A Runaway Villainess, Now Healing In An Enemy Country - Chapter 24

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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【Chapter 24】

“I’m sorry to you, Irene.”

Father, who I expected would show anger asking where I learned such speech habits, apologized quite affectionately.

That was more surprising than my younger sibling’s sudden appearance.

“Since you’ve finally become sisters, please take good care of your younger sister. Lishie is young and doesn’t know the ways of the world.”

It was a voice that sounded so gentle I could hardly believe it came from the stern Duke himself.

Thus I fell into confusion like someone dropped alone into the unknown, and my surroundings began to go awry from this moment.

At first, it was trivial and absurd misunderstandings.

“They say you took Lishie’s dignity maintenance allowance.”

“She offered to give it to me, so I simply didn’t refuse.”

What would I do by taking such pocket change?

“Are you in your right mind? Lishie could have died.”

“Noah, are you the one who’s crazy? Stop being unreasonable. I didn’t push her, it was just an unfortunate accident.”

Why would I push that child down the stairs?

Once the fire began to spread, it became uncontrollable. Before long, I became an unprecedented villainess who tormented her stepsister, and that pitiful stepsister.

Awakened as a saint.

The summer hunting festival, an annual imperial event. The monster riot that broke out there was certainly a disaster no one could have predicted.

Yet the fact that not a single casualty or even injury occurred was because Lishie’s divine power, awakened in that crisis, healed everyone.

Afterward, I fell as much as Lishie was revered.

It felt like becoming a cart racing down a slope. I was in danger, not knowing when I might fall or break apart.

That’s when Chessier fell in love.

“Irene Baltres! You finally…!”

Lishie injured her leg because she fell from her horse.

And I didn’t do the petty thing of provoking that child’s horse, telling it to fall and die.

However, the repeated misunderstandings and suspicions that would never be resolved no matter how much I explained were tiresome, so I said nothing.

“Your Highness! I really did fall from the horse! Sister actually treated my injuries!”

Lishie cried, begging him to believe her words.

Her pleas were generally very effective, but when it came to protecting me, things didn’t flow as intended.

“One month of house arrest, Irene. Reflect on your actions.”

Perhaps finding my situation amusing, all sorts of insects swarmed around me. So I retaliated as much as my accumulated infamy allowed.

Even if I was despised as a villainess, I was still the arrogant Irene Baltres, so I was fully capable of doing so.

But that was power derived from status and hierarchy.

People in higher positions than me could sufficiently rebuke or control me, and they did.

The reason I could endure even that humiliation was.

The engagement, the childhood oath not to betray.

The future of becoming Empress, regardless of what anyone said.

“Your Highness, are you enjoying your love games?”

“Did you chase me all the way here looking like that?”

I don’t remember well what state of mind I was in when I recklessly ran to the Northern Villa that day.

However, I was certain that only then did I realize that promises like oaths made in names or engagements between families were facades too fragile to believe in.

“Let’s just break off the engagement, Duke’s daughter.”

There’s a total capacity to a person’s heart.

I knew there was no room for me to squeeze into Chessier’s heart that loved Lishie, and to put it a bit strongly, I didn’t even want to.

Unlike magic, I knew that hearts couldn’t give results proportional to the effort I poured in.

‘But you promised me that position at least.’

You should keep your promise.

“Duke Baltres has also accepted it.”

The moment I faced the Baltres seal stamped on the annulment letter, I realized I had been unconsciously believing in my family for utterly absurd reasons.

‘We’re family, after all.’

“…!”

I bolted upright.

My head buzzed with dizziness. My whole body was unpleasantly damp and my senses were heightened, while the surrounding commotion reached me noisily.

“Oh. You woke up after 3 days, 1 hour, and 57 minutes.”

“Doctor! Go get a doctor!”

“Irene needs food for strength. She needs a meal.”

“You idiot! Can she eat right away? Huh?”

“Damn it, all you blockheads just shut up!”

“Irene, are you conscious? How many do you see?”

…Murmur murmur. Not a bit of sense among them.

The trio of fools and Giselle, I think. My vision was blurry as if smeared in water, so I could only roughly make out the scene through silhouettes.

The conclusion came quickly.

‘I must be in my room at Winter Castle.’

I spaced out for a moment, then unable to overcome the poison-like accumulated fatigue in my body, I flopped back down.

“Irene! You can’t die!”

“I’m not dying, Ally… I’m just sleepy…”

My eyes slowly closed.

To think sleep would come again right after waking up. It must be fatigue from recalling such worthless past events.

Strangely reassured by the noisy commotion, I finally fell into a deep sleep.

* * *

“She’s just sleeping, so don’t make a fuss.”

Davuer removed his fingers from Irene’s forehead and settled the commotion in the room.

Though it wasn’t much different from the diagnosis of the three previous doctors, the reaction was different because the speaker was different.

“Phew, I was startled when she collapsed again.”

The maid who had been demanding whether they were certain enough to bet their fingers on it when the doctors said it was simple sleep, now stroked her chest with a relieved expression.

‘Then why did they bring me here in the first place…?’

As a doctor who had been dragged to the infamous Winter Castle out of nowhere three days ago and suddenly had to deal with an untreatable patient, he felt wronged.

The patient he first saw was suffering from high fever. However, since the cause was an overload of mana circuits, there wasn’t much he could do without mana.

He was immediately branded a quack, and the number of poor kidnapped doctors increased from one to three.

Then when the patient’s heart briefly stopped, they all expected death. However, though their medical skills were doubted, they weren’t killed.

‘I want to go home.’

Of course, they weren’t allowed to go home either.

The three doctors pressed against the wall unanimously hoped the patient would wake up soon.

“She will wake up, right?”

The kidnappers felt the same way. Giselle, the kidnapping mastermind with a much more relaxed expression, asked her master.

Jepi, the kidnapping executor, suddenly replied.

“Pulse is normal.”

“Right. No problems.”

Davuer said this while sweeping his gaze over the crowd gathered so closely the room seemed cramped, then issued an order to leave.

“I’ll watch over her, so everyone get out.”

“Huh? But I’m the maid, so I should stay, right?”

Ally, who seemed to have forgotten her main job, tilted her head.

All she did was place a damp cloth on the forehead, yet she seemed to take pride in her nursing duties.

Not to be outdone, Jepi insisted stubbornly.

“I’ll stay. Me.”

True to the two people who had wanted to invade the Empire for revenge right after the incident, their behavioral logic was similar.

Finally, Davuer pulled out the magic word that could move these slightly lacking subordinates.

“Get out. That’s an order.”

“Tch.”

The two fools left the room without a word, though their lips were pouting like ducks’ bills. They didn’t forget to take Nishe, who had been standing like a doorkeeper, with them.

“Please call me when Irene wakes up.”

Finally, when Giselle took the physicians who had become wallflowers and left, the surroundings became quiet at last.

Only the regular sound of gentle breathing filled the space.

She’s alive.

Davuer confirmed once again the fact he had verified dozens of times during the three days Irene had been asleep.

“….”

The hand that had just touched her forehead trembled finely.

Irene’s mana circuits, which had been so precarious they seemed ready to burst at any moment, had now completely returned to normal. Her recovery ability was truly remarkably good.

Good enough to somewhat understand why she had no hesitation in driving herself so relentlessly.

She must have gambled with the conviction that she definitely wouldn’t die, having something to rely on.

Unlike Irene, who had ultimately achieved victory, Davuer had been greatly shaken because he lacked the same conviction as her.

“Don’t die.”

“Sorry, really… this is the la-st time…”

“Please, just this once… let me.”

“That habit, I’ll fix it starting tomorrow…”

He had overlapped it with ‘that day.’

It took quite a long time for him, having lost his composure in an instant, to emerge from the past.

If Giselle hadn’t managed the situation through telepathy at that moment, his magi might have gone berserk.

Davuer regretted listening to Irene’s words telling him not to interfere since it was her fight.

“Yet you blatantly ignore my advice.”

The person he loved had been the same way. Until the day she died, she never once listened to his words.

Would Irene be the same? Would she say that protecting was better than being protected?

“Don’t worry, I’ll protect you, Duke.”

Hearing what seemed like a nostalgic voice from somewhere, Davuer couldn’t help but smile.

She intrudes so casually, yet when he approaches from this side, she draws lines like she’s been burned by fire.

Now he knows the cause of the unpleasant feeling he’s felt all this time.

Over the past few days, even after her fever subsided, Irene kept tossing and turning, muttering intermittent sleep talk.

We’re family.

You should be on my side.

….

“Sleep well, and don’t dream.”

Davuer whispered like a spell to the woman who slept more peacefully than ever before.

If the unpleasant line Irene had drawn stemmed from family, then he just needed to become her new family.

It wasn’t such a difficult thing to do.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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