Chapter 75: 75

Chapter 75 – I Am More Important

Wearing a checkered dress, stockings, and even a sailor straw hat, Charlotte looked like a real-life doll. At least the family members in the Zelkova Forest thought so.

“Here, wearing a hood like this will make you feel more comfortable, won’t it?”

Emilia covered Charlotte’s head with a large cloth on the back of her neck. The child nodded her head vigorously but couldn’t hide her tension.

“If you don’t want to go, you don’t have to go. Young Master won’t be angry even if you don’t come.”

That man’s real purpose isn’t you after all.

“No, I will go. I will definitely go today. So does my sister. I have to go out into the world if I don’t want to become a real monster. Now is the time – when I still have the courage to meet the Young Master.”

Her grim face was so cute that it was enough for her to forget her confusion momentarily.

“But there is one thing you need to know. There’s a footman kid there named Pip, and you might run into him. Will you be alright though?”

“It’s okay. Anyway, Sister told me about him in advance. You should call me angel.”

“What?”

Although Emilia raised her eyes in embarrassment, she pinched the child’s cheek.

Rattle, the wheels began to roll.

Charlotte leaned close so Emilia put her arm around her shoulders. Charlotte smiled and leaned her head on her shoulder. The two sisters had completely forgotten about their fight a few days earlier.

The carriage drove faster and faster before rolling at a steady speed. Emilia took the child’s shoes off, hers too, and then leaned against the backrest.

“Don’t you get motion sickness?”

“I’m a little dizzy, but I’m alright.”

“Tell me if it’s serious. We can take a break.”

“… But Sister, are we going to the beach?”

“Huh?”

Puzzled, Emilia smiled at once. The sound of waves was coming from outside the window. It wasn’t real waves but was rather a golden wave created by the wind passing through the [tnote keyword=“rye”] A grass grown extensively as a grain, a cover crop, and a forage crop. It was the same plant family as wheat.[/tnote].

Emilia eagerly described the scenery outside the window to Charlotte. The girl listened intently to her sister with a flushed face.

Looking at her face, the words that had been a strict taboo over the past few years suddenly caught her tongue.

“… How I wish you could see ahead, Charlotte.”

The child grinned as she grasped her sister’s hand.

“It’s alright. Even though I can’t see, I am better at other things. I think I can see everything just by listening to it, so I will go out a lot from now on. As long as Sister is by my side, I can go anywhere.”

“Yes, that’s great. Let’s go until we get very tired.”

The sisters smiled brightly at each other and stuck their sides together. The carriage ran nonstop.

As if she had relaxed, Charlotte’s head drooped, and she began to doze off before she was aware of it. Emilia straightened her little sister’s head so that it wouldn’t fall off. As she looked down at the little head leaning on her shoulder, she suddenly remembered the words she had exchanged with Reina.

[‘I will take revenge.’]

Reina’s eyes were shining coldly.

[‘That’s not it. Jack likes me quite a bit. He said that with his own mouth. He seemed to like me more than his own wife. That wasn’t just a [tnote keyword=“plain candy”] Plain sweet words.[/tnote]. For starters, he showed how much he loved me with money.’]

Reina raised her arms and pointed to the lavishly decorated living room.

[‘This is kind of weird to say things like this in front of you who are innocent, but especially the relationship between a man and woman such as ours… if there was such a thing, it was completely different from the noble moral love that the priest emphasized.’ ]

Emilia could guess what Reina was going to say. She was afraid that her face was flushed so she quickly took the cup to her mouth.

[‘Jacques and I were madly in love with each other in that respect. But I shouldn’t have mistaken that for real love….’ ]

Laughing bitterly, Reina looked like dried fallen leaves.

[‘Anyhow, I will get my revenge. I don’t care what anyone says. Jacques Seulm must suffer the same as I have – as much as I have cried, as much as I was hurt – I will make him feel the same. After all, it was he who made me like this.’ ]

Reina wiped her tears with her handkerchief. She suddenly wondered as she watched her like that. How is she going to take revenge on a man who once liked her but eventually ruined her? Reina opened her mouth again before she could ask that aloud.

[‘As I said before, I’m going to leave for the New World.’

‘That… is your revenge?’

‘Of course. I will hide in a place where Jacques Seulm can never find me – until he was sick and was completely destroyed.’ ]

Her every word chewing on her was terrifyingly cold. Emilia felt her heart pounding, so she laid her hand on her and tried to calm her.

[‘But Reina, I heard it’s very dangerous there. Will you be alright?’

‘So my brother, Elsier, went ahead and set up a site.’ ]

Information about the New World floated around her head. It was said to be a ‘hell’ when she put together the stories people in newspapers and the Cavendish mansion often exchanged. It was said to be a place where looting, arson, and civil war constantly occurred, and the lawlessness where guns were a necessity.

Of course, she dared not say her thoughts out loud. Didn’t she say her brother was already there and she was ready to leave? It will only hurt her feelings to tell this to someone who already made up her mind….

However, it seemed like her innermost thoughts were revealed with her expression. Reina stopped sipping on her tea and laughed through her wet eyes.

[‘Do you believe in those words as well?’

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‘Huh?’

‘That the New World is dangerous. That it was a lawless land where criminals hang out.’ ]

Emilia smiled awkwardly, not knowing what to say.

[‘That was all false rumors. They intentionally spread malicious rumors especially here in the mainland. They are afraid to lose their manpower and investment.’ ]

She thought that could be the case, so her question, ‘Really?’ came out.

[‘Uh, my brother recently sent me a letter. Would you like to see it?’ ]

Reina jumped to her feet and took the letter out from the drawer even before Emilia could answer. She wasn’t interested in the New World enough to look at someone else’s personal letter. But she didn’t want to disappoint Reina, so Emilia opened the letter and read it diagonally with dull eyes.

[‘This was a much better place to live than you thought. Of course, they are still lacking in infrastructure and dangerous compared to the mainland, but big cities like the Bronx are as good as Nowak – especially for women.’

‘For… women?’]

Reina told Emilia more about the New World when she noticed the subtle curiosity in her eyes. It was the same as Benjamin Luxell had told Nathan.

Talking for a long time, Reina wrapped her hands around her cheeks, trying to cool off, and then exhaled.

[‘I talked too much by myself, right? I actually wanted to hear about you, that’s why I asked you to come in. For some reason, I thought you could show me the way like this.’

‘… A way?’

‘That’s right, like a role model. People like Auntie Rosie thought that a good girl like you would become a mistress, but I don’t think so. I, too, have entered the world of the nobles in my own way, and I have some connections. I heard something about it…. I heard you messed with Duke Meyer like that.’ ]

In an instant, she felt that something was throbbing in her chest. Should I say that I was like a fish struggling in the water and barely swimming above the water’s surface just to breathe some air?

[‘How could you do that? Aren’t you very different from me who was tattling annoyingly about love? You might not know this, but some people called you a proud queen.’ ]

Emilia back in the old days would have blushed and waved her hands. However, Emilia hid herself in a calm mask and accepted Reina Schlemann’s admiring gaze. Something she thought had disappeared without a trace was firmly glued together and rose again.

[‘What’s your secret? How can you do that? It wasn’t anyone else, but Meyer!’ ]

The events of the past five years passed by in a flash. Contrary to what Reina was thinking, it was frighteningly dark, shaken, and collapsed. She was like selling herself as Reina, driven by reality. But there was one thing for sure – she had never done anything embarrassing to herself and her family. It wasn’t enough that her body was taken by Hadius Meyer without her permission and he forced lewd acts on her and felt sinful pleasure, but she didn’t hurt other people nor commit anything against her conscience.

She chose to be a dishwasher. She relentlessly rejected what the man wanted to give her, so she had no reason for shame or complaint. To a love completely different from a noble moral love, that didn’t mean her soul became evil just because she fell into decadence. If the body and mind can be separated, then her spirit must not break down. Her soul must be strong.

Emilia put down her teacup and faced Reina.

[‘There is no secret, Reina. I don’t even want to care about words like ‘proud queen’.]

A little confused, Reina tilted her head. At the same time, she couldn’t take her eyes from that calm and confident face.

[‘I’m just trying to… love myself more. I am trying to live on my own with my own strength and not rely on anyone else or men only.’ ]

Yes, why did I forget?

Emilia clasped Charlotte’s shoulders and muttered unconsciously. My self has always been the more precious. It has always been like that.

 

* * *

 

“I’m doomed.”

Pip muttered desperately through the open window. He really didn’t mean to. To the Young Master, the epitome of an elegant gentleman, he really didn’t intend to release the cat from its cage which he managed to catch by crawling on his knees. He just wanted to clean up the mess in the iron cage.

The bowl was overturned and the high-end fur cushion now smelled like milk. It was also a beast that was unwashed and had a nasty odor. He couldn’t possibly just leave it alone. But alas, as soon as the grate opened, the cat suddenly shot out like a bullet. It would have been nice if that was the only end, but he didn’t notice that the window was open for ventilation, so it just escaped through it.

… Now, I’m dead. Pip looked up in the sky in search of God. The sky was completely covered with black clouds, and at that moment, a long shadow hung overhead as if waiting.

“Young Master….”

Hadius could see the pale face of his footman before he could even see it – the messy room, the empty cage and the open window.

“… Stop cleaning….”

Pip fell to his knees.

“I really… have sinned to death….”

Hadius looked silently over the shaking shoulders of his footman. Then a very strange memory engulfed his consciousness. Was it when he was nine? It was the first time he attended the annual royal hunting competition with his father.

Hadius drove his horse frantically until he had covered the white mountain. He succeeded in catching a very rare and beautiful gray fox after suffering so much that his body was drenched in sweat. He didn’t win, naturally. There was also a person like Grand Duke Alshardt who had caught two regular foxes and three Urghis mountain foxes. However, Hadius was the youngest contestant and he was even holding a gray fox no one had ever before seen.

He handed the fox to his father as if it was nothing. He didn’t expect a compliment coming from him. He thought that he would have at least looked at him with a happy face, but his father didn’t give Hadius as much as a glance. His gaze was fixed on his older brother Theo, who hadn’t caught anything with a pitiful look.

His father had Hadius remove his rifle and get off his horse. The horse he used to chase the fox and the long gun he used to shoot the fox’s head quickly became his older brother’s. The people around them talked about it quite openly, but it seemed like nothing went into his father’s ears. Seeing his older brother with his changed gun on his shoulder and riding on a new horse, Hadius couldn’t move away from his position.

The beautiful snowflakes turned into a severe blizzard hitting into his pale face. The nine-year-old Hadius suffered from a cold for the first time in his life. And he realized a lot of things – his father cherished and loved his illegitimate son very much. The image of his father’s hand, which hit him on the back of his head randomly while holding his brother over his neck, was deeply embedded in Hadius’ mind.

His relationship with his father was beyond common sense that went against the rules of the world. No matter how bad their relationship may be, how could his father ignore his successor and pour affection into his illegitimate son? But, did it have nothing to do with what is drawing attention, mind turning, and the rules of the world? Will it not work… no matter how hard I try?

The kitten that ran away brought back the d**n feeling of that time.

Hadius stared at the open window and endured the many things that were boiling inside him. And with horrible timing, the ugliest face in the world appeared.

“Young master!”

The girl who dared to call him a ‘guardian angel’ and tell him her secret, and that child’s sister who hated him all her life.

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