I Will Become the Ex-Wife of the Beast - Chapter 3

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————

“Bella, are you planning to stay there the whole time?”
“…”
“Well, I suppose. Going out now would just mean freezing, and it’s warm in here.”
She was utterly determined to carry on with her own business, as if I weren’t even there.
Eliya crept closer to Max again and gave him a light shake of her head. Never mind. Ignore her.
She didn’t need to say it aloud. Her eyes said it clearly enough. Even if someone whispered it into my ear, it wouldn’t come through any more plainly.
I stood there staring at them, utterly dumbfounded, and my eldest sister gave me a smile that seemed to ask why I was still standing there like that.
“Oh, Bella, didn’t you say Father was coming today? I think that’s what you said.”
“…”
And you remember that now, do you?
My eyes narrowed in disbelief. The moment she mentioned Father, Max flinched, and it was clear he wasn’t much of a man either. Paying no mind to any of it, Eliya patted his chest soothingly.
“Oh, Max, don’t worry. I’m not going.”
“…Eliya.”
“Bella, please tell Father I’m sorry I couldn’t come today. I already have plans to watch the fireworks.”
Our house was about to go up in flames, and yet she wanted to go watch fireworks from a distance. Already, in my already scrambled mind, the bursts of firecrackers were booming loudly. And I had actually tried to hold on to someone like that, hoping to change her mind.
In truth, right up until I arrived here, I had clung to a faint shred of hope. That I could advise my eldest sister to cut off all her affairs with men right now and become a virtuous Grand Duchess Consort.
“…Bella, what’s wrong? Do you still have business here?”
“…”
But once I saw it with my own eyes, I painfully realized how absurd that idea was. Forcing my eldest sister to live that way was no different from gently urging a fish to try living out of water.
Or rather, it was like ordering a lion to become a vegetarian, or telling a horse to tiptoe quietly on its heels.
Until I had seen it, there had at least been hope. Now that I grasped my eldest sister’s reality exactly as it was, a sudden wave of exhaustion washed over me.
…So that method is the only one left.
Every time the thought had crossed my mind on the way here, I had firmly denied it. But now there was truly no other way.
While I was steeling myself with such a grim resolve, as if sacrificing myself for the greater good, Eliya’s laughter bubbled over with secrecy.
“Max, don’t be like that. Since things have turned out this way, if you leave a little early, you could get a good seat…”
“Eldest Sister, let’s go home.”
“Hm?”
“…I said let’s go.”
Leaning against the pile of straw, I called to her with a quiet smile.
What’s gotten into her?
My eldest sister, who had worn an expression much like Melanie’s a moment ago, soon burst into laughter.
“Bella, didn’t you hear me? I said I can’t go today. You’d better hurry along and get Father’s dinner ready. And why are you suddenly holding your wrist like that…? Kyaaaah!”
“…”
Thud.
The scream that hadn’t come out even after being caught in such a state in front of her little sister finally broke free the moment the pile of straw struck her head-on. She toppled backward, and my dumbfounded eldest sister flailed about, buried beneath the straw.
“Eldest Sister.”
With light, graceful steps and a gentle smile, I slowly drew closer to her. It seemed Eliya knew men well, but she didn’t quite grasp how much labor had toned her younger sister’s muscles.
Brimming with the eagerness to explain it to her step by step, I slid my face smoothly over the top of her head.
“…Let’s go quietly.”

◇ ◆ ◇

“My beloved daughters! Have you all been well these past days?”
“…”
Do I look like I’ve been well?
Seated closest to Father, I held my breath as steadily as I could. No matter how much of a father he might be in this novel, looking back on his past conduct, not a single word of genuine gladness rose up in me, not even as a polite lie.
Viscount Mayfield.
The estate he had inherited had been more than comfortable, and the family could claim a respectable, long-standing noble lineage. Even if he had simply sat still and breathed, he could have kept his dignity at the lower edge of the nobility. Yet Father couldn’t even manage that. Everything he touched sank to the bottom, and then he went on digging straight into the ground.
Well, if you imagine a medieval version of a “Destruction King,” that might explain it.
Whenever he invested in the tea trade, that year’s tea leaves dried up completely, and when he put money into the guilds, even sound businesses collapsed one after another. So much so that some newly founded ventures would lock their doors the moment they heard Viscount Mayfield was coming.
But the most unfortunate thing of all, more than everything else combined, was that he was my father.
“I can’t do a thing with my daughters constantly on my mind.”
“Yes.”
So that’s why everything fell apart, because you couldn’t do anything.
I answered him halfheartedly, my face gloomy. Mistaking my expression for the overwhelmed emotion of seeing him again after so long, Father patted the back of my hand with satisfaction.
“Ah, so my Bella was waiting for me the most after all.”
“Ah… haha.”
Caught completely off guard, I hesitated, unsure whether to step forward or retreat, and first just studied the mood in the room.
In truth, the original work never explained in any detail how Father came to set foot in the Grand Duke’s Residence. The story needed a daughter to be sent off, so the author had simply brushed past it in a single line at the beginning.

One day, Viscount Mayfield returned from the distant North and sat his four daughters down, unable to hide his gloom.

“…Oh, for heaven’s sake.”
How could anyone be this careless with another person’s life?
If the author had any conscience at all, they should have at least taken a moment to look at the faces of the four daughters seated around him.
Eliya, the eldest, with her eyes lighting up at the thought of a gift, or Melanie, glancing around as though hoping to spot the book she’d brought along.
No, they should at least have noted how embarrassed little Rose was at seeing her father again after so long.
“…It’s all right, Rose.”
With the hand Father hadn’t caught, I gave my youngest sister’s hand a firm squeeze.
Honestly, how long had the head of the household been away for her to feel this awkward around him? It was only natural that my gaze toward him was anything but kind.
“Father, what’s with that expression? Don’t tell me the errand didn’t go well?”
“…Well, you see.”
I’d expected him to say it was nothing of the sort, out of mere courtesy, but Father took the bait right away, as if he’d been waiting for it.
Of course he had. My older sisters had already suffered enough of this before, so they were clearly showing signs of wanting to slip away quietly.
“I’ve seen Father now, so I’ll be going for today…”
“I should get going too and finish the book I haven’t read yet…”
“Sit.”
At my brief warning, not only the sisters who had been rising to their feet but Father, still holding Rose’s hand, flinched.
Did we hear that wrong?
Melanie shot a look at Eliya, exasperated, but Eliya, who had been struck with straw bundles at the water mill, said nothing.
“…Bella.”
“Father’s not finished talking. Sit down.”
“Ah, right. Fine, then.”
Eliya tugged Melanie down beside her, insisting they might as well sit. Under my clenched, thin smile, they hunched their shoulders and crept their arms up to wrap around themselves, as if expecting me to lash out again.
Meanwhile, Father was busy working himself up into as much sorrow as he could muster.
“…Truth is, there was a bit of an incident on the way home.”
“Again?”
“You see, this time I really thought it would work out. Just as I arrived in the North. Even while I was still in the carriage, the sky was so unusually blue…”
“Hold on!”
Haa.
I raised a hand to halt him mid-sentence.
He was reminiscing about the moment he first climbed into the carriage, which meant it would take the whole night before he got to the main point. From experience, the longer the preamble, the bigger and more dramatic the ruin I could expect.
“Let me ask briefly. How much did you borrow?”
“…Be, Bella.”
“No. I’d better ask again. Was it a scam, or a bankruptcy?”
Under the glare I fixed on him, demanding that he choose one or the other, Father cleared his throat loudly. He tried to look to his other daughters for help, but every pair of eyes in the room was just as sharp.
In the end, Father opened his mouth hesitantly, with the look of a man who had no other choice.
“…Bankr—”
“Did you go bankrupt?”
“No. I got into gambling…”
“Gambling? Gaaaambling!”
I, who had been barely holding myself together, snapped my eyes wide open.
No, gambling!
If he’d gone into debt to buy presents for his daughters like something out of a fairy tale, I might have tried to feel some scrap of sympathy. But to have caused this whole mess by borrowing money for gambling, a chill slowly crept up the back of my neck, stiffening it.
“Father, how could you possibly do such a thing? Gambling, with our situation as it is? No, forget our situation, it’s against the law of the land, and you shouldn’t be doing anything like that at all!”
“Well, that’s… I had to somehow pay the balance, but there was no one to borrow money from… and so, somehow, I ended up…”
“Ah.”
If I were to sum up this hopeless head of household’s tale, it went like this.
He’d spent every coin he’d brought before even reaching the North, the North’s merchants kept shoving their receipts in his face, and so, with the little travel money he had left, the only way to try to inflate it was, inevitably, a gambling house.
But Father had underestimated the gambling house terribly, and the gambling house had underestimated Viscount Mayfield even more terribly.

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————