A World Where You All Are The Villains - Chapter 111

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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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111.

***

My claim about needing sleep wasn’t a lie.
I returned to my room, washed up, and collapsed into bed immediately.
I thought it would be a rare, restful sleep…
But I had a damned lucid dream instead.
Another one containing Edith Blake’s past.
Just like in the Greenhouse before, I found myself as a third party observing the scene unfold.
The location was familiar.
The Duke’s Office.
“Adoption… me?”
She must have been around twelve or thirteen.
A remarkably young-looking Edith Blake stared at the figure before her, her large eyes wide with shock.
The Duke, who appeared considerably younger than in the present day, responded with an indifferent expression.
“Yes. You seem to get along quite well with Ethan, so it should be fine.”
“But… but he’s a commoner, Father.”
“Hmph, ‘he’? He’s three years older than you, yet that’s how you address him?”
The Duke furrowed his brow in reproach, then issued his decree.
“In any case, we’ve decided on this, so I expect you both to get along from now on.”
This appeared to be a memory from when Ethan had been taken in as an adopted son.
‘Damn it, why does even this feel so similar and frustrating.’
I clicked my tongue and continued observing the two of them.
“I don’t want this.”
Edith Blake shook her head vehemently, her face contorting in distress.
“Why not?”
“I don’t want a new sibling, and I especially don’t want a commoner to become my older brother!”
“Edith.”
“Is it because I haven’t Awakened? Maybe I’m just a little late compared to others!”
Her voice cracked as she shouted, and tears began to well up in her eyes.
She must have been at her most vulnerable. Her heart must have been breaking.
Yet the Duke, seemingly blind to her anguish, proceeded to pour oil on the flames.
“How much longer will you whine like a child? You’re already fourteen! Everyone in our family should have completed their Awakening by thirteen at the latest, no matter how late.”
You failed to do so.
His unspoken words hung in the air, and Edith Blake’s breathing became ragged.
“So you’re going to cast me out because I haven’t Awakened?”
“I’m not casting you out. This decision was made for the sake of our family and for you. You know well how non-Awakeners are treated among the Nobility.”
“What about how I’ll be treated after you take Ethan in as your adopted son! What will people say about me?”
“Let them say what they will. You are my daughter, and that fact—that you are my one and only Princess—will never change.”
“Father!”
“Enough! The discussion is over. Now leave.”
The Duke turned his head away as though unwilling to hear another word.
Watching my father immediately refocus on the documents before him, Edith Blake’s tears began to fall silently, one after another.
She glared at the Duke, trembling with barely contained emotion, before abruptly pushing herself up from her seat and rushing from the room.
Slam! Bang—!
The Study door slammed shut with enough force to rattle on its hinges.
‘Such a temperament…’
I expected the perspective to shift to follow her at any moment.
Yet strangely, the scene continued.
The Duke set down his documents the instant he heard his daughter leave, then rubbed his temples with a weary sigh.
“Sigh…”
I found myself uncertain whether I should follow Edith Blake or wait for the scene to naturally shift on its own.
That was when it happened.
Click.
The closed door opened again, and the Duke’s younger-looking Aide stepped inside.
“Have you quarreled with the young lady again, sir?”
“Quarreled? I merely told her I was registering Ethan as my heir, and look at the result.”
“My. I brought those cookies the young lady is so fond of, too.”
Langton clicked his tongue in disapproval and set the refreshments on the desk as though offering them to the Duke instead.
Watching this, the Duke murmured as if speaking to himself.
“…Langton. I’m not certain I’m doing the right thing.”
“What other choice is there, sir? If you did not protect him, he would be dragged to the Imperial Palace and subjected to some bizarre pseudo-scientific experiments until he perished.”
“…”
“Surely it would be wasteful to squander an S-rank Awakener, even if he is merely a parentless commoner orphan, would it not?”
Having missed my chance to leave while overhearing their conversation, I flinched at this.
‘Pseudo-scientific experiments? What does that mean?’
As I stood bewildered, the Duke exhaled once more and continued.
“But Edith Blake despises the idea so thoroughly…”
“From a long-term perspective, it is not an entirely poor choice for the young lady’s sake. Surely you are most aware of Sir Douglas’s unwavering loyalty, are you not?”
“True… he was too talented to waste in such a manner.”
“Do not say such things. Is there not great honor in a knight dying while protecting his lord?”
Langton shot the Duke a pointed look, his tone tinged with reproach, before adding his final thought.
“Speaking with the boy, I found he bears his father’s temperament quite closely. Without unnecessary ambition, he will steadfastly care for our young lady.”
With that, the conversation between the two men came to an end.
Though I did not fully comprehend everything, I had at least grasped the background behind Ethan’s adoption.
As for my impression of it all?
‘I see. There were indeed multiple complex reasons behind this decision.’
That was all.
‘So. Various circumstances piled up, and what of it? Does that erase the wounds she received?’
Wouldn’t it have been enough to explain truthfully from the start, make her understand, and comfort her?
Though even I had to admit that Edith Blake’s temperament seemed rather extraordinary….
At fourteen, isn’t that an age where one can reasonably comprehend a parent’s words?
I gazed intently at the Duke with his darkened expression and pondered.
‘If you’re going to worry like that, why didn’t you think to embrace your weeping child right then?’
Why did you turn away just moments ago?
Why did you treat the shock and pain she would receive so lightly?
Why did you simply abandon her with folded hands while she went astray?
If you had only done your duty as a parent then, she wouldn’t have died so meaninglessly in another’s grasp!
The more I thought, the more my emotions intensified.
My eyes grew wet. Unbeknownst to me, I had begun to cry.
‘Is this anger born from empathizing with Edith Blake? Or….’
Or perhaps, was it jealousy stemming from envy that she at least had a biological father who worried for his daughter?
I could scarcely tell.
I was staring blankly at the Duke when I blinked once.
Pop!
The scene shifted.
I found myself standing in a garden where summer flowers bloomed brilliantly.
“Sob, sob….”
Edith Blake was huddled in a corner of the garden, weeping.
‘But wait, doesn’t she have a pollen allergy?’
A question suddenly crossed my mind, but I dismissed it as inconsequential.
It was a dream, after all. Perhaps she might have developed it as she grew older.
I approached Edith Blake slowly as she wept.
I wasn’t intending to speak to her.
It was all in the past anyway, and besides, she wouldn’t be able to see me.
Still. I wanted to sit beside her.
Soft footstep.
When I stood at Edith Blake’s feet with that thought.
Suddenly, she lifted her head.
“…!”
Upon seeing that face, I drew a sharp breath and froze in place.
Somehow, it had changed—it wasn’t Edith Blake.
The child who had been weeping was none other than,
me.
My past self.
“Sob, sob….”
A fourteen-year-old Yu Sol with one eye socket bruised a sickly blue stared endlessly into the distance, weeping pitifully.
I turned my head to follow her gaze.
The antiquated Duke’s Residence had vanished, replaced by a high-end residence with an urbane design.
The expansive window beside the dining table, which overlooked the Garden, had been Mother’s favorite spot.
In that place where all my happiest memories dwelled, my family—everyone except me—sat together eating in contentment.
Father and his adopted son.
Whatever they found so amusing, they laughed in unison, their joy unrestrained.
They seemed utterly indifferent to the empty seat.
I knew it was a dream, even though I had lived through it.
The moment I witnessed that scene, the emotions I had felt then—
Despair, sorrow, anguish—came rushing back with vivid clarity.
In that instant, the view of the Kitchen from the Garden began to blur violently.
A flash.
When I opened my eyes again, I was standing in the Study of that house.
“Greet him. This is your new older brother.”
My Biological Father was introducing a strange boy to me, having just caught me as I returned from school.
“A new… older brother?”
Fourteen-year-old Yu Sol stammered in bewilderment.
I looked pathetic and foolish.
The boy smiled gently at such a Yu Sol and extended his hand.
“Hi, Sol. I’m Ji-han. Yu Ji-han. Nice to meet you from now on?”
“”
“Ji-han, step outside for a moment.”
Father’s expression darkened as he watched Yu Sol stand motionless without taking the offered hand.
“Yes, Father.”
The moment Yu Ji-han left the Study, a stern command fell.
“What are you doing? I told you to greet him.”
“But suddenly a new older brother… I don’t understand what you mean, Father.”
“He’s the sharpest among the A-rank Awakeners. His abilities are quite useful, so I’ve decided to add him to the family register. Remember that.”
At this thunderbolt of an announcement, Yu Sol murmured incoherently.
“But… it hasn’t even been a year since Mother passed away.”
“I’m the one adding him to my register—why does your mother have anything to do with it? Tsk, I should have had two or three more capable children back then.”
Yu Sol shrank under his disapproving gaze, his eyes like those surveying defective goods.
“Is it… because I failed to Awaken again this time?”
“Then what other reason would I have to take in a black-haired beast like you?”
The man spoke as though it were obvious.
Despite it being a past I had already lived through, my chest ached.
That accusation directed at me.
Because I failed to Awaken—that damned lie had forced me to live half my life like a criminal.
It was only much later that I learned the truth.
The real reason Father had adopted young Awakeners, including Yu Ji-han.
At that time, consecutive failures in Gate expeditions occurred, and people poured blame upon my Father, who was the General.
Feeling his political career threatened, my Biological Father took drastic measures.
Namely, he deployed himself along with the older generation who had once been active but had since retired into the failed Gates.
Despite his advanced age, people marveled at my Biological Father’s unprecedented sacrifice for the nation, ceasing their criticism and offering praise instead.
Yet those already entrenched in the privileged class would never assume such risks themselves.
So they secretly sought out young, talented Awakeners without backing to enter the Gates in their stead.
That was why my Biological Father took in three adopted children.
It was the entire reason I, his only biological daughter, came to be treated as a useless defective product.
And it was the cause of Mother’s suicide.

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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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