Because She Had A Time Limit, She Became The Villain’s Daughter-in-law - Chapter 5

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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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By the time I returned to Duke Icard’s Mansion, dusk had already fallen.
‘I need to eat the Occlasia Fruit!’
I had no intention of dying.
The moment I arrived back at the mansion, I slipped away alone and picked Occlasia Fruit to eat in secret.
‘They said it would be completely cured if I ate it consistently, right?’
It was a treatment method from the Eastern Continent, and in the original novel, it was mentioned in just a single line.
But ever since I started eating the Occlasia Fruit, my body had improved dramatically. The speed of recovery was almost unbelievably fast.
‘But if I run away in this condition, I’ll look like a beggar. And I’m not even completely healed yet.’
This place was the best environment an orphan with no foundation like me could possibly live in. First of all, there was plenty of money, so the meals, furniture, clothes—everything was of the highest quality.
‘I should cling to this place as long as possible.’
Moreover, there were so many Occlasia trees in the Mansion Garden. The garden was even close to my room. It was the perfect environment where I didn’t have to search elsewhere for a cure.
‘Healing in secret and disappearing quietly seems like the safest plan.’
In the end, I only needed to avoid being discovered by two people: my father-in-law who would kill me, and my husband who would be completely indifferent.
Of course, all the servants in the mansion were the eyes and ears of Duke Icard, so I had to be extremely careful.
Even my maid Lisa, who was assigned to me, might belong to Duke Icard rather than to me, so I needed to be cautious around her.
‘I can do this. I’m confident in my acting.’
Having resolved to survive, I formulated a concrete plan.
Plan A: Somehow survive here, secretly accumulate a lot of money, and then escape. Running away without money would be too pathetic. It was clean and risk-free, but it seemed like it would be quite a long journey.
And Plan B: Somehow stay here. Win the favor of Duke Icard so that he decides, “You know what, I’d rather live with Laria than seize the Royal Court!”
‘If I do well, won’t everyone come to like me? I’m really confident I can give my all.’
If I could only learn what Duke Icard wanted—controlling the Nobility and the Royal Court, the villain’s dream. Then if I could make that happen for him, wouldn’t Plan B be complete?
‘I wish I knew what Duke Icard wants, but for now, there’s no way to find that out.’
Besides, rather than running away alone and hiding, I genuinely wanted to get along well with this family, even if we were bound together by purpose from the start.
‘Honestly… when he said he’d pay off my debts at the Funeral Hall, he seemed like a savior.’
But I couldn’t rule out the possibility that I would ultimately fail to become a daughter-in-law more precious to Duke Icard than his ambitions, and would be killed.
‘One wrong move and I’m dead… I need to be cautious about taking risks. For now, I’m going all-in on Plan A.’
Plan B seemed better kept as a distant dream in my heart. The difficulty level was about the same as winning the lottery.
‘I should approach Plan A and Plan B with the mindset of a salaried worker buying a lottery ticket.’
Therefore, I concluded that I would do my best with Plan A for now.
Fortunately, Simor, the male lead of the original novel “The Great Transaction of the Empire,” was an extreme capitalist who worked very hard to accumulate money.
If I used that information, I thought I could earn money easily as well.
‘Of course, there’s the high-difficulty condition that I can’t let the ducal family find out.’
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After eating the Occlasia Fruit and going up to my room, I found unfamiliar books stacked inside.
‘What is this?’
Originally, there were no books in my room.
‘Now that my husband has arrived, is he telling me to study?’
I had only been taking it easy until now.
Duke Icard hadn’t assigned me any of the education necessary for a duchess during all this time.
I had played no role in high society either. There had been no wedding banquet when I hadn’t even had a wedding ceremony.
He simply left me alone. As if my only purpose was to quietly die.
‘Well, I suppose to others it might look like I’m just idling about….’
Feeling a slight pang of guilt, I opened the topmost book.
‘Huh?’
I gasped in shock and bit my lower lip hard. What I had opened was not a book at all.
[Reading fairy tales until bedtime, patting the head when there’s something to praise, sharing favorite foods, going for walks together and talking about this and that, choosing clothes to wear to important occasions.]
It was a diary. Moreover, the diary’s title was none other than ‘If Only Mother Had Been There.’
I hastily closed the diary and placed it back where it had been.
‘Wait, why is Evan’s diary in my room?’
Feeling as though I had done something terribly wrong, I rushed to the bed and lay down, closing my eyes.
‘That’s right, no matter how emotionally distant he becomes as an adult, Evan is still just a child.’
Evan, who had been neglected in his father’s indifference and sent to the Academy from the age of six.
‘So he wasn’t inherently indifferent to people after all.’
The sight of him standing alone among the children being congratulated was certainly pitiful. Perhaps my heart ached for him all the more because I had been an orphan in my past life.
‘Parental indifference might be bearable on ordinary days, but special occasions always feel lonelier.’
He would be fine once he grew up, but a child who knew he wasn’t loved was always pitiable to see.
‘And with his large build for his age and mature appearance…. His looks made it difficult for others to console him by saying how pitiful his youth was.’
Compared to my own appearance, which looked pitiful even when I did nothing, there was certainly an aspect where he was at a disadvantage.
‘But….’
I calmed my racing heart and thought.
‘…It’s exactly the same as what I used to long for.’
Along with compassion, a sense of kinship surged through me. I knew that feeling well—the desperate longing for just one person to wrap me in unconditional kindness.
My chest felt strangely tight as I lay quietly, when suddenly the door burst open.
“Lisa? You should knock.”
Since only Lisa had entered my room during this time, I spoke without concern.
“And why are there piles of books in my room….”
My words trailed off.
“Do you need to knock to enter my own room?”
My eyes snapped open.
It was Evan’s blunt voice.
“And those books are all mine. I’ll organize them myself, so don’t touch them.”
No, surely not. A very ominous feeling washed over me as I slowly sat up.
“My… room?”
“What, did you think this was your room alone?”
Evan, dressed in casual indoor clothes, spoke matter-of-factly.
“This has always been my room.”
True, it was far too spacious and ornate for one person to use alone. I had vaguely noticed the bed was unnecessarily wide, half the wardrobe was empty, and the bookshelves were completely bare.
But no one had bothered to explain this fact to me all this time.
Well, Duke Icard had suddenly brought me here one day and called me his “daughter-in-law,” then never sought me out again, so the servants must have been at a loss as to how to treat me.
“We’re husband and wife, so we should share a room.”
He was right—we were already legally married, so there was no reason not to share one.
‘But I’m not mentally prepared to share a room with a man yet….’
Then Evan continued in a flat tone.
“Oh, and before that, there’s something I wanted to discuss with you.”
“Yeah. What is it?”
Feeling guilty about sneaking a peek at his diary, I smiled as warmly as I could. But at his next words, I lost all composure and my jaw dropped.
“No matter how much we sleep in the same bed, I don’t want to make a baby.”
“…What, what?”
“Because I don’t want to make one yet.”
I was usually someone who didn’t panic easily, but in that moment, I was completely at a loss for words.
“I think we both need to be adults first if we’re going to take full responsibility for a child.”
Is he insane? He’s thirteen?
Just as I was about to protest, my ears burning red—
“So don’t hold hands in bed.”
“…Huh?”
I blinked.
“You never know? Well… I only just learned this myself not long ago.”
He lifted his chin and spoke with a hint of pride.
“If you hold hands while sleeping after marriage, you get a baby.”
“…Oh.”
I stared at his rather mature-looking face and blinked. Of course, appearance and mental age have nothing to do with each other, right….
“I was pretty shocked when I first heard it too. But you can’t stay a child forever.”
His gaze looking down at me seemed almost like he was gently admonishing me.
“Besides, you’re fourteen years old.”
“Yeah, that’s… true.”
I answered uncertainly. Suddenly, I felt completely prepared to share a room with Evan.

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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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