Chapter 5
‘Of course, Father giving Eden to me was probably just a momentary whim.’
But what does the truth matter? Let’s compete with lies and fabrications.
I summoned every ounce of shamelessness and acting ability I possessed and boldly looked up at Olga.
Apparently, my efforts had worked, because Olga stared at me with hardened eyes.
A few seconds later.
“……After being ill for a few days, you’ve become quite daring, haven’t you?”
Grit.
Olga ground her teeth and suddenly raised her right hand.
“You’ve certainly grown a lot. Then I suppose you no longer need this little toy, do you?”
My eyes widened when I saw what she was holding.
‘Rossi’s circuit!’
It was practically the equivalent of Rossi’s heart.
I glared at Olga.
“……Give it to me. That.”
“Of course I’ll give it to you.”
Olga sneered viciously.
“If you promise to stop bothering the head of the family.”
‘……Ha.’
My eyes widened at such a low, despicable threat.
When I remained silent, Olga shrugged.
“What? Perhaps you don’t need it that badly? In that case, I suppose I can simply destroy it.”
Olga’s enormous hand, as big as a cooking pot lid, closed around Rossi’s circuit.
The other parts could be repaired if they were damaged, but this circuit, which was essentially Rossi’s heart, could never be restored.
I bit my lip tightly.
If this had been my old self, I probably would have lost control of my anger and thrown a tantrum first.
But things were different now.
In my previous life, Shin Yuna had lost her parents at a young age and endured treatment from her aunt and uncle that was even worse than this.
I had secretly gathered evidence without letting them notice, waited for the right moment, and eventually reclaimed my parents’ inheritance.
Because of that experience, ‘Shin Yuna’ knew better than anyone.
Sometimes, the best way to wield your sense of injustice was to let it simmer for a while before unleashing it at the right moment.
‘I shouted that I would tell Father, but I’m not even close enough to him to make good on that threat. At this rate, there’s no way I can get the circuit back.’
I couldn’t let her destroy Rossi’s heart.
‘Olga Nadiya. I’m going to destroy you soon.’
First objective: Destroy Olga.
I put a star beside it in the notebook inside my mind as I slowly bent my knees.
Or rather, I was about to.
“What the hell are you doing?!”
But at that moment, a horrified voice came from behind me.
“Snap out of it!”
Eden grabbed my arm and yanked me back.
“Eek!”
My body, which had been about to kneel, staggered sideways because of it.
I almost fell!
I whipped my head toward Eden and snapped angrily.
“What are you doing?!”
“You’re the one doing something crazy! What are you doing right now? Giving up without even fighting? Have you lost your mind?”
“What?”
“Even if she’s an adult, that woman doesn’t have a weapon! Do something!”
With that shout, Eden suddenly charged at Olga.
His skinny leg struck Olga’s shin in an instant.
“AAARGH!”
Caught completely off guard, Olga collapsed to the ground.
Now Olga was the one on her knees.
“Pfft……!”
I couldn’t help but burst out laughing at the sight.
‘Uh, but how am I supposed to clean this mess up?’
First of all, I had to get Rossi’s circuit away from that woman!
“Hey, E-Eden. Are you crazy? Stay still! I’ll handle this myself!”
I whispered urgently to Eden.
“Why are you kneeling without even fighting? Is it really that easy for you to just die?”
Despite being as skinny as a bundle of kindling, Eden thundered at me like lightning.
His golden eyes, sharp as those of a wild cat, blazed with fury.
“What? Die? Who—”
Oh.
Could it be?
Only then did I begin to understand what Eden was thinking.
Come to think of it, I vaguely remembered hearing that in the lawless regions of the North, including the slums, kneeling meant death.
Apparently, if someone willingly knelt and admitted defeat, the victor would kill them painlessly.
It seemed Eden had misunderstood my attempt to kneel as me surrendering to Olga and accepting my death.
“This filthy little brat…….”
Olga, who had been clutching her shin, rose to her feet.
Olga was taller than most adult men.
When someone of her size loomed over us, her shadow fell threateningly across the floor.
“You’re going to regret this. You scrawny little beggar brat.”
“Don’t touch him!”
“Oh, I see. I suppose you don’t need this after all?”
Olga shook Rossi’s circuit and gave me a vile smile.
“……You’re going to regret this, Olga. I’m not going to remain a powerless child forever.”
“Hmm? Even after the young lady grows up, you won’t be very frightening.”
Olga twisted the corner of her mouth into a sneer.
“By then, though, you won’t have to worry about me. You’ll already be dead at the hands of the two young masters.”
I gritted my teeth.
What Olga said wasn’t actually wrong.
In the Sercheneb family, once all the children reached adulthood, they fought over succession.
The family’s secret swordsmanship could only be passed down to one person, and the technique grew stronger by absorbing the power of family members the user killed.
‘What a cruel and barbaric tradition. Something like this would be unimaginable on modern-day Earth.’
That was just how hopeless and apocalyptic this world was.
Anyway, my eldest brother Edward was a genius with the sword. People even said that he would eventually become a talent comparable to Father.
My second brother, Lawrence, was also exceptionally gifted.
One of the two would either win the succession struggle or lose and become nourishment for the victor.
Eloise, Edward’s fraternal twin sister, had no talent for the sword and was also born with a weak constitution. Ironically, that meant she had a higher chance of surviving.
After all, even if the victor killed her, they wouldn’t gain any power from it.
‘But I’m different.’
I was mediocrity incarnate.
The moment I came of age and the succession battle began, I was doomed to die.
‘The original Lillian seems to have survived because it was discovered that she was a human mana stone.’
But even then, her mana would be drained until her life force ran out and she died.
Either way, it was a bad ending for me.
“For now, young lady, you stay right there with your hands raised. I need to teach this filthy little brat some manners first.”
Olga limped toward Eden. Apparently, he had hit her shin pretty hard.
As the enormous Olga approached, Eden cautiously backed away.
His eyes were filled with hostility, but there was an overwhelming difference in their physical size.
Unlike Olga, who lorded over the servants and stuffed herself with rich food, Eden was so thin that he looked as if he had survived on tree bark alone.
“I’ll teach you exactly what happens when you dare defy an adult.”
Olga rolled up her sleeves.
At that moment, a scene flashed through my mind like lightning.
“The Emperor burned down our homeland…… We don’t have anywhere to return to anymore, Lilian.”
It was something Eloise had said to Lilian in the original story.
‘Our homeland’ meant the Sercheneb territory.
In other words, the male lead would eventually burn this entire territory to the ground.
I had always found it strange that Eloise, who supposedly came from a wealthy ducal family, possessed no personal wealth whatsoever……!
‘All of her enormous inheritance must have burned along with the territory!’
Why would Eden burn down an otherwise perfectly fine territory?
Obviously, he had a grudge!
And apparently, I was witnessing the very scene where that grudge first began.
Olga’s hand, as large as a cooking-pot lid, rapidly descended toward Eden.
‘No!’
Why was I desperately trying to stay attached to this family in the first place?
The only remotely worthwhile thing about this rotten household was the enormous inheritance I could eventually obtain!
“Stop!”
Without thinking, I shouted and shoved Eden aside.
As a result, Olga’s hand was now heading toward me instead of Eden.
‘I hate pain!’
I squeezed my eyes shut, thinking that—
BOOM!
A tremendous explosion pierced my ears.
At the same time, my body was pushed slightly backward.
‘W-What was that?’
I opened my eyes in surprise, but all I could see was white light.
My entire field of vision had been dyed white, making it impossible to see anything.
A moment later.
The dazzling white light that had filled my vision suddenly faded away, becoming a small cluster of lights that hovered above my palm.
Still dumbfounded, I looked around.
Olga was sprawled across the floor as if she had just taken an uppercut from a boxer.
The hem of her clothes appeared to have been slightly burned, probably because of the explosion.
“What in the…….”
I stared blankly into the air.
Blue, purple, yellow, red.
Rainbow-colored particles drifted through the air like fireworks.
‘Pretty…….’
Along with that instinctive thought, an ominous feeling washed over me.
These beautiful, multicolored remnants of light.
I had seen this sight somewhere before.
Yes.
In the original story.
“Ohhh. To think you can control a mana explosion so freely.”
“It is as beautiful as your appearance, Lady Lilian.”
“As expected of a genius of magic!”
Whenever magic was used, remnants of mana were left behind.
Beautiful, rainbow-colored remnants.
In the original story, Lilian would explode her mana like a clown setting off fireworks just to show off her magical abilities.
Afterward, Lilian’s followers would gaze at the beautiful remnants of mana and shower her with praise.
“……You, just now.”
I heard Eden’s shocked voice.
I realized my mistake and turned around.
Eden was staring wide-eyed at the multicolored remnants.
“Just now, you used magic…….”
“No!”
I shouted immediately.
“What do you mean, no? You just made a boom and exploded something white, sending that woman flying!”
Eden’s golden eyes trembled in confusion.
“You’re a mage—”
“Shh! Shhh!”
I rushed toward Eden and clamped a hand over his mouth.
“Mmph! Mmph!”
Eden struggled and twisted his body in protest.
But after growing up as a duke’s daughter and being fed meat dishes all my life, I was more than a match for him.
I quickly whispered into Eden’s ear.
“Listen carefully. You saw it wrong! How could a young and stupid child like me possibly use magic? That’s something only the clever students at the academy can do.”
“But what happened just now—mmph.”
“I am absolutely not a mage. Watch what you say!”
I absolutely could not let anyone discover that I had mana.
The original Lilian had scattered her mana everywhere because she wanted recognition and praise, but that was basically suicide.
For me, mana was the same thing as my life force.
In other words, the remnants of mana from that explosion were essentially pieces of my lifespan.
I looked sadly at the brilliant multicolored remnants that had now settled onto the floor.
‘How much lifespan was that……? Three days? A week?’
The thought that that much of my life had become remnants scattered across the floor made my heart ache.
Eden escaped from my grasp and asked with eyes full of defiance,
“Then what was that explosion just now?”
What else could it have been?
One of the lowest-level spells, Mana Explosion.
It was such a weak spell that even I, someone who possessed mana but knew absolutely nothing about magic, had been able to cast it instinctively.
Still, apparently it had been enough to knock down Olga while she was caught off guard.
“That explosion was…… Yes. Static electricity.”
“Don’t be ridiculous! What kind of static electricity is that powerful?!”
“The weather has been really dry lately!”
I was desperately arguing with Eden when—
Knock, knock.
A cautious knock sounded at the door.
“Lily, it’s me. Eloise.”
I froze.
“Could you open the door for a moment? You seemed strange earlier, and I was worried about you.”
She had come all the way here for the sake of her little sister who had just thrown a tantrum.
As expected, my sister was an angel.
‘But why now of all times?’
I frantically looked around the room.
It was an absolute disaster.
Rainbow-colored remnants of mana were scattered everywhere, and Olga was lying flat on the floor.
There was no way I could let her see this.
“Lily? Are you not inside?”
“…….”
“That’s strange. I definitely saw you go in…… Do you perhaps not want to talk to me?”
What should I do?
I nervously bit my lip.
