If I Were Reborn, I Wouldn’t Marry You - Chapter 70

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 70

It was the perfect moment to bring out the records of the future.

The time when Windermere would awaken as an earth elementalist wasn’t far off.

This summer, Windermere would be caught in a landslide caused by sudden heavy rain while returning from a family trip.

Buried along with the carriage, the coachman and all the family members riding in the carriage would die in the accident.

The only survivor would be Windermere.

Fortunately, it was a place where earth mana was concentrated, so awakening and contracting were possible, allowing him to receive help from earth spirits.

However, Windermere’s awakening wouldn’t be properly known until a year later.

Though they were poor lower nobles, the Windermere family had been close-knit, so after losing all his family, Windermere would seclude himself for quite some time.

Since the awakening and contract occurred almost unconsciously, Windermere wouldn’t realize he had become an earth elementalist for quite a while.

So he thought the earth spirits he saw after awakening were hallucinations, and only learned of his awakening after visiting a physician when he couldn’t bear it anymore.

The uncle who had been acting as guardian for thirteen-year-old Windermere immediately informed the Prince upon learning his nephew had manifested as an earth elementalist.

‘After that, well…’

To summarize, it was a life of being promised wealth and glory by the Prince, becoming his closest aide, and using his abilities as leverage to commit all sorts of evil deeds.

‘I suppose his personality became twisted after experiencing major incidents one after another during his rebellious teenage years.’

He engaged in threats and extortion against nobles with estates in the south who were suffering from famine due to combined pest damage and drought, in exchange for making their land fertile, and even used earth spirits to discover mineral veins before using the Prince’s backing to steal land.

‘He did countless other bad things too…’

Though it was paid work, his contributions during the great famine in the south were significant, and being a rare elementalist, he lived well until the Prince’s downfall.

‘In the end, he was also killed by the Prince’s hand.’

Leon and I intended to prevent the Windermere family’s accident.

‘Then there would be no awakening or corruption of Windermere.’

The great famine in the southern region was something we had been preparing for ever since the regression, and most importantly, we now had Merlin, a high-level water elementalist.

‘Even if she can’t make land fertile like Windermere, she can solve the southern region’s problems in other ways.’

In fact, Merlin would be better for fundamental problem-solving.

For this purpose, I had been studying geology books and agricultural texts in my spare time, so I was somewhat confident.

‘Then first! Let’s resolve the Windermere situation.’

Leon and I headed to Orbis Estate, which had been the Windermere family’s final family trip destination.

Orbis Estate was close to the Windermere family’s territory, but it was a distant place that would take a week by carriage from the capital.

So when we first said we wanted to go play at Orbis Estate, our parents strongly opposed it.

It was too far for our busy parents to suddenly clear their schedules to accompany us, and they were anxious about sending 8 and 6-year-old children alone.

‘It was fortunate that Leonhardt’s stubbornness worked.’

Even when they tried to persuade us to go as a whole family after adjusting schedules later, our parents gave in to Leonhardt who kept shaking his head.

‘Of course, if we didn’t go now, there would be no reason to go, and I deliberately mentioned it late so it would be difficult for other family members to accompany us.’

Since we had work to do, the fewer watchful eyes, the better.

Eventually, our parents allowed the Orbis trip on the condition that we take plenty of escort knights.

‘Taking dozens of knights who are still on high alert from the kidnapping incident two years ago is also burdensome, but it can’t be helped.’

Leon and I set out on the Orbis trip, dragging along a unit of escort knights.

“Young Lady, there’s a small village coming up shortly. We’ll have a meal there before departing again.”

The vice-captain of the Roderick Knights, who was in charge of escort duties for the procession, lightly tapped the carriage window and spoke.

“Mmm!”

Exhausted by the long carriage journey and dozing off, I answered a beat late.

Since it was children’s travel, the schedule was kept loose with attention paid to meals and lodging, but traveling long distances still took a toll on my stamina.

“Want to lie down?”

Leonhardt, who was reading a book without getting motion sick, suggested.

“I should.”

It would still take some time to reach the village, so I calculated I should at least lie down during that time.

When I nodded, Leonhardt closed his book and stood up.

Then he came to sit beside me and offered his knee.

“I’ll wake you when we arrive.”

I stared at Leonhardt’s thigh for a moment, then lay down using a cushion as a pillow.

Though Leonhardt had grown quite a bit taller, he was still just over a meter when rounded up from the tens place.

It was a better choice to use a cushion as a pillow rather than rest on the thigh of someone similar in height to me.

“Yeah, I’m hungry so make sure to wake me.”

As I tossed and turned to find a comfortable position while speaking, one of Leonhardt’s eyebrows shot up.

However, perhaps acknowledging that a cushion was better than his thigh, he said nothing more.

He just stared straight ahead with a sullen expression.

I secretly chuckled without Leonhardt noticing.

‘Come to think of it, this scene feels familiar somehow?’

With my drowsy mind, I closed my eyes and recalled the memory.

‘Ah, that’s right.’

At the point between sleeping and waking, I realized why I felt déjà vu.

‘That time.’

This was only the second time Leon and I had traveled alone together, counting both the first life and now.

The first trip was a honeymoon that Leonhardt had prepared as an apology after the civil war ended, and it was like this then too.

‘When I was watching Leonhardt work with documents even in the carriage and got tired and started dozing off, Leonhardt told me to sleep a bit and offered his thigh.’

I had been a bit embarrassed then and used a cushion as a pillow, which seemed to have triggered this association.

As I surrendered to drowsiness, I mumbled like talking to myself.

“Come to think of it, our honeymoon destination was around here too, wasn’t it?”

I fell asleep right after saying that, so I couldn’t hear Leonhardt’s response.

It had been several months since Leonhardt went to war.

I had sent over ten letters by now.

But no reply had come.

“His hand must be broken.”

I pouted, resenting Leonhardt for not sending even one letter.

‘I won’t send letters anymore either!’

I roughly pulled the blanket up and covered myself thoroughly, then squeezed my eyes shut.

“I’ll just sleep!”

And I fell asleep in less than five minutes.

That was because with the newly enthroned Emperor away, I had too much work to do.

The former Emperor had died at the hands of the deposed Prince, the Empress Dowager was in seclusion from shock, and the Grand Empress Dowager was in poor health due to old age.

With no one to help, it was honestly overwhelming and physically exhausting.

I woke from such deep sleep at dawn, long before the maids came to wake me.

Something soft as a feather gently caressed my forehead and cheeks.

‘What is it?’

There was only one person who could enter the Empress’s bedroom at this dawn hour, but drunk with sleep, I simply turned away from the touch.

Chuckle.

I heard a suppressed laugh and felt a tickling gaze.

Belatedly recognizing the owner of the familiar presence, I slowly opened my eyes.

“Leon? When did you come?”

To my question asked in a drowsy state, still not fully awake, came an apology instead of an answer.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“Yawn, I would have been angrier if you hadn’t woken me?”

Going to war right after marriage, then no contact, and not even coming to see me upon return?

I absolutely wouldn’t have forgiven that.

During our conversation, I became somewhat more awake and sat up.

Meanwhile, my eyes, having adjusted to the darkness, met Leonhardt’s.

I was going to say welcome back, you worked hard, but seeing his face made me angry first.

“Since there wasn’t a single contact, I thought you had completely forgotten me.”

To my grumbling complaints, Leonhardt apologized again in a low voice.

“I was wrong. Whenever I picked up a pen to write a reply, I kept thinking of you.”

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