The Former Empress Roughly Hides Her Abilities - Chapter 13

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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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【Chapter 13】

At such a brazen tone, the maid momentarily didn’t understand what she had just heard.

Before she could collect herself, Rianel’s next words followed.

“I had no idea there were spaces left in such neglect within the mansion. I’ll have to report this to the Duke for repairs.”

The greatly flustered maid couldn’t block Rianel’s way.

In the end, she had no choice but to confess that she had guided her to the wrong room and provide a proper one.

“Now that I understand, go ahead and leave.”

Vanessa sent the maid away for now.

The maid felt relieved that she wasn’t being dismissed, bowed her head deeply, and left.

However, this was only because Vanessa knew that getting angry on the spot was amateurish.

From tomorrow, that maid would be sent down to the laundry room.

The room became quiet again.

Vanessa sat in her chair and chewed her nails nervously.

Just three years ago, she thought everything would end if she drove Rianel out, never imagining she would return to the Duke’s estate like this.

Moreover, the Rianel who returned had changed into a more detestable and troublesome personality than before.

‘Did her personality change because of the hardships she endured outside?’

Whatever the reason, she absolutely had to drive her out.

Vanessa had an absolute reason why she couldn’t coexist with Rianel.

“You think so too, don’t you?”

She wrapped her arms around the neck of Rupert, who sat across from her.

The man who hadn’t shown emotion even in front of his mother’s grave remained expressionless before his fiancée.

With hazy eyes, he turned his head toward the direction of the sound and asked, “What?”

“Rianel?”

Like a flame igniting on an extinguished candle’s wick, a strange light flickered in Rupert’s gaze.

“…Rianel… must… protect…”

Vanessa whispered in his ear as if disciplining him.

“No, she must be sent away. I’m the one to protect. Because I’m your fiancée.”

Rupert, who should have nodded like a thoughtless doll as usual, hesitated this time.

As if he had heard something incomprehensible, he slowly turned to look at Vanessa and asked.

“Engaged… were we?”

Did we…?

Vanessa bit her lower lip hard.

This was all because of Rianel.

Ever since encountering Rianel, Rupert’s brainwashing had begun to waver.

But instead of getting angry, she smiled gently.

“You must be very tired today. To doubt something so obvious.”

Vanessa offered him a teacup. At first glance it looked like ordinary tea, but it contained a drug that clouded Rupert’s reason—’holy water.’

“It would be best if you went to bed early today.”

Fortunately, Rupert didn’t refuse. It seemed the brainwashing hadn’t completely worn off yet.

Before long, his eyelids grew heavy and closed.

Once Rupert fell asleep, Vanessa finally let out a sigh of relief.

Fortunately, she had gotten through this time. But as long as Rianel was here, such incidents would repeat.

Vanessa hadn’t intended to win Rupert’s heart through drugs from the beginning.

She hadn’t even known such drugs existed in the first place.

It all started with the holy water offered by the Saint.

[That you two should be united is God’s will, so I shall bless you in God’s name.]

The Saint said that if she dropped a drop or two of holy water from the medicine bottle into the tea Rupert drank, a miracle would occur.

Vanessa tried following the Saint’s words with half-belief, and the effect was tremendous.

Each time they shared tea time together, Rupert looked at Vanessa with honey-sweet eyes, and eventually even confessed his love.

But before long, Vanessa began to notice something ‘strange.’

[Where is this? Is this Rianel’s room?]

Whenever Rupert met Rianel, he would intermittently regain his reason.

Each time, he would look at Vanessa with unfamiliar eyes as if she were a stranger and mutter.

[Why are you here? Engaged? I got engaged to you?]

Only then did Vanessa realize what she had done, but she had already come too far.

She had brainwashed the heir of a great noble house with drugs.

Fortunately, Duke Vincenheim was busy with state affairs, and she had succeeded in driving Rianel away, so she didn’t arouse immediate suspicion…

If she backed down here, she would face severe punishment, and her family house, which barely maintained its form, would be completely destroyed.

Die, or become the Duchess and have everything.

Vanessa had only two choices left.

‘No. There’s still a way.’

Vanessa thought Rianel still had lingering attachment to her father.

The lingering desire to be acknowledged and loved.

Otherwise, there was no way she would have pretended to give in and accepted the Duke’s invitation to stay at the mansion.

Those who have desires are always swayed by their wants.

“Did you call for me, my lady?”

When Vanessa pulled the bell pull, a maid asked politely as she had been trained.

“Yes. Come closer.”

This maid would also be used once like a consumable and discarded, but Vanessa felt no guilt.

After all.

There were plenty of maids.

* * *

While Vanessa assumed Rianel was scheming in every way to settle into the Duke’s estate.

“…This is comfortable.”

She was sprawled out on the guest room bed.

The bed in the studio apartment she had lived in wasn’t this soft.

It was only natural.

When Rianel became independent, she was unemployed. She didn’t have much personal wealth, and in that state, she had to prepare for the civil service exam.

Yet she couldn’t leave the capital region where the Emperor she had unrequited love for resided.

Moreover, rent in the capital region was tearfully expensive, so Rianel had to find a cramped studio apartment within her budget and fill it with cheap furniture.

Lying down, Rianel smelled the blanket. The luxury of enjoying cleanliness in a house where others did the washing and cleaning was something only possible when she had been Empress.

For that reason, she wanted to enjoy this luxury even briefly now.

The problem was that just as there’s no such thing as a free lunch, enjoying the Duke’s estate facilities came with a price.

“Really… how much you must have suffered outside?”

That price was listening to the nonsense of the maid hovering nearby.

“Indeed.”

“The master is too much. He never once checked on you while you were suffering, and now he tells you to come in.”

“I see.”

“I was so upset I could cry, you know?”

“Yes, truly unjust indeed.”

Rianel let the maid’s words go in one ear and out the other.

Rianel had known from the beginning that the maid was approaching her with ill intentions.

Publicly, she was known as the duke’s daughter who had fallen out of the Duke’s favor.

If someone approached her when there were no scraps to be gained, there was naturally a reason for it.

The maid, who had actually received special orders from Vanessa to ‘try to incite Rianel,’ was deflated by the response she received.

Rather than harboring resentment toward the ducal house, wasn’t this someone who was indifferent to and annoyed by everything in the world!

“Um… Miss. You really do feel wronged, don’t you?”

“…Why do you ask such a thing?”

Rianel still hadn’t gotten up.

She merely turned her head while lying down.

Just from that alone, the moment their eyes met, the maid froze.

A sense of gravity as if facing someone of high status and an overwhelming pressure that seemed to stop her breath rushed over her.

“You’ve been lying down all day…”

“Why do you think one cannot express injustice while lying down? Isn’t that quite prejudiced?”

“…”

The maid, who had pursed her lips and lost her words, spoke up again.

“Still, staying idle like this is a bit… couldn’t the situation get worse…?”

Rianel’s eyes narrowed.

“I call it ‘threatening’ when someone incites anxiety without specific examples or evidence.”

It wasn’t only threatening when one raised fists or targeted lives. Using an intangible future to frighten someone was also threatening.

“You are blackmailing me right now.”

“…!”

The maid, struck right on target, flinched and trembled. Then, like someone who wanted to erase her own reaction, she shook her head vigorously.

“Wh-what are you saying! I-I was just worried about you, Miss! I was saying this because your position within the family house might become even more precarious…”

The maid hastily spouted whatever came to mind, but she became embarrassed upon detecting the flaw in her own words.

Rianel’s position was already close to zero. There was no room for it to become more precarious.

“Well, anyway, please think about it. What was it that you longed for before you left the mansion?”

The maid hoped Rianel would recall the time when she had wanted the Duke’s recognition, but to the current Rianel, these were utterly futile words.

“What I want is to obtain vitamin D in a well-ventilated room with good lighting.”

“…Pardon?”

Rianel didn’t want to give up the luxury of this room with its large window.

“What on earth…”

“If you understand, then move aside. You’ve been standing there blocking the sunlight.”

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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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