The Unfilial Heir Who Tries to Kill Me Tempts Me - Chapter 73

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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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Chapter 73

I turned it over in my mind.
There was only one reason the Count and Countess would summon Charlotte at a time like this.
Early summer: Count Schmidt’s health had taken a sharp turn for the worse. Heart disease, chronic and long-neglected, was the culprit.
The Schmidt household had spared no expense, summoning every distinguished physician and mage they could find, but their hopes withered quickly—all of them rendered skeptical verdicts. The Count’s advanced age combined with a heart so weakened that it seemed beyond recovery.
It was Leoni who lifted the household from that despair.
Grief-stricken at the Count’s perilous condition, Leoni had suddenly erupted with Divine Power, and in the blink of an eye, had cured the ailment completely.
It was a watershed moment: the Temple formally recognized Leoni as a Saint, and she began to make her name in earnest.
So they couldn’t resist—they sent a courier to me, no less.
I crumpled the letter and hurled it into the waste bin.
I was drowning in work already; I had no time to spare for this.
But the Schmidt household was persistent. When I shredded their emergency couriers as if they were worthless, they simply stepped up their pace—messengers appearing morning and evening.
Did these people have money to burn?
Emergency couriers from the Capital to the borderlands cost a fortune—arriving in mere hours.
Of course, I had no intention of replying. Over twenty letters met the same fate: torn to shreds and straight into the trash.
After that, the couriers stopped coming.
I’d assumed either Leoni had awakened her Divine Power, or the household had finally given up.
I really thought that’s what had happened.
“I… Mage.”
“Don’t tell me it’s starting again? Inconvenient as it may be, please discard any further couriers that arrive—don’t bother bringing them to me.”
“It’s not that.”
The steward who’d entered my office looked troubled. One glance at his face told me something had gone wrong.
After a long moment of silent lip-moving, he spoke.
“A Knight from the Schmidt household has come calling.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
So they came in person because I ignored the couriers?
Still seated at my desk, I stretched my upper body forward and peered out the window. Sure enough, standing before the Main Mansion was a Knight in the Schmidt household colors.
I wanted to ignore him, but I couldn’t put the poor steward through the trouble twice. I had no choice but to descend to the first floor, where I found a familiar face—the First Knight Captain I’d met in Sandvitch not long ago.
That man certainly did seem to suffer for his work.
Not that I felt particularly sorry for him.
The Knight Captain spotted me emerging from the Main Mansion and bowed with studied courtesy.
“Miss Charlotte.”
What.
Miss?
Ridiculous. When he’d treated me like a vagrant in Sandvitch, where was this civility? What manner of turnabout was this?
“I thought my silence was answer enough to your couriers.”
“It seems you may have found the journey to the Capital difficult to manage alone, so I’ve come to escort you personally.”
“You think I couldn’t make the trip?”
“The Count is gravely ill.”
I didn’t ask.
A hollow laugh escaped me.
Honestly, it was absurd.
If they had any conscience at all, shouldn’t the Schmidt household be the one exception—the one family that should never come looking for Charlotte?
“So you’re telling me to risk my life, race back to the Capital, and treat the Count? Is that it?”
“……”
“Even you must find it laughable.”
“Miss Charlotte.”
“Wow, I actually got chills just now. Stop calling me by that strange name.”
For the past ten years, no one in the Schmidt household had ever addressed Charlotte as “Miss”—not once. Even the strictly-trained Knights did no better than “Charlotte,” or perhaps “Charlotte, ma’am” at best.
To treat someone one way for a lifetime, then suddenly deploy such an ill-fitting title now, was nothing short of contemptible.
Whether the Count had instructed it or the Captain was flattering of his own accord, the revulsion was the same.
It might have been because I was now Charlotte, or because they reminded me too much of my past relations.
Not that it mattered anymore.
“But since you’ve come all this way, I’ll be clear: I have no intention of going to the Capital, nor can I go. Have you forgotten? I’m a criminal condemned to Exile by imperial decree, and it was the Count himself who consented to my confinement here. Do you really think I’m going to risk whatever happens if I abandon my exile without permission?”
“Yet in Sandvitch, you concealed your identity and apprehended the slave merchants—”
“Sandvitch?”
I blinked as though genuinely lost.
“The one who saved the slaves and arrested all the merchants in Sandvitch was ‘Miss Leoni,’ wasn’t it? So brave, too—she brought that entire enormous auction house down single-handedly. Surely you’re not suggesting that has anything to do with me?”
If you bring up Sandvitch to me here, you’re essentially admitting that the credit I gave to Leoni was a lie. You sure you want that?
The First Knight Captain’s jaw tightened as he grasped my meaning.
At least he wasn’t stupid.
“Then I suppose our business is concluded. You may go. Tell the Count to stay strong.”
What a waste of time.
I turned to head back and finish those documents, but before I could even reach the stairs, a dull thud sounded behind me.
I spun around reflexively, and for a moment, words escaped me.
“…What are you doing?”
The First Knight Captain was kneeling on the bare floor.
“I cannot leave this place until the young lady departs with me.”
Quite the performance.
As if dropping to his knees would change anything. And your knees—what’s wrong with them?
He shows up out of nowhere and this is what he does—kneeling and digging in his heels. How much further does this household intend to push their arrogance?
I wasn’t even amused anymore.
My face hardened, and I turned away once more.
“Fine, then. Stay there.”
Kneel all you like until the end of time.

***

Four days had passed.
I was picking at freshly baked bread from the kitchen when Pepe, carrying a basket of vegetables from the fields, set it down and quietly approached me.
“Um, Mage?”
“Don’t tell me that man is still out there.”
“Yes.”
“Unbelievable.”
The First Knight Captain seemed determined to remain in that spot until I agreed to accompany him. The servants passing by the Main Mansion had grown so wary that he’d tucked himself away in a corner, yet here he stayed—resolute in his own way. I had to admire the sheer tenacity of it all.
Kaius had shown remarkable restraint in not taking the man’s head off, though he’d asked me three times a day whether it would be better to have the corpse sent to the Count’s estate or buried instead.
It seemed his patience was running thin.
Though when I thought back on our first meeting, the fact that he’d managed to endure this long was quite the development.
My appetite had vanished completely. I crammed the last piece of bread into my mouth and stood up.
“All finished? There’s another basket left.”
“I’m not hungry. I’ll be back shortly.”
“But you’ve only eaten two baskets…”
“Can I finish it later?”
“Of course. I’ll set some aside for you.”
This wretched knight had somehow turned my peaceful existence into nothing but trouble.
Since becoming Charlotte, there was no way to grow fond of that Count’s household.
I reluctantly made my way out of the Main Mansion, and there the First Knight Captain remained on his knees at the edge of the grass, a little distance away.
He hadn’t moved an inch.
Had he died?
My heart thudded as I approached, but the knight lifted his head at the sound of my footsteps.
“Well, you’re still alive.”
His face had grown gaunt in the meantime, though he seemed reasonably intact otherwise. Still, he was the First Knight Captain of the Schmidt Household—he should be able to endure this much.
That realization struck me oddly, twisting something inside.
What was that Count thinking?
A figure so utterly despicable to Charlotte was, to this knight, a master worth staking his life upon.
I stood at an angle, looking down at him.
“I’m telling you, I’m not going. Are you planning to die here? Our Lord is very angry.”
“I must return with the young lady.”
That knight still clung to calling her “the young lady.”
Stubborn. Relentlessly stubborn.
To be honest, it mattered little to me whether this fool had his throat slit by Kaius’s blade or starved to death after four more days and nights without food.
But if he actually became a corpse, the real inconvenience would fall not on me, but on Luciphenia’s servants who’d have to clean up the mess.
If that was the game he was playing, I had to admit it was clever.
A sigh escaped me.
“I’ve been clear about this—I can’t go to the Capital. If I’m spotted, it’s my head that gets taken. How can you be so selfish?”
“If we go unnoticed…”
“If you’re truly desperate.”
I cut off his words and spoke coldly.
“Tell him to come find me himself.”
If you’re going to ask for something, show at least a shred of sincerity.

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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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