Sister-in-law of the Heroine in a Childcare Novel - 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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Episode 6

Still, I think it’s understandable that a child without education and shattered self-esteem couldn’t look away, clinging to one fiancé with obsessive devotion.
Even if inwardly I’m repeating things like “I’m sorry,” “I beg your pardon,” “There’s nothing I can do about it. If only her mind had been shaped when she was younger,” or “He’s a child, but so is she…. No, damn it, this is pot calling the kettle black” over and over.
They say it’s truly difficult for a person to view themselves objectively, but I suppose it’s because I’ve been reborn as an adult from my past life, already knowing everything about Titania’s situation from the book.
I just look at who I was until yesterday like a stranger—with pity. Someone has to be on my side, even if it’s me.
“Still, from what you just said…”
The Young Duke’s lashes fluttered slowly. His pale golden eyes, concealing some complex emotion, rested on me with a deceptive smile.
“…it seems the image of you I’ve witnessed until now must all be a lie.”
No matter how I think about it, this feels like that.
‘I thought you were too stupid to think things through—how on earth did you extract the family secrets and stab me in the back?’
“Perhaps, Your Highness, you could tell me who worked to change your thinking…?”
This is too transparent. The subtext ‘You didn’t figure this out yourself. Who’s pulling your strings?’ is visible at seventy percent opacity through the back.
I shrugged and answered.
“You need only go to the tallest yew tree in the gardens near the second-floor balcony of the Rose Palace and give it some water.”
“…I beg your pardon?”
“My thoughts changed somewhat after I banged my head into a tree and crashed my body into it.”
When I nodded back at him, accepting that yes, I nearly died and had a change of mind, Raymond, the Young Duke, couldn’t hide his bewilderment.
Of course—Titania the Princess would never do such a thing if she were in her right mind.
And even if the Young Duke now inquired among Titania’s Rose Palace servants and shook them for information, there would be nothing to be found.
What can anyone do about truly dying and coming back changed?
If there had been even one ‘truly’ intimate person, I couldn’t have hidden the strangeness.
A devoted nursemaid or servant. A governess. Or a friend.
But Titania had none of those. Therefore, my only playable cards—whether they confine me in the future, void the engagement and cast me out, or anything else—are, in the end, whims and interest of this “nominal fiancé,” and a modest transaction leveraging knowledge of the future.
“…Your Highness said she desired a ‘transaction.'”
Raymond, thinking I wouldn’t speak the truth directly, relaxed his shoulders slightly and cast a probing gaze in my direction.
“You say you’ve prepared a ‘gift’ for me, yet speak of a ‘transaction.’ That doesn’t add up.”
His eyes were sharp enough to pierce a beholder. I answered with a broad smile.
“Well, that’s just how the world works—it’s all about giving and receiving. Naturally, when I give you something, the Young Duke must offer an appropriate return gift.”
“Yet you’ve already told me the location of the Gloriana’s Curtain—?”
“It’s about trusting one’s fiancé. My faith that the great Castrain Ducal House, even with a younger brother and a foolish fiancée, won’t simply swallow the gift she’s prepared with all her heart and pretend not to notice.”
“How many could call the Princess a ‘foolish fiancée’?”
Almost the entire empire, that’s how many.
My lip corners quivered. No, wait—even before this, didn’t he at least observe basic courtesy toward his fiancée?
No matter how I think about it, doesn’t it seem like he’s mocking me?
Raymond slowly reached for his own teacup. Not to drink—he merely touched the handle, making the tea ripple, before speaking.
“…So, Your Highness the Princess, who has taken interest in the Castrain Ducal House. In exchange for ‘secretly’ delivering what our family requires, what do you wish for?”
His eyes, full of swirling thoughts like a raging storm, fixed on me with persistent, almost predatory intensity.
I had given this moment very much thought.
What could I possibly ask of a fiancé I don’t trust, who has a very high chance of becoming my enemy in the future?
Something trivial to them but essential to me. Something that, even if I ask for it, poses no threat to them and won’t mark me as their certain enemy.
“The Rose Palace staff lack much in dedication—your mistress suffered injury and illness, yet not one of them felt any sense of responsibility.”
Even if it wasn’t poison but merely an accident, a member of the imperial family nearly died.
The least that should happen is repairs to the place where I fell. But no one paid any attention.
In the end, since I woke up perfectly fine, that’s all that matters.
Why young Titania Sol Kite Hamastion suddenly fell from the second-floor balcony of the Rose Palace and teetered on death’s edge—no one even wondered.
The reason was simple.
To catch her mother’s attention, the mother who never looked at her. Simply to see her face.
If she went looking directly, rejection was guaranteed.
So if she fell from a height of just two stories and got adequately injured, perhaps… perhaps her mother would take notice. Perhaps she would pity her and worry over her.
The mother had shown no concern even when she was sickly throughout her childhood. But… the elder princes, the First and Second Princes—whenever they fell ill, the Empress and the consorts would turn the entire palace upside down.
Young Titania had devised this plan after overhearing a passing maid mutter: “No matter how much trouble the child causes, when she’s sick, the heart softens. There’s no parent who doesn’t love their child.”
But if she were caught faking illness, she might be despised even more.
So.
Because it was the Imperial Palace. Because it was only two stories. Because she wouldn’t die…
With that resolve, she grew frightened and lingered on the terrace for a long time.
How the child trembled as she peered over the edge of the second floor.
Terrified and desolate, yet unable to leave, unable to confess to anyone.
Too frightened to hear: “Your own mother truly hates you, so she won’t care even if you fall here and get hurt.”
While she stood frozen, unable to take that final step, a passing maid suddenly opened the tightly closed door without warning.
Startled by the noise, Titania fell from the balcony.
Because she was timid, perhaps in the very last moment she would have given up.
That even a slight scar on her face or loss of life was possible. Perhaps she would have convinced herself and stopped.
Perhaps instead of the second-floor balcony, she would have thrown herself from a low staircase up to the first floor, making only shallow wounds on her arms and legs.
But Titania fell from the balcony after all.
Some thoughtless staff member who didn’t bother with courtesy toward her mistress—that careless gesture of bursting through the closed door without so much as a knock—
pushed the girl’s back in the end. Regardless of whether she believed it wasn’t murder, it was.
Scared, fearful, and selfish—that young Titania died forever the moment my past life awakened within me.
Titania wanted to be loved.
I know that will never come to pass.
“I need one loyal bodyguard and one maid.”
So before my wary fiancé, I spoke, flinging the empty teacup far away.
Crash, shatter. My face reflected in the scattered teacup shards. Smiling like broken, shattered glass.
“Those capable of killing people and saving them alike.”

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“Has the Princess truly gone mad?”
Raymond was silent at Cassian’s dumbfounded reaction as they left their private audience with the Princess. The moment Cassian heard the contents of the transaction, he pulled at his hair with a pained expression.
It was understandable. In Raymond’s mind, the lingering image of the Princess from their private audience hadn’t yet faded.
“Fell from the second floor… hit a tree? What, was that tree some legendary World Tree? And people change like that? Wow… no… I mean…”
‘The Rose Palace staff lack much in dedication—your mistress suffered injury and illness, yet not one of them felt any sense of responsibility.’
Though the Princess had nearly died and only just awakened—a grave matter—the Imperial Palace remained quiet.
Not a single maid warned her against meeting her fiancé with a body still not fully healed, claiming it would strain her health.
It was true that Titania originally disliked subordinates interjecting in her meetings with her fiancé, but…
Those cool green eyes reproaching her staff. Those lips curved in a thin smile.
‘I need one loyal bodyguard and one maid.’
Princess Titania had no bodyguard.
It was because she was a princess who scarcely left the Imperial Palace—or rather, ‘couldn’t’ leave it. No one wanted her to make her formal debut in society, build connections, and grow into someone of distinction.

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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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