Mad Rosetta - Chapter 6

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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 6

The Obedient Child Knows No Punishment (2)

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My Room remained in utter disarray.

The Annex where I resided stood scarcely fifty paces from the Main Manor where Father and Lianna dwelled, connected by a bridge spanning the estate grounds.

I knew not what name it bore before, but it was renamed Rose Manor immediately after my birth, or so I was told.

True to its name, roses cascading from the Main Manor Garden stretched densely throughout Rose Manor, a design Father had commissioned upon acquiring the rose cultivation rights.

Because of this, whenever the Empire’s most beautiful gardens were mentioned, this place invariably graced the list.

‘Whether Father feared showing favoritism between his two daughters, or whether Lianna had demanded it—he granted Odette the Western Villa as well.’

In any case, since Father’s gaze fell upon this place, the garden still maintained its splendor.

The bitter truth was that my Room could claim no such fortune.

Ironically, rather than knock upon my door out of concern for a daughter of unstable mind, he had chosen to wait for me to emerge of my own accord—a choice that had surely contributed to the filth accumulating within these walls.

“I should clean the Room.”

“I—I beg your pardon?”

Penny feigned deafness, so I reiterated with emphasis.

“I said I need to clean the Room.”

“Oh!”

“That was rather disrespectful, Penny.”

A single arch of my brow restored order, and Penny spilled forth apologies in rapid succession.

His appearance was rather amusing, so I decided to let it slide.

Even at his oldest, he couldn’t have been more than thirteen years old, which stirred an odd sense of guilt in me—the kind I didn’t feel when dealing with others.

“Penny, go at once and find out whether the head maid has returned. If she has… tell her to bring all the servants who have been managing my room here immediately.”

“Yes, ma’am. I’ll be back in a moment, Lady.”

Just as Penny was about to hurry out, she returned almost at once, muttering that she had something to ask.

“Um, if the head maid says she’s busy, what should I do to urge her…?”

“….”

Have I ever seen such faithless attendants?

【Pffft! Puhahahaha!】

Penny asked with genuine sincerity, while the Faceless Ghost convulsed with laughter.

I felt true shame at this… it was an utterly exasperating reality.

What could possibly take precedence over their master’s command?

Penny wanted to know what she should do if the head maid refused, so she could handle the matter swiftly.

Looking at her again, she was truly a sharp child.

“…A whip.”

“Pardon?”

“Tell her I’m practicing my whipping technique.”

At my indifferent command, Penny’s face brightened with sudden understanding, and she cheerfully exclaimed “Yes!” before leaving the room.

Sing was sprawled across my bed, laughing so hard his stomach hurt, and he was clawing at himself in amusement.

【Ahahaha! Oh, really…. Benitra’s situation is quite something, isn’t it?】

“….”

【Hmm? What are you searching for so intently, darling?】

“The whip—where on earth did I put it….”

Can you not hear it from somewhere?

The sound of someone’s back splitting open.

Once Sing, who had brazenly claimed the Lady’s bed for himself, and I were left alone, I decided to satisfy the curiosity I had been suppressing.

“Sing. There’s something I want to ask you.”

【You are truly one who harbors many questions.】

“The more one knows, the smoother things tend to proceed. I’d like to hear why you harbor such resentment toward Cessia. Can you answer that?”

I stared down at him, his expression difficult to discern.

Whether by chance or inevitability.

The fact that Sing and I shared the same target for vengeance was fortuitous, yet something about it left me deeply unsettled.

To be frank, the Cessia I knew was not someone cruel enough to reduce another to a vengeful Faceless Ghost.

Of course, setting aside what he had done to me, my betrothed was a figure of such renown that any nobleman in the Arcanis Empire would recognize his name.

The sole heir to House of Montague, which had accumulated its wealth through flourishing maritime commerce.

Above all, his father, the Marquess of Montague, had long been the Emperor’s trusted hand, supporting Carina Perijia when she was the First Empress and conducting business alongside her.

This meant that Cessia was the heir to a household wielding tremendous political influence.

‘I’ll strip that handsome face of his too.’

As I recalled Cessia smiling at Odette in his fine attire, my face twisted involuntarily.

It was distasteful, but I had to acknowledge the truth.

My fiancé was a celebrated prodigy blessed with an exceptional countenance, and at merely sixteen, he had already distinguished himself through martial prowess—earning his knighthood with remarkable distinction.

Cessia possessed an illustrious lineage, striking features, and formidable strength. He harbored a fondness for basking in admiration and accolades.

Yet conversely, he shrank from undertaking significant responsibilities, lacking the courage to step forward himself.

He perpetually fretted that even the slightest misstep might tarnish both his reputation and his family’s honor.

Thus, I found myself consumed with curiosity regarding the vendetta Sing harbored against Cessia.

【The one who created me in this form is Cessia’s Mother.】

“…What?”

Contrary to my expectation that Sing would evade the question with wordplay, he provided a direct answer.

Though somewhat shocking.

【Therefore, should I not also deprive her of her precious son?】

Sing spoke with evident delight, anticipating the expression she would wear upon learning of her son’s demise.

So Sing’s grudge against Cessia stemmed from the fact that his mother had been the one to kill him.

– “How did such an incompetent creature ever enter our household? It would have been far better to have betrothed him to Bonita instead!”

Cessia’s Mother was a figure I knew all too well.

– “You simpering fool. Because of you, Cessia cannot open his heart and refuses to consummate the marriage!”

She was the sort to raise her hand at the slightest provocation—forgetting morning courtesies and striking out in fury.

The Montague Duchess harbored such resentment that her precious son had ultimately married me—a woman once branded a madwoman—that she subjected me to relentless verbal abuse from the moment of our wedding.

Even I, who behaved as though possessed by madness, cherished my marriage to Cessia too dearly to allow it to be destroyed, so I made it my habit to bow my head before the Duchess.

‘Though I did not endure it every time.’

Whenever my sanity grew particularly difficult to maintain, I would shriek and storm into her intimate tea time with Odette, overturning tables in my fury, or I would rage that the moment Cessia inherited the marquessate, I would confine her to some villa in the Western reaches.

Each time, Cessia’s curses would follow, and I’d be locked away in my room. When I came to my senses, I’d have to face the shame of reflecting on my own actions.

As I recalled that desolate marriage, all the humiliations I’d endured came flooding back one after another, and I found myself biting my lip.

“If that woman who lived and breathed for Cessia would certainly grieve… but is that all there is to it?”

【What do you mean?】

“If Cessia’s Mother killed you, then you should be plotting revenge against the Montague Duchess herself. Why did you set your sights on Cessia specifically?”

【Ha ha. Sometimes, darling, there exists someone you love even more than yourself. Perhaps she would have preferred that I appear before her instead? But then she could boldly demand that I not lay a finger on her son.】

At Sing’s words explaining how this would be the most miserable way to destroy the one who killed me, I felt a chill run through me.

He’d been tossing his words about so lightly that I couldn’t gauge the depth of his resentment until now… but in just this moment of conversation, I realized he truly desired revenge.

【So, Rosette, darling. Now I want to ask you. What are you planning to do from here on?】

I had no answer to Sing’s question.

I simply couldn’t think of any suitable plan.

When I first opened my eyes, I had intended to break off my engagement with Montague, but thinking about it, wouldn’t that also sever my connection with Cessia?

If that happened, plotting revenge against him would become terribly difficult, so I couldn’t bring myself to speak.

The wicked are naturally skilled at wickedness. A princess as kind and innocent as I had been suddenly scheming to outwit others with elaborate plots? That’s the sort of development you’d only see in common novels like “I Woke Up and Found Myself Possessed by a Reckless Princess!”

I simply wanted to return the same betrayal and pain I had suffered back to them.

“Lady, it’s Penny.”

At the knock from Penny, who came at just the right moment, I hastily ordered her to enter.

Whether I had said something like “The Lady is currently practicing with the whip!” or not, the head Servant and three other Servants filed into my room.

Only three Attendants to manage this vast room?

I felt another wave of frustration wash over me as I first turned to the head Servant with a question.

“You must have heard by now that my house arrest has been lifted. Do you understand why I’ve summoned you?”

“We assumed it was to tidy up your room, Lady.”

The head servant answered more readily than I expected.

Her name was Marahan Denaize.

When I was nine years old—when I first came to live in the Rose Manor—she had taken charge of this place.

She had witnessed every step of my transformation from a perfectly normal young mistress into the most notorious troublemaker.

Given Marahan’s stubborn nature, no matter how much of a brat I had been, she would have at least ordered the attendants to maintain the room to some minimum standard.

Yet the cobwebs strung across every crevice remained unexplained.

“I understand that my poor health made it difficult for you to fulfill your duties. However, I never commanded such negligence, and I wish to know the reason for it.”

“…I beg your pardon, Lady. We merely followed your wish to be left alone.”

My eyebrows rose involuntarily at her response.

‘I said I wanted to be alone, not that I wanted to live coughing in a pit of dust.’

Sing, who kept giggling beside me, was becoming unbearable, so I shot him a look to be quiet before turning to reprimand Marahan again.

“So I instructed that no one was to enter except during meals, and to inspect the interior only minimally during important occasions…”

But I was left speechless by what she said next.

“Did you not convey that through Bonita, Lady?”

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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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