Resetting Lady - Chapter 58

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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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Karen had to return alone in the carriage that night. Before Karen could savor his expression any longer, Raymond immediately left. It was Donna who held Karen’s hand, trembling with anxiety. Donna was frightened that Karen had lost a large sum of money.

“The master will surely be furious… What should we do?”

Karen rested her chin on her hand and gazed at the night sky, watching Donna’s body tremble with anxiety. Verdick would be angry. In fact, it wasn’t really that much money to Verdick, but he would still be angry.

Raymond had said this.

“You don’t know Mr. Verdick.”

No, I know him well. Karen knew well that Verdick would call for her tonight. Among all the countless people who had killed her, Karen remembered Verdick particularly well simply because he had killed her so many times.

Verdick was relatively clean, at least. He loved Isela Evans, his own daughter, and hated Karen. The fact that he didn’t look at Karen with lustful eyes made their relationship quite clean.

“Donna, they found a corpse this morning. She was around our age, wasn’t she?”

“That has nothing to do with us…”

The dead woman from this morning was in the newspaper. Not “now,” but a more detailed story would appear in the evening edition the day after tomorrow. She was just irrelevant background. Someone who died in the neighboring town.

Same age, but she had been selling her body since she was thirteen and was brutally murdered in a sewer at eighteen. Her face was quite pretty, but that wasn’t really important. They had torn up her face too. How much difference is there between the woman appearing in the newspaper and the female protagonist appearing in a novel? You wouldn’t understand that there’s no difference between her and us to me.

“Compared to such things, this is nothing.”

“…”

Donna closed her mouth. Karen also closed her mouth. The maid before her would never understand in her lifetime that what would happen to Karen and what happened to the dead woman in the neighboring town were essentially the same thing.

“It’s okay.”

Such things are nothing.

Karen found it hard to endure her daily life being consumed by labor. The waste of time and the situation of not being understood were both difficult. So Karen brought in external matters rather than internal ones.

The Spade Jack serial murder case.

Karen “knew” about the case. Because it was in the newspaper. But it wasn’t really something that concerned Karen. Murder cases happen every year. If you expand it nationwide, to the continent, there isn’t a day when they don’t occur. To Karen, it was something in print, someone else’s business. The culprit would be caught, and those connected would also be caught.

I should confess to Lord Raymond. I hope he’ll believe me if possible. Like Donna, Raymond might not understand Karen now, but he’ll eventually understand.

Because Karen will make it so.

* * *

It was dawn before daybreak. Verdick called for Karen. Donna woke Karen with obvious fear on her face. Karen had to go down to the basement in her nightgown.

“Miss Karen.”

“Mr. Verdick.”

Verdick was dressed in a formal suit. An intimidating presence emanated from his bulky frame. He held a whip in his hand.

“You spent my money without permission.”

“…I’m sorry.”

Crack.

The whip struck the cold stone floor. The loud sound echoed threateningly throughout the basement.

“On gambling, no less.”

“…”

“Getting involved with Baron Ain without permission, gambling money without permission, and even losing.”

“…”

“What should I say to you?”

“I’m sorry.”

Karen repeatedly asked for forgiveness, but in her mind she wondered if Raymond had found the corpse. And she anticipated that after being beaten on the back, the state of her back would be no different from that corpse.

You don’t know Verdick’s cruelty?

Karen mocked Raymond’s words.

“Hold her.”

“Yes.”

Karen’s arms were firmly grasped by maids with massive builds. She felt the cold rising from the floor against her forcibly bent knees.

“Karen Evans, you seem to be mistaken about something.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You came in as my daughter, but that doesn’t mean you can spend my wealth like Isela.”

“…”

“Then punishment is necessary.”

“…”

Verdick seemed displeased with Karen’s silence. Here, she should struggle and wail to satisfy him. But Karen didn’t want to do that.

“Put her in the frame.”

Even though it was midsummer, this basement was cold. How many years had it been since she was dragged here? It was amusing that she felt sleepy even in this situation. And she would wake up soon enough.

“…Hng.”

Donna, who had been dragged along, covered her mouth and closed her eyes. Tears were forming in her eyes. That child is very timid. Isela was like that too. But even though Isela was scared at first, she soon smiled. That’s the difference between a maid and a mistress.

“Donna, don’t cry.”

I’m the one who wants to cry, so why are you crying? I’m the one being beaten. That’s what Karen meant, but even that seemed to displease Verdick.

“Who told you to speak without permission?”

“…”

Karen pushed away the maids’ arms.

“Let go, I can do it myself.”

Because it’s familiar work. Please don’t scream. Please don’t lose composure. Please faint. Karen exposed her back and approached the frame. The basement door closed.

But not screaming was impossible.

* * *

Now I feel somewhat alive.

Verdick rubbed his aching shoulder and took off his blood-stained clothes. A servant brought new clothes.

“How is your shoulder? It’s been throbbing terribly.”

“…It’s just muscle pain.”

“Is that so? Well, these days I rarely move my body, so even that much work leaves me feeling quite unrefreshed, Priest.”

Dulan touched Verdick’s shoulder once, and when Verdick made no particular sound, he instructed the servant to help him change clothes.

“Isela… when do you think she’ll be able to wake up?”

“…I’m sorry.”

“Priest.”

Verdick brought the riding whip.

Crack!

The desk shook as if it would break. A groove was carved into the wooden desk. Dulan looked down at the desk with an expressionless face.

“Parents with daughters are, you see, sensitive.”

“…”

Verdick became more anxious as time passed. Isela wouldn’t open her eyes. Even though her physical condition was gradually improving, she wouldn’t open her eyes.

Verdick grew increasingly angry at Dulan. Gratitude faded with time and suspicion bloomed. He felt like whipping Dulan as well.

“These days.”

Verdick looked at Dulan’s face as he glanced at the blood-dripping whip.

“You stutter less?”

“…It’s, it’s psychological. When I’m not nervous… I’m fine.”

“I must have startled you.”

Dulan bowed his head and answered.

“No.”

“What you mentioned before.”

“Yes.”

“Karen is excessively arrogant.”

“…That’s right.”

Dulan nodded in agreement.

“How dare she try to squander my money. I thought Priest Dulan’s revenge was also necessary. You may not know well, Priest, but such arrogant women must be thoroughly broken.”

“…But today was excessive.”

“Priest?”

Verdick gripped the whip handle.

“Surely not.”

“…”

Dulan’s face was pale as always. Verdick looked at Dulan’s face and asked.

“You don’t still have feelings for Karen Evans, do you?”

Suspicion deepened with time.

Unlike Isela who had become a vegetable, Karen’s hardships amounted to nursing work at most. And every night she flirted with Raymond, Isela’s former fiancé, making rounds in high society. Verdick found it hard to contain his rage.

Isella, to whom he had tried to give everything, had collapsed and was practically a corpse, while Karen, the woman his daughter had been jealous of and didn’t know how to handle, was enjoying everything his daughter had. Wealth, men, and beauty—all of it. And with Verdick’s money, Isella’s father’s money at that!

“I know she lacks manners, but when a child becomes like that, parents go mad.”

Verdick’s eyes had nearly turned red when he learned that Karen had arbitrarily gambled with Baron Ain the night before. How dare you. And he had whipped her to properly show Karen her place.

And he had hit her a little harder than he had intended.

What he felt while beating her was the pitying gazes of the maids around him. He could understand Karen’s maid, but he noticed that even his own long-serving maids were watching the scene with slight displeasure. Those eyes that looked at him as if he were a villain.

Verdick felt a terrible displeasure rising within him.

Merchants are sensitive to profit and loss. Now Verdick was even suspicious of Dulan. He doubted whether taking Karen as an adopted daughter was really a good deal for Verdick, and he also disliked the sympathetic gazes toward Karen. If even his long-serving maids who were accustomed to his whip pitied her, then what about Dulan before him? What emotions had driven him to make such a proposal?

He wanted to ask.

He had heard that the two had been related as distant relatives since childhood. If so, wouldn’t there still be affection as blood relatives with nowhere else to go, rather than anger at the man who had betrayed him? If that were the case, he would have to thoroughly destroy that delusion, the ‘benefits that Karen Evans would enjoy.’ He had to vent his parental rage.

“Do you think I hit her too hard?”

And Verdick stared piercingly at Dulan, wondering if his eyes might be clouded with sympathy.

But Dulan’s eyes were too dark to read. He answered in a rough voice.

“…Not at all.”

As he said this, Dulan reached out and placed his hand on Verdick’s. It was a cold but comforting touch.

“I wouldn’t care even if she died.”

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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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