Everyone Was Obsessed With Me After I Became the Youngest Princess Favourite - Chapter 222

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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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I squeezed my eyes shut.
A secret I’d hidden for so long, exposed so easily.
Why on earth had my parents returned from the Capital City suburbs so early?
My mind suddenly began to spiral into chaos.
I had been so overwhelmed just moments ago that I was barely in my right mind.
I hadn’t even noticed the soundproofing spell I’d cast dissolving, nor sensed anyone’s presence.
In that moment, I had no capacity to concern myself with others.
Or more honestly, I simply didn’t care.
‘And if it had been someone other than family…’
I wouldn’t have panicked nearly as much.
“Adriana, answer me.”
At Mother’s urging, my lips grew parched.
I felt as though I were dangling from the edge of a cliff.
That was when it happened.
“Lia, if you wish it, I can erase your memories.”
My eyes flew open in shock, and Raezl was gazing at me with an anxious expression.
It seemed he had spoken in desperate haste, fearing I might give up entirely.
“High Priest, what are you saying!”
And at those words, Father cried out in fury.
But I saw it.
Even as he raged at Raezl, the fear in his eyes—terrified that I might nod in agreement.
The moment I saw Father’s expression twisted with that urgency and dread, the veil of confusion lifted from my mind.
“High Priest Raezl, it’s alright.”
I opened my parched lips and spoke in a hoarse voice.
“I don’t want to hide anymore.”
Raezl still wore a worried expression, but he nodded as though accepting my decision.
It was truly a relief.
It was Raezl who had first instructed my family to keep my regression a secret.
The reason was sound—since we understood neither the nature of the curse nor the cause of the regression, we couldn’t recklessly reveal it to outsiders.
And now, his nod meant he had judged it safe enough for my family to know the truth.
I felt relief wash over me, even as I steeled my trembling lips and spoke.
“Mother, Father. It’s all true.”
“Adriana, what do you mean it’s all true?”
Mother, her eyes streaked with red veins, asked while barely holding back tears.
“I’ve been deceiving you both… no, Grandfather and my Older Brother too, all of you…”
Unlike the firm resolve with which I’d declared I no longer wished to hide, my voice grew steadily smaller.
The sight of myself fidgeting with clasped hands, my face twisted with such anxiety—it felt unbearable, like watching a frightened child at a loss for what to do.
“This is my second… life. Before, I lived until adulthood and died… but then I returned to childhood…”
As I stumbled through my words, I finally pressed my lips firmly together.
Then I lifted my head and looked toward Mother.
“Have I disappointed you?”
The moment those words left my lips, tears came pouring out uncontrollably.
Less than a minute had passed since I decided to bare the truth, and regret was already crashing down upon me.
“I’m… I’m so sorry…”
Trembling with sobs, I apologized, terrified that my family—now disillusioned and betrayed—would never look at me the same way again.
Mother rushed forward immediately, gripping my quivering shoulders firmly as she spoke.
“What on earth are you apologizing for?”
“For lying to you, for all this time, for not telling you…”
“Sigh. Yes. Adriana, why didn’t you tell us about this sooner?”
“It’s just…”
Her words, tinged with what sounded like lamentation, made me swallow hard.
“I thought you’d be sad.”
My parents had already been heartbroken learning that I spent my childhood until age nine in the Orphanage.
If they discovered that even after reaching adulthood, I had never met my family, never even knew of their existence, and had suffered through all manner of hardship…
“I was afraid it would break your hearts. That’s why I couldn’t tell you.”
But I knew that wasn’t the whole truth.
“I told you to keep it secret. It was unavoidable as a confidential matter.”
Raezl, who had been watching, stepped forward as if to defend me, but that wasn’t it either.
Though Raezl had indeed asked me to keep it confidential, I would have hidden it regardless of his words.
“The truth is…”
I couldn’t contain my turbulent emotions and my voice wavered with tears.
“I was ashamed.”
And finally, I confessed the real truth.
“I didn’t want Mother and Father… I didn’t want my family to know about my past. I lived so shamefully—not with dignity, foolishly unaware I was being used, believing my enemy was my benefactor, and ultimately betrayed and destroyed. It was all so unbearably shameful.”
“Adriana…”
“I wanted to be a daughter you could be proud of. My childhood was unfortunate, but still… I wanted to be seen as worthy of being your daughter, Grandfather’s granddaughter, my Older Brother’s sister… someone intelligent, capable, and useful…”
As I poured out the truth I had buried deep within my heart, I came to understand something.
I still hadn’t escaped being that pitiful, abandoned orphan who feared rejection.
‘I really am foolish and stupid…”
“You really are foolish.”
Then came a voice thick with tears.
I flinched, my shoulders trembling as I lifted my head again.
My heart was already constricting in anticipation of the reproach and blame that would follow.
But then.
“What could you possibly be ashamed of in front of your family? Intelligence, extraordinary abilities? What use are any of those things?”
“…”
“Our daughter isn’t foolish at all, is she, dear?”
“…That’s right.”
Father nodded in response to Mother’s question, his eyes reddened with emotion.
And as always, he gazed at me with eyes overflowing with affection.
“You need do nothing at all. Simply by living and being here, you have always been a daughter I’m proud of.”
“Oh, Mother… Father…”
I gasped in shock, my breath coming in ragged bursts as I asked.
“You’re not angry with me?”
At my words, Father and Mother let out hollow laughs.
“My dear, how could I ever be angry with you?”
“I would have knelt before a demon itself and begged if it meant you could return to us.”
Such irreverent words to speak before the former High Priestess, who even now faithfully served the Saint.
I saw Raezl’s shoulders flinch at Mother’s words.
Yet I understood that Mother had deliberately invoked the word “demon.”
Though she didn’t know all the details, she must have heard that a demon had turned back time to save my life.
‘She spoke that way to comfort me in my despair and hopelessness.’
As if to confirm my thoughts, Mother drew me into her embrace and spoke.
“It doesn’t matter how you came to live this second life. For me, simply being able to hold our daughter again is enough.”
“That’s right, my dear. Don’t think of anything else.”
Father, who had drawn near without my noticing, wiped away my tears as he spoke.
Once more, my nose stung and my throat tightened.
But I didn’t want to show any more foolish tears.
I forced a bright smile and nodded, and Father’s glistening eyes softened with a tender warmth.
Father embraced both Mother and me together.
“I love you, our daughter. Thank you for walking such a difficult path and returning to us.”
Words perhaps I should have heard nine years ago.
* * *
“Heavens, not to recognize my own granddaughter…”
“Oh, Adriana…”
Currently, Lia was swallowing hard as she surveyed the tear-stricken scene around her.
A few hours earlier.
After witnessing Lia finally break down in tears at the Grand Duke’s final words, Raezl quietly excused himself, saying he would visit the Duke’s Mansion.
And the moment he departed.
“What in the world is happening here!”
The Previous Marquis of Diapel discovered his daughter, son-in-law, and granddaughter clinging to one another in tears in the reception room, now in complete disarray, and cried out in shock.
The instant he saw Lia’s tear-streaked face, he immediately turned as if to storm into the Duke’s Mansion, convinced that Lucio had made his granddaughter cry.
Only after Lia, the Grand Duke, and the Grand Duchess all stepped forward to explain that Lucio was not the cause did the Previous Marquis finally calm himself.
It was then that Lia learned why the Grand Duke and Grand Duchess, along with the Previous Marquis, had returned home so early.
The Duchess had twisted her ankle while taking a walk by the lakeside, her mind troubled with worry over her eldest son even after leaving the Capital City.
Fortunately, it was not a serious injury, and the Grand Duke had quickly applied healing magic to treat it, but they decided to have a physician examine her just in case, so the outing ended there.
On the way back to the Capital City, the Duchess recalled Baron Bardo’s suggestion that it would be better for him to examine the Previous Marquis directly and prepare medicine, so she asked the Previous Marquis to accompany them to the Duke’s Mansion.
Thus the Previous Marquis went to the Duke’s Mansion, while the Grand Duke and Duchess came directly to the Marquis’s Residence upon hearing that Raezl had visited.
Lia found it quite remarkable how the secret she had hidden for so long was revealed to her family through such a convergence of coincidences.
And it was at the very moment when Lia was about to confess the truth to her parents, who knew only the rough outline, and to her Grandfather, who knew nothing at all.
“Adriana, your older brother is here!”
When Askart finally appeared, I couldn’t help but let out a hollow laugh.
He had mentioned that he missed me so much—having spent the entire Mage Gathering boasting about his talented younger sister—that he returned early. Even as I shook my head at his words, I found myself thinking that perhaps all of this was simply the arrangement of fate.
Leaving the disheveled reception room behind, I gathered my family in my room and slowly parted my lips to speak.
“There is something I must tell you. The truth is, I…”
Beginning with the confession that I had already died once and was now living a second life,
I laid bare everything—how I had lived in my previous life and how I had died.
Of course, I remained silent about the one who had driven a blade through my heart, the existence of Splecia who would react sensitively in the Temple, and matters concerning mana.
I merely explained briefly that there had been a long-standing curse with demons since ancient times, and told the Grand Duke that the demon had been targeting me from the very beginning.
I thought I was finally able to ease his guilt.
But.
“…Even so, I cannot claim to be without responsibility. Perhaps when I kidnapped you seeking revenge, I only then discovered your true identity.”
At the Grand Duke’s self-deprecating words, I understood.
This guilt born from losing a daughter could never disappear, no matter how much I understood the relationship between the demon and me.
“Sob, Adriana….”
It was then.
Askart, who had heard that I lived as a beggar in front of the Academy for several years before entering Terenthium, burst into tears and asked through his sobs.
“Back then… you never saw me even once?”

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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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