Chapter : 02
This is it…
“……”
Still, no matter how you look at it, speaking like I’m in some historical drama is just too much. Living like this is killing me. So, to make things a little less painful, I changed the way I spoke.
“Save me! Save me! Help me! Ah, this works! Help me! Hey! Is nobody there?!”
So casual speech is allowed after all. Figures. That’s just like Mitchell Nephthis, who doesn’t have an ounce of manners even if you needed them for medicine.
“Yaaaah! You bastards, are you deaf?! I want to live! Call the Duke of Nephthis! I can just leave the family register, can’t I?!”
After kicking the iron bars repeatedly and then using my Throwing skill to bend them toward the bed, the guards calmed me down, and the disturbance in the prison was reported all the way to the Emperor.
By imperial order, I was stripped of my status as a noble and removed from the aristocratic register. As punishment, I received five lashes, and the time-limited status ailment was removed. Then, for some bizarre reason, I was awarded experience.
The course of events has changed slightly. 1,000 EXP has been awarded.
◇ ◆ ◇
Even though I had once been the heir to the House of Nephthis, the Imperial Family provided me with a carriage home and medicine for my wounds. With the maids attending to me, I applied the medicine to my blood-covered back and, after wrapping myself tightly in bandages, threw on my ruined top and climbed into the carriage.
Pain was pain, but after opening the Status Window, I carefully invested my points.
Mitchell Nephthis
Status: Blessing of Urshu
EXP: 100
N) Freeze Lv. 5 — 500 EXP until next level
N) Throw Lv. 3 — 300 EXP until next level
N) Healthy Lv. 5 — 122 EXP until next level
R) Noble’s Grace
UR) Fusion
Now was the time to dump everything into Freeze.
Noble’s Grace and Fusion were passive skills, so they didn’t require any points to invest in. For Normal skills, leveling from Lv. 1 to 2 required 100 EXP, Lv. 2 to 3 required 200 EXP, and Lv. 3 to 4 required 300 EXP.
The maximum skill level was probably 10, so I assumed the skill would transform into an advanced skill around then. For now, I needed to pour everything into Freeze and obtain ice magic.
If I could use magic, I could somehow make a living on this continent. Even as a stateless person without any social status, I could make money as an adventurer by hunting monsters.
First things first: money.
I was currently the disgrace of the ducal family, so there was no doubt I’d be kicked out without a single coin to my name. Finding some way to make money was an urgent priority.
“We’ve arrived.”
The Nephthis townhouse really was close to the Imperial Palace. As expected of my rich and powerful family. You had to live like this if you wanted to intimidate Prince Seiyan.
“Goodbye! Take care!”
I politely greeted the old coachman before confidently entering the house.
Apparently, word of what I’d done had already spread throughout the entire ducal residence, because the maids were whispering while looking at me.
I needed to pack my things and get the hell out before the Duke and Duchess came storming in. If I could at least take a few of the jewels I owned, I figured I’d have enough to pay for an inn for a while.
For the sake of survival, I swallowed my pride and stuffed everything remotely valuable into my luggage.
Gold was better than jewels. I needed gold because it was easier to convert into cash.
Why the hell had I spent all this time collecting jewels instead of gold? This was driving me insane.
“Miss! Miss, what happened?!”
Huuuuuh! Isn’t that my nanny?!
The woman who came running after hearing that I’d returned was my nanny.
She was, quite literally, Mitchell’s wet nurse—the woman who had doted on Mitchell and raised her like a precious little princess since childhood. She was practically more of a mother to Mitchell than her actual mother.
My eyes suddenly filled with tears.
Both Mitchell and I were weak when it came to Nanny.
But of course we were. She was basically my mother.
“Uuuuuuh, Naaaanny!”
“Miss! Oh, Miss! What happened?! Why are you covered in blood?!”
“It huuurtsss, Naaanny!”
Sobbing uncontrollably, I handed Nanny the medicine the Emperor had given me and exposed my back again.
It had been bearable for a while, but apparently the medicine was wearing off as the blood soaked through, because the throbbing pain was getting worse.
“It huuurtsss. Put this oooon.”
“Oh, Miss! Oh, my poor heart! Oh, my poor heart!”
When I cried about how much I hurt, Nanny’s own eyes filled with tears as she removed the bandages.
Her hands trembled as she wiped away the blood and applied the medicine again.
Come to think of it, once I left the house, I wouldn’t be able to see Nanny anymore.
I didn’t care whether I ever saw the Duke and Duchess again, but the thought of never seeing Nanny again was unbearably sad.
She was my nanny. How could I live apart from my mother?
I started bawling again at the thought of living without Nanny, when I suddenly remembered a dish Mitchell used to love.
Even if I had to leave, there was one thing I absolutely had to eat before I went.
“Nanny, Nanny, you know…”
“Yes, Miss. What is it?”
“I want to eat the borscht you make.”
When I asked for borscht with tears and snot all over my face, Nanny finished wrapping my back tightly, washed her hands, and hurried off to warm it up.
She said she’d expected me to ask for it first thing after returning from prison, so she’d made a whole pot yesterday and had been waiting for me ever since.
Apparently, the medicine also had a painkilling effect, because the pain became bearable enough for me to stop crying.
As I sat there thinking quietly, though, I kept getting the taste of kimchi stew in my mouth.
I wondered why I was suddenly craving kimchi stew, but I realized the reason as soon as Nanny brought out the food.
The taste of Nanny’s special borscht—the kind only she could make—was exactly the same as kimchi stew.
“It’s delicious. It’s so delicious, Nanny.”
I shoveled food into my mouth and mumbled through my chewing, while Nanny gently told me to eat slowly or I’d get indigestion.
But this was seriously delicious.
Of all the kimchi stew I’d ever eaten, this was the best.
“So good. Really, really good, Naaanny.”
“Stop crying now. And what’s with all this luggage? I heard something terrible happened. Were you perhaps placed under house arrest?”
No.
I’d just barely escaped death.
I told her everything: how I’d attacked Seiyan and nearly been executed, how I’d severed ties with the ducal family, been stripped of my noble status, and was now going to live as a stateless person without any identity.
Nanny’s face turned white with shock.
She even raised her hand as if to smack my back, then quickly clenched her fist.
Good thinking, Nanny.
If you hit my back right now, I’d actually die from the pain.
“What are you going to do?! What are you going to do now, Miss?!”
“I’ll survive by doing odd jobs that even a stateless person can do. There’s no law saying a person has to die just because things got difficult, Nanny.”
When I confidently declared this based on my past experience, Nanny once again raised her hand toward my back, then clenched her fist tightly and squeezed her eyes shut.
“Young Miss, you’ve never done a single hard day’s work in your life! How are you supposed to work?!”
“I know how to do plenty of things. I’ll be fine.”
I was Mitchell, but I wasn’t really Mitchell.
Mitchell had been a precious young lady raised in a ducal family.
I wasn’t.
My parents had died when I was young, leaving me alone in the house they’d left behind. Then my aunt, who had been my guardian, ran off overseas with all of my parents’ assets.
After that, there wasn’t a part-time job I hadn’t tried.
Washing dishes, waiting tables, working at construction sites, even working at a zoo where I’d handled lions and performed dolphin shows.
When it came to working and surviving, I was a professional.
Back when I was really struggling, a welfare center gave me one box of ramen a month, which I divided into tiny portions to make it last.
And even after that, I was so hungry that I’d actually caught cicadas and eaten them.
They looked disgusting, sure, but if you pulled off the head and ate the insides, they tasted like shrimp.
Compared to those days, my current situation was nothing.
I had work experience. More importantly, I’d be legally an adult in just three more years.
A healthy adult could somehow survive in this world.
That was simply how life worked.
As I proudly declared this and scraped up the remaining borscht with white bread until the bowl was spotless, Nanny seemed so frustrated that she thumped her chest and told me to wait.
I’d finished eating, and I wanted to escape before the Duke and Duchess returned and caused a scene.
When I told her that, Nanny said it wouldn’t take long and hurried out of the room.
She returned just as quickly.
As promised, it only took a few minutes.
Nanny had put on her coat, packed her own luggage, and apparently made a huge decision.
“If Miss is leaving, then I’m going too!”
“……What?”
“Young Miss, you just don’t know how the world works! I’ll do sewing work or whatever I can! I’ll earn enough to support you! Let’s go! If we go back to my hometown, my older sister’s old house should still be empty!”
I’d always thought Nanny was impulsive, but she really had dropped that bombshell way too easily.
The real reason she was saying this was because she didn’t understand how aristocratic households worked.
Even if I had been expelled from the family, the nanny who had raised a duke’s daughter would surely receive a pension for the rest of her life.
With the money she’d saved so far, she could probably buy a small house in the capital and live comfortably until she died on the living expenses provided by the House of Nephthis.
There was no reason to make another person suffer unnecessarily.
I tried to persuade her with that reasoning, but she picked up the luggage I’d already packed and looked angry.
“Why should I live somewhere without you?! If you’re gone, I’m gone too! If you die, I’ll die too! Let’s go!”
Nanny, you’re going to make me cry again if you keep saying things like that.
My lips trembled, and I desperately held back the tears that were about to spill again.
Then an idea suddenly occurred to me, and I shared it with Nanny.
“Nanny, even if we’re leaving, let’s steal something before we go. I have the key to the treasury.”
“Oh, thank goodness. I was worried that surviving death had somehow fixed our young lady’s wicked personality.”
I’d even intimidated an Imperial prince.
What was there that I couldn’t do?
I wiped my eyes with my sleeve and took out the key to the Nephthis treasure vault, a vault that only the legitimate heirs of the Nephthis family were allowed to access.
This was a master key that could be used for both the treasure vault in the main family estate and the one in the townhouse.
And there was definitely something valuable sleeping inside the townhouse vault.
That artifact was valuable enough to buy a hundred townhouses like this one without breaking a sweat.
Depending on how it was used, it seemed like it could be an enormous help to me right now.
If I tried to sell it, I’d obviously be caught on the spot, so I’d just have to make use of it myself.
Forgetting even the pain in my back, I hurriedly ran with Nanny to the treasure vault, stole the teleportation artifact, and escaped.
With the money Nanny had, we rented a carriage and coachman who could take us all the way to her hometown.
