Mad Rosetta - Chapter 18

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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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Rosetta Gone Mad

Episode 18

Even a Seedling Deserves Careful Watering (1)

⟪Arcanis Academy Building B Research Lab Fire… Casualties?⟫

⌜Early the previous morning, a sudden fire broke out in the research lab of Arcanis Academy’s Building B, causing researchers to evacuate in chaos. The Security Bureau revealed that the fire originated from Room 804 in Building B—the research lab of Dr. Dravu Beaumont—and it has come to light that the fire was caused by a lamp owned by Dr. Beaumont, who took his own life, shocking the public. Meanwhile, Dr. Beaumont’s funeral….⌟

“It appears inevitable that controversy will arise regarding accountability for the massive loss of research materials….”

No matter how many times I read the article from beginning to end, its contents would not change.

He was dead. Dr. Dravu Beaumont was dead.

And he had taken his own life, that Dr. Dravu Beaumont.

My hands trembled so violently I could barely grip the newspaper.

This couldn’t be. This should not have happened.

I had planned to obtain the antidote before the Debut Tante. So I had even spent my own money, pressing a substantial research fund into that old man’s hands!

“This isn’t funny… No, this can’t be happening!”

I could not possibly accept the fact that the Doctor had suddenly taken his own life.

After that, when I came to my senses, I found myself facing a newspaper torn to shreds and Penny and the other Children clinging to me with their entire bodies.

My head spun, and my breathing came in rapid, shallow gasps.

Though it was my own body, I had lost control of it once again.

“Lady, please calm yourself!”

“Someone bring a handkerchief!”

As my lungs constricted in pain, Vicky and Sara steadied me as I nearly collapsed to the floor, clutching at my chest.

I pressed the handkerchief firmly against my mouth, and my breathing gradually steadied—yet my mind felt as though it had been torn to shreds.

How much longer would I have to suffer because of that cursed flower?

Self-recrimination and helplessness flooded through me once more—the realization that I had lost control of my own body again—and my strength drained away.

Sing came to my side and continued speaking words of comfort, but the trembling in my body refused to cease.

I needed time to think.

“That’s enough. All of you, leave now.”

“But you’re not feeling well at all! What are you saying!”

Penny’s face crumpled, and she burst out in protest.

My, she’s really raising her voice at me.

I couldn’t even remember the last time I’d heard words spoken with such concern.

Even as my heart swelled at this, I was gripped by anxiety—what if I lashed out at her in my current state?

No matter how much I blamed the poison’s aftereffects, if I laid a hand on Penny, I knew I would never be able to rise again.

So I commanded them once more to withdraw from the room.

“Lady… if there’s anything you need, you will call for us again, won’t you?”

Penny, still wearing that sorrowful expression, made her earnest plea. She hesitated reluctantly before finally leaving the Bedroom with the other Servants.

Perhaps it was the aftermath of the commotion.

As the silence suddenly descended around me, a torrent of troubled thoughts came rushing back to tear at my chest.

【You hanged yourself, didn’t you, Rosette? Ridiculous. You think the same, don’t you?】

“…Of course.”

Yes, I needed to calm myself.

On the surface, it could have been dismissed as a single man’s suicide attempt, but there were far too many inconsistencies to ignore.

‘What sense does it make for someone desperate enough to take their own life to embezzle research funds so brazenly?’

Most suspiciously, the lamp that had been sitting perfectly upright wasn’t knocked over—rather, his research materials had burned to ash from simple neglect, which seemed far too coincidental to dismiss.

And beyond that, there were certainly people around me who stood to gain from Dr. Dravu Beaumont’s death.

“Could Odette have…?”

【Even under confinement, she could easily accomplish this through intermediaries.】

“No, but for Odette to have orchestrated this directly… something doesn’t feel right.”

She was a girl whose expression darkened at the slightest provocation from me.

When cornered, Odette would crumble instantly—nothing more than a fifteen-year-old girl in the end.

I’d even found her somewhat cunning when dealing with her directly, but even if Odette revealed her true nature, it wouldn’t be difficult to handle.

– “My, how fortunate we are for our mother’s kindness. She mentioned using a poison so potent it leaves no trace.”

Suddenly, clarity struck me like a bolt.

What if it wasn’t Odette manipulating Lianna, but Lianna manipulating Odette all along?

Now that I thought about it, even the regular procurement of Panilnia Flower—which was supposedly difficult to cultivate—seemed beyond what Odette alone could manage.

“If Lianna has been the one pulling Odette’s strings all this time, everything makes sense. They’re both in on it anyway, but… I was so fixated on Odette alone.”

【Your stepmother’s movements have been relatively restrained, have they not? Above all, it was Odette who attempted to poison you, so the confusion is understandable.】

“This is like catching a fox while thinking I’d caught a mouse.”

Lianna was a woman who rarely revealed herself to me.

While I seldom encountered her because she spent her time managing the household affairs from the Main Manor, we had almost no points of contact whatsoever.

Unlike Odette, she never sought me out with calculated sweetness, and whenever we happened to be in the same place, she remained near Father, merely observing from a distance.

“If my suspicion is correct, then either Odette or Lianna discovered that I summoned Dr. Dravu Beaumont and dealt with him accordingly….”

Imagining Dr. Dravu Beaumont’s dying moments sent an eerie chill through my body, and I shrank back as though fleeing from the cold itself.

I was terrified.

If this incident had occurred because I entrusted the Doctor with research on Panilnia Flower, guilt consumed me.

Simultaneously, the cruelty of Lianna and Odette—that mother and daughter—filled me with dread and revulsion.

“Can people truly be killed so easily?”

【….】

“How can harming the innocent be made so simple….”

Rage surged within me at their behavior—treating anyone who became an obstacle in their path as mere objects to be discarded, their lives worth nothing.

Selfishly, rather than mourning the dead deeply, I found myself consumed by despair at my present circumstance—my path forward had vanished, and I had no way ahead.

Should I search now for another researcher who could manufacture an antidote? Would the Doctor’s lost research materials have contained any breakthrough?

If I sought out someone else and commissioned them, only to hear that another person had vanished from this land as I had today, could I truly bear it?

As ten thousand worries tangled within me, I crumbled once more.

“I underestimated them. I should never have reasoned from common sense.”

Just as my own actions had suddenly changed, they too could escalate their own deeds in response.

What Odette might do next, what hidden schemes Lianna—whom I thought had been quiet—might harbor.

I had already strayed far from any future I could have predicted.

“…Didn’t the location of the Doctor’s funeral service come up earlier?”

So I had to do what I could.

If I attended the Doctor’s funeral, perhaps I could learn something from his family or close acquaintances—some clue, or information about his research.

I fixed Sing with a wide-eyed stare, and he smirked, pointing a finger toward something.

【Yes, there was.】

Whenever he smiled like that, it always gave me the creeps.

【Perhaps if you pieced together all those newspaper scraps you shredded to ribbons, you could read it again.】

A sigh escaped me as I gazed at the scattered fragments of paper beneath the Terrace table.

Right, I’d torn them all to shreds in a fit of rage earlier….

Feeling embarrassed, I grumbled about leaving this trash without even cleaning it up, and Sing laughed with exaggerated theatricality.

【It was you who told the Children, ‘Don’t bother me anymore—back off!’ I’d wager.】

“Penny! Are you there?!”

I rang the bell three times loudly, and Vicky entered instead of Penny.

I promptly ordered her to bring me a fresh copy of today’s newspaper.

Fortunately, the Monastery where the Doctor’s funeral was being held lay within Benitra Territory and was not far from the Duke’s Mansion.

The proximity of the Monastery’s Academy to the Benitra Estate was a stroke of fortune.

‘If he died at dawn the day before, the first day’s rites must already be concluded…. If I move quickly, I can attend the second day’s ceremony today.’

The problem was that the Princess, who hadn’t yet made her debut in society, could not attend a formal occasion without a guardian present.

Disguising myself and slipping out of the Manor secretly risked one of the Servants reporting to their mistress, so I paused to consider my options.

‘If I can’t leave in secret, then I’ll force my way through the front door.’

I sprang from the bed, and Sing tilted his head.

【Where are you going?】

“To Lianna. I’m going to ask her to attend the funeral with me.”

【Hmm…. If that’s the case, I won’t be able to move freely. Are you sure about this?】

“What? What am I supposed to do with a ghost I own?”

【?】

“Are you talking about yourself?” Sing asked innocently, pointing at himself, and I responded with hearty laughter.

“Exactly as you said—I’ll have to stay glued right beside Lianna, pretending to know nothing. You, Sing, move between people and extract some useful information for me.”

【Ha, sounds like some undercover Security Bureau operation. This is really going to be a pain.】

“Come on, isn’t it thrilling?”

What’s the point of having a ghost only I can see if not to use him at times like this?

Besides, I’d been frustrated watching him struggle alone all this time.

Since we’d agreed to seek revenge together, I figured he deserved to suffer a little too, so I gave his shoulder a vigorous pat.

Thanks to him—resigned to his fate, making no complaints and insisting I simply trust him as he boasted—my spirits lifted somewhat.

‘All right, let’s see who this Empire-level lunatic really is!’

Burning with resolve to punish Lianna and Odette—that mother-and-daughter pair who tormented me relentlessly—I steeled my determination.

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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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