Surviving as a Terminally Ill Heiress - Chapter 59

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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 59

Watching Hastings Marquis these days, those timid days as a retiring noblewoman felt like ancient history.
She’d become nearly as confident a career woman as Naomi herself.
‘After all, everyone needs their own purse.’
It wasn’t for nothing that ancient slavers stripped their chattel of property rights.
In any case, the result was that Matilda’s wish—to rise again in Ambrose’s eyes and my own—had come true.
Thanks to that determined friend, the time to part ways with that mad bee-keeper was arriving sooner than expected.
Exactly three days later, at seven in the morning, I climbed into the carriage holding Ivan’s hand.
“……and now we should narrow the hive entrance and drape some insulation over it. Hopefully the weather won’t swing too wildly from here on.”
Even our final parting chat was like this.
I laughed without feeling and replied.
“At least the cold’s come early—that’s lucky. No hornets showing up, and the colony’s settled into winter nicely.
“Yes, and you should head up before the roads freeze, my lady. Your birthday’s coming soon, after all…….”
Ivan looked disappointed, but at least had enough conscience not to hold me back.
Instead, he thrust something tedious at me.
“So as a birthday gift, here’s Royal Jelly I’ve gathered stitch by stitch!”
“Depart.”
The moment the word left my mouth, Tru slammed the carriage door shut with a bang.
At once, everyone in the party dismissed Ivan and set off as if by habit.
One wrong move and I’d find myself handed everything from raw honey to newborn larvae.
But Ivan, impervious even to rejection, shouted after our receding carriage.
“When spring comes, you must visit for the honey harvest! Everyone needs to taste it again……!”
This time too, we all pretended not to hear. If anything, we accelerated in unison as if fleeing.
It was something we’d repeated every season except winter for years.
‘At least we came often because of the portal. Now there’s truly no escape.’
Besides, I’d never be tempted by his generous stipends anymore.
I leaned back with a relieved face.
The carriage was quiet thanks to Tru concentrating on her knitting and Shasha nodding off.
Cross one bridge from the Ambrose Territory—a place obsessed with bees and beekeeping—and you’d reach the neighboring Peta Territory.
Between the two fiefs ran a thick river.
The bees needed water no less than people did, and since Peta Territory’s main income came from textile production, they did considerable laundry—making the river a lifeline precious to both sides.
The carriage slowed as it began crossing the bridge.
I gazed out at the bright blue waters below, then murmured on impulse.
“This river must flow to the sea too.”
“Probably so, my lady.”
Tru set down her knitting briefly and replied.
The sea. Hmm, the sea…….
The diamond-shaped Ambrose Territory had a small, quiet beach at its southernmost point.
As I’d said I wanted to visit someday, I’d been there twice.
First alone, then with my younger siblings when they came down as well.
It was lovely. The salt air and waves and sand were strange and novel. Especially the second time—I was glad the siblings enjoyed it so.
But it didn’t move me as much as I’d expected.
Just a “so this is what the sea is like,” and “unless my siblings are here, there’s no real reason to visit again” sort of impression.
Tru took that opportunity to mock me again, suggesting my sensibilities had withered so much I didn’t respond to nature.
I had no reply to that.
Compared to the Tru sitting before me, we were both mercenary at heart, but she clearly possessed a more tender sensitivity than I did.
“Ah, wouldn’t it be wonderful if we happened to find the Pirate King’s Treasure Ship out on some distant sea.”
Tru spoke as though dreaming.
I obliged her kindly.
“You’d have a better chance of being struck by lightning.”
“You really have no romance in you, my lady…….”
Tru gave me a dispirited look.
But the Pirate King’s Treasure Ship—
that was one of the three great legends of the Kelcica Continent where we lived.
A tale of how, in the distant past, a pirate king who once ruled the seas wished to court some princess and stole one precious treasure from each nation before his ship sank.
It’s the sort of thing every child on the continent hears as folklore growing up…….
‘Honestly, it’s nonsense.’
Being so old and dramatic, there were countless debates about whether it was real.
Even if it were real, so what.
How would anyone find and raise a ship that sank into the boundless sea thousands of years ago?
Unlike me with my pessimism, my younger siblings adored that story.
Hui was fascinated by the pirate king, and Dido by the treasure ship.
And above all, it was connected to me.
“Well……they took my name from it.”
“Really? Truly?”
I explained indifferently, my chin resting on the window frame.
“The jewel the pirate king took from Ritz’s ancient nation was called ‘Labvirenne.’ It looked like a transparent grape, and in the old language meant ‘the queen’s life.'”
And the queen at that time, called ‘Larenne,’ was said to have worn it constantly.
The people cherished the jewel as one with the queen, and even gave it an affectionate nickname.
That’s Ravigne—my name. Quite grand, isn’t it?
It was just the sort of name my mother, a corpse minus the romance, would have labored over.
Though people rarely called me by that name anyway.
“In Ritz they tell it that way? Like in Atera, how they say he stole ‘the smallest sun’?”
I nodded to Tru’s interested question.
Oral legends passed down through tradition always vary by nation.
The story of the Pirate King’s Treasure Ship tends to focus on which treasure was stolen from that particular nation, explained in elaborate detail.
Tru gazed at my transparent grape-colored hair and murmured sadly.
“How strange—with such a romantic name, I wonder why you’re so…….”
Right? I wish I had a name as fitting as yours.
The moment I shifted my eyes to stare at her intently, Tru refocused on her knitting.
At least her intuition was sharp, even if she couldn’t stop her own rambling mouth.
I clicked my tongue softly and asked.
“Is that also for that fellow?”
“Yes…….”
Tru nodded shyly.
Anyone could see it was the face of a girl in love.
That’s right. Tru was currently in active courtship.
Her target was a squire of the Ambrose Knights.
She fell for him while chasing after me as I went back and forth to the training grounds to see Hui.
Though it wasn’t her first love.
“What about that footman from the last Marquis Juliard’s household?”
“He was too handsome for his own good. Women never stopped coming around.”
“And the chocolate shop worker from the time before that?”
“Ugh. He was a papa’s boy—’daddy this, daddy that’ every other word.”
Not even a second or third love. By my count, this was probably her seventh.
I shook my head in dismay.
“What makes you think this fellow will be any different?”
“Well, one can only hope…….”
“You’re worried.”
“My goodness, you say that every time.”
Tru laughed sheepishly.
I gazed at my innocent, mercenary maid.
That’s what happens when a man realizes he’s dealing with a woman like you, so full of love.
But you already know that all too well.
I shrugged and spoke half in jest, half in earnest.
“Just tell me you’re not about to throw away all those hard-earned savings on some man…….”
“Heavens, my lady!”
Tru cried out indignantly.
“No matter how handsome a man is, I won’t give him a single penny of my money.”
Yes, that’s all I need to hear.
I decided to stop worrying about Tru’s awkward but stubborn romance venture.
“But my lady, you really won’t see anyone yourself?”
Even as Tru had no interest in her own romantic affairs, she was keenly invested in mine.
Here we go again.
Tru kept her hands moving with her knitting even as her mouth worked earnestly.
“There are already romantic rumors about you and Vincent circulating underground, my lady.”
“He’s my brother—another sibling.”
“Nonsense, not a drop of blood between you. You’re strangers.”
She’s only cold when it suits her.
As I gave her a sidelong look, Tru pressed on shrewdly.
“What about Lord Orka then?”

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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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