Chapter 137

Meanwhile, at the same moment.

Alicia had returned to her room alone after parting ways with Rosetta near the annex. As soon as she walked into the door, she threw up everything she had eaten.

The startled maid inside immediately brought out some digestive medicine for her. However, once overturned, her stomach did not calm down easily.

The patient herself merely sat on the bed, heaving.

“Milady, should I call the doctor?”

At the maid’s concern, Alicia shook her head.

“No. I’m fine. Instead, I just want to be alone…”

Alicia trailed off , her voice indistinct towards the end. The maid could not immediately answer.

She couldn’t just leave her sick master like this, but at the same time, she couldn’t go against her master’s wish to be left alone.

She was stuck in a situation where she could do neither this nor that.

“However…”

The maid hesitated as she spoke, but Alicia only smiled and spoke again.

“I’m truly alright. I guess I got a little excited because it’s been a while since I had a meal together with my family. I was so excited that I overdid it, and my stomach turned out like this.”

Alicia’s quiet tone had a mystifying sense of persuasion.

It was difficult to tell whether it was the truth.

“If it gets worse, I promise to call you right away. You don’t have to worry about me, you can leave.”

The subsequent persuasive words urged the maid to nod.

However, she couldn’t completely erase her worries.

“Please, you must. The moment it hurts, please call me right away, alright?”

“Yes, I will.”

The maid anxiously looked back several times as she walked towards the door.

Each time she did so, Alicia responded with a silent smile.

Ker-chak.

When the door closed behind the maid, accompanied by a small sound—it was only then that Alicia was finally alone.

She stared at the door wordlessly, then she let out a deep sigh.

Her smile was long gone.

She curled up into herself, ducking into her knees.

Contrary to what she said… She was not fine. She was a mess.

Her stomach throbbed painfully, and her head was wracked with a terrible migraine.

Her neck and chest were as hot as fire, but her fingertips were as cold as ice.

Alicia forced her cold fingertips to move, bringing both hands to her tightly closed lips due to a sudden surge of nausea.

However, nothing came out.

Scalding gastric juices rose to her throat, but sank once more.

Even so, a sensation as hot as the gastric juices burned around her face, concentrated at the corners of her eyes.

“…Ha…haha…ha…”

A ridiculous bout of laughter burst forth from her lips.

Because she was so much of a joke, so much of a disgusting thing.

A while ago, during their dinner.

The mere mention of the word ‘rumor’ made her shudder.

Just in case it was ‘that’ rumor she had in mind.

But was that all?

She played the role of a good younger sister and said that she would also refrain from holding a birthday ball.

She said that she wouldn’t do what her older sister wouldn’t do.

‘Hypocrite.’

If she were to be honest, there was a real reason behind this.

However, she cowardly hid the truth and offered up a lie.

She deceived everyone.

She deceived her family.

She deceived her sister.

Amid the loud silence, her slender shoulders began to tremble.

Every time her shoulders moved up and down, so did her long, golden hair.

“Hic… hiiicc…”

Alicia bit her lower lip tightly, keeping her sobs at bay.

She was afraid that the sound would leak through the door.

If someone would find out, she wouldn’t even be able to say exactly why she was crying.

As she sobbed quietly for a long time, Alicia’s shoulders suddenly flinched.

Her ears started ringing.

Then, after a long, earsplitting beeeep—

Someone whispered into her ear.

‘Alicia. You’re a liar, aren’t you?’

“No… No I’m not…”

Even though she closed her eyes tightly and covered her ears with both hands, the voice did not stop.

This nightmare had been going on ever since the hunting festival.

A voice from that nightmare.

Perhaps a man’s, or a woman’s.

Maybe even Alicia’s own voice.

‘What do you mean, no? Everything that left those lips of yours today was a lie. You were scared to get caught, right? The truth is, you…’

“No! That’s just a dream… Just a nightmare…”

‘Indeed, you’d certainly want to believe that. If you get caught, everyone will hate you. Everyone will blame you. Maybe they’d even wish for you to die—to experience more pain than anyone else. Yes, I understand. It would be very distressing.’

“Stop… Please stop… Stop… Stop!”

Voice quivering, she begged and begged, but the auditory hallucination showed no mercy.

The cruel, hushed voice was both fast and slow, murky and clear.

“Stop… stop…”

Those lips, which muttered the word ‘stop’ over and over again, stopped moving at some point.

With tears, constantly trickling down.

Glazed over with tears entirely, her golden eyes were unfocused.

Beneath that hazy gaze, her lips opened slightly.

Ha.

Helpless laughter.

That smile, made amidst utter silence, was terrifyingly eerie.

Soon, her weak upper body slowly collapsed.

As her long eyelashes slowly fluttered close, her unfocused eyes disappeared behind their lids.

Her smiling lips moved slightly for a few times, before they finally closed together tightly.

She was the very image of a broken doll.

How long did she stay that way?

The evening’s shadows shifted over her body, unconscious.

Just as much as the bleak nightmare closed in,

It did not take long before her whole body was devoured by darkness.

* * *

As each one harbored their own complexities, time marched on regardless.

In the meantime, Logan successfully made a second pill, and Blanca sent in the news that her participation at the auction was a success.

House Riddle’s guild was growing smoothly, and the plan to promote a pharmaceutical collaboration with Zobel would soon take place.

Except for the persistent rumors that still followed me, all in all, things were progressing well enough. It’s not bad.

So, at the end of November.

This day, in the middle of the late fall and the early winter—

It was my birthday. Or rather, that of ‘Rosetta’.

Anyway.

A ball would not take place today, but that’s not what’s making this day unusual.

The servants of the manor had been busy since dawn. And, even before the sun had fully risen, gifts and letters from here and there began to arrive.

A bit overwhelmed, I stared at the mountain of gifts.

“So many came in, huh. Is this all, Diana?”

As she was in the middle of organizing the gifts, Diana shook her head.

“No, Milady. There’s still quite a lot to go through.”

Diana had just returned from her break yesterday.

She was excited to return to her station, and she wore a very lively expression for two straight days.

Even now, when she was doing the tedious task of sorting out mountains of gifts, there was only a smile on her face.

I gotta say, she seemed to truly fit into the job of a maid.

Just how difficult had it been for someone like her to be forced to cut people down in the original novel.

Meaninglessly feeling sorry for the original novel’s Diana, I picked up a pile of letters that were placed on my desk.

“Yeah, besides this, there’s so much to go through. Just look at it…”

The letters that came in droves were no better than the gifts that also came in droves.

I clicked my tongue again as I stared at this pile of letters that was too thick to hold with one hand.

Even so, everyone would still be speaking ill of me, complaining of how dreadful I was, yet look at how much they sent anyway.

Well, it’s true that they didn’t like Rosetta, but they couldn’t dare disregard House Valentine.

“These have all already been sorted, Milady. Evidently, they’re all expensive, too.”

“Well, aristocrats wouldn’t have sent anything cheap, surely. I should sell all the expensive ones. Diana, I’ll give you some pocket money later.”

“Milady’s existence is my pocket money.”

“Oh my, what’s this? Giving me some lip-service since it’s my birthday?”

“I really mean it.”

Jokingly shrugging off Diana’s serious gaze, I flipped through the pile of letters.

I merely plucked the letters and didn’t bother to read them, only looking at the senders’ names.

‘Name I don’t know. Name I don’t know. This one’s from Riddle, I’ll keep it separate. Again, name I don’t know. Name I don’t know…’

While flipping over the letters mechanically, my hands stopped as I saw two familiar names.

〈 Daniel Freesia 〉

〈 Leo Carter 〉

The letters of the two men, who I find suspicious, happened to be piled on top of each other.

Sealed in blue and red envelopes respectively.

Clutching those two letters in my hand, I roughly placed the other letters back on my desk.

Now that I found these two pertinent names, the other letters were as good as read.

“What’s wrong, Lady Rosetta?”

Promptly picking up on my change of mood, Diana asked.

“It’s nothing. I just saw the names of the people I really don’t like, one after another.”

Diana was perplexed for a moment, but her eyes soon became furrowed when she saw the two letters in my hand.

Catching sight of the blue and red envelopes, she immediately guessed who they were from.

“Young Duke Freesia and Young Duke Carter, right?”

“Yup. Correct.”

At this, Diana’s furrowed brow became even more knitted.

“Milady, you mentioned that one of those two people was the mastermind behind the hunting festival’s incident, right?”

“It could be either of them, yes.”

I couldn’t rule out the possibility that one might be innocent.

It’s prudent to keep an open mind when not everything has been confirmed.

I had briefed Blanca, Logan and Diana about the cause of the hunting festival incident.

Not only that those two people were after me, but also the fact that they were the most likely candidates.

Still, I didn’t bother talking about my transmigrations or anything like that.

It was enough for just Cassion to know all my secrets.

“In any case, I don’t like either of them.”

As Diana practically snarled, I laughed without realizing it.

“What a coincidence. I don’t like them either.”

Out of the two, I especially disliked Leo more.

So, I opened Leo’s letter first.

Wouldn’t it be better to get that over with first?

Just like the red envelope, the red-bordered letter paper was filled with Leo’s uniquely angular and elegant penmanship.

I skimmed through the perfunctory birthday greetings and went straight to what’s below.

The real point of his letter awaited me.

“But Diana, the second young master of House Carter—the guy that both you and I despise… It looks like he’s inviting me for tea?”

It was an invitation posing as a birthday letter.