Chapter 117
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 117
“You were no bigger than a grain of millet the last time I saw you. You’ve grown quite a bit.”
A grain of millet…
In The Milk Bread, Tulia was described as a fairly tall beauty.
Then again, most villainesses were. Slender, with sharp, upturned eyes.
However, to the Marquis, who looked to be well over 190 centimeters tall, someone like Tulia probably did look like a tiny grain of millet.
The Marquis’s cold eyes swept over me as he asked, “Why are you in such a state, looking like a beggar?”
Well, it’s because I just fell. Because Nigella threw me aside so he could pick up his own daughter.
…But I couldn’t bring myself to give such a bold answer.
It was a strange feeling. How should I put it? I felt like a dam on the verge of overflowing. I didn’t quite understand why my nose was stinging.
Nor did I understand why I couldn’t say a word and could only stare blankly at Marquis Aster.
Is the system window controlling me right now, or is it my stats?
Or was the real Tulia actually influencing me?
I couldn’t tell.
Just then.
“A-Aster, brother?!”
Someone came rushing through the crowd in a frantic hurry.
It was Nigella.
Wow. I didn’t know that man was capable of running with such a look of pure shock on his face.
Excluding my grandfather, the Grand Duke, Nigella was effectively the highest-ranking person in the Frezier Grand Duchy. That was why Lilius always sucked up to him, and the other nobles were no different.
Nigella Frezier—a man who always walked with a dignified air, hands tucked behind his back, his voice low and authoritative. A man who walked slowly as if he had nothing in the world to fear.
I had never even dreamed of seeing Nigella, who never hesitated to treat the twins and me like lowly servants, scurrying over in such a desperate panic.
“B-Brother, what brings you all the way here?”
He gasped for breath, his face flushed from the sprint.
“No, more importantly, when on earth did you arrive?!”
But Marquis Aster Frezier only replied in a chilling voice.
“Do I need to report my every move to you?”
“N-No, it’s not that, but…!”
…What? He’s actually terrified.
It seemed I wasn’t the only one seeing this side of Nigella for the first time. The surrounding nobles looked just as bewildered.
Wait, maybe not.
About half of the noblewomen were staring at Marquis Aster Frezier, looking completely entranced.
He definitely has the kind of looks that would capture a lady’s heart…
The Marquis was an incredibly handsome man, and perhaps because he had spent nearly ten years on the border where barbarians swarmed, he carried a shadow of raw, wild masculinity. He was like an untamed predator.
Marquis Aster shifted his gaze away from Nigella, who couldn’t even meet his eyes properly.
Then.
“Miss Bellon.”
“...!”
In an instant, several people gasped.
One of them was Belladonna Merton.
It was only natural. Because…
Did he just call Belladonna ‘Miss Bellon’?
Good heavens.
In the aristocratic society of the Brillant Empire, calling someone by the wrong name on purpose was a common insult.
“Marquis Aster Frezier. My name is ‘Belladonna Merton,’” Belladonna Merton said, forcing a smile. “And recently, Her Majesty the Empress appointed me as the ‘Countess Orquichin.’”
However, the Marquis’s indifferent gaze didn’t waver in the slightest. He didn’t apologize for a mistake, nor did he act as if he had intended to humiliate her. He simply spoke without even blinking.
“Miss Belladonna.”
“...!”
In an instant, Belladonna’s face froze mid-smile.
I had wondered where Tulia’s iron-willed personality came from; it was clearly in the genes.
While several noblewomen stood there with their mouths agape.
“Why is this diamond… No.”
Marquis Aster’s brow furrowed slightly as he turned his gaze back to Nigella.
He held up the green diamond—the precious gem that Belladonna Merton had been stepping on just moments ago—and continued.
“Nigella Frezier.”
Suddenly, Nigella Frezier’s eyes began to shake violently.
“Why is the diamond I sent to my daughter…”
What?
“…in your mistress’s possession?”
“...!”
*
“It won’t hurt anymore, Lady Sandra.”
The Grand Ducal Chief Physician, whom Nigella had hurriedly summoned for his injured daughter, wrapped her ankle in bandages with expert skill.
Sandra glanced at the physician’s medical box as she slipped her shoe back on.
The box that had caught her eye earlier was filled with all sorts of rare medicinal herbs. Her mother, Belladonna Merton, cared more about maintaining her youth and beauty than anything else and spent an enormous amount of money on skincare.
Thanks to that, Sandra also possessed a much deeper knowledge of expensive medicinal herbs than other ladies her age. To think that the physicians of the Grand Duke’s Main Castle easily possessed the kind of expensive herbs her mother would have scoured the world for.
That means whenever Tulia gets hurt, she’s always treated with such expensive medicines?
She felt a fresh surge of jealousy.
“Lady Sandra, is your ankle alright?”
“I’m fine. Thank you.”
Thanks to her father Nigella’s influence, Sandra already had several followers. Most were young ladies of lower rank, but it didn’t matter. She could just ignore them later once her position was more secure.
The girls smiled brightly, catering to Sandra’s every whim.
“I’m so glad Lady Sandra’s dress wasn’t ruined.”
“That’s right. I heard earlier that Lady Tulia ruined Countess Orquichin’s dress!”
“What?” Sandra cried out in shock. “Good heavens, do you have any idea how much the dress Mother wore today cost?!”
She stood up indignantly. Her injury hadn’t been as serious as Tulia’s to begin with, and the pain had long since faded.
That ill-tempered girl is always out to get Mother!
Even though she had the nerve to show up at the hall alone without a mother or father!
Today, Sandra had intentionally worn the most expensive dress she owned. It was the costliest among the gifts her father had given her, and the jewels sewn onto it were large and of the highest quality.
The same went for the dress her mother was wearing.
How thrilling it had been to receive the envious stares of other noblewomen and ladies. Her mother must have felt the same, but it seemed that Tulia brat couldn’t stand it and had taken her spite out on her mother.
“I must go to my mother at once. Will you help me up?”
“Oh, of course!”
The ladies surrounding Sandra scrambled to be the one to support her.
She headed toward the Grand Banquet Hall triumphantly, yet burning with a sense of battle. Her neck tingled at the thought of confronting Tulia immediately and demanding an explanation for ruining her mother’s dress.
But the moment she arrived at the Grand Banquet Hall, what she saw was…
The music had stopped.
The nobles were as silent as if they had been doused with cold water.
The faces of her mother and father had turned as pale as wax.
And…
“And why is your stepdaughter wearing that dress, Nigella Frezier?”
It was the ice-cold gaze of a monstrous man she had never seen before in her life.
*
“B-Brother. That is…”
“The dress your mistress is wearing. The dress your stepdaughter is wearing. And this green diamond.”
“...B-Brother. There’s been a slight misunderstanding…”
“Wait.”
Marquis Aster Frezier furrowed his brows. He seemed to be measuring something as he looked at the jewels dangling from Sandra’s dress, then asked, “Those jewels look familiar as well.”
“...!”
“Weren’t those also things I sent to my daughter?”
“That is correct, Marquis.”
A beat late, I realized there was a man standing next to Marquis Aster.
It’s Max, the aide.
The chief aide to Marquis Aster Frezier. He was an extra among extras who only had a line or two in The Milk Bread.
The fact that I could even remember the name of such an extra made me wonder just how much I had played The Milk Bread…
Anyway.
“Every single one of them is something you sent to Lady Tulia last year, Marquis.”
…All of that was Tulia’s?
It was mine?
It felt like I had been struck by words. The same was clearly true for everyone else in the room—Sandra, the noblewomen, the ladies, and even several of the male nobles.
Sandra stumbled backward, her face drained of color.
“I find this situation impossible to understand, Nigella Frezier.”
“That…”
Nigella couldn’t bring himself to speak, as if someone had jammed a stone down his throat.
And even in my dazed state, as if I’d been slapped a few times, I realized it instinctively.
“Uncle Nigella.”
I realized, in other words…
“By any chance, the child support funds my father has been sending all this time…”
I realized exactly where my upkeep money had gone.
“Did you embezzle all of it, Uncle?”
“...!”
Murmurs rippled through the crowd like a wave. Nigella’s face turned beet red as he shouted, “W-What are you talking about, Tulia! It was Lilius who was misappropriating your budget!”
“Marquis Aster Frezier.”
When I called his name, my eyes met the Marquis’s immediately. It was fascinating how our eye colors were almost identical.
But it’s strange.
Why do I feel even worse than when I first met Grandfather?
Is the Marquis, my father, scarier than Grandfather?
Or is it because that was a pleasant meal, and this is a banquet where I’m hurt and in pain?
My nose kept stinging, but…
“Does that mean you have been regularly sending me dresses and jewels all this time, Marquis?”
I had to say the words that would send Nigella and the rest of them straight to hell.
“Because I haven’t received a single penny from you in nearly ten years, and I almost starved to death several times.”