Chapter 3: 3

‘What?’

The moment I turned my head at the sound of footsteps approaching, the door was flung open.

BANG-!

‘That scared me, I thought it was a wild boar..’

I jumped to my feet, startled by the loud noise, and saw a white-haired man with a frosty expression standing there with a military bearing. If it weren’t for his white hair, it would be hard to tell how old he was.

He had a sturdy physique that belied his age. The man, who appeared to be just entering his golden years, frowned as soon as our eyes met.

“Umm….”

I swallowed dryly as I watched the man approach with a stern expression on his face. The marble under his feet thumped, thumped, and thumped with each step he took. It was like a lumbering white bear approaching.

‘Was that my grandfather?’

It wasn’t hard to guess the man’s identity. Looking closely, his burly body and ruddy face resembled my self-proclaimed father a lot.

“How are you..?”

I awkwardly raised the tip of my lip, hoping to at least appear friendly. But the man I assumed to be my grandfather narrowed his eyes at my smile. Then, in a voice as ferocious as an animal’s snarl, he said, “You’ve run away with your family name under your head, and now you’ve crawled right back in.”

I’m not surprised anymore. With the way he’s acting it seems that he hasn’t heard about me yet. He must have heard from someone else that the young lady Bright had returned, and he came running the instant he heard of it.

‘Crawled back?’ 

I didn’t run away in the first place. Normally, anyone who comes to me for an argument would instantly be beaten up, but out of respect for the Elderly, I decided to be nicer and corrected him instead.

“Umm actually I’m not–”

However, I couldn’t help but feel that the words that came out were a bit incoherent. From my point of view, it was like I was trying to fight a losing battle…

“You still have the habit of talking back?”

It’s only the first time we met, so what does he mean still?’

No, wait. Maybe he saw me when I was a baby. But still, I can’t even remember him, so let’s call it our first meeting.

I watched the dark eyebrows of the man I assumed to be my grandfather wiggle as I calmly opened my mouth.

“You must have a misunderstanding, sir.”

“What kind of misunderstanding?!”

‘Wow, that voice was loud.’ Almost deafening. It echoed through the entire parlor like the roar of an animal.

“If you’re coming back, you should have come back quietly. I heard that you were taken away by the guards again for making a scene outside!”

‘What again?’

Young Lady Bright must have been locked up by the guards before as well, now I understand why the guards were acting like that.

“How long are you going to keep causing trouble?”

“Ugh…” I groaned, my blood pressure also slowly rising.

“Calm down.”

I told the gruff man in front of me.

“At this rate, I don’t think I—”

There’s no way in hell we’re going to get through this.

I wanted to say those words, to leaven up the situation but it backfired. He just got angrier.

“Don’t you dare talk back to me! The family’s prestigious name has fallen to the ground because of you!”

“But… It has nothing to do with me.”

He must have been boiling in a pot, because his voice was so loud.

I thought there was a misunderstanding, so I tried to be polite to him, but now I don’t know. I’m not a saint, and I don’t think I’d look good yelling at him.

“What do you mean It doesn’t matter!? This is all—”

“I’m not Young Lady Bright.”

“What?”

“I’m not that so-called Young Lady Bright.”

‘Maybe I’ll be one later. But still.’

For now, I’m Lady Sabrina. That was what I meant, but the man apparently took it differently. He got this incredulous look on his face. As if he was stunned and disbelieving.

“You’re not Young Lady Bright?”

“Yes. I’m Lady Sabrina…”

“And now you actually dare to deny your family name?”

‘No Please listen to me first!’

It seems that the people in the capital have a habit of not listening to what most people want to say, or at least interpreting it in their own twisted way. Otherwise, I won’t be in this situation right now.

“How dare you say such a thing

to—!”

The man’s face flushed red, and I felt chills run down my spine after he shouted.

‘Killing intent?’

Sure enough, within his piercing green eyes, I can sense that penetrating glare looking at me, as if it’s skinning me alive.

“Hah!”

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I couldn’t believe it, but it was actually happening. I laughed out loud at the absurdity of it all. ‘Killing Intent’ was a technique used to subdue an enemy without the use of a sword. A martial artist of a certain degree can easily utilize this technique. If it were a normal person or maybe Young Lady Bright being assaulted by this killing intent, then they would have already collapsed or fainted. But I’m not them. I’m not an ordinary person either. This level of trick is nothing to me.

‘That’s it, stinky old man. Grandfather or not, you’re my enemy now.’

There’s a saying that goes an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, and a sword for a sword.

So Instead of relenting, I released my own killing intent.

“What?”

He was taken aback. He didn’t expect that I would release my own killing intent instead of collapsing like any ordinary person. He had a surprised look on his face, especially when he realized that not only did I endure his killing intent, I was even able to deflect it.

“That was–”

“Father!!”

When the old man finally let his guard down, an urgent voice rang out from behind him. It sounded like a mischievous child running up frantically to tell on his father.

It was my self-proclaimed father.

He ran into the parlor and stood in front of me.

“What do you think you’re doing?!”

He spread his arms out as if to protect me. The old man immediately frowned at his unexpected reaction.

“Step aside. I want to talk to her…”

“Father, calm down! This is Iris, not Archie!”

He yelled frantically.

“…What?”

The old man blinked his eyes as if he had heard something inconceivable.

“What are you talking about?”

Having finally relaxed, he looked at him with a stiff expression.

“Archie hasn’t come back, it was Iris who came to the capital. Father, this is Iris.”

“Iris?”

At his words, the old man looked at me puzzlingly. The green pupils which were filled with killing intent earlier looked so shaken.

“This child?”

‘Yeah, exactly! That’s what I told you earlier, old man!’ 

I smiled at him, who had turned as rigid as a statue in front of me.

“I’m Iris Sabrina, pleased to meet you.”

After realizing his mistake, he let out a cough. I watched his face turn from red to blue and eventually white. I then gave him an honest bow according to etiquette.

“I think you’re mistaken earlier, I’m not Young Lady Bright. As I said, I’m Lady Sabrina.”

‘You get that stinky old man?’

“I’m so sorry.” the self-proclaimed father bowed his head miserably.

When the stinky old man realized that I was Iris, he didn’t know what to do. He was immediately kicked out of the room by my self-proclaimed father, and the two of us were left alone in the parlor, sitting across each other while sipping the tea that the butler had brought.

” Father he–, I mean your grandfather, had a fiery temperament, I suppose.”

I nodded in agreement as I quietly sipped my tea, and the self-proclaimed father made a disgruntled sound.

“He’s been on the battlefield all his life. He uses his body first before his mind. And he’s been pretty upset about the disturbance that Archie caused a few months ago…”

“That’s none of my business,” I said coldly, while slamming the teacup on the table. The head of my self-proclaimed father drooped down like ripe rice, but I didn’t feel like placating him. I didn’t even know I had a father until a few hours ago.

Common sense dictates that if a stranger came along and said, “I’m actually your father!” you wouldn’t say, “Oh, right!” but rather, I’d be suspicious, wondering if he was a fraud, but so far I’m not impressed.

Most of all, I was already in a bad mood because I had been mistaken for someone else as soon as I arrived in the capital, and I had been subjected to all sorts of strange reactions and even got put into jail.

“Now I want you to tell me about my mother.”

“Oh, right. Where do I start, um, do you really not remember anything?”

“Not at all.”

My answer brought a look of deep disappointment to his face. I felt a little sorry for him, but it was the truth.

“I don’t remember much of my childhood.” I said calmly.

Anyways, how many people in the world can remember their childhood with such clarity? And even then I had very few memories of my own.

You see, when I was about eight years old, I was playing in the valley and hit my head on a rock and was badly injured. After that, well, I guess I got what the world calls amnesia, and the butler said that the reason I remembered so little before the age of eight was because of that head injury. There was actually a small scar on my forehead, and when I tried to recall old memories, they were blurry, as if there was fog in it. I quickly searched my memory, just in case, but nothing came to mind.

“Well, Wendy ran away from home leaving behind our divorce papers, so you may not remember it because you were about two years old then.”

He mumbled with a bitter look. He picked his words for a moment and then began to talk carefully.

“Your mother, Wendy, was a free-spirited woman. She was like the wind. We met on the battlefield, when I was just an aide to your grandfather, the Duke of Bright… and Wendy, then Viscountess Sabrina at that time, was working as a mercenary while hiding her identity.”

“Oh.”

I couldn’t help but gasp at the idea that my mother had traveled the continent in her youth, doing mercenary work.

It was no different now. My mother’s wanderlust was not tied to a single provincial estate. It was also a fact that I Iearned from the butler at home.

“Wendy was very skilled in swordsmanship and I fell in love with her at first sight.” The self-proclaimed father’s face waxes wistfully as he recalls the past.

“For an unknown stroke of luck, She miraculously accepted my desperate courtship. But my father was against it.”

“He wanted Wendy to become a general, not a Marquis’ wife.”

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