The Villainess Duke Lady Hides Her Identity - Chapter 57

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

Episode 57

Reponya went rigid at the blunt apology. When she turned her head, she saw Havelian’s contorted face.
It looked much like the expression she’d worn as a child whenever someone struck her.
‘Did the Director hit him?’
No. The very premise that an Aura Master had been struck by the Director—who was nothing to him—made no sense.
‘There’s not even a mark on him, so why does he look like he’s been beaten down? If anything, I’m the one who nearly got hit by the Director.’
Havelian didn’t seem interested in hearing Reponya’s response; he simply continued his apology.
“It’s my fault. I… I didn’t want this. I didn’t… No. I’m sorry. I was wrong.”
Something felt strange.
In all of Reponya’s life, Havelian was the first person to apologize to her with such genuine sincerity for his mistakes.
He’d tossed out careless “sorries” before, but never had she heard an apology so desperate, so pleading—as though he were begging for her forgiveness.
So Reponya found herself without words.
Not to reassure him, not to grant forgiveness.
“I’ve regretted sending you away, Reponya.”
……
“I was trapped in self-pity. I didn’t realize that sending you to the Orphanage meant abandoning you. I just… I don’t understand why I thought that way myself.”
Havelian pulled Reponya into a tight embrace.
Watching the man who’d always maintained perfect posture even while sleeping now speak in careful, faltering tones—it stirred an unexpected pity in her.
When Reponya exhaled softly, Havelian flinched.
He lowered her gently from his arms and knelt on one knee before her.
“I never wanted you to suffer. After your carriage left, I came to my senses about what I’d done.”
Speaking in self-deprecating tones, Havelian fastened the buttons of Fellens’s outer coat so she wouldn’t be cold.
Then he draped his own coat over her as well.
“I was just a coward. I was terrified of accepting you—of accepting you as a sister… as family.”
Wait?
As a sister? As family?
Reponya searched her memories of living with Havelian.
They’d sat side by side studying, and he’d answered her questions readily enough.
‘…He was accepting me as a sister all along?’
She briefly wondered if Havelian was the type to completely ignore anyone who spoke to him, before dismissing the thought.
“I thought that accepting you would betray the sister I’d lost.”
Once he’d finished buttoning her coat, Havelian took both of her small hands in his trembling ones.
“If I accepted you like this—if I let myself accept you—”
Havelian rested his forehead against her small frame.
“—there would be no one left to remember my lost sister.”
The hollow murmur trembled in his voice.
“I thought if I didn’t see you, it would be fine… but when you actually vanished from my sight—”
Havelian caught his breath.
“I can’t breathe.”
The slight weight of him against her body calmed the turbulent storm in Reponya’s chest.
“I don’t know why, but… I don’t know. I was frantic because I thought I’d regret losing you like this.”
Havelian spoke rapidly, his voice trembling with anxiety.
“The way I could do nothing when I lost my mother… the way I lost my sister back then—”
……
“I was afraid I’d lose you too and be unable to protect you.”
Havelian lifted the head he’d been bowing and looked up. Reponya’s mouth fell open in shock.
Gasp.
The man whose face had never changed—not his color, not his expression—no matter what befell him was quietly shedding tears.
‘Crying? He’s actually crying?’
Watching Havelian with reddened eyes, Reponya, without thinking, reached out her small palm and covered his wet eyes with it.
She glanced around; fortunately, no one seemed to have seen.
As the heir to House of Craitan, Havelian had been called a prodigy since childhood, and now served as an instructor at the Military Academy—his vulnerability like this needed to be shielded from others’ eyes.
“I’m sorry.”
The small palm covering Havelian’s eyes quickly grew damp with his tears.
“You can curse me or hit me if you want.”
That was hardly something to say to a five-year-old.
“You can hate me if you want. But Reponya, let me keep apologizing to you. That’s enough for me. I was wrong.”
“……”
“I know it’s time to let go now. I know I have to stop eventually. I—”
“Teacher.”
Reponya cut off Havelian’s words with a small voice.
“Stop trying so hard.”
Reponya whispered softly.
“This isn’t a math problem you can solve all neat and tidy. Find what you won’t regret. That way, you won’t have lingering doubts later.”
“…….”
“And, um….”
Reponya trailed off and cleared her throat. She lowered the hand that had covered her eyes and gently tapped Havelian’s platinum hair, which hung in disarray.
“I’m still here.”
Reponya’s reflection shimmered in her glistening red eyes.
“I didn’t disappear. You came and found me.”
Reponya understands Havelian. She always has. His suspicion, his wariness, even his relentless pushing away.
‘Though she never expected him to actually abandon her at the orphanage.’
Still, when Havelian left her there, rage had burned to the tips of her hair. But as time passed, she came to understand.
In Havelian’s eyes, Reponya was a thief who had stolen everything from his vanished sister. His reluctance to accept her meant only that he truly loved the sister he’d lost and still believed somewhere, somehow, she was alive.
Which meant.
Later, when Reponya would leave this place through the removal of adoption.
Havelian would carry the memory of the space she’d filled for a very long time, just as he did now.
So she understood all of it.
Though understanding wasn’t the same as believing.
“Reponya.”
Havelian grasped the small hand that tapped his head as tears streamed down his face.
“Let’s be siblings. Real ones.”
“…….”
“I want you to be my sister… or rather, I want to be your brother. I don’t know. I can’t explain it any better. You probably can’t forgive me… but I swear, I swear I won’t let something like this happen again.”
Havelian wrapped his arms around Reponya and stroked her back.
“I’ll protect you. Just give me one more chance.”
Havelian gathered up the Reponya he had discarded back into his embrace. In his arms, Reponya hugged him close and nodded.
“…Yes.”
Of course, having abandoned her once, doing so a second time might come easier. But for now, nothing like that would happen.
Reponya’s expression barely changed.
‘I’m exhausted.’
It was finally over. Reponya closed her eyes.

* * *

The moment Reponya’s body went limp.
Havelian cried out as if the world itself had collapsed.
Not realizing she was simply asleep.
Only after the Duke arrived and told him did he finally calm down.
With Reponya asleep in his arms, the Craitan Family Knight Order arrived.
The moment the Duke received the extortion letter claiming to have Reponya, he moved the knight order without even stopping to confirm whether it was true.
He’d learned once over that hesitation born of complacency was enough. He had no intention of making the same mistake twice.
“Take the children to the orphanage Havelian mentioned. Tell them I’ll visit personally soon to confirm everything is in order.”
“Yes, Duke.”
“If they say it’s difficult to take in so many children at once, tell them I’ll make a donation. And tell them the donor will be listed under the Young Noble Woman’s name.”
“Yes.”
Some of the Craitan Family Knight Order loaded the children who had been staying at the orphanage onto carriages and horses, then returned to the Capital.
Fellens, having finished his tasks, quietly approached Havelian’s side.
“Since she’s asleep, hand her over. I’ll carry her.”
“If I do, she’ll wake up. There’s no point.”
“You two aren’t exactly close yet anyway. Did you apologize properly? I can guess without even looking. Kind-hearted Reponya probably forgave you.”
Havelian’s face twisted slightly.
“I told her to be my sister, and she nodded. I did apologize, but I plan to keep asking for forgiveness. I never thought forgiveness could be granted just once.”
Fellens let out a laugh of disbelief.
“Be your sister? Come on, brother. Have you actually heard her call you ‘brother’?”
Havelian flinched. He had heard it—right before he put her in the carriage to take her to the orphanage.
“I hear about it from Reponya every day.”
“If I’d arrived at the Estate sooner than you, I’d have grown closer to her by now.”
“Then you should have come earlier.”
Fellens’s casual remark made Havelian falter. He lowered his gaze and pressed his lips shut.
“…You’re right.”
What was he so afraid of all this time?
Havelian watched Duke Craitan move through the damaged Orphanage, gathering ledgers and adoption papers that had been stored there.
The determination to punish the director properly, both socially and otherwise, was unmistakable.
“Fellens.”
At Havelian’s call, Fellens turned his head.
“I’ve never felt this way looking at any other child. It’s like the sensation when I first awakened my Aura. Every fiber of my being is screaming that I must never let her go.”
Fellens fixed him with a calm, subdued stare—or rather, he was looking at Reponya, asleep in Havelian’s arms.
“I don’t think it’s simply because she resembles Mother. There have been other young noble women who claimed to be her before, some who looked strikingly like Mother, but I’ve never felt anything like this. This gnawing dread of losing her. …Do you feel it too?”
“…That feeling you’re describing.”
…….
“That ineffable sensation—the one that screams at you to hold on, that you can’t put into words.”
Fellens clenched his fists tight.
“Father and I both felt it, identical and undeniable.”
Havelian swallowed hard.
“If the three of us—even if you and Father could be coincidence—but if you feel it too… can this really be coincidence?”
Five years old. An age when she absolutely couldn’t be a lost younger sister. And yet three Aura Masters, sensing the same inexplicable pull all at once.
Havelian tightened his hold around Reponya.

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