Ch 3.10
But before I could say a word, Father vented his anger at Kane and chased him out, leaving me to simply watch his departing back.
A moment later, as I was about to head back to my room, Father—who had been watching Kane leave—came to my side.
He immediately began to grill me about the reason for the visit.
“What business did that fellow have here?!”
“I don’t know either. I was just about to
start talking when you arrived, Father.”
“……Is that so?”
“Yes.”
“Ahem……! From now on, never meet that man under any circumstances. How dare he come here!”
Father still couldn’t easily calm his rage over the fact that Kane had shown up here.
“I don’t want to meet him either, but he just came here recklessly.”
That was the nature of a status-based society.
At least Father could handle it like this since they held the same rank, but I was lower than Kane and couldn’t simply cast him away just because I didn’t want to see him.
“Do not worry. Your father will take care of all the measures.”
Fortunately, at Father’s words about taking certain measures, I replied with a bright smile of gratitude.
“Yes, thank you, Father.”
The incident of Kane visiting the Ducal house concluded like that for the time being.
However, from the next day, instead of visiting, he began to send me gifts.
What on earth is he thinking…….
For what reason is he sending me gifts?
Does that man have me in his heart again?
No, that was something that absolutely could not happen, and should not happen.
I couldn’t say for sure since I didn’t have the mind-reading skills to decipher people’s gazes and hearts.
However, he was a man who had been fed up with Belita’s obsession; if he only now felt Belita’s absence because she wasn’t by his side…….
‘Wouldn’t that make him a pervert?’
Even if I didn’t know Kane perfectly, judging by the man I knew from the novel and the one I experienced here, he was not such an emotional person.
So, guessing carefully, no matter how much I thought and thought again, Kane’s
objective appeared to be only one.
‘The diamond mine.’
When he gave it to me, his feelings for Adela were greater than a mountain, so he would have given the whole world if he could just remove me—the obstacle to his love.
I couldn’t know the exact circumstances of why the two of them broke up, but thinking about it, it was extremely realistic.
Because eternal love only exists within books.
The moment you step out of the book, you face reality.
Is it because this place, although inside a book, is specifically the world after the novel ended?
‘It’s a bit bittersweet in many ways…….’
Despite Kane’s daily offensive of gifts, there wasn’t a single gift sent by him in my room.
The moment he found out who the sender was, Father became enraged and did not allow any gifts into the mansion at all.
I heard that he burned them all, which was truly like my father.
“It’s nice. Being loved by parents.”
In truth, having parents was a first for me in my entire life.
That is to say, I had no parents in my life before I came here.
I was abandoned at an orphanage as soon as I was born, grew up there, and left the moment I turned twenty.
Since I had lived alone ever since, I never knew what it was like for an absolute existence to protect me, and I thought my life would always be like that.
Perhaps half the reason I didn’t desperately think of going back after coming here was because of my parents.
Having parents, having a family, was
powerful enough to fill the empty void in one side of my heart.
So, although they were Belita’s parents, the two who became my parents became incredibly precious people to me.
While I was lost in deep thought, Mary announced her arrival from outside the door.
“Young Lady, it’s me. It’s Mary.”
“Come in.”
I looked at Mary as she entered the room.
However, she was holding an envelope in her hand.
“What is that?”
“It’s an invitation. An invitation has arrived for the Young Lady.”
“Which family is it from this time?”
I asked Mary in a weary voice.
It was no small task refusing invitations every single day to attend various parties.
“This time, it’s not from a noble family, but
from the Imperial Family.”
“The Imperial Family?”
Feeling a somehow unpleasant premonition, I reached out my hand toward Mary.
Mary handed me the envelope containing the invitation.
“Why would something come from the Imperial Family?”
Of course, the Imperial Family could hold banquets too, but I examined the envelope with a sense of doubt.
Looking at the seal, it was indeed the seal of the Imperial Family.
Moreover, it was the seal of the Crown Prince.
I hurriedly opened the envelope and pulled out the invitation.
And I began to read it carefully.
“What does it say?”
“It says there will be a banquet at the Imperial Palace in two weeks.”
“At the Imperial Palace?”
“Yes. It says it is a gathering for the young ladies and young lords, and that attendance is mandatory.”
“Since it’s from the Imperial Family, it will be hard to refuse, right?”
“I suppose so…….”
“There isn’t much time left if it’s in two weeks. I must start the preparations quickly.”
Mary said so and left the room.
Even after Mary left, the unsettling feeling didn’t go away the whole time.
Why a banquet at the Imperial Palace all of a sudden?
It wasn’t an Imperial birthday banquet, and why do they even insist that I must attend a banquet that seems to have no particular purpose?
Since people might not be able to go if they lack the time or have a reason, such phrasing had never been written in the invitations I had received so far.
Therefore, this banquet that demanded mandatory attendance felt somewhat suspicious.
‘I don’t really want to go…….’
Surely, if I told Father, he would resolve it somehow.
The Emperor’s power was weak, and the power of his son, the Crown Prince, was even weaker than that.
But how long could I live comfortably under Father’s shadow?
Kane’s business was a very personal matter, so be it, but I was now a proper adult to be receiving Father’s help for even
these kinds of things.
Even if something I didn’t want to do arose, I had to learn to face it and resolve it myself.
Otherwise, I would never be able to lead this massive family.
Having made that judgment, I decided that I should go for now.
‘I’ll probably meet everyone again if I go.’
Kane, who has been bothering me in strange ways lately; Adela, who—though I personally have no feelings toward her—must officially have a deep rift with me; and Eden, who looks at me with strange emotions and strange eyes, were all certain to come.
And everyone there would whisper behind my back about me, appearing for the first time in two years.
It seemed I would have to steel my heart.
When Father found out about the banquet to be held at the Imperial Palace, he tried to dissuade me throughout the past two weeks, telling me not to even think about going.
However, I persuaded Father by calmly explaining why I had to go and how I would behave there.
In the end, Father allowed me to go to the banquet due to my stubbornness, and today was the day of that banquet.
From this morning, I spurred on the preparations to go to the banquet.
Since it was a gathering where only young nobles would meet, and since attention would be focused on me anyway, I decided to just make it focus even more.
So, I decided to wear a red dress that suited me incredibly well.
“How is it?”
“It is so, so beautiful, Young Lady.”
After getting the first confirmation from Mary and the second confirmation in the mirror, I left the room.
Going to the carriage parked in front of the mansion, Lian—standing among several knights—caught my eye.
I quickened my pace, approached Lian, and spoke to him.
“Lian, are you in charge of my escort?”
“Yes, Young Lady.”
I tilted my head slightly toward him and whispered into his ear in a joking tone, loud enough only for the two of us to hear.
“It’ll be boring, so why follow me? Just stay here.”
In reality, the job of an escort was just to guard the carriage throughout the banquet, and they could only enter the hall when something happened, so the entire waiting time was tedious and dull.
“I will go wherever the Young Lady goes without fail. I will protect you, Young Lady.”
Right, if I talk in jokes, you have to take it seriously.
That is Lian.
Lian replied to my joke-like words with an incredibly serious and solemn appearance.
“Alright. You must protect me, okay?”
“Yes, I will do so.”
I nodded and boarded the carriage.
And then, the carriage departed toward the Imperial Palace.
— Continued in Volume 2
