The Villainess Duke Lady Hides Her Identity - Chapter 33

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————

Episode 33

I have no memory of how I left that place.
I must have simply walked, thinking only that I couldn’t fall.
Reponya fled back to the General Store like someone hunted.
She had to return to the shelter of the Kraytan Family—and quickly. Among all these people, any one of them might kill her. The thought suffocated her with dread.
Even the gaze of strangers terrified her now.
Don’t look at anyone. No one.
“Ponya!”
Reponya’s head snapped up.
An urgent voice cut through the crowd—Pellence’s voice, calling for her.
“Ponya!”
Pellence, wreathed in Aura, crossed the distance in a heartbeat.
“Do you have any idea how worried I’ve been?”
His large hands pulled her close as if he’d never let go. In that instant, her legs gave out from under her.
“Ponya! What’s wrong? Are you hurt?”
As she leaned into him, Pellence urgently checked her condition.
It was a strange irony.
“Brother…”
The Kraytan Family—protectors of the empire—should have been something to fear, something to avoid. She had been raised as a Papal Spy, after all.
“Brother…”
But the moment she saw his face, relief washed over her without warning.
Relief.
She’d never felt such a thing in her life, and she couldn’t explain why the Kraytan Family could give it to her now.
“Ponya. What is it? Hmm? Did someone hurt you? What happened? Where are you hurt? Look at me, look.”
Reponya shook her head silently, then buried herself deeper in his embrace to shield herself from the eyes around them.
Pellence glanced around, then removed his outer coat and draped it over her head. He held her safely against his chest.
“Let’s go home, Ponya.”
Reponya nodded.
Let’s go home.
She had never felt so reassured by those words before.

* * *

Back at the Kraytan Mansion, Reponya locked herself in her bedroom.
The household was turned upside down by the news—the five-year-old who always seemed to take everything in stride had skipped dinner and confined herself to her room.
“Young Miss! Look at this—see how the cute bear doll waddles along!”
“Young Miss! It’s the Teapot Toy we gifted you from the General Store! Shall we have a tea party?”
“Young Miss. Would you like to ride the Rocking Horse? Oh, your usual one is still being tested—Knight Canwell will be your horse instead. Knight Canwell, get down on all fours!”
“Young Miss. Should we bring more dessert? Would you like some sweet fruit? Or—meat! Shall we bring meat?”
The household servants called out desperately at her closed bedroom door, but no answer came.
Reponya had sent everyone away and forbidden entry—she wanted to be alone.
Pellence, standing with his arms crossed outside her door, exhaled softly.
“Ponya.”
He knocked gently, his voice low.
“Are you angry?”
Was she even in there? Pellence used Aura to activate Presence Detection.
He felt her presence beyond the door and let out a relieved breath.
But still, no reply came.
“Young Master. Did something happen while you were out?”
The butler asked. Pellence recalled Reponya as he’d found her—pale and trembling.
“I don’t know.”
Something bad had clearly occurred, but he couldn’t fathom what.
He wanted to comfort her, but he didn’t know what to say.
If his older brother were here, what would he tell his younger sibling? Pellence was biting his lip when—
“Ponya skipped dinner?”
Duke Kraytan’s voice rang out. The servants bowed hastily, and Pellence turned.
Duke Kraytan returned from the Nobility Council, striding through the mansion with purpose.
“Father.”
“Where’s Reponya?”
“Still in her bedroom. Ever since she came back from her outing, she hasn’t left. She won’t answer, won’t come out.”
“Give me a brief report of what happened today.”
Pellence recounted the events of the outing in detail.
The house where Reponya had lived before her adoption had been reduced to ashes—and how her face had gone rigid with shock at the sight of it. How she’d seemed to recover somewhat while shopping at the General Store, but then suddenly bolted from the place without explanation.
And when she’d returned, she was trembling, drained of all color.
The Duke listened and nodded slowly.
“Butler.”
“Yes, Your Grace.”
“Bring me the key to Reponya’s bedroom.”
“I had anticipated this, sir. Here it is.”
Without a word of warning, the Duke unlocked Reponya’s bedroom door.
Then he opened it and stepped inside.
“Gasp—”
Pellence’s breath caught in shock at the sight of his father entering the girl’s room without permission or announcement.
Even a reckless man wouldn’t have dared such a thing.
“Pellence. You were the same at five years old—whenever you were angry, you’d lock yourself in your room. If I’d needed permission to enter every time, this mansion would have burned to the ground long ago, or been torn apart.”
The Duke, who had raised two sons, stepped inside. Pellence gestured for the servants to remain where they were and followed his father.
The bedroom was dim. Buddy and Becky surely must have lit candles before leaving after the outing, yet not a flicker of light remained.
Even the fireplace was extinguished—which made no sense. After the fire incident, the Duke had embedded a Mana Stone in the bedroom hearth, calibrated to maintain a certain temperature and automatically raise a protective barrier if it grew too hot; without deliberate intervention, the fire should never have gone out.
“Reponya.”
The two men ventured deeper into the darkness, and froze at what lay before them.
A dark room. Not a single candle lit.
“Don’t hit me. Don’t kill me. I want to live. Please save me. Don’t hit me. Don’t kill me. I want to live. Please save me.”
Wedged in the narrow gap between the bed and the wall, Reponya hugged her knees to her chest, face buried, and murmured the same words over and over, hollow and devoid of meaning.
“Don’t hit me. Don’t kill me. I want to live. Please save me.”
Her voice trembled, thick with moisture. A five-year-old child, shaking, pleading for her own life.
It felt as though he were glimpsing the depths of her that she always kept hidden—the terror she concealed beneath her habitual calm assurances that everything was fine.
He was seeing something he should never have seen.
Pellence felt as though he’d been struck hard across the head.
“Sweetling—”
He moved instinctively to call out to Reponya and comfort her, but the Duke quietly gripped his arm, holding him back.
With a shake of his head, the Duke left Pellence behind and approached Reponya’s hiding place.
Unaware of who had arrived, Reponya stopped her murmuring mid-word when she heard footsteps, her breath catching in terror.
She compressed herself further into the corner, as though making herself smaller would keep her safe.
Rather than call to her, the Duke stepped closer and slowly knelt on one knee.
At the sound of his movement, Reponya’s body trembled violently. Yet fear kept her face buried, unable to lift her head.
“Don’t… hit me….”
The same words repeated, as though she were reciting them by rote.
“Don’t kill me.”
As if those words were her only shield, her only defense.
“I want… to live.”
……
“Please save me.”
“Yes.”
The Duke responded to her last plea. Then slowly, he reached out and cradled her small, ice-cold bare feet in his large, warm hands.
“Reponya.”
At that tender voice, Reponya finally lifted her buried head, slowly raising her eyes.
“Yes.”
The pale, always-composed eyes around which she never showed emotion were now swollen and raw red.
Unshed tears drenched her cheeks, and those cherry-bright eyes—so vivid with life just moments before—now stared blankly into emptiness.
“Reponya.”
The Duke covered her eyes gently with one large hand while his other cradled the back of her head, sharing his warmth.
“You’ve had a hard day, haven’t you?”
The Duke didn’t ask. He didn’t call to her loudly or demand an answer. He simply held her.
“You’re safe here. I’m here, and Pellence is here. Don’t worry—just rest.”
He spoke just those few words, then gently stroked the back of her head.
That was all.
But astonishingly, the moment the Duke of Kraytan finished speaking, the five-year-old child who had been standing collapsed, her body giving way entirely.
Thump.
The Duke caught Reponya as she fell forward.
“Father. Ponya, is Ponya alright?”
Pellence approached from behind, his voice tight with worry.
“She’s not unconscious—she’s asleep. I need to put her to bed.”
“Oh? Yes, yes.”
Pellence, who hated attending to others so much that he refused even tasks assigned by his father, the Duke of Kraytan, or his brother Havelian, quickly straightened the bedding. His movements were deft, purposeful.
The Duke laid Reponya gently on the bed. The moment her warmth was lost, the small body trembled again, as if afraid.
Pellence started and hastily grasped the sleeping child’s tiny hand in both of his own, holding it firm.
Soon her breathing evened out—soft, steady breaths—and Reponya sank into deep sleep.
“Pellence. Make sure the household staff keep quiet. Today, Ponya went out, came back, ate as usual, and went to sleep. You understand.”
“Understood.”
“What happened here must never leave this room. Same goes for Ponya. It doesn’t matter if she doesn’t remember it.”
“Yes. Father, Ponya will be… she’ll be alright, won’t she?”
“…Presumably.”
The Duke, watching the sleeping child on the bed, spoke softly, his voice barely audible.
“When we adopted Ponya, the steward investigated her background.”
“What? Why are you telling me this now?”
“There was no five-year-old girl named Reponya. Children her age can certainly mix up names and ages, but the strange part is that no matter how hard we searched, there were no other traces—nothing at all.”
“No other traces? …You mean no record of her having lived anywhere?”
“Exactly. She wasn’t locked away somewhere, yet it was as if she didn’t exist in the world at all. Not a single trace could be found.”
Pellence’s brow furrowed.
“Isn’t that just because she’s a commoner without registered status?”
“Even without registered status, if she grew up in a village, someone would have seen the child and called her by name. There might be other children who knew Reponya. But there’s no trace of any of that.”
“They might have just missed it.”
“Unless someone deliberately went to great lengths to hide her, it would be stranger not to find traces of Ponya when we know her name, age, and appearance.”
Unless someone deliberately went to great lengths to hide her.
At those words, Pellence’s face hardened like stone.
Something about this…
“Before she came to the family, I need to find out what exactly happened to Ponya.”
The Duke of Kraytan murmured, his tone bleak.
Pellence gazed quietly at the sleeping child’s face. The small hand held in his large palms was warm.
“Father.”
Pellence opened his mouth, his voice low.
“Regardless of what you think, I have no intention of letting the little cotton ball go now. When I agreed to be her guardian, I settled that resolve then. I can’t explain why, but even if I have to fight you, I won’t give up on the cotton ball.”
The Duke fell silent. Pellence’s words—that he couldn’t explain why—seemed to echo his own resolve when he had decided to adopt Reponya.
Those subtle sensations that couldn’t be put into words.
“If she came here under the orders of some con artist, acting as a spy—”
Pellence’s face flashed with cold light. It was a chilling expression he had never shown in front of Reponya.
“I’ll kill the manipulator behind the scenes.”
There was no trace of jest in Pellence’s face as he spoke of taking a life.
“Then the cotton ball becomes someone with no connection to any of it. The evidence disappears, clean and simple.”
A thick, unpleasant Aura rippled around Pellence’s body.
“So if there’s anyone who sent her here to use as a puppet and turn to their own advantage—”
…….
“I’ll erase them from this world without leaving a trace of bone.”

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————