Chapter 120
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 120
“…….”
In an instant, the conversations I’d had with Lisian in the library flashed through my mind.
“Lisian.”
“Ye-yes?”
“Why didn’t you ever reply to my letters?”
“I—I did reply. I sent them.”
“……What?”
“Se-seventeen. I sent seventeen letters.”
“……I didn’t receive a single one.”
“Huh?”
“What?”
Good heavens.
Even those letters had been intercepted. That’s why I never got them. At the time, I just assumed they’d been lost because I was moving between residences.
‘Lisian must have seen this too. It looks like everything was recorded in the depositions here.’
“You can see the figures listed there, Tulia.”
At the sound of Marquis Aster’s voice, I shifted my gaze.
“Yes. I see them.”
“That is the wealth Nigella has agreed to repay you in full within three years. Though, it would be more accurate to say it is property being returned to you, as it was yours to begin with.”
‘All of this?’
My eyes trembled involuntarily. I felt like rubbing them just to make sure I wasn't hallucinating.
“Sign the last page.”
“A signature?”
“It’s a promissory note.”
“……!”
“Here is a pen.”
I took the pen from Max, Marquis Aster’s aide, and swallowed hard. With a hand that shook slightly, I signed my name.
‘Wow.’
Me, Tulia Frezier.
Only a few months ago, I was the foolish villainess who had been swindled by her younger uncle, Lilius, and was weighed down by a mountain of debt.
And now, I had become a wealthy villainess, signing a document to reclaim the fortune my older uncle, Nigella, had bled from me for nearly ten years.
And simultaneously:
[System] Wealth 1 Achieved!
[System] Wealth 2 Achieved!
[System] Wealth 3 Achieved!
.
.
.
[System] Wealth 5 Achieved!
“Gasp.”
Without realizing it, I clutched my chest and let out a sharp, ragged breath. From across the table, I heard the sound of chairs screeching back.
“Tulia?”
“Hey! Are you okay?! Why can’t you breathe all of a sudden?!”
It was the sound of the twins jumping up in surprise. The chief physician, who was always on standby nearby, rushed over, but I raised a hand to signal I was fine.
“No. No, I’m okay.”
It was just the numbers that had shocked me.
Achieving Wealth 5 all at once? Seriously? My Wealth stat, which had been scraping the bottom no matter what I did, was now at 5?!
‘Just you wait, Ramus Jeremiah.’
The day I become the greatest nouveau riche in this empire has just been moved up significantly. Within six months, I’ll turn you into the greatest information broker of this era!
Part of me wanted to keep panting and trace those shimmering, beautiful numbers forever, but Grandfather and Marquis Aster were also in the room. I managed to calm myself and composed my breathing like an elegant noblewoman.
“Tulia.”
They say that giving a bitter tea to a child who is jumping around wildly will settle them down instantly. A voice that sounded exactly like that bitter tea reached my ears, and I calmed down immediately.
“Yes, Lord Marquis. Please, go ahead.”
Marquis Aster Frezier was looking at me. He stared with the sharp eyes characteristic of a knight who had spent a long time on the battlefield.
“You were robbed to this extent… how on earth did you survive all this time?”
Tulia is a fairy, so she lives on dew…
If only Leon and Lisian were here, I might have made a light joke despite the heavy atmosphere.
“The dresses they wore, the jewelry—even a single ribbon—were all things I sent to you.”
“…….”
“I heard that you, meanwhile, were living in a warehouse and only recently managed to leave it. You couldn't even claim what was sent for your sake.”
“Yes.”
“Why did you not send someone to the border to ask me why I had sent nothing?”
Listening to Marquis Aster Frezier’s voice, I felt an instinctive premonition.
The first thing I did when I transmigrated into Tulia was beg Grandfather to save my life. In the process, I took down Lilius’s family, who had been abusing me. Back then, I gritted my teeth and even staged a performance where I got hit by an arrow to defeat them.
Nigella’s family was no different. They had been living off me like parasites, eating away at me without my knowledge.
Now, all I had to do was answer Marquis Aster Frezier’s question properly. Without even thinking too hard, I could just say that as a fifteen-year-old lady, there wasn't much I could do. And how could I, who was called the "abandoned lady," find the courage to send someone to the Marquis?
Honestly, all I had to do was speak the truth. It wasn't a lie, and besides…
The ‘real’ Tulia had felt that way too.
So. Really, truly.
This was supposed to be the end of the "cleaning up the relatives who attacked me" arc that I had to navigate as Tulia. In short, the housecleaning was over. Now, according to the quest, I just had to make money on the outside and worry about the male leads.
It was a truly monumental day, marking the complete closure of a chapter. So, if I just endured a little more, if I just held back…
‘……Wait?’
What was I supposed to be holding back?
Just as I faltered, unable to understand my own thoughts—
“How can you be so confident toward me, Lord Marquis?”
‘……What?’
“If you were so worried, you should have sent someone to me first.”
‘Hey. What is this? Tulia, why are you doing this again?!’
I should be taking Marquis Aster Frezier’s side right now! I should be thanking him for handling the trial so well and moving on, so why suddenly—!
“Grandfather, Father.”
Even as the words left my mouth, my eyes grew wider.
“Brother Lisian, and you too, Leon.”
“…….”
“None of you had the slightest interest in whether I was living well or if I was sick.”
‘No, why am I suddenly drawing aggro from everyone?!’
“You say I should have sent someone? What could I have possibly done while living in a warehouse, barely managing to get a scrap of bread by flattering Uncle Lilius?”
Hey! Stop! Stop it!
The moment I tried to bite my tongue to stop myself, my mouth froze just before my teeth met.
‘……Huh?’
That was an absurd experience in its own right. Why was my body listening to me? Wasn't this happening because of some garbage stat penalty?
My confusion was brief. In an instant, I realized.
These words. These resentments. All of them.
“……What on earth did you all think I could do?”
They were actually the true feelings that Tulia had been suppressing all this time.
A heavy silence fell over the room. Every breath seemed to hang in the air.
“You asked me what I’ve been eating to survive all this time, Lord Marquis.”
In The Milk Bread, Tulia grew up by committing sins and feeding on her own evil deeds. As a result, she died hundreds, thousands of times.
But me. Because I didn't want to become like that. Because I didn't want to meet a miserable ending.
“I lived on servility. Because I didn't want to die.”
I didn't want to die. I didn't want to die a horrific death like Tulia. And I didn't want to die as pointlessly as I did when I was Han Ina.
Because the deaths I already knew—my deaths, Tulia’s deaths—were too terrifying.
To survive somehow, I blamed and cursed the quest window, and I tore at my long, fluffy pink hair. But in the end, I survived. I survived this far.
Because the only way for me to run away from my own funeral was through spite and servility.
“If I flattered Uncle Lilius, I got slightly better bread that day. Usually, I could barely eat a single piece of bread that smelled rotten.”
This was a story from Tulia’s memories.
“Even when Uncle Nigella told me that I wasn't parentless, but rather abandoned by my parents.”
Just yesterday, at Sandra’s birthday party.
“I had no choice but to agree. Do you know why? Because that was the only way I could manage to live.”
At the time, I had just glared at him and brushed it off, thinking what a rotten human being he was. But just because heavy snow covers the ground doesn't mean the mud disappears.
It would have been better if the mud had just frozen under the snow. If it had frozen solid like permafrost. Like the Tulia in The Milk Bread.
But I couldn't do that, because I wasn't the real Tulia. Because in the end, I was Han Ina.
Tears began to stream down my cheeks.
“In the winter, I almost froze to death many times. It was always like that. That’s why I liked summer better.”
I looked at the mountain of promissory notes—the astronomical amount of money Uncle Nigella had bled from me while living like a parasite.
Considering he had stolen every single cent, this wasn't just money. It was the lifeline of the young Tulia. What could the young Tulia, whose life was being gnawed away, have possibly done?
“I……”
Marquis Aster, who had been staring at me without blinking, spoke slowly.
“I thought you were living well.”
“…….”
“I sent you fine things regularly, and I was told you were active in social circles, and also……”
“…….”
“Since you never once rejected a gift I sent……”
Suddenly, I noticed a crumpled ball of paper under the Marquis’s hand. I didn't know what that document contained or how important it was. I didn't care. I didn't want to know.
“Lord Marquis.”
However, I had to ask.
“Did you ever come to ask me yourself?”
“…….”
“All you did was order someone to deliver things to me, and ask someone else for news about me.”
“…….”
“How can a father who never once came to see me……”
“…….”
“How can you say so confidently that you didn't abandon your daughter?”