Because She Had A Time Limit, She Became The Villain’s Daughter-in-law - Chapter 129

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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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“But as I said back then… I desperately need even your pity, Laria.”
“Evan, wait. Sit up for a moment.”
I was so dumbfounded that my mind went blank.
In the original story, Evan didn’t care whether his wife was unfaithful or not. Moreover, he had been equally indifferent to me. He was the one who coldly told his beloved wife, “I don’t like you as a woman.” So I never expected this kind of reaction…
“Don’t you feel sorry for me? After you left, I couldn’t eat or sleep. While you’re out there laughing and living comfortably with another man…”
“Come on, just sit down first. I’m not leaving, so sit here.”
I wiped away Evan’s tears and helped him up. Then I forced him to sit at the table. It seemed he was laboring under a rather absurd misunderstanding.
“If you feel sorry for me, come back. I’ll change to be like that man.”
“…”
“You do anything for me when you feel sorry for me. Just pity me a little, okay?”
“Evan, something’s not right…”
“If it’s a personality problem, I can change to be completely similar… Or is blue hair your taste? A pale, delicate face?”
Evan’s cheeks glistened again with falling tears. It seemed he had indeed heard rumors of Marcel’s true appearance and suspected me of infidelity. Or perhaps something had happened that I didn’t know about, something that could lead to such a conclusion.
“No matter how much you tried to divorce me and go to another man…”
“Divorce?”
“You asked Princess Elani to quickly establish divorce laws. When that didn’t work, you abandoned me and left, didn’t you?”
“Evan, listen carefully.”
I handed him a handkerchief and fell silent for a moment. The situation had become quite complicated. Nothing about this was simple.
“First… there’s something you’re misunderstanding. Kail Dart Labonis is an alias of mine.”
A faint glimmer of life returned to Evan’s vacant eyes.
“…What?”
“But I’m not sure what difference that makes…”
The fact that Kail and I were suspected of infidelity was truly born from something trivial.
“An alias… you’re saying it’s an alias?”
Evan narrowed his eyes as he spoke.
“Are you doing this to protect him from me? Don’t worry. I’ll kill him cleanly.”
He made a deeply concerning statement while gripping his sword as if to shatter it.
“I’m telling you it’s not true. He’s a non-existent person, so you couldn’t have found him.”
“He was like a ghost you couldn’t even chase down, but many people saw him directly… How could so many people directly see a person who is merely an alias?”
I let out a deep sigh and spoke.
“Yes, it’s all because my abilities are exceptional.”
“Ah…”
Evan murmured slowly.
“…I see.”
I thought it was pointless to hide everything now, so I added coldly.
“I deceived everyone within your own household completely, so creating one fictional person is nothing.”
At those words, Evan’s mouth opened slightly, and his expression showed clear hurt. Here I was, someone whose family was being held hostage, and he was this shocked over a little deception. Just as I, no longer the kind Laria, was about to say something else, Evan dropped tears and spoke.
“…Your household?”
“Hm?”
He wasn’t angry about being deceived—he was angry about the phrase “your household”?
“This is our home, Laria. Your surname is still Icard.”
His face had never been particularly pleasant to look at, but now it was so worn and damaged that he gave off a truly terrifying atmosphere.
“I still don’t understand why you’re doing this….”
Evan couldn’t continue speaking because the door suddenly burst open.
“Lady Laria!”
It was Sven, somehow carrying Neo from the study.
“There’s an attack right now… Oh.”
Sven’s eyes froze as they landed on Evan across from me.
“Laria.”
“What?”
“Do you have a preference for older men? If it’s not Kail, is this man your secret lover?”
“….”
“If I looked even older….”
“No, Evan. You already look far too old for your actual age.”
He had never been particularly youthful to begin with, but his face was so damaged from searching for me that he looked to be in his mid-to-late twenties.
“Meow, meow!”
Just then, Neo began crying out violently at the sight of Evan.
“Meow, meow!”
“No, why is Lord Neo doing this!”
Sven held onto the struggling Neo in confusion. As he tried to carry Neo out, the cat began resisting with intense ferocity.
“Meow!”
“This won’t work, Sven.”
I sighed and pulled out another chair.
“Sit. Evan doesn’t seem to believe my words, so I needed a witness anyway. Oh, and.”
There was one more very important matter I couldn’t forget.
“Release my older brother too.”
“That is….”
“He won’t run away. I can’t move around with my older brother anyway. But I can’t leave him like that.”
In the end, a very strange combination gathered in my room. Evan and his aide Nathan, Sven and Neo, and even Fred.
“Lariaaaaaaa!”
The moment his restraints were released, Fred rushed toward me like an arrow and embraced me.
“Laria! What is all this about? How did this even happen!”
I briefly thought that Fred might be the most pitiful supporting character in this entire world.
He had left for distant studies under unfavorable circumstances, and then lost contact with the continent for years. Years later, when he finally learned of his family, his parents had passed away, the house had collapsed, and his only younger sister was married while afflicted with illness.
Somehow, he hurried back to the Empire, only to be kidnapped by his sister’s husband and dragged all the way here.
“Older brother, um… you’ve been through so much.”
“You’re sick! I only just now read the letter Mother sent me before she passed away.”
Tears welled up in Fred’s eyes before they began to fall.
“A terminal illness… Garbas Castle lung disease with multiple complications… my sister, whom I barely reunited with, is going to die soon….”
“…Ah.”
I quickly pulled out another handkerchief and handed it to him. Both Evan and Fred had their eyes swollen red, and the sight of these two men clutching lace-adorned handkerchiefs was quite the spectacle.
“Stop crying, Older Brother. I’m fine, really.”
I patted Fred’s shoulder as I spoke.
“I’ve been eating Occlasia Fruit since I was young. Fortunately, there were Occlasia trees in the Count’s Manor garden and at the villa. So I’m completely healthy now.”
The one who reacted immediately to my words was Evan.
“So you’re truly completely recovered, then?”
“Yes, I was actually sick when I was younger, but at some point I was just pretending. I’m really healthy now.”
“Ah….”
Evan murmured softly.
“I’m truly relieved to hear that.”
But the truth was, that wasn’t really the problem. My recovery from the illness wasn’t the end of all our conflicts. In fact, things might have become even more complicated. Nothing was resolved, and we hadn’t truly communicated.
I found myself wondering why Evan had gotten so worked up in the first place.
‘When did he say so firmly that he didn’t like me as a woman….’
Had he actually liked me all along?
Even if he had, the kind and pure Laria he knew wasn’t me. But how could I tell him to marry Princess Elani in this atmosphere?
‘And I can’t just ignore Father’s long-cherished wish to save Mother….’
I was keeping silent, unsure of where or how to begin this conversation.
“Um.”
Fred, who had been sniffling, looked at me and his lips trembled.
“So, you’re really recovered, right?”
“…Yes?”
“W-what? If you eat that Occlasia fruit or whatever, you really get better?”
At Fred’s words, I froze completely. It felt as though someone had suddenly struck my head.
What was Fred saying right now?
By this point, Fred should have been muttering that if he had come to the Empire and continuously eaten Occlasia Fruit in front of my grave, I would have been completely healed. But how could he have such a clueless expression….
“Older Brother.”
No matter what commotion I caused here, it wouldn’t have affected Fred, who was on the Eastern Continent.
“The Occlasia Fruit… you don’t know? You’ve never heard of it?”
“No.”
Fred nodded immediately.
“My specialty is law. How would I know about plant fruits like that?”
“…Isn’t Garbas Castle’s lung disease a common illness on the Eastern Continent?”
“What are you talking about? I had never heard of that disease until Mother’s letter.”
It was definitely because of that useless remark of Fred’s written in the original work that I was able to cure my illness. So Fred’s knowledge was the very causality that allowed me to recover and survive. But what was this contradiction….
At that moment, I recalled a conversation I had once had with Serena.
“How do you save someone who’s dead…?”
“I heard you turn back time.”
“Really?”
“They say that’s how you change the causality so death doesn’t occur. But in the process, cracks form, and depending on how the causality is altered, there are always discrepancies that arise.”
While everyone was looking at me with strange expressions, I quickly searched through my memories.
“Everything else was manageable enough to find, but the Occlasia tree was the difficult part. It’s not commonly used as an ornamental plant, and it’s quite demanding to maintain.”
It was a fact I had simply attributed to luck. That my rare treatment happened to be located somewhere easy to obtain.
“Well, it seems Laria must have some connection to dark magic, or perhaps possesses the aptitude of a Dark Mage.”
Over the past few days, I had studied dark magic texts diligently, but it seemed I possessed no aptitude for dark magic whatsoever. According to the books, I should have already manifested as a Dark Mage, yet there were no signs of that at all. If that were the case, then I must be connected to dark magic in some way, and…
“When dark magic is used, it creates fissures in the world. Because it’s an unnatural force, something becomes warped somewhere.”
“But you… you were born from a fissure.”
At that moment, a hypothesis flashed through my mind, and my hands trembled uncontrollably.

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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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