A Child's Bold Lie
“Dad!”
“Duke Clementine, we found Idel!”
The moment they heard the story, the two rushed over, sweat glistening on their foreheads.
Rowena approached with labored breaths, her eyes widening in shock at Idel's sight.
“Idel! Were you badly injured?”
“No. I checked. I was only sleeping.”
“But you're covered in dirt, and your forehead is swollen... we should call the doctor just in case. If you wandered the mountain path like Jiana said and got chased by a beast, or if you slipped and fell, or if you escaped from bandits...”
“Rowena, calm down.”
Vincent grabbed his pale wife and shook his head firmly.
“This was deliberately staged. The timing of Jiana's letter was clearly chosen to catch us off guard.”
A setup?
Idel stared in disbelief at the duke's far more extreme reasoning than her own plan.
She barely managed to regain her composure, ears perked.
“If it was a shortcut, she would have been lingering nearby or returning exhausted to her room. She wouldn't be hiding like this among the bushes.”
Just late, then.
“Muddy like that, just wandering the mountain path and getting dirty, doesn't fit. This was deliberately muddied.”
That was after punching the future villainess in the back alleys.
“Duke!”
“He looks just like me.”
The Clementine duke, teeth gritted, forced out his own past with difficulty.
“I know all too well because I did the same rebellious thing to my father as a child.”
Idel whispered softly to herself, feeling a pang.
‘...What does he look like? She's not even my real child.’
But it wasn't bad.
With this conclusion, it would be even harder to find a chance to move forward, but at least it could fully conceal the fact that she had gone.
Swallowing hard, Idel showed a slightly narrowed eye at the idea that seemed somewhat spicy but quite appealing.
She had been quietly observing and planning to slip in at the right moment, but...
“...!”
The moment her eyes opened, they met Jiana's.
Jiana, startled by the sudden eye contact, quickly covered her mouth.
Because she had gone through something very similar not long ago. The sight of Idel's face was familiar, especially her expression.
‘That's exactly the same! That must be an aggrieved expression.’
Jiana glanced between her parents and Idel, then nodded firmly as if she had decided something and moved her lips.
‘What is she saying? That I... I will help you?’
Help?
...With what?
Idel's heart, which had been calming, began to race again with unease.
Although Vincent Clementine was focused on soothing his wife, he was not the type to miss an unstable movement from Idel.
The moment he sensed subtle motion behind him, he shifted his gaze to Rowena's back.
Rowena, noticing her husband's eyes leave her, also turned with a short gasp.
“Ah, Idel!”
“...”
“You woke up. How are you feeling? Duke says you don't seem badly injured. Are you okay?”
Idel looked like she was still half-asleep, lips pursed and eyes rolling.
As if everyone around her was strange.
Rowena bent down without caring about the sharp glint in Idel's eyes.
She was checking if there were more injuries on the child's body.
“Slap!”
Even as her hand reached out, Idel had rejected her, but...
“Don't touch me... you.”
“Ah...”
Rowena looked at Idel with a small sound, as if surprised, forgetting to rub her stinging hand.
The child's hunched posture, creating distance, looked exactly like a hedgehog with its quills raised.
Just as Rowena was about to apologize for making her uncomfortable, the voice of the person she loved cut through the space before her.
“Idel Clementine.”
The duke called the child's name in a tone Rowena had never heard before, his face stern and harsh.
Idel closed her lips tightly, having spoken to Rowena with such sharpness moments ago, and looked up at him.
‘...From his eyes alone, I know.’
There was a strange stubbornness in Idel's blue eyes.
Reading the wariness as if he would pounce the moment he saw an opening, he swept his hand through his hair.
Jiana and Rowena didn't know why they were surrounding the child so much, but the Idel he faced now was no different from Sylvia's report.
Self-centered, swinging her twisted heart wildly and acting recklessly.
‘If the child is like that, I can't let her continue like this.’
Tantrums or mischief were one thing.
He had to teach what happens when you cross the line you shouldn't with a child who acts without restraint.
Vincent, having already concluded his reasoning as fact in his mind, snapped his fingers sharply.
“Idel, stop acting spoiled and get up from your seat properly. Do you even know what you've done?”
“...”
“Because of your reckless behavior, the entire staff have been searching the duke's estate and the back of the mountain with shortcuts. Rowena and Jiana haven't even had proper meals all day, worrying something might have happened.”
“...”
“And yet, how are you acting in front of these people? Not an ounce of remorse shows in your eyes.”
“Duke.”
Rowena called out to him quietly, but Vincent shook his head decisively.
He had gotten up from his seat following her words, but he still couldn't sense any guilt in Idel's expression.
Was that all? Idel was instead glancing at Jiana, the most unrelated person in this incident, over and over. As if she was targeting Jiana.
Melissa Lopez's figure overlaid on Idel's stubborn, narrowed-lip appearance.
Barely shaking off the image, Vincent gritted his teeth.
“Idel, apologize to Jiana and Rowena. To the others who had to do things because they fell for your pathetic scheme and wasted time. Then, we'll overlook this incident.”
“...”
“Idel, answer me.”
The moment he called Idel somewhat forcefully, an unexpected voice suddenly cut into the conversation.
“Don't say anything to Idel! It's Dad who's wrong!”
“What?”
“Idel did nothing wrong! Because the one who took Idel to the shortcut was... me, me!”
Even after the sudden interruption, Jiana's bold lie caused shock in everyone's expressions.
Of course, the most shocked among them was Idel, who had received a confident smile from Jiana as if telling her to trust only herself.
Idel had been keeping her mouth shut, unsure of how Jiana would turn out, and now she was dropping a bomb like this.
Idel barely regained her composure and denied Jiana's words with a half-beat delay.
“No. You don't...”
“Idel, I know your feelings, but we can't do it like this! Lying is bad!”
Ah, so the lying is being done by whom right now.
When Idel momentarily lost her words, a sigh escaped her in her mind, as the one who would save her, the Clementine duke, threw a sharp question at Jiana.
“That's right, Jiana. Lying is bad. So don't try to cover it up like last time and tell the truth. After all, how did you get Idel to the shortcut?”
“...”
“At dawn, Sylvia also slipped out through the secret passage while everyone else was sleeping. Dad told me about it.”
“A secret passage... yes, I did tell you. Then why didn't you say at the beginning that you took Idel to the shortcut? You said to me and your mother, ‘Idel seemed to be lost and wandering the path.’ Even while crying.”
“That, that...”
Jiana's hesitation made Idel clench her fists unconsciously.
Jiana glanced at Idel's stance once, then took a deep breath and shouted with an even more resolute expression than before.
“I hid it because I was scared of getting in trouble! I took Idel to the shortcut, let go of her hand, and she got hurt! Mom and Dad... they would be... disappointed...”
Jiana's cheeks flushed with embarrassment, as she wasn't used to lying.
Though she threw it forcefully, her words kept twisting, and she looked unsure of herself.
In Idel's eyes, which had become so fluent in lying since her previous life, everything was laid bare.
Watching Jiana's fidgeting, Idel let out a small sigh of relief.
‘Good thing the child can't lie. At this point, both of them should have noticed. That Jiana is trying to cover for me.’
However, what she overlooked was the truth that “people are what they are seen as” and that “one's usual conduct determines everything.”
Just as people hadn't believed Idel's innocence because they had accumulated bad deeds from her, they didn't even think Jiana would lie.
In other words...
“So... Idel was sulking here because she fought Jiana in the shortcut? Even if Duke was strict, she didn't open her mouth because she was worried Jiana would get in trouble?”
A person believing this clumsy lie had appeared.