Instead of My Beloved Sister, I Married a Monster - Chapter 46
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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 46
“Lady Evnia…”
Count Max, who had been quietly listening to Evnia’s explanation, suddenly spoke up.
Was it because of the hot sunlight? In that brief moment, his cheeks had ripened to an apple-red color.
Count Max carefully chose his words as he continued.
“You really seem to like Lord Ram.”
“Oh my.”
Evnia didn’t deny it and only offered a light response.
She thought it was something she could easily say even if it wasn’t because she liked Ram, but perhaps the affection contained within hadn’t been completely hidden.
The perceptive Count Max seemed to have already noticed her feelings, but there was still enough room to get past this without Hanna catching on.
Evnia responded as if nothing was wrong.
“Of course, Lord Ram is truly a wonderful person. Hanna, don’t you think so too?”
“That’s right. When I was little, Lord Ram was the person who treated me the best. Every time we met, he’d give me 1 gold to buy snacks… Why doesn’t he give me any these days? The price of snacks has gone up compared to before.”
That’s probably because you’ve grown into an adult who’s no longer innocent, Hanna…
The thought reflexively came to mind, but she didn’t bother to say it out loud.
Fortunately or unfortunately, around this time the path began to get steep, so the sudden silence that came wasn’t particularly noticeable.
When looking down from high above, it hadn’t seemed that far, but the path to the village Hanna had mentioned was much longer and more treacherous than expected.
‘So that’s why we couldn’t see people nearby.’
The forest surrounding the manor was so dense that it was difficult to secure a wide view.
Because of this, they were only able to visually confirm its appearance after approaching much closer to the residential area than expected.
Though it wasn’t the scene they had anticipated.
“…Lady Evnia.”
“Yes.”
“Am I… seeing this correctly right now?”
Evnia couldn’t readily answer Count Max’s question.
Seeing his reaction, it seemed they had witnessed the same scene, but she couldn’t quite grasp how to express this in words.
Count Max muttered in a bewildered voice.
“Those people… they’re destroying a house?”
It was just as he said.
At a glance, a considerable number of people were surrounding one house, mercilessly smashing the roof and outer walls.
It was strange that the work seemed to lack unity for it to be demolition work.
Just as Evnia was about to attempt another cross-verification with Hanna, who had good eyesight.
Hanna ran straight toward the scene of the problem, shouting.
“What are you doing at someone else’s house! Why are you destroying Uncle Yens’ house!”
“Miss Hanna!”
“Hanna!”
Count Max and Evnia urgently tried to stop her, but Hanna didn’t even pretend to listen and ran down to where the house was in one breath.
Thanks to this, the other side seemed to have noticed them too, turning the heads of the tools they were holding toward them all at once.
In the meantime, seeing that they didn’t threaten Hanna, it seemed they were already acquainted with her.
It was when the simple-looking villagers looked back and forth between Hanna and the two people standing behind her with confused expressions.
A man wearing glasses walked out from among the crowd.
He was probably around forty years old. A man with common dark brown hair and an unusually sturdy build.
“Don’t shout. You’ll make my ears fall off.”
“Uncle Yens! What on earth is this about? Did people finally decide to ostracize you?!”
“If that were the case, would I be standing here calmly watching my house get destroyed?”
“Don’t you know, Uncle? People talk badly about you behind your back, saying you’re unlucky! If you’ve been tricked, tell them to stop even now! You can still fix… Ow!”
Unable to listen to Hanna’s rapid speculation any longer, the other party flicked his finger and gave her a flick on the forehead.
While Hanna, who had been hit squarely on the forehead, was clutching her head and groaning, the man called Yens turned his gaze toward the back.
After carefully examining Count Max, or rather the armor Count Max was wearing, he then stared at Evnia.
It was when Evnia unconsciously tensed her body at his clearly unusual gaze.
The man suddenly raised his voice and asked.
“How does it look from there? Does my house seem to be artistically well-destroyed?”
“Yens, be careful. That person…!”
“I can see he’s a knight too, man. But he came with Hanna. And that’s not the armor that Schwaiger’s soldiers wear either. Would that Frank bastard have fitted them with such expensive gear at his own expense?”
At his colleague’s hastily expressed concern, Yens acted nonchalantly to reassure the other party.
A man who casually called Schwaiger Baron by name and insulted him as if it were natural.
Whoever the other party was, at least there seemed to be no problem with communication.
Perhaps making a similar judgment, he proposed conversation first with an intellectual attitude.
“Come down for now, let’s have a talk.”
Count Max and Evnia, who had briefly exchanged glances, nodded simultaneously.
Indeed, conversation was the best strategy against people holding tools.
* * *
The place Yens guided them to was his house, which had become almost like a haunted house.
Thanks to him sending all the neighbors away, saying he would receive the guests alone, the conversation began in an unexpectedly quiet atmosphere.
Yens, who discovered the job posting that Hanna had placed on the table, chuckled as if mocking its crude workmanship.
“Well, it’s not like there’s absolutely no one willing to work.”
“Of course! Litberg Castle is such a good workplace. It’s not an opportunity you can get easily.”
“Right, how about you go out and distribute those? Let the adults talk.”
“No way, I have to guard Lady Evnia’s side from one step behind at all times. Right, Count Max?”
Hanna, who faced the crisis of being kicked out as soon as she sat down, stubbornly clung to the duties of an exclusive maid she had hastily learned.
Count Max, who responded with a perfunctory “yes, yes,” immediately turned his attention to Yens and asked.
“So, why were you destroying the house you live in?”
“When you put it that way, it sounds very suspicious… It wasn’t anything serious. How should I put it, we were just trying to do some camouflage.”
“Camouflage?”
Yens put the flyer he was holding back down on the table and shrugged his shoulders.
“Didn’t Schwaiger’s soldiers come attacking not long ago? Since then, there have been people who keep crossing the border to spy on us. We came up with our own scheme to avoid unnecessary conflicts. If we make it look like a haunted house, we can filter out about half of those who come to plunder.”
“There were people who attempted to spy? We didn’t realize…”
“Well, you wouldn’t know if you only stay in the manor. We have to go around gathering here and there to make a living, so we found out.”
The other party cut off Count Max’s words and answered nonchalantly. His tone suggested that how Litberg Castle received this was none of his concern.
On the other hand, Count Max, who could be called the culprit of this situation, was at a loss due to guilt.
Evnia, who had been quietly listening to their conversation, asked in a calm voice.
“Why didn’t you request protection from Litberg Castle?”
“…Litberg Castle? Did I just hear that correctly?”
“It seems like that would be a more economical choice than abandoning the house you’ve been living in well. The people living here know that the owner of that manor isn’t the scary existence that rumors make him out to be. If you thought Lord Ram was a blood-crazed monster, you wouldn’t have settled so close by.”
They didn’t even need to risk setting foot in Litberg Castle. They had Hanna as a communication channel.
It could be that they thought Ram was asleep and didn’t consider his intervention, but this wasn’t an easily acceptable reason either.
That’s because the other party was desperate enough to voluntarily demolish the house they lived in.
Yens met Evnia’s questioning gaze with faded eyes for a moment.
Eventually, a deflating sound flowed from his mouth.
“Of course we know. Why wouldn’t we? The ones who spread the rumors that the owner of Litberg Castle was a monster were none other than the locals here.”
“…What?”
Evnia asked back with a surprised face.
Count Max, sitting beside her, was also looking at Yens with wide eyes as if hearing this for the first time.
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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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