A Fortune-telling Princess - Chapter 99
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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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“Good heavens….”
“Ah, there are two young ladies!”
“This can’t be right!”
The crowd fell into confusion at the sight of two identical-looking women.
“What on earth….”
Duke Sorpel and Ravi were equally bewildered.
“Where have you been?”
“Sigh.”
Only Arsian and Petro exhaled long, relieved sighs. The violent auras that had been swirling around the two men dissipated in an instant.
“That… that woman is a fake!”
But it wasn’t long before the two men’s auras turned murderous again. The fake Camilla had started shrieking at the top of her lungs.
“She’s a fake who came to steal my place!”
Pitiful tears streamed down the face of the woman wearing Camilla’s appearance. She’d struck first before the truth could be revealed.
“Please… please don’t believe her, everyone!”
She was truly shameless.
Watching the crowd begin to sympathize with the fake’s sorrowful tears, Camilla clicked her tongue and strode toward her.
There was no benefit in dragging this out.
“Are you an idiot?”
“What?”
“How could you be stupid enough to impersonate me?”
Camilla clicked her tongue repeatedly.
“Don’t you remember what you said?”
“What…!”
“You said I was under Shinsu’s protection, that it would be difficult to take over my body. And yet you still….”
Camilla paused briefly, then retrieved something from her bosom.
Still growing, unable to hide its form, small enough to fit snugly in her arms—
[ROOOAARRR!]
“And you forgot about this child’s existence.”
It was Shinsu King.
The moment I returned home, I immediately searched for King. Insurance, so to speak, prepared for any unforeseen circumstances. Of course, it was also good for mental and emotional stability.
“KYAAAHHH!”
Thud!
At King’s piercing cry, the woman’s legs gave out and she collapsed to the ground, trembling violently.
Her heart nearly stopped at the sound of Shinsu’s roar.
Her entire body shook uncontrollably, beyond her will. Her head pounded as if it would split, and she couldn’t muster any strength in her limbs.
‘Is… is this the power of Shinsu?’
So it possessed the power to drive out malevolent forces!
The Organization had chosen the Sorpel Estate among the three Guardian Families precisely because it was the only one without a Shinsu.
Though Shinsu had recently returned, it was still young, wasn’t it?
Before the young Shinsu could fully awaken, I had rushed to be acknowledged as a daughter.
Yet even as Shinsu’s cry had not fully awakened, my soul seemed ready to tear itself from my body.
[A low, rumbling growl….]
As if mere howling were insufficient, King appeared ready to lunge at the woman at any moment—until Camilla gently stroked his head.
At her touch, Shinsu became docile as if by magic.
“No, no! It’s all a lie! Everything was fabricated! I am Camilla! I am, I am!”
Even as her entire body trembled, she refused to surrender.
Yet no one in that place was listening to her words anymore.
“That Shinsu is also fake… yes, fake! You must believe me!”
Camilla took another step closer toward the woman in her final throes of desperation.
And she whispered a single name.
“Aria Hillen.”
“…!”
The moment her true name was spoken, the woman’s eyes widened as if they might burst. Staring directly at her, Camilla cried out again.
“Aria Hillen.”
“No, please!”
“Aria, Hillen.”
Thud.
As she pronounced each syllable of the name one final time, the woman collapsed.
‘I shall grant you one more thing.’
This was the final gift Habel had given me.
The true name of the spirit that had entered Lania’s body.
‘What good is knowing the name alone? Doesn’t the spirit only respond when the Reaper calls it?’
‘You can do it as well.’
‘Me?’
‘Your call, as one who sees spirits and converses with them, will also elicit their response.’
[Ah… aaaahhh! No, please!]
Habel’s words proved true. The spirit responded to my call.
Just as an old man’s spirit had burst forth from the boy’s body before, now a strange spirit revealed itself. It was a woman in her early thirties.
She shrieked continuously at the realization that she had been expelled from Lania’s flesh.
But that time was mercifully brief.
[Kyaaaaaahhh!]
The end of the guilty was always the same.
Countless hands dragging into darkness ensnared her without fail.
“L-Lady Lania?”
The body from which the spirit had departed transformed back into Lania’s appearance.
A soft rustling sound.
But in the next instant, Lania’s body rapidly accelerated through time.
As if a film were being fast-forwarded, her body decayed in an instant, crumbling into dust and scattering away.
“….”
Camilla had already witnessed Dennis’s body crumble in the same manner, so she felt no particular shock.
It was simply a complicated feeling. After all, that body was genuinely Lania.
“Eek!”
“Gasp!”
“W-what is that!”
“Good heavens….”
But the others couldn’t suppress their shock.
Camilla exhaled a short breath and slowly turned her head.
There, Duke Sorpel stood with a frozen expression, his gaze fixed on the spot where Lania had vanished as if nailed in place.
‘Sigh.’
A long breath escaped from within me once more. How was I supposed to explain this situation?
My head was already throbbing.
Chapter. A Final Farewell
“So what you’re saying is, Lania died three years ago?”
“Yes.”
Camilla nodded at Ravi’s question.
“When that woman kidnapped me, she said it. That the real Lania had already died three years ago. That she had transformed into her appearance and infiltrated this household.”
Camilla mixed truth and falsehood appropriately once more to explain the situation.
She glanced sideways at the ghost Lania standing quietly beside her.
Freed from her restraints, she too had regained her reason. And she had told me various facts that she knew.
[Mother originally met Father under another person’s name.]
Her story was deeply shocking.
[It was a plan to place an important figure from The Organization into the bloodline of the Sorpel Family.]
I didn’t hear exactly which organization it was. She said there was no benefit in knowing the truth too deeply, so Lania kept silent about it to the end.
[When Mother gave birth to a child, the plan was to implant the spirit of an Organization member into that child’s body. Just as they did to me….]
But this couldn’t be done to Ludvil, the firstborn son.
The firstborn son who would inherit the family was always blessed by Shinsu’s protection, so it was impossible to seize that body.
That’s why The Organization had originally targeted the second child.
[But when Mother learned she was pregnant with me, she immediately left the family.]
Having come to genuinely love Duke Sorpel and her child, she betrayed The Organization and went into hiding. She fled to escape the Organization’s eyes.
She simply couldn’t bear to see her child fall into The Organization’s hands and be used.
[I’ve never lived in one place for more than two months.]
She had to spend her entire life wandering. It was an unavoidable choice to evade the Organization’s eyes spread throughout the land.
[And then, three years ago, The Organization finally caught us.]
Only then could I hear the story from Mother. Why the two of us had to live a life of flight.
[In the end, Mother was killed… and I as well….]
I have no memory of what happened after that. I remember nothing of what occurred after my body was taken.
“Killed, you say?”
“Yes….”
“How dare they!”
“I’m not entirely sure about that either….”
Watching Duke Sorpel consumed by sorrow and rage, Camilla couldn’t bring herself to reveal the deeper truth.
Telling him that the former Duchess had approached him with the intention of deceiving him from the start would only inflict a far greater wound.
“Sigh….”
His gaze, which had been fixed on his forehead as he exhaled a continuous stream of sighs, turned back toward Camilla. His eyes were filled with remorse.
“You’re not hurt anywhere, are you? I was so distracted I failed to check properly.”
“No, I’m fine. Please don’t worry.”
I made an excuse about escaping during a lapse in surveillance. I couldn’t very well tell him the truth about receiving help from Reaper Habel.
“I see….”
Duke Sorpel had immediately sent soldiers to the place where Camilla had been confined, but the house was already engulfed in flames with nothing left standing.
The house that Lania had claimed to have lived in was the same. That place too had been consumed by fire, leaving no trace behind.
‘Someone must have visited in the meantime.’
It couldn’t have been a coincidence that fires broke out. And only in those two houses, no less.
‘They certainly move quickly.’
I too was curious. What kind of organization could orchestrate something like this?
The fact that even the former Duchess had come here under their orders meant they had been scheming since long ago.
‘This is rather unsettling.’
Occupying the body of a living person was one thing, but the fact that they had plotted in silence for such a long time felt far more disturbing.
“Rest now.”
Duke Sorpel, his expression hardened as if his mind was overwhelmed, slowly rose from his seat and left the Reception Room.
There was no strength in his steps.
‘Of course.’
The fact that Lania, who had been with him all this time, was a fake, and that the former Duchess and her biological daughter were already dead—he wouldn’t be able to accept any of it right away.
“You’re truly not injured anywhere?”
“No.”
“That’s a relief, at least.”
Arsian and Petro had remained by my side until everything was settled. I found myself regarding those two men with a certain curiosity.
‘How did they know?’
That she was a fake.
From what I heard, the two of them had been certain from the very beginning that she, wearing my face, was a fake, without a shred of doubt.
Meanwhile….
“What’s with that look in your eyes?”
“How can you not recognize your own sister when you can recognize a stranger?”
Honestly! And you call yourself my brother!
“Why are you like this! I thought something was off too!”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“It’s true.”
“What seemed off about her?”
“She….”
“…?”
“She had manners.”
“Manners?”
“Your speech and behavior are so polite it’s downright strange, that’s all.”
“…Is that all?”
“Isn’t that enough? Does it make sense for you to show me respect?”
I bit back my words. Swallowing a string of curses, I turned my head sharply away.
[….]
In that moment, my gaze caught Lania standing motionless, her eyes fixed endlessly on the direction Duke Sorpel had disappeared.
Watching her expression—the desperate longing to chase after Duke Sorpel—I fell into a brief reverie.
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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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