but the moment his visits tapered off, she burrowed right back into her shell.
Pressing her ear to the door, Lucy sometimes heard what sounded like muffled sobs, along with eerie, unintelligible curses whispered in a chilling tone.
At first, she thought it might be Shin Si-woo's absence causing it and tried arranging a meeting, only to be met with sharp rejection.
Lucy fretted over her daughter, who was hitting a late puberty phase.
In Gehenna, she was a renowned great witch, and in the modern world, an unparalleled businesswoman as the Yesod Countess. But in front of her daughter, she was nothing more than a clumsy, doting parent.
"Are you planning to stay cooped up in your room again today? You've always joined the charity event."
"……."
Like the Jemernai Count family, the Yesod Count household visited Border Town each new year for charitable activities.
Diana, who was lazy about everything else, had always gone along with her mother because of the noble cause.
But this year, for some inexplicable reason, she stayed shut in her room. The countess had come for one last attempt at persuasion.
Facing the long silence, the countess let out a small sigh.
"All right, if you want to rest, then rest. Mom will be back soon. I just hope my girl pulls herself together quickly."
As the countess turned to leave.
With a soft click, the door creaked open quietly.
Beyond it stood Diana, her expression deeply melancholic, her hair a tangled mess.
"Diana…."
"Mom, I have something to tell you."
2.
About fifteen minutes later.
The Yesod Countess cradled her flushed face in both hands.
It turned out her daughter Diana knew not only about her shameful relationship with Si-woo, but also about her secret hobby of writing.
No matter how much she loved her daughter—no, precisely because she loved her so much—having such skeletons dragged into the light brought an unbearable wave of embarrassment.
The fact that her efforts to shield Diana from sexual knowledge had failed seemed trivial compared to this face-burning humiliation.
"……."
As the Yesod Countess hung her head, unable to speak.
Diana hesitantly rose and wrapped her mother in a warm embrace.
She had agonized over whether voicing her concerns might crush her mother's pride.
Even between parent and child, some things were just too hard to say.
But she couldn't hold back any longer.
Her mother was trying to act fine and cheerful despite the deep wound Shin Si-woo had inflicted, while worrying over Diana holing up in her room in gloom.
If ignorance was bliss, fine—but she couldn't bear watching her already burdened mother suffer even more because of her.
So, she decided to lay out the honest truth, even if it shocked her mother, and offer comfort.
"Mom hasn't done anything wrong at all. The only bad one is that horny witch bastard Shin Si-woo."
"……."
"I'm sorry for ignoring you and pretending not to know all this time. It must have been so hard on you."
"……."
"I love you no matter who you are, Mom."
In the end, Diana hugged Lucy tightly, her ruby-topaz eyes brimming with tears.
She mistook her mother's bowed head and silence for long-suppressed sadness welling up, or perhaps deep emotion.
Of course, there was emotion.
But the Yesod Countess was simply overwhelmed by a far more mortifying embarrassment.
Moreover, Diana had several facts wrong.
"My dear girl… Thank you."
"It's nothing; of course I should."
"But… there are a few things that aren't quite accurate."
"W-what?"
Diana tilted her head in confusion.
She had imagined a touching scene where the caring daughter comforted her mother, who couldn't open up about her pain.
But when she looked up, her mother's face held traces of gratitude, overshadowed by an even deeper blush of shame.
"First off… my relationship with Si-woo… we're continuing it…."
"What?! No! Huh? Mom, don't you have any pride?"
It was the kind of statement that could make someone faint dead away.
And it infuriated her toward her mother all the more.
Shin Si-woo had rejected the Harvest Festival date course Diana had painstakingly prepared.
With some ridiculous excuse about already having a lover, no less.
There was no way that worthless man had proposed resuming things, so her mother must have clung to him.
"No…! You know what kind of trash he is! And you're saying you'll keep meeting him?"
"Diana… I knew from the start he had a lover. He never hid it."
"Eek…!"
An affair from the beginning?
This was something Diana hadn't even imagined.
No matter that her mother wrote sensual novels, she couldn't fathom her actually pursuing a man who had a lover—like something out of one of those stories.
"I didn't know one of those lovers was Duke Tiphereth, though…."
One of his lovers was Duke Tiphereth, no less.
Diana was at a loss for how to react to this confession beyond her wildest imaginings. She could only gape with complex emotions flickering in her eyes.
"Still, being able to keep seeing him—isn't that great?"
The most absurd part was the faint glow of joy on her mother's face amid all this.
It was so ridiculous that Diana furrowed her brow.
She knew her mother was soft on her, but she hadn't realized she was this naive about romance.
A pathetic wife bewitched by a freeloading husband, even handing over the house deeds.
As she pondered whom to vent her anger on or whether to scold her mother right here.
A statement swept away all of Diana's dilemmas.
"Si-woo might even present a new method for stigma inheritance. So you and I can live together forever."
"Huh…?"
It was a ray of light piercing the long-unresolved worry Diana had harbored deep in her heart.
3.
The charity event kicked off at dawn on New Year's Day.
Wagons from various witch families lined up in the plaza paved with white stone, loaded with warm clothes and blankets for the citizens, baskets of preserved foods to fill winter tables, and toys for children.
Children queued for dolls, matrons in headscarves and aprons bustled about, and sturdy men hauled firewood home—all laughing with vibrant energy.
They sipped hot tea poured from giant teapots while chatting, and in one corner of the plaza, a temporary stage hosted bands playing instruments.
It was a rare occasion of pure goodwill.
Si-woo had joined the charity event.
Having just finished hauling cargo diligently, he slipped away to a quiet spot for a smoke.
Amelia had stepped out briefly to extract fragrances, the Jemernai Countesses were going door-to-door delivering food baskets to the elderly and infirm, and the twins were warming up their voices inside a wagon for the upcoming performance rehearsal.
Lately, he was always with someone, so this solitary moment felt novel.
Leaning against an alley wall, he savored his cigarette leisurely while peeking at the lively bustle.
Unlike Border Town, rife with slaves and smugglers, Tarot Town's citizens enjoyed a decent standard of living.
No one starved to death, no beggars slumped on streets, no one died from illness.
As long as witches existed, fear of great or petty crime was absent.
Back in his slave days, Si-woo had looked on those citizens with pity.
He felt a kinship in their fate: stripped of freedom to serve witches, confined to Gehenna for centuries across generations.
But seeing their carefree faces, he realized his concerns were unfounded.
They savored their modest happiness in their own places.
Though far behind the modern world in technology, lacking its conveniences…
At least their expressions seemed brighter than those of the hurried masses in bustling cities—a fact hard to deny.
Then, a voice suddenly piped up beside him.
"Excuse me."
It was probably for the charity event.
Neat yet practical attire for movement.
A apprentice witch in a cape draping her shoulders and boots caught his eye: faint silver hair, beautiful crimson eyes—Diana Yesod, with whom he shared a tangled history.
"Ack!"
He hadn't seen her since her explosive outburst the day before the Harvest Festival.
That day's frenzy was still seared into his memory.
But contrary to his expectation of sharp rebuke and shrill yells.
Diana fidgeted, tapping her boot toe against the frozen ground.
"L-long time no see."
"Y-yeah…?"
"Are you feeling okay? That… recent injury…."
"Oh, yeah. All better now."
Amid the awkward exchange of greetings.
Diana suddenly bowed her head deeply.
A swift shift and apology, just like her abrupt anger before.
"I'm sorry for jumping to conclusions and acting out…!"
Until now, Diana had cursed Si-woo as little better than a beast for his deeds.
So when she heard he'd been caught in the Tarot Town uproar, she felt no sympathy.
No matter that he'd saved her from danger—his playing with her mother and discarding her was unforgivable.
But her conversation with her mother that morning revealed the truth and her misunderstandings.
Their relationship had been casual from the start.
Her mother had been the one to proposition Si-woo, who already had lovers.
Diana's belated realization that she'd pinned excessive expectations on him while fixated on her delayed inheritance.
And finally, that he might hold the key to solving her long-standing worry, method unknown.
Her rampage must have been thunderous for him.
Even Diana couldn't stubbornly refuse to bow her head.
If it twisted his goodwill, any new method could vanish.
"I… I learned the whole truth."
"Ah…."
"About your relationship with Mom and the inheritance, too."
"Uh…."
Those words jogged Si-woo's memory.
The vanished mana copying.
The Yesod Countess had researched non-lethal inheritance using the stigma-copying effect during internal ejaculation with him.
But yesterday's sex with Amelia produced nothing.
He'd been planning to discuss it with the countess anyway.
"By any chance, do you know where your mother is right now?"
"Huh?"
"It's important… Could I have a quick word with the countess?"
Si-woo accepted Diana's apology and asked her to guide him to the Yesod Countess.