The Obsessive Maniac Is Trying To Confine Me - Chapter 189

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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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Episode 189

What? Let him go?

Glancing at him, he still hadn’t lost his smile. However, his blue eyes had sunk coldly without compare.

“This doesn’t seem like something to discuss in front of my wife.”

“…Why? Do you at least know shame?”

“M-Madam…!”

The Count of Amalberga panicked and tried to stop his wife who was stubbornly lashing out at Rihardt.

“What kind of talk is this to a son who’s come home after so long. Rihardt, don’t mind it either. Your mother is very tired…”

“This is a problem we’ll have to address someday! How long do you plan to live like this?”

“Madam!”

The dining room that hadn’t heard a peep soon filled with commotion.

I put down the fork I was holding.

There was no way food would go down in this situation.

I’d filled my stomach anyway.

Perhaps reading my discomfort, Rihardt rose from his seat.

“We’ll be taking our leave now.”

“Leaving already? There’s still food left…”

“Yes. And from now on, we’ll have our meals in my room. I’ll prepare our portions myself, so you don’t need to worry about it.”

“…”

I immediately got up from my seat and followed Rihardt into the room.

“I’m sorry.”

Rihardt apologized to me.

“I’ll make sure this doesn’t happen again.”

“…It’s fine.”

If anything, I seemed to be the one who caused this trouble. It was because of me that he came back to a house he hadn’t visited for 8 years.

“You didn’t eat much, so you must be hungry, right? I’ll go get something you can eat.”

“There’s no need…”

“I’ll be back.”

I said there’s no need.

I was left alone in the room.

I was about to sit on the sofa to wait for Rihardt when the curtains caught my eye.

I approached them as if entranced and pulled the curtains aside.

‘A painting…?’

When I fully drew back the curtains, it was a painting of a gaunt woman sitting in a chair, facing forward.

Who is it?

“Rose, I brought something to eat…”

Just then, Rihardt returned to the room. I reflexively arranged the curtains back to their original position, but it was already too late.

“…I’m sorry.”

I felt like I had intruded on his deep, private thoughts.

“It’s fine. You can look at it.”

He seemed quite flustered though.

He replied calmly and placed the fruit he’d brought on a small table.

“Please eat.”

I quietly sat in front of the table. Ever since entering this manor, I’d been constantly careful about my actions.

“Who is that painting of?”

Rihardt paused before answering.

“It’s my mother.”

…As I thought. The woman I saw in the dining hall wasn’t his birth mother.

From what I’d heard from Rihardt before, he seemed to have a very good relationship with his mother.

“Actually, I’m an illegitimate child.”

“…”

“Long ago, my mother brought me here. From their perspective, I must have been an unwelcome guest.”

Though it might be unkind to Rihardt, I could understand their position to some extent.

No place would welcome an illegitimate child who was evidence of an affair.

“No, actually I’m not even an illegitimate child.”

“…?”

“Actually, I don’t even share half the blood of this family. Oh, of course they don’t know that.”

He smiled mischievously like a young boy sharing a secret.

“Actually, I don’t remember my childhood.”

His eyes became hazy as if recalling something from long ago.

“I wandered around with no place to go, having lost my memories like that… Then I got into a carriage accident. The person who saved me then was my mother.”

The mother he was referring to must be the woman in the painting I just saw.

“The woman wasn’t in her right mind. She had lost her son in an accident.”

“…”

“So the woman mistook me for her son. From what I heard, her son also had silver hair.”

The more I listened to his story, the stranger I felt.

It seemed like someone I knew was coming to mind.

“I thought then. Ah, I need to become this woman’s son.”

“…How could you do that to a woman who lost her son? Don’t you feel sorry?”

Perhaps this was directed at me.

I had stolen a daughter’s body and lived for 10 years pretending to be Selline’s daughter.

“But Rose, for young me, this was a matter of survival.”

“…”

“If I missed this opportunity, I would have died. Whether starving to death, beaten to death on the streets, or sold and killed, I would have died somehow.”

“…”

“I definitely would have died.”

I was the same.

I was afraid of how Selline would change if I said I wasn’t her daughter.

I kept my mouth shut because I wanted to live.

But as time passed, I became afraid of Selline’s despair if she found out I was fake.

“Still, it’s true that I felt sorry. So I tried to help the woman achieve everything she wanted.”

“…How?”

“In childhood, I didn’t know how to use the abilities of a transcendent. But once I gradually became familiar with my power, everything became easy after that.”

“…”

“Before I became familiar with my power, my family treated me quite harshly. But after that, no one bothered me anymore.”

Don’t tell me he solved family problems with force?

“I did everything Mother wished for, and I even took revenge on her behalf.”

“…Revenge?”

“Mother’s real son didn’t actually die in an accident.”

“Then…”

No way. I could roughly guess what had happened.

“The family hired someone to stage an accident because they didn’t want to create troublesome situations. It was the common fate of illegitimate children.”

“…”

“So I decided to take revenge for Mother. I used a little power to isolate the family. As a result, the income flowing into Amalberga was cut off. It seems they’re barely maintaining their livelihood with the funds they had before.”

I recalled what had happened at the dinner table earlier.

The Countess of Amalberga pleading with him to let them go.

Now I understood the situation.

I had felt a little sorry for what I saw in the dining hall, but after hearing his words, I no longer felt that way.

“…I’m curious about something. Your mother… does she still not know that you’re not her real son?”

“He probably thought of me as his son until the moment he passed away. Though perhaps… he might have noticed.”

A bitter smile appeared on Rihardt’s lips.

If she had known he wasn’t really her son, what would Rihardt’s mother have done?

It was a pointless thought.

Suddenly, I thought that this man and I might be somewhat similar.

“…You would have made the same choice if you went back, wouldn’t you?”

“Because I have to live.”

He substituted that as his answer.

I didn’t think I would make much of a different choice if I went back either.

Sweet fruit juice spread in my mouth, but strangely, it tasted bitter.

“I should go to sleep now.”

I wasn’t particularly sleepy, but I wanted to close my eyes, lie down, and do nothing.

“Rose, may I ask you something as well?”

“What is it.”

“Who exactly is that woman impersonating you?”

Is he talking about Roji?

“…Maybe it’s not impersonation. Maybe I’m the one who’s impersonating?”

I stole the place where Roji should have originally been.

The name ‘Rose’ was also a name that Roji should have had.

“That might be so, but… you must have had your own reasons too.”

He spoke as if comforting me.

At that moment, I impulsively opened my mouth.

“Are you curious?”

Why did I say such a thing?

Rihardt placed his hand on top of mine.

“I am curious.”

Was it because it was night? The kind where you become weak and need someone absolute to depend on.

“I was adopted into Herthas because of Yurta.”

His eyebrows rose as if asking why.

“As you probably guessed, Yurta is a transcendent. And Count Herthas needed someone who could make his son more solid.”

“…”

“That was my mother.”

Sometimes I think about it.

It might have been better to never know for my entire life.

“My mother was a sorceress. As you know, sorceresses are extremely rare. Count Herthas experimented on her. In exchange, my mother became the Countess of Herthas.”

“…”

“My mother was destined to become Yurta’s sacrifice.”

Yurta doesn’t know about this either.

It was a secret between Count Herthas and Selline.

I learned of such a secret during the trip I took with Selline.

There, I accidentally saw her naked body.

A body full of torn and stitched marks.

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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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