Everyone Was Obsessed With Me After I Became the Youngest Princess Favourite - Chapter 107

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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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“….”
“….”
Though the door was firmly shut, a chill seemed to drift through the Reception Room.
“Hello, Marquis!”
It was Diana, clinging to my side, who broke the heavy silence that had settled over us.
I had originally planned to come alone, but Diana and I had baked cookies together, and she had naturally insisted on accompanying me.
Before we arrived, I had given Diana strict instructions.
“Young Lady, Marquis Diapel may look a bit frightening, but he’s truly a good person. So don’t be afraid, understood?”
Yet even as I said this, I had a peculiar intuition—a baseless confidence—that Diana wouldn’t fear the Marquis.
Looking back, Diana had shown fear when meeting the Director, the Head Maidservant, and several others.
Wasn’t it because they were all genuinely bad people? No, I was certain that was the reason.
And as expected, there was no trace of fear in Diana’s bright eyes as she greeted him.
“But Marquis, Dana won’t cry… do I need to cry?”
It seemed to be her response to what the Marquis had said earlier about leaving if she was going to cry.
The Marquis asked with an exasperated expression.
“Are your eyes button holes? Am I not frightening to you?”
“Not scary at all.”
At Diana’s innocent head tilt, the Marquis’s brows furrowed deeply.
Wrinkles deepened across his forehead and around his eyes, and the scar near his eye twisted along with them.
“Wow, all wrinkly! How interesting!”
Far from being frightened, Diana clapped her hands in delight at the sight.
‘I thought she’d be appropriately cautious, but I never expected this….’
The Marquis, who had been scrutinizing Diana from head to toe as if wondering what kind of child this was, suddenly trembled.
“Marquis, what’s wrong?”
Startled at the thought that he might be unwell, I jumped up and grabbed his arm.
The Marquis hesitated and looked down at me for a moment. Then he turned his gaze back to Diana and spoke.
“That Duke’s daughter you serve gives me chills.”
“…Pardon?”
Diana, the cutest person in the world, gives him chills…?
The Marquis spoke in a gruff voice to me, my mouth agape.
“It’s as if that Dominic fellow had reverted to childhood and put on a dress.”
“Gasp.”
I was shocked by this unexpected remark.
“Pfft!”
Askart’s laughter burst out from behind.
* * *
“Young Lady, the Marquis was simply saying that you and the Duke look very much alike.”
“No! I thought the Marquis was a good person, but he’s mean!”
“No, ma’am. He just speaks that way. Young Lady, don’t you trust me?”
Marquis Diapel watched the small maidservant earnestly console the pouting Duke’s daughter with an unfamiliar gaze.
It was strange and fascinating how a child I had only met yesterday was defending me so earnestly, calling me a good person.
Meanwhile, Askart, my only grandson, seemed to find something hilarious—his shoulders trembled as he hung his head beside me.
I had never felt this way before in my entire life.
Perhaps age was catching up with me, for the Marquis felt his nose sting unexpectedly, and he barked out loudly.
“So the Marquis’s Residence Reception Room has become your personal parlor, has it? Stop your incessant chatter and say what you came to say, then be on your way.”
At those words, Duke Elrad’s daughter huffed and turned her head sharply, while the little Maidservant flinched and looked at me.
It felt like both a rebuke and a resentment, and the Marquis felt somewhat embarrassed.
But that lasted only a moment—when the little Maidservant lifted the cloth covering the basket on the table, the Marquis’s eyes widened considerably.
“Marquis, these are cookies that the Young Lady and I made ourselves.”
In an instant, the rich, sweet aroma of freshly baked cookies wafted directly into his nostrils.
The Marquis, sniffing involuntarily, felt his mind grow dizzy.
He had always been unable to resist sweets since childhood, but his imposing frame and fierce appearance meant no one dared offer him desserts.
Besides, the Diapel Marquisate was perpetually maintained in a state of readiness, so there was no leisure for the leisurely tea times that the Capital City’s nobility enjoyed.
So if he ever retired and returned to the Capital City someday, his modest wish was to visit a café daily and indulge in desserts to his heart’s content.
Receiving such a charming gift without any mental preparation left him thoroughly bewildered.
“I apologize for bumping into your leg yesterday. But I hope it hasn’t caused you any discomfort?”
Looking into the child’s cautious eyes, he felt an old scar on his face—long since healed—begin to itch.
The Marquis spoke even more curtly to shake off this strange feeling.
“A tiny thing like you couldn’t possibly harm my body by bumping into me.”
“Still, just to be safe, wouldn’t you let a physician examine it to confirm you’re alright?”
“A physician? I know my own body well enough.”
“But you did collide quite hard yesterday—I heard a loud thud.”
The Marquis was deeply frustrated.
In truth, before colliding with the child, he had sustained a minor leg injury in combat.
But for him, the head of the Diapel Family, it was a trivial wound.
‘I wish I could just eat one of those cookies.’
The little Maidservant showed no intention of removing her hand from the basket or offering any.
“The physician must also confirm that you’re—”
“I’m fine, I tell you!”
“….”
Unable to contain himself any longer, he burst out loudly, and silence suddenly descended upon the Reception Room.
Duke Elrad’s daughter and Askart, startled with widened eyes, and the little Maidservant who had been chattering away—all their pupils trembled rapidly.
Looking closely, the children’s hands fidgeted nervously as they always did when frightened, and it was clear they were about to burst into tears.
“Sigh.”
At that moment, a sigh escaped from Lia, and the Marquis froze.
It was a reaction that deviated from his usual understanding, leaving him deeply confused.
‘She wasn’t… afraid?’
Contrary to the Marquis’s assumption, Lia was not frightened but seemed utterly exasperated.
Her hand twitched with the urge to immediately cast a healing spell on his leg.
But Askart was watching, and using magic outside the Elrad Duke’s Mansion was dangerous as it would draw attention.
Lia was well aware that the only place where all her actions were tolerated was within the Elrad Duke’s Mansion.
“Please stop saying it’s fine. I’m worried about you.”
Lia suppressed her frustration and spoke with a dejected tone.
In that moment, the Marquis felt his heart sink.
This little maidservant’s earnest words had stirred something strange within him.
He should have been indignant—who did this insignificant girl think she was to worry about him?—yet instead of anger, his chest tingled as if brushed by a feather.
As an accomplished warrior, he had an unsettling premonition that he would not emerge victorious from this particular battle.
And moments later.
“You’re truly bothersome.”
The Marquis cleared his throat and spoke.
“Askart, summon the Marquis’s personal physician at once. Tell him to come quickly. I need to see the physician if only to rid myself of these troublesome creatures immediately.”
“Yes? Ah, yes….”
Askart nodded and, bewildered, called for the physician.
If he were truly bothered, he could have simply sent the children away without calling a physician. Askart couldn’t quite understand the Marquis’s behavior.
‘It doesn’t seem like he’s particularly considering Duke Elrad either… Hmm.’
In that moment, the Marquis’s earlier words echoed once more in Askart’s mind.
Since he had never seen the young Duke Elrad, he found himself imagining his friend Lucio dressed in women’s clothing instead.
He was deeply troubled by the thought that this image would haunt him every time he saw Diana from now on.
While Askart was caught in internal conflict, struggling to suppress his laughter, the Marquis observed Lia with an enigmatic expression.
“Thank you so much!”
Upon hearing that a physician would be summoned, the child bowed respectfully and immediately offered a cookie, saying, “Please try one.”
Despite not having injured herself, she grinned widely and made quite a fuss.
The cookie, laden with sugar, suited his palate perfectly.
The Marquis, whose lips curved upward slightly, found himself thinking unbidden.
If the young Lady of the Elrad household resembled her father in his wayward youth, then this child who kept meeting his gaze with such concern reminded him distinctly of his own eldest daughter when she was small.
* * *
“Truly, it was divine providence. Had you delayed even slightly longer, the wound on your leg might have festered, and you could have lost the use of that leg entirely.”
As expected. I listened to the Marquis’s personal physician speak with a grave expression as he hurried into the Reception Room, and I exhaled in relief.
“Is that truly the case?”
The Marquis, who had been listening to the physician’s explanation with a furrowed brow, gazed down at his leg in bewilderment.
Witnessing this, Askart’s expression darkened as well.
“If treatment begins now, everything will be fine, correct?”
“Indeed. Of course, the Marquis must cooperate actively with the treatment….”
The way the physician trailed off seemed to be an indirect reproach toward the Marquis, who had neglected a wound sustained during combat and had not shown it to a physician until now.
Askart, understanding the physician’s implication, gazed silently at the Marquis.
“Ah, it’s not my fault that I lack skill.”
The Marquis grumbled awkwardly, then suddenly turned his ire toward me.
“You! Didn’t you want to see me in good health? Yet here you are smiling when the situation is grave?”
“But it’s fortunate that treatment is possible even now. Besides, this wound wasn’t caused because of me….”
“What do you mean it wasn’t? This happened because of you.”
“Pardon?”
I opened my eyes wide in astonishment.
The Marquis spoke with shameless audacity.
“I was perfectly fine, but yesterday when you bumped into me, the wound reopened.”
“…I beg your pardon?”
“So you’ll need to come by every day to nurse me. Oh, and those cookies you made were absolutely dreadful, so I’ve had the Marquis’s Residence prepare desserts instead. You just need to bring yourself. Do you understand?”

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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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