~ Translation by Lurelia | Editing by Valpal | Read only at rainofsnow.com ~
At that moment, the Severes mansion was in a state of crisis due to the threat of the earth beneath the mansion collapsing.
After replaying his sister’s command to stay calm a hundred times in his mind, Carlot finally exploded.
“These damned Severes…….”
“Young Master, you need to calm down and…….”
“Do you think I’m calm now? Get out of the way, unless you want to die.”
It had been dozens of minutes since Elodie had sent Carlot away to talk to Felix Hicklemeyer alone.
At first, he waited patiently. There was a part of him that knew he was following Elodie when he shouldn’t have.
But as time passed, the unexplained nervousness became unbearable.
And now.
Carlot glared at the knights of Severes who stood in his way.
‘I shouldn’t have left her alone.’
But he couldn’t go against Elodie’s words.
From the moment he started to regret his actions, he could do no wrong to Elodie.
And he realized it. From that moment on, Elodie was never the same.
Gone was the Elodie who sought out the approval of her parents and ignored Carlot while trying to become a part of Perdia.
No longer did she want anything; she just stayed quiet.
This gave him a strange feeling. An odd feeling, like his sister was about to disappear into thin air.
He would, too, knowing that there was no part of Elodie now that craved her father’s affection.
Not a single shred.
It was Carlot who was rather uneasy with the strange change in demeanor and the clear sense of distance.
Shaking his head to clear his thoughts, he took a step forward, and the knights crossed their spears to block his path.
“Get lost.”
“We can’t.”
Despite Carlot’s warning, none of Severes’s knights backed down.
Suddenly, the barely held strings of reason snapped.
At the same time…….
Kaaaah!
A tremendous sound erupted from not far away, and the mansion began to shake violently.
“What’s happening……!”
“Now the garden, next time the mansion, if you try to stop me, you’ll die.”
Carlot pushed past the panicked knights and burst through the drawing room door.
He stopped dead in his tracks, wondering what he could say to Elodie to excuse himself for barging in.
“What?”
Elodie was nowhere to be found. Not anywhere in the drawing room.
“Sister……?”
Carlot’s voice echoed hollowly as he called for Elodie. Unsurprisingly, there was no answer.
Kugugung–
The ground began to shake slightly. The knights who came in after Carlot, sensing something was amiss, shouted.
“Calm down, Young Master!”
“Lady Perdia is also within the manor grounds!”
Oh, right.
‘Sister.’
They were right. Elodie must be somewhere in this manor.
Destroying this damned Severes mansion would be easier than breathing, but there was no guarantee that Elodie wouldn’t get caught in the crossfire.
However, Carlot couldn’t control his anger at the fact that he had lost sight of Elodie right in front of him, as her escort.
“Damn it, damn it……!”
Clutching his fists, Carlot screamed, “Aaaagh!” If he didn’t do something like this, he felt like his power would run wild.
Slamming his fist down on a table, he screamed, “What have you done to my sister?!”
***
Perdia’s bastard child. Ugly duckling. A wretch.
An abandoned child whose mother disappeared after receiving a large sum of money from Duke Perdia.
They all described my situation.
When I was a toddler and started having accidents, the first word out of my mouth was “nanny,” not mom or dad.
Because she was the only one who looked after me when no one else would.
I tried to gain the love of the Duke of Perdia and was rejected many times. I thought I was a worthless child who didn’t deserve to be loved.
My biological mother abandoned and left me, and even my new family rejected me.
‘But what if it wasn’t true?’
It was the moment when the stubborn beliefs I had believed in all along crumbled down. The wall of pride that had been supporting me collapsed.
“You and our precious baby, Elodie…….”
The Duke of Severes said, even in the moment when his strength was draining from his body.
‘He called me his precious baby.’
No one had ever called me so affectionately before. There was no way the Duke of Severes didn’t mean it when he said that, even as he was losing his mind.
My mother, who was the object of my resentment, wasn’t the heartless monster I had imagined.
So, I have been resenting something that didn’t even exist all along. It was frustrating and futile, yet a relief at the same time.
But even if my biological parents hadn’t abandoned me, my situation hadn’t changed. To the outside world, I was raised as a bastard child of Perdia.
‘Nothing changes.’
But.
‘Maybe that can change in the future.’
If the Duke of Severes, no, my father, wakes up, the situation will be different than it is now. Most of the problems I’m worrying about will be resolved.
But there were still many unanswered questions.
First, why did my mom disappear after deceiving me into thinking I was the illegitimate child of the Duke of Perdia?
And secondly.
“Just wait a little longer, Richard. Our child will save you.”
What did she mean by those words to the Duke of Severes?
‘Maybe it has something to do with the fact that I regained my memories of my previous life when my mother’s memento was broken.’
And finally, the third question: what were my mother’s obligations, and what sacrifices did my father make?
There were still too many things that I didn’t know.
In other words.
“There’s a lot to figure out in the future.’
I was confident in my perseverance and determination.
***
As I slowly opened my eyes, the first thing I saw was Felix’s face, which was way too close.
“You’re up. Are you okay?”
“……!”
Startled, I quickly sat up.
“His Excellency the Duke of Severes?!”
I looked back at my father in the coffin and couldn’t hide my disappointment. His eyes were still closed, contrary to my expectations that he might have opened them after glimpsing into the duke’s memories, but they remained closed.
“As expected…….”
Since it seemed impossible to wake someone who had fallen into a coma due to confronting a sin with a mere touch.
Felix, who should have been equally disappointed that I couldn’t wake him up, showed no such signs.
Instead, he asked me curiously.
“The way you reacted; you must have seen something…… What did you see?”
“Is that important?”
“Of course, it matters. Maybe it’s a hint that will wake my uncle up.”
Apparently, he didn’t expect me to wake him up in the first place. His attitude was more of ‘You’ll wake him up, or you won’t. Who knows?’
I felt relieved that my burden had been somewhat alleviated.
“So, what did you see?” Felix asked again.
“His Excellency’s memory.”
I explained the scene I had seen as calmly and briefly as possible.
Felix listened with admiration.
“Actually, I asked you to do this as a gamble, but I never expected you to see his memories. It’s beyond my expectations.”
“Is there any reason why I should come and wake the Duke of Severes now?”
I didn’t understand the eagerness to wake him up just because he was his nephew. There must have been a reason for Felix’s return from overseas.
Felix stroked his chin meaningfully and opened his mouth.
“Well, I’ve been trying to avoid telling you this because I feel like I’m exposing my family’s secret, but I can’t help it.”
“We’re already here, so it’s no secret.”
Haha, Felix laughed briefly at my words, but the smile slowly disappeared from his face.
“The Severes are in a precarious state at the moment. On the outside, the rumors are blocked, and the mansion’s access is controlled, so you wouldn’t know it, but on the inside, it’s rotting. In the long absence of the family head, the vassals have grown in power and are threatening to consume the family.”
It meant that there were many ants trying to take over the ownerless house.
‘I shouldn’t reveal that I’m his biological daughter.’
At least not until he wakes up.
If I were caught before then, the Severes’s power-hungry vassals would try to get rid of me by any means possible.
Regardless, Felix and I had a shared interest in waking up my father.
“Count Hicklemeyer. You said His Excellency fell asleep while dealing with a sin.”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“What was the sin?”
As I asked, I felt the greed, who had been chasing and swatting butterflies in the distance, look at me.
Felix answered shortly.
“Pride.”
“If it’s Pride, then…….”
“That’s the sin the Apellite family sealed.”
I frowned.
‘Of course, it had to be the Apellite family.’
The Apellite family was a family that no longer existed, much like the Vietan family.
That meant that the whereabouts of the seal stone they were keeping was unknown.
While the Vietan Family’s Seal Stone of Greed was easily obtained with the help of Raeyan, there was no guarantee that the Seal Stone of Pride could be obtained.
The plan to obtain the seal stone and then control pride to awaken Dad was now in jeopardy.
But I couldn’t give up without even trying.
‘I need to find out where the seal stone is.’
Another task was added to my already busy schedule.
“Well then… should we go back now?”
Felix held out his hand to me as I sat on the floor.
I took his hand and stood up, looking at him. There was still one thing left unresolved.
“Count Hicklemeyer.”
“Yes, Lady Perdia.”
Felix smiled and replied.
“You said earlier that your power is to see the colors of souls.”
“I did.”
“Am I the only one with a soul of the same color as the Duke of Severes?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
His answer confirmed my guess.
This man knows that I am the wizard Elby.
By the time we met in the tower, Felix had already seen the color of my soul in the Temple of Ishtar.
“When you saw me at the tower, why did you act like we were meeting for the first time?”
“Because I thought the lady was trying to hide it?”
“Then please pretend not to know until the end.”
“Hmm.”
Felix readily nodded at my request.
“I’ll do that. It’s not a hard favor to ask, and it’s more fun that way.”
“Thank you.”
I thought that was the end of the story, but it wasn’t.
“By the way, is the Lady really the wizard Elby? I’ve never heard any rumors about Lady Perdia being a wizard. Are you secretly practicing as one? Does Duke Perdia know about this? Oh, and can’t you give me a little hint as to what your next magic tool will be? We’re partners, right?”
Because Felix, the magic tool enthusiast, unleashed an onslaught of questions…….
***
With Greed in my arms, I made my way back to the drawing room, but this time, instead of using the secret passageway to the greenhouse, we took a path outside where people were walking.
“Are you sure it’s okay to go out in the open like this?”
“Yes. We’ve already been spotted.”
Spotted?
It didn’t take long for me to realize what Felix meant.
The garden, which had been carefully tended by a gardener, was in a mess.
‘What happened to the garden that was so beautiful before……?’
There was only one person I knew who could have turned a beautiful garden upside down in a matter of hours.
“Sister!”
It was this guy. I told him to stay quiet, but he ended up causing trouble.
I looked at Carlot, who was running towards me, like a dog, and asked, “Carl, did you do this?”
“I, I don’t, I don’t know…….”
Carlot rolled his eyes and avoided my gaze.
As I glared at the stuttering Carlot, who was obviously the one who did it, he roughly ruffled through his hair and shouted.
“It had been hours, and yet my sister hadn’t come out. Severes kept me out, and I had no choice! So, I went in. And when I came in, my sister was nowhere to be seen, and–”
Before I had time to respond, Carlot rushed over and grabbed me by the shoulders.
“……He didn’t do anything, did he?”
His voice was low, and he glared at Felix over my back.
I answered as I removed Carlot’s hands from me, one by one.
“We went for a walk. A walk.”
“A walk?”
“I thought he said outsiders weren’t allowed in, so I tried to sneak around and got caught. Sorry, Carl.”
“Sister apologized……?”
I glanced at Carlot, who looked puzzled, as if he had heard something he shouldn’t have. I felt awkward, but I had more important things on my mind. I looked up at Carlot with a serious face.
“Don’t tell anyone about what happened today. About us visiting the Severes mansion. That was the condition.”
The last thing she needed was for today’s visit to reach the ears of the Duke of Perdia.
‘The Duke of Perdia hates my father, after all.’
That’s probably because he had a history with my mother. I don’t want to get involved in a sticky drama.
“Will you keep this a secret?”
Carlot, who would be stung by my question, confidently shouted out.
“Of course! Trust me!”
***
That night, Carlot was suddenly summoned by the Duke of Perdia.
“Carlot.”
At the serious call, Carlot’s body stiffened with tension.
“Yes, Father.”
He couldn’t possibly be asking about his sister.
As if reading his mind, the Duke of Perdia asked, “Where did you go with Elodie today? I want to know everything you did today. Every detail.”
“Eh……?”
Carlot froze in place.
***