My head feels like it's about to explode
The headache felt like my skull was about to split open.
Mana Burn. That cursed, chronic affliction every woman in the empire who handled mana had to endure for life.
The vicious heat clawing mercilessly beneath my skin made my cheeks and the tips of my ears burn so fiercely I thought I’d lose my mind.
…Can’t breathe.
The shirt button fastened all the way to my throat felt especially suffocating today, crushing my chest. Even when I dragged a gloved hand down my scorching nape, the terrible fever refused to subside.
The little bastard who had barely clung to his life yesterday in front of the family head with nothing but his slippery tongue.
Rian Rojer.
Just thinking of those three syllables made exhaustion surge up my throat. I pressed a hand to my throbbing forehead and irritably shoved the documents aside.
“Sylvia.”
“You called, Lady Evelyn?”
The expressionless maid who had entered without a sound at my summons fixed her ash-gray eyes on me. There wasn’t a trace of emotion in them.
“How’s that nuisance… I mean, how’s Rian doing?”
It was ridiculous that I ended up asking after him even while speaking harshly, but I couldn’t exactly leave a problem child like him unattended.
“He’s breathing quite frivolously, as usual. He wandered outside from morning until around lunchtime, when he returned to his room.”
“Haah, seriously. He still doesn’t understand the situation and is causing trouble again? He didn’t hurt anyone this time, did he?”
Was he running wild again without knowing when the family head’s mercy might run out? The frustration burned in my gut…
“No, it’s not that…”
The thin brows of Sylvia—who was usually perfectly composed—creased ever so slightly. Even someone as meticulous as her seemed genuinely baffled, unable to comprehend the situation.
“He seemed like an entirely different person. When I listed the things he had done in the past, he looked utterly horrified, as if he might faint. His face was pale with guilt so heavy he could barely breathe.”
Guilt? Was that even a word that suited that selfish, immature brat? Yet I couldn’t scoff at it.
The crimson eyes that had trembled violently when they met mine in the head’s office yesterday. That desperate, shuddering appearance had been far too vivid to dismiss as cheap acting.
Had he really lost every last one of his memories?
“Haah… Keep a close eye on him. Make sure he stays in his room like a dead mouse and doesn’t pull any stunts.”
I finished the order in a deliberately cold voice. Useless sympathy was a luxury I couldn’t afford.
“Understood. Ah, and I was just about to report this. The young master has once again left his room of his own accord just moments ago.”
“…What?”
My hand, reaching for the pen, froze in midair.
“Why are you only telling me now? Where did he go?”
“I confirmed he was heading toward the deepest part of the garden—the area the family head has forbidden anyone from entering.”
For an instant, the boiling heat of my mana cooled sharply, sending chills racing down my spine.
He claimed to have lost all his memories, and now even his sense of fear had vanished with them? He had the nerve to walk straight into the family head’s sanctuary on his own two feet?
“You knew that and didn’t even grab him by the scruff of his neck?!”
Bang!
I slammed my fist on the desk and shot to my feet. I didn’t have time to care whether the chair toppled over behind me.
It felt like my heart had plummeted to the floor. I shouted until my veins bulged, but Sylvia replied calmly.
“I followed him as far as the boundary. Beyond that lies the family head’s protective barrier. If a mere employee were to force their way in, my neck would fly off long before the young master’s.”
She wasn’t wrong, which only made my insides burn hotter. It was true that a servant couldn’t simply barge into the depths of the barrier without permission.
Ah, I was really going to go insane.
“Haah… Fine. I’ll go myself. You immediately seal the eyes and ears of every servant in the mansion.”
“You intend to go personally? If the family head finds out, even you, my lady, may not be safe…”
“Stop talking back and do as I say! If anyone asks, tell them that reckless fool started spouting nonsense again, so I knocked him out and locked him in his room. Make sure they keep their mouths shut.”
I gripped the study door handle roughly and spat the words through clenched teeth.
“Bring the first-aid kit and wait in his room. I’ll drag him back even if I have to beat him half to death.”
If he had truly lost his memories, that idiot had no idea just how terrifying the family head’s final act of mercy truly was.
The moment he set foot in that place without permission, he would be torn apart without a trace before her wrath—this time, there would be no second chance.
I was losing my mind. Please, just stay alive.
The absurd truth of this world—where women were revered and men were treated as decorative accessories.
I somehow managed to digest the massive shock that had smacked me in the back of the head by furiously chewing through the tender steak that melted in my mouth at lunch. No matter how shattered my mentality was, I couldn’t resist good meat.
After roughly calming my startled stomach, I decided to walk off the fullness and once again began roaming the mansion.
“This place is ridiculously huge.”
I’d been walking nonstop since morning, and my soles felt like they were about to crumble. Yet after trudging along for quite a while, a strange sense of emptiness suddenly hit me.
The maid who had been stuck to me like a cursed artifact, a leech on my back. That insolent girl was nowhere to be seen.
At some point, that suffocating surveillance radar had simply cut off.
Whether she had grown tired of me first and backed off, or whether I had luckily shaken her while wandering around, I didn’t know.
Thanks to that, my steps felt impossibly light. I even hummed a little tune as I walked aimlessly, and before I knew it, the mansion’s opulence had completely vanished. I found myself on a quiet forest path where not a single sign of life could be found.
“Who builds a massive forest inside their own house?”
No matter how I looked around, there wasn’t a single employee in sight—the ones who had either glared at me like I was an insect or leered at me with sticky gazes.
“Well, at least it’s quiet. That’s nice.”
As I walked blindly down the eerily silent forest path, a strange dizziness came over me.
The trees crowding densely around me almost seemed alive and moving. The air itself felt so heavy and sticky that it clogged my lungs. It was like forcing my entire body through an invisible, gluey membrane.
“Why would anyone make such a creepy walking trail inside a mansion?”
Grumbling, I pushed through the thick branches and took a step forward.
In that instant, the oppressive air that had been pressing down on me suddenly cleared. The heavy shadows obscuring my vision lifted, and an unbelievable sight unfolded before my eyes.
“What the hell is this?”
Beyond the gloomy forest path lay a garden so dazzling and overwhelmingly grand that it stole my breath.
A massive glass greenhouse sparkling with captured sunlight, and countless exotic flowers of unknown names filling my entire field of vision. The sweet, thick fragrance floating in the air was so potent it made my head spin.
Was all of this still part of the family estate?
I had thought it was just an absurdly vast natural forest, but looking closer, every single blade of grass screamed meticulous artificial care. I stood there with my mouth agape, turning my head in every direction, until I spotted a lush field of pure white flowers blooming right at my feet.
Come to think of it, there was that skill I had obtained yesterday. Its name was probably Kaleidoscope Thorn Flower.
Just from the name, it sounded similar to that over-the-top eye technique from some old ninja manga that could see through all of creation. Anyway, since no one was watching, maybe I should test how it worked.
Did I need to reach out into the air? Or shout the name inside my head? Since I knew absolutely nothing about magic, I decided to strike a random pose, focus my eyes intensely, and concentrate—right as I was doing that.
“Who gave you permission to crawl all the way in here?”
A voice that resonated heavily throughout the entire vast garden, brutally crushing the space itself. In an instant, every hair on my body stood on end and goosebumps erupted across the back of my neck.
I couldn’t breathe.
It felt like my lungs were being crushed, as if the air itself were mixed with heavy lumps of iron. Just as instinctive terror made me try to stumble backward—
The world spun.
My vision twisted grotesquely, and the surrounding scenery was sucked away like spilled paint.
And in the next moment—
“Ugh?!”
My body floated in the air before crashing down like a discarded sack onto a massive marble floor. Before I could even process what had happened, an unbearable heat—like the door of a giant furnace being flung open—surged over me from above.
“You dare try to run when you know exactly where you are?”
I forced my trembling head upward. In the center of the garden stood an ornate pavilion, and there, reclining languidly on a cold marble chair that looked sharp enough to cut flesh, was a woman gazing down at me.
It was the red-haired family head who had glared at me in the head’s office yesterday as if she would sever my neck at any second.
Her pale shoulders glistened with beads of sweat. The deep silk gown that plunged all the way to her sternum. Her skin, slick and gleaming from the extreme heat she radiated, was plastered with damp, dark wine-red hair.
“Are you testing my patience? Or have you truly gone mad and wish to die?”
Her amethyst eyes, both languid and cruel, pierced straight through me. Her low voice made the entire space tremble.
Cold sweat trickled down my spine.
The overwhelming killing intent that made signing my excommunication papers seem a hundred times more appealing… It felt like she could snap my lifeline at any moment.
No, this was seriously unfair. Out of this entire enormous mansion, why did I have to run into her here of all places?
I had thought I would never encounter the family head, yet here I was, facing her while she looked like her eyes had rolled back from the heat and she was one breath away from burning alive. My future suddenly looked pitch black.
“T-That is, Lady Camellia… This is a misunderstanding. I lost my memories, and the mansion is so incredibly vast that I thought I’d take a look around. I was just walking and ended up here…”
“You tore through the barrier and crawled into my sanctuary… and you claim it was merely to sightsee?”
The overwhelming killing intent stole the breath from my lungs. Beyond the glistening sweat, the family head’s amethyst eyes flashed with a bizarre light.
Ah. This wasn’t mere anger. For whatever reason, it was a vicious destructive impulse that seemed like it could only be soothed by ripping apart every living thing before her eyes and confirming their blood.
The moment her black leather-gloved hand slowly reached toward my throat, a system message flashed through my mind.
"[Produces flowers that bring great peace to the target's body and mind.]"
⟨ Kaleidoscope Thorn Flower ⟩
That’s right. The skill itself had the effect of soothing body and mind. It was exactly what that enraged family head needed most right now.
To hell with it being a worthless F-grade skill. There was no time to be picky. If I stayed still, that hand would crush my neck bones in an instant.
I squeezed my eyes shut and screamed inside my head, wringing out every ounce of power I could muster.
Please. Whether it’s a flower or whatever, just burst out already!
At that exact moment—
Crack!
A horrifying tearing sound.
At the same time, a bizarre, alien sensation surged up from inside my body, mercilessly ripping through my veins.
My white shirt instantly soaked through with vivid red blood. Dark crimson thorn vines burst through my splitting skin, writhing madly as they brutally bound my entire body.
What the—?