Chapter 69
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 69
“I knew it...!”
“There’s no way a magic tool crafted directly by the Mage Tower would have such a defect!”
“Exactly my point!”
“Besides, he just tried to frame the late Marchioness as someone obsessed with black magic.”
“To let such false rumors cross his lips... isn’t that beyond disrespectful?!”
The nobles chattered excitedly, their opinions shifting like a sudden tide.
Only Lilius and his wife, Aubrey, remained standing there, their faces turning from pale to a ghostly, sickly white.
“This can’t be... this shouldn’t be happening...!”
Lilius took step after step backward, as if being physically pushed by the weight of the room.
However, Leon Frezier didn’t spare them even a glance.
Walking with long, purposeful strides toward Tulia Frezier, he scooped her up from her wheelchair.
Her thigh, wrapped in several layers of bandages, dangled in the air.
In the process, the dress near the bottom was stained a faint red, as if the stitched wound had burst open.
Damn it.
Swearing under his breath, Leon Frezier shouted at the top of his lungs.
“Call the chief physician!”
* * *
It really hurts.
It hurts so much.
When a person is in pain, their heart grows weak, and when the heart is weak, buried memories of the past tend to resurface.
Memories like my desires back when I was Han Ina.
Perhaps if I had a slightly meaner personality, I might have wished for everyone to just disappear.
My older sister and brothers, who were so much older than me.
And even my younger sibling, the ‘real’ biological child of my mother and stepfather.
I wished they were all gone.
If my sister, my brothers, and my sibling didn't exist...
Could I, who was always permitted only to linger in that awkward middle spot, have become someone important to my mother?
Someone a bit more significant.
The most important person.
Someone irreplaceable.
If that had been the case, could I have lived without feeling these emotions of envy and resentment?
‘Who knows.’
Still...
I once thought of it like this.
That my heart was like a small balloon.
A balloon that required a long, deep breath every single day just to stay inflated.
As the surface expanded with each breath, the existing scars would stretch until they were no longer visible.
And so, I pretended nothing was wrong, pretended I wasn't envious or lonely.
A fragile balloon that felt like it could hold out forever.
As long as I kept pumping those deep breaths into it every day, my scars wouldn't show.
I would have been fine until that thin, thin balloon finally popped.
But before the balloon could burst, my mother died, and then I died.
Because everyone was dead, I never got to find out what would happen after my heart finally shattered.
I could only guess forever; I would never truly know.
“...Lia.”
A sickeningly familiar voice woke me, so I pretended not to hear.
“Tulia. Hey. Tulia. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. ...Hey.”
It was a voice more irritating than a Monday morning alarm clock.
The one who poured the ashes of a burnt letter over my head.
The one who babbled childish nonsense about never thinking of me as a younger sister.
That effort.
The effort he put into trying to hurt me was so pathetic.
The damn bastard who made me feel hurt because of that pathetic effort was now persistently trying to wake me up.
“Just... shut up.”
“...Ha.”
I spat the words out through gritted teeth, unable to even open my eyes properly.
I knew I had to manage this guy’s favorability.
I knew I had to dance with him at Grandfather’s birthday banquet.
Because that was the quest.
Quests had to be completed.
That’s why I had tried my best to cater to him and acted so miserably submissive, but I guess when a person is in this much pain, they just snap.
I don't care anymore.
‘Ah, whatever.’
I really don't know.
If you're going to kill me, just do it!
I’m in this much pain; could it possibly get any worse than this?
My whole body feels like it’s on fire.
My thigh is so numb I can’t even tell what I’m feeling anymore.
“Get lost, Leon.”
“Fine, I get it. I’m leaving.”
I must have fallen asleep for a while after that.
My throat was parched, and as I fumbled for something, water flowed into my mouth.
As the lukewarm liquid moistened my dry throat, I felt like I could breathe again.
Only then did I find the strength to lift my eyelids, which I hadn't been able to open properly the whole time.
“Wh-what...?”
I was startled the moment I opened my eyes.
“...Why are you still here?”
Still?
Leon Frezier was sitting on my bed with his legs crossed.
Looking down at me with his arms folded, Leon Frezier’s appearance wasn't as tidy as usual.
He didn't maintain the razor-sharp neatness of Lisian, but he was always a guy who kept a dignified cleanliness befitting a young lord of a Marquis house.
Even the water glass was in his hand.
Did he just give me a drink?
No way, Leon Frezier?
Him?
‘That’s strange.’
I was certain of one thing.
I was certain that Leon Frezier, at the very least, wouldn't hit me with an arrow.
‘I became even more certain after checking his favorability.’
Leon doesn't know.
In that brief moment when Leon approached me, angry at my words telling him to shoot the arrow, I had opened the ‘Status Window.’
I had checked Leon Frezier’s favorability, something I had been putting off for a long time.
[System] Would you like to check ‘Leon Frezier’s’ favorability?
[System] Leon Frezier’s Character Importance: ☆☆☆☆☆
And the favorability gauge bar I saw...
Was a clear, pure blue, like the sky on a beautiful afternoon.
Ridiculously enough.
‘...What did I even do to make his favorability that high?’
In the main quest, Leon Frezier wasn't the only one who ‘loved’ Tulia.
I had already suspected it.
Ever since the moment Leon Frezier scattered the ashes of that burnt letter over her.
Still, I never imagined the favorability gauge bar, which I thought would be red, would be such a vivid blue.
“....”
Of course, I also didn't think he’d be the type to stay and give me water...
Why is he acting like this?
‘Has he lost his mind?’
I hid my suspicion and asked.
“Did you stay up all night?”
Here?
“Yeah. I stayed up all night. Right here.”
“Why?”
“I don't know.”
“You don't know?”
“Yeah. I said I don't know.”
‘Why, this bastard.’
Is he trying to pick a fight with someone who’s practically a corpse?
I was dumbfounded, but since I had no energy, I just closed my eyes for a moment.
But then, a finger poked me.
“They told me to feed this to you when you woke up.”
What Leon Frezier brought over was a bowl of medicinal tonic.
It seemed to have cooled down a bit, but a faint wisp of steam was still rising from it.
“I’ll drink it myself, so could you please leave?”
Leon Frezier ignored my words and stirred the tonic half-heartedly with a spoon.
“For a lady of a Marquis house, you have a pathetic number of servants, but those few seem completely devoted to you.”
“I said I’ll drink it, so could you just piss off?”
“The assistant butler is young, I suppose, but the head maid is from the Borderlands, and the chief physician is a renowned doctor with a high nose. How did you win them over? You’ve got nothing going for you but your face. To think someone with your foul personality managed to get three people to sincerely worry about you.”
“I’ll drink it, so seriously, stop bullshitting and get out.”
“Why is it always you who gets all the concern?”
Suddenly, the flow of air came to a dead stop.
“....”
It felt like walking leisurely on flat ground only to encounter an unexpected drop and plummeting downward.
Because Leon Frezier’s voice had dropped just that much.
Did he take some weird medicine?
Just as that thought crossed my mind.
“Is it because your hair is pink? And your eyes are a light green, like a spring day?”
He was talking about me, but he wasn't looking at me.
Like a boy thinking of winter while speaking of spring.
“Is it because you resemble Mother the most that it didn't matter how much I clung to her?”
“...Huh?”
“You don't know, do you? You were just sleeping back then.”
The hand stirring the tonic grew slower and slower.
“It was a very dark night. No moon.”
“....”
“Mother put on a robe and snuck out the back door in the middle of the night. I don't know why I woke up at that hour, but I saw her leaving and followed her immediately.”
I slowly began to realize what story Leon Frezier was bringing up.
The late Marchioness Frezier.
The biological mother of the twins and Tulia.
The woman who died while enjoying a secret affair with another man, becoming a public taboo and an object of ridicule in high society... their mother.
“Even though I was quite young, I knew instinctively. That Mother was going to leave me behind.”
“....”
“So I clung to her. I just clung to her. Because I was a child.”
It happened in an instant.
Suddenly, vivid, multicolored text floated before my eyes, and a content all too familiar to me flashed.
[System] Bonus Benefit acquired!
[System] Replaying ‘The Memory of That Day’!
Wait, you’re just going to start playing it without my consent?