The Villainess Lives Twice - Chapter 86

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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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Chapter 86

“Ah. Your Highness.”

Mel, who had sensed footsteps, turned around and hastily knelt down in confusion.

Artizea had met Mel once when she had first arrived here. It was when she received greetings from all the retainers.

At that time, Mel had been a dignified figure as a knight captain commanding a hundred knights under his command.

After the knight order, he was supposed to serve at the fortress of Told Gate. And after gaining experience as a commander in other regions, he would have eventually succeeded Aaron to become Count Jordin and an important figure in the Duchy.

His black funeral attire was no different from the other knights who attended today’s funeral.

All positions of House Jordin had been stripped away. However, a trained knight was military strength that could not be discarded. They could not bring about an immediate decline in military power under the pretext of maintaining discipline.

For that reason, Mel only had his epaulettes covered and hidden with white cloth.

He would serve as a knight but had lost his position, having been demoted to commoner status.

Even now, Mel knelt on both knees and bowed instead of kneeling on one knee and prostrating himself. This followed the etiquette for a commoner meeting the Grand Duchess.

“Rise.”

Artizea spoke with a cracked voice.

Mel stood up with his head still bowed. His attitude was quiet and calm.

“If I were to meet someone, I thought I would see Margaret or Aaron…”

“Father has gone out on patrol duty. Mother is unwell.”

“Patrol duty would be difficult at Sir Aaron’s age.”

“He volunteered. He said he wanted to repay even a little of the sin of raising his child wrongly…”

“I see.”

Having said that, Artizea looked at the coffin for a moment without saying anything.

“Aubrey wouldn’t be pleased that I came to visit, but I still thought it was right to see her off.”

Mel bowed his head.

“Thank you. Though it was not an honorable death… she was Your Highness’s maid, even if briefly, so if Your Highness forgives her, that alone will wash away some of Aubrey’s disgrace.”

Mel stepped back to make room.

Artizea approached Aubrey’s coffin and placed white silk flowers beside the mistletoe berries.

Then she observed a moment of silence. What captured her heart was not pure grief. Rather, it was a darkness that was complexly entangled.

“I’m sorry.”

Finally, Artizea spoke.

She would not make excuses that she hadn’t intended for things to go this far.

She had committed countless far more vicious acts than this, yet she had never looked back on those deaths.

She could not make excuses just because she had suddenly become sentimental. There was no reason why Aubrey’s life should be heavier than anyone else’s.

Mel spoke.

“Aubrey is the shame of Jordin.”

“Sir Mel.”

“My parents and I… raised her wrongly.”

Mel lowered her eyes.

“This may only sound like an excuse, but when Mother learned she was carrying Aubrey, there was an unprecedented cold wave that brought a large-scale southern migration of Karam.”

“…”

“The young Prince was captured as a hostage in the Imperial Palace at that time, and… there were various incidents.”

“His Majesty the Emperor was trying to appease Evron with the rehabilitation of the previous Duke and Duchess.”

Artizea muttered.

In the Capital, they said the Emperor who had lost all his children had grown soft-hearted, but this was probably the truth.

The cold wave brought both food and Karam problems simultaneously. Even though they held Cedric hostage, there was a possibility that Evron might explode.

And at that time, the Emperor would not have had the leisure to pay attention to the North.

The atmosphere in the center was ominous due to all the Empress’s children dying within a year or two. Moreover, it was when they were preparing to strike down House Liagan.

“At that time, there was actually talk of abandoning Told Gate and rather breaking through Allia Wall. A suicide squad was also organized to rescue the Prince. But when talk of the previous Duke’s rehabilitation came up, all of Evron risked their lives.”

“Sir Mel…”

“Mother took medicine. It was absolutely not a time when she could give birth and maintain her position.”

Having a newborn baby in House Jordin would have been a great burden. Whether they fought desperately to stop Karam or went to war with the Imperial family.

But whether a baby lived or died was rarely something that went according to the parents’ wishes.

“Even as a newborn, she was mostly left in the wet nurse’s hands and ignored. I had also said that if Told Gate was breached or we became traitors, it might be better if she had never been born.”

Mel spoke in a low voice.

“They felt sorry about that and treated her well. Just like the noble ladies of the Capital do, they didn’t make her do anything and dressed her in pretty clothes, letting her do only what she wanted… As if… as if trying to receive compensation for what happened then. As if trying to prove that we had survived and were now living happily.”

Mel said they acted as if trying to receive compensation, not give it.

“One day we realized that Aubrey wasn’t simply immature, but actually thought of herself as a young lady of the Ducal House. We realized this couldn’t continue, but it was already too late.”

“No matter how parents raise them, people live according to their own nature.”

Artizea spoke with a cracked voice. Mel replied.

“Yes. There are people who don’t change no matter how they’re taught. Still, I have regrets.”

“Sir Mel…”

“Because she might have been a child who could have changed.”

Mel shed tears.

“The Prince experienced his first battle at sixteen, and so did I. My father did too. So if we had armed Aubrey and stationed her on the fortress walls of Told Gate, she might have understood why Evron is loyal… I’m sorry.”

She bent her waist and apologized to Artizea. Tears fell on the stone floor of the temple.

Artizea let out a long sigh.

“You were a good sister. You don’t need to doubt that.”

If she had any regrets, it would be about making Mel’s hands bloody with Aubrey’s blood, not about taking Aubrey as her maid.

She swallowed the words that she envied Aubrey.

Aubrey had everything she had wanted to have.

Artizea thought that if she had been in Aubrey’s position, she would have had nothing else she wanted in the world, nothing else she wanted to do.

With such loving parents and good sisters, a lifetime would not have been enough just to enjoy that happiness.

Artizea sighed once more.

If the sorrow of those left behind was considered the price of life, Aubrey’s life was much more expensive than Artizea’s.

But in reality, several people died to save Artizea, while Aubrey lay in this wooden coffin, unable even to comfort her parents’ grief.

Thinking about it, everything was futile. The world was unfair and evil.

As she left Mel there and came outside, there was someone waiting for her.

“Have you finished your farewell with your maid?”

“Priest…?”

It was a regular priest whose face she had seen but with whom she had never directly spoken.

Artizea bowed her head and greeted the priest. The priest spoke in a low voice.

“I have something to tell you briefly. Please come this way.”

The priest gestured for her to follow him.

“The other priests will return from finishing the funeral soon. I have something I want to tell you before then, Your Highness.”

Artizea was somewhat surprised.

There was no reason for a priest to seek her out so urgently. Especially not a regular priest.

Of course, the hierarchy of priests was different from ordinary people. Even nobles usually treated priests with sufficient courtesy.

Even people with no faith at all naturally spoke more politely in front of priests.

Artizea was the same.

So there was no law saying a regular priest couldn’t speak to her.

But Artizea was the Grand Duchess. When she came to pray, even formally, the bishop would personally greet her, or at least a high-ranking priest would come out to meet her.

So unless there was a personal relationship, a regular priest who had only exchanged light nods in passing was not in a position to suddenly seek her out and ask her to follow him.

Especially to have something to say when other priests weren’t around.

The priest, who seemed to have hurriedly returned alone from the ossuary, smelled of dust. His shoes were also muddy.

From the main castle to entering through the main gate of the ossuary, one would step on roads entirely paved with stone.

Having mud meant he had secretly come out through the back door. Or had run here using a side path.

What could he want to talk about that required such measures?

Artizea nodded lightly. Then she followed the priest.

Alphonse silently followed behind Artizea.

The place the priest led them to was his own quarters.

“Wait here.”

Artizea said this to Alphonse in front of the door.

“Your Highness may consider me a dead man.”

He already considered his life as good as gone. As Cedric had said, he was only here because there was a more useful place for him, and realistically, there was no guard more skilled than him available.

He had resolved to remain by Artizea’s side as her sword until the next moment he would have to sacrifice his life.

But Artizea shook her head.

“Stay here. The priest is afraid.”

That was true. Even from Alphonse’s perspective, the priest was trembling.

“I’ll be at the door.”

Artizea nodded. Then she entered the priest’s room.

The room was very small. There was only a bed barely large enough for one person to lie down, a brazier, and a small desk with a candlestick on it.

The priest turned his desk chair around so Artizea could sit.

And he sat on the bed. The room was so cramped that this was the only way to maintain a respectful distance.

Looking at him this way, she could see the priest was sweating coldly under the dim light.

“Your Highness, I apologize for being so rude as to make this request. I’ve learned of a grave matter, but there’s absolutely no one else I can discuss it with except Your Highness. I believe only Your Highness is not from Evron…”

The priest wiped his forehead with his sleeve.

“As Your Highness must have already noticed… The people of the North have such strong bonds among themselves, and the priests are the same way, so I’m worried they might bury this important matter. Then there would be nothing I, a mere ordinary priest, could do about it.”

“Please tell me what this is about first.”

“Yesterday I received a confession from a certain farmer.”

The priest clenched his anxious hands tightly.

Revealing the contents of a confession to others was forbidden under any circumstances. However, this was too grave a matter.

“He said the reason for this war was because they tried to cultivate the devil’s crop.”

Once the priest began speaking, he seemed to relax and the words poured out.

“Among the farmers, they apparently call it the Karam crop.”

“Is that such a big problem?”

Artizea asked back as if she understood nothing at all.

“I knew that even now, occasionally poor farmers would plant seeds along the field ridges and pick the fruit or dig up the roots to eat when they were starving. That much could be forgiven with a prayer or two.”

The priest said with trembling hands.

“Trading with Karam is the same. It’s something foolish people do to survive in places untouched by God’s hand.”

“Priest.”

“But this is a different problem. They say they even built a village north of Told Gate to systematically research farming methods. It seems someone among the ducal house’s retainers was involved.”

Artizea looked at him with her blue eyes darkly sunken.

It seemed the time for being sentimental wouldn’t even last a full day.

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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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