The Isolated Marchioness Just Wants to Make a Living - Chapter 269

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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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Part 2, Episode 74
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In Grand Duke Nogen’s chambers.
“I permit it.”
At Hilberry’s words, Valerie started in surprise.
“What? You permit it? Really?”
“Yes.”
“I thought I’d just get cursed and thrown out!”
“I can permit it and still curse you and throw you out. Now get lost.”
Even as Hilberry waved his hand dismissively, Valerie seemed unable to believe it and pressed further.
“So what you’re saying is, you’re going to make the Succession Ceremony huge—invite all the high nobility from across the Continent. And you’re permitting that, right?”
One thing Hilberry and Leopold had in common was their distaste for grand events.
They didn’t attend others’ functions unless absolutely necessary, and the Nogen Duchy’s own affairs were kept to an even stricter minimum. So Valerie’s shock was hardly surprising.
“Not for any of those unfunny reasons you mentioned.”
Hilberry spoke flatly.
“This time it seems we’ll need to invite many people. Just send out all the invitations, and permit everyone who says they’ll come.”
“Unfunny!”
Valerie, who had offered such grand justifications as “naturally finding a match for Alpheus” and “solidifying Leopold and Brisa’s engagement,” practically bounced with indignation.
“Is there anything more important to the Western Region right now?”
“Act your age.”
Hilberry clicked his tongue in disapproval.
Valerie snorted with a “Hmph!” and spoke with wide eyes.
“Just try canceling. I’ll multiply the guest count several times over right this instant.”
Then she spun on her heel, her footsteps ringing sharply as she left.
Hilberry didn’t spare his younger sister a glance, his brow furrowed in thought.
‘I need to lay a trap.’
Apart from the young people’s romantic entanglements, the investigation into the forces that had raised Xavier from his grave continued.
‘For Leopold’s sake, I must resolve this matter swiftly by any means.’
He hoped Leopold wouldn’t dwell too long on this incident, which had become the deepest wound of their lives. To achieve that, he had to identify the orchestrator and exact thorough revenge.
With the desire to finally break free from the past, Hilberry and Leopold were doing everything in their power to uncover the mastermind behind the earlier tragedy.
‘The problem is… it’s an extraordinarily secretive force. It’s not easy to find even a single thread to pull. Several hypotheses come to mind, but…’
The opponent was formidable, as certainty remained elusive. Each hypothesis that surfaced was discouraging in its grimness.
But they had to face it. This was not the sort of thing one could brush aside and move past.
That was why Hilberry had decided to set a trap—the same reason he’d said anyone willing to come should be permitted to do so.
‘They too must hunger for information.’
The old man’s remaining eye flashed with a fierce light.
‘They won’t escape this snare.’
Whoever had orchestrated Xavier’s resurrection—that vicious culprit—when Leopold became Grand Duke Nogen, he would be caught without fail, his tail completely in their grasp.
* * *
“So here’s what we’ll do.”
I explained earnestly to Baekgu.
“I’ll say I’m going to secretly leave something in Leopold’s room. Then I’ll transform you back, and I’ll slip out quick as anything. You can just make some excuse about arriving late, or you could escape through a secret passage in the mansion or somewhere like that. Either works, right?”
Then I tilted my head and added,
“The Grand Duke’s Residence isn’t anywhere near the scale of the Sears Marquis Estate, so there’s naturally an emergency escape route or two, especially from the Grand Duke’s chambers.”
The small dog nodded listlessly.
Once my explanation ended, silence settled over the carriage.
‘Being a dog, I can’t read his expression.’
But it was clear his mood was quite low.
The duration of the perfume’s efficacy wasn’t long, but Leopold would surely have noticed by now that Maximus had a fondness for me.
‘If I were him, I’d be in a foul mood too.’
I was trapped in a small animal’s body and couldn’t intervene actively, but if Leopold were to work together with another woman and handle a major matter jointly—
And on top of that, receive what was practically a confession, however veiled…
“Whenever you feel uncertain, come find me. I’ll always be ready, keeping my skills honed to meet you.”
Essentially a statement of “I won’t burden you, but I’ll wait”—words that, had I been the party actually present, would have made me claw the man’s face without regret.
But Leopold had clearly endured with superhuman patience. Not because his fury had subsided, but because his pride had been wounded.
‘He always hated the transformation into a beast.’
Leopold couldn’t help but feel an unavoidable inferiority toward Maximus, who bore no curse. He would have known that facing him in beast form would only deepen his misery.
Yet if I was being honest with myself, I was hardly confident in his presence either.
“You know, Leopold.”
I spoke slowly.
“I actually have something I need to tell you.”
I’d thought I should tell him for some time now, but kept putting it off, worried someone might be listening.
Of course, I could have conveyed it by letter easily enough, and I knew well that Leopold was the one person who could most reliably find me a place to speak without listeners.
The real reason I hadn’t spoken until now was simply that I didn’t want to.
But now, facing this dejected dog—no, my fiancé—I had to confess.
I spoke slowly.
“I found Shin Yi-su’s diary in the Land of Leah. That information Leah offered to sell us—it was that. As for who Shin Yi-su is…”
I told him everything the diary contained.
“Remember what I said before? After time looped back once, I’ve had a strange other memory alongside my own. A memory from another world, not mine. Probably Sinis’s world…”
Back then too, I’d asked Leopold if he found it repulsive.
These alien memories from another life had certainly helped me immensely. But they frightened me just as much.
“No one asked, so I never said it, but originally I died too, and the Second Prince died, and the Third Prince became the new Crown Prince, and the Northern Region achieved independence… yeah, all that.”
I continued listlessly.
“But the truth is, I know it now. It wasn’t that no one asked—it’s that no one could ask.”
Even Leopold, who gathered all intelligence, had never questioned me in detail. I could vaguely guess why.
“Just like I’m afraid of hearing ‘you’re insane,’ they were afraid to voice such suspicions to me. But you want to hear something even more terrifying?”
In a way, I was glad I couldn’t read Leopold’s expression.
“Before I even opened that diary, I didn’t know I could read those characters so perfectly.”
In truth, I’d never even thought about it. Another World must have had its own writing system.
“The conclusion is, those memories aren’t fading—they’re expanding deeper into my mind with each passing day.”
Even as a child, I’d been frightened by strange words that would suddenly slip from my lips.
That fear was ongoing. Memories growing clearer with time, foreign characters I’d never seen becoming readable as if by second nature.
What if all this eventually consumed “Brisa Sears”?
What if my scrambled mind, torn apart by time’s reversal, eventually succumbed to madness?
The phantom of my mother, trapped in a room, speaking in words no one could understand—that image remained my deepest terror.
“I think if we destroy that Snake Ring, your curse will be completely lifted. But my situation is… different, it seems.”
I took one deep breath and declared,
“Still, if it’s possible, I want to marry you anyway. From the time I was seven, I was consistently brazen and shameless with you—qualitatively different from you, who would run at the first sign of harm coming to those you cared for.”
The dog on my lap gazed at me intently.
“I’ll have children too. My mother and I show completely different symptoms. So it shouldn’t be hereditary. It never happened before time turned back.”
As my voice began to tremble, the dog placed his front paw on the back of my hand.
Armed with that warmth, I resolved to be a little more shameless.
“But I have one request. If I ever go completely mad, if the self called ‘Brisa Sears’ vanishes entirely, please don’t let our children see me like that.”
I was a coward.
No matter how I thought about it, I couldn’t imagine telling the human Leopold this directly. So now, while he was in the form of a dog, was the right time.
“Lock me away in some distant villa if you must, but don’t ever let them see me speaking nonsense. Understand? Just tell them I was ill. Tell them I died. In fact, you could even kill me—though I don’t want to burden you with that wound.”

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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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