The Villainess Duke Lady Hides Her Identity - Chapter 11

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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 11

The oil lamp in the bedroom tipped over in the draft, the flame flaring higher. Acrid smoke flooded the room.
The temperature climbed, and the air around her began heating rapidly.
“Cough!”
Her eyes stung; a cough seized her involuntarily, and soon breathing became difficult. Of course, she’d trained for this under the Pope’s tutors—nothing new to fear.
That training had been even worse: escaping a burning abandoned building while her entire body was bound with rope.
‘Still, this five-year-old frame can’t endure much.’
Her body was too small; holding her breath for long periods was the problem. She’d inhaled so much smoke that her vision blurred.
‘My body gives out faster than the plan allows.’
Not that it mattered—today’s plan didn’t depend on escaping this place safely on two feet anyway.
Just as Reportnya’s mind began to fade.
A commotion erupted outside the bedroom.
‘He’s come.’
Kraithan, the Duke who hadn’t yet retired, must have noticed. She’d known an Aura Master of his standing would catch it immediately.
‘Good—the plan proceeds as intended.’
Outside the bedroom, the commotion escalated into chaos. Then someone kicked the door with brutal force, and it shattered with a crack.
She wanted to open her eyes and see who was charging through the inferno with such force, but her eyelids wouldn’t obey.
Hands pushed through the flames and reached down, cradling Reportnya’s limp form on the bed.
Large hands trembled intensely with heat. The sound of things breaking came again and again, then cool air touched her skin.
They’d escaped the roaring fire.
The large hands embraced Reportnya tightly. Startled by the unfamiliar hold, she gasped sharply—a breath she’d been holding without thinking.
“Cough, cough!”
A violent fit erupted as she gagged on acrid ash. She knew it was safer to rinse her hands, face, and mouth with water before breathing deeply—and yet the trembling arms holding her were shaking so badly she made a mistake.
“Duke!”
“Young Mistress!”
Shouts and calls echoed from all directions.
“Fetch a physician and bring water—now!”
A command sharp as lightning struck from above. The sound of many feet scrambling echoed in her head.
‘…The Duke?’
Reportnya pushed all her strength into her eyelids, slowly opening her eyes. She shouldn’t have—her face hadn’t been washed yet—but she needed to see.
She needed to see the face of the person holding her with these trembling arms.
“Little one.”
Within her narrow field of vision, the Duke’s face came into focus. Soot marked his cheeks from diving into the flames to pull her free.
The arms holding her, the trembling embrace—it was all Kraithan, the Duke.
Their eyes met, and the Duke called to her urgently.
‘He could have simply extinguished the fire.’
Reportnya’s brow furrowed. She’d anticipated his every action: he wouldn’t want rumors spreading that his adopted child had burned to death in the Kraithan Mansion, destroying his honor. She’d expected him to move, to rescue her.
There was only one thing she hadn’t anticipated.
‘Why did you come yourself?’
She never expected the Duke to charge through the flames himself instead of merely dousing them.
The Duke’s body was property of the Empire. If he were injured or endangered, House Kraithan would collapse—and with it, the Empire’s peace and security would be shaken.
There was no way he didn’t understand that weight.
“…Don’t worry. Close your eyes, Reportnya.”
The Duke took a clean handkerchief from his attendant and covered her anxious eyes.
Every doubt, every fear, was veiled by the clean white fabric.
“Leave the rest to this father. Trust me.”
Trust a father? How absurd a thing to say.
‘Where would I have a father? Who could I trust to leave my back to?’
If there had been someone to trust, someone called a father, she would never have needed to orchestrate this in the first place.
An adopted child asleep in her bedroom—fragrance thrown into the fireplace, the fire deliberately set. An incident impossible to trace to any specific culprit.
Suspicion would certainly fall on the servants who’d resented her, but without concrete evidence, the Duke couldn’t press them.
She could have fabricated proof, made it seem like the servants were responsible, but Reportnya didn’t.
Those servants were loyal to House Kraithan. There was no need to make them enemies or have the Duke cast them out.
A measured suspicion. Precisely that—no more—kept her safe.
The Duke would focus entirely on securing Reportnya’s safety until the servants departed, and the servants, bearing ambiguous suspicion for something they didn’t do, would hesitate to hire an assassin.
‘……This is enough.’
Everything is going according to plan.
Reportnya smiled and closed her eyes. Then consciousness slipped away.

* * *

Reportnya’s eyes fluttered open.
The first thing she noticed was the canopy—a different color from the one in her usual room. The ceiling and chandelier were unfamiliar too. Since her bedroom had burned completely, they must have moved her elsewhere.
“Miss!”
The moment Reportnya’s eyes opened, someone rushed to her side. It was Beki and Burdi.
“Ah.”
She’d meant to call out their names, but her throat was raw. Her brow furrowed involuntarily.
“Miss, please don’t strain yourself. Thank goodness—truly, thank goodness there’s no serious injury, but you inhaled quite a lot of hot smoke, so your throat is damaged. You’ll need to be careful for a while.”
It seemed she’d breathed in more smoke than she’d realized. Beki hurried over with water.
After drinking the cool water, the nauseating sensation and the dizziness in her head subsided somewhat.
Reportnya struggled to sit up and looked around the room.
Whose bedroom was this, anyway?
“Miss, are… are you all right?”
Burdi called out worriedly as Reportnya surveyed the bedroom. Reportnya stopped trying to identify the room’s owner and nodded. Then, in a small voice, she rasped out a question.
“Are you two hurt?”
Her voice was hoarse and pathetic. The lack of strength in it made her words sound slurred.
“We’re fine, Miss. It’s you who—”
Of course they weren’t hurt. She couldn’t let innocent people get injured; she’d deliberately set the fire during a time when no one else was around.
Besides, if someone else had been hurt, the situation would only grow more complicated.
But Reportnya pretended ignorance and relief, laughing weakly with what looked like genuine concern.
“That’s a relief.”
This way, the servants wouldn’t go around calling it an orchestrated incident.
But suddenly Burdi dropped to both knees and burst into tears.
“Miss, Miss… in a moment like this, you shouldn’t be concerned for us—you should be angry about your own pain, sob.”
Why—why was she acting like this?
Reportnya blinked in confusion as Burdi suddenly broke down.
Beki was crying too. Her eyes were already swollen red, as if she’d been weeping before Reportnya woke.
‘I’m the one who’s hurt, so why are they crying?’
Reportnya, who’d never learned how to comfort someone in tears, was flustered.
“Your father entrusted us with you, and we, we failed to protect you properly, so we deserve to be punished.”
Punished? The situation seemed to be spiraling out of hand. Reportnya panicked and waved her hands. “You two didn’t do anything—why would you say that? It’s fine. Stop it.”
Her words came out slurred and awkward.
“You… you’re not suspecting us? Really?”
What was she talking about now?
“If I were in your position, I’d suspect me first, since I was closest to you. A broken fragrance bottle was found near your bedroom’s fireplace. It’s the kind of fragrance commonly used in the mansion, so someone likely threw it into the fireplace.”
“Huh… huh.”
Reportnya feigned shock.
“So I thought… I thought surely you’d suspect me first, and yet… and yet you don’t. We really didn’t do it.”
“Your father is investigating, and he’s concluded that we have no suspicion attached to us. So please… please trust us, Miss.”
Reportnya pressed her palm to her forehead, utterly bewildered.
She had no reason to suspect them.
How could she?
‘Because I’m the one who started the fire.’
Reportnya already knew who the culprit was!
“I’ve never suspected you.”
Please don’t let this get any bigger. Reportnya spoke firmly.
Burdi covered her mouth with her palm in disbelief, tears streaming down her face.
“So don’t worry… hack, hack!”
From speaking too much, a dry cough erupted. Her small frame shook helplessly with each convulsion.
Burdi, startled, quickly steadied Reportnya and patted her back, while Beki brought water.
Once the cough finally subsided, Reportnya let out a long breath. Her chest felt raw and scratchy.
“I’m fine. I’m not hurt, and I’m not dead, am I?”
Reportnya murmured in a voice so small and frail it resembled a candle flickering in the wind, about to be snuffed out.
“How could you… how could you speak of being fine before mentioning your pain—”
“Miss, we’ll repay your trust by staying by your side, serving you faithfully for all our lives.”
Both of them spoke with grave resolve, as if taking a solemn vow.
‘A lifetime—how long it’ll even last is uncertain, yet the words come so easily.’
Reportnya touched her neck and nodded vaguely. Then she asked about something that had been nagging at her since earlier.
“But the Duke is investigating?”
There was no perpetrator. Therefore, no evidence either—that was only natural. She’d thought he would dismiss the servants without casting them out, deliver some moderate punishment given the near-ruin to the family honor, and close the matter. But an investigation?
“The Duke is currently conducting a direct interrogation of everyone in the mansion.”
“What?”
Reportnya’s eyes wavered.
“On the night the fire broke out in the young lady’s bedroom, all the guests left their quarters.”
She knew. That night when the fire started, they’d all been gathered together, conspiring.
“Since they wouldn’t speak of where they were or what they were doing… the Duke has confined them all to separate rooms.”
Reportnya’s eyes flew wide with alarm.
“There’s no need to go that far—”
“The Duke said he won’t let this matter slide.”
…….
“He’ll find the culprit and cast them into the fire pits… ahem. He’ll find the culprit and make an example of them, so don’t worry, young lady.”
…….
“Whatever the Duke decides to do, he sees it through without exception. This time, he’ll certainly catch the perpetrator.”
At Burdi’s certainty, the arsonist—Reportnya’s—pupils trembled.

* * *

And at the entrance of Kraithan Mansion.
“Hmm.”
The man tilted his head, regarding the closed doors.
“Why is no one here?”
The man stepped back, then planted his feet several times against the mansion’s high outer wall and vaulted over it in a single leap.
It was something an ordinary person could never accomplish.
Not scaling a high wall in one bound, nor brazenly setting foot within Kraithan Mansion uninvited.
The man who’d entered the grounds so effortlessly dusted off his palms, smiled, and walked deeper inside.
“Quite the disorder. What’s with this acrid stench? …There.”
The man who’d walked in with his hands clasped behind his back stopped a passing servant. She froze at his voice, then started in alarm at his face, bowing hastily.
“Fellens, Young Master Fellens!”
“My father doesn’t greet his son when he returns after so long? Where might the old man be?”
The reckless second son himself.
Fellens Kraithan had come home.

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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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