Chapter 10
“Yesterday, the water I gave Mother was made by drying an herb called Ryeohwa, grinding it into powder, brewing it, and mixing it with sugar.”
As I listened to her matter-of-fact explanation, I felt my insides twist.
Shakol Aubrey suppressed the irritation rising inside him.
Yes, he had been planning to ask about it anyway. After convincing himself of that, he opened his mouth.
“…Ryeohwa? Wasn’t that just a weed?”
“Yes. It isn’t well known, but Ryeohwa has an effect that can slightly alleviate the symptoms Mother is showing.”
“How do you know that….”
“I once saw an apothecary using it that way. But you mustn’t drink Ryeohwa tea too often.”
Anisha met Shakol Aubrey’s eyes and spoke firmly. Faced with that unwavering gaze, Shakol Aubrey did not avert his own eyes either.
“Why?”
“If you drink it too often, you develop a tolerance and it stops working. So Ryeohwa tea should only be drunk occasionally, when the pain becomes too severe to bear.”
Anisha slowly blinked and lowered her eyes.
‘It wouldn’t be good to develop a tolerance to Ryeohwa tea while there’s still no cure. Later, when a real treatment is developed, the tolerance might prevent it from working properly.’
Shakol Aubrey kept his gaze fixed on Anisha’s bowed head.
‘…No. By then, the Duchess will already be dead anyway.’
Anisha thought calmly.
‘And this arrogant Duke will eventually die too, unable to bear the loss.’
Rosanna Aubrey would die five years later, and Shakol Aubrey would die two years after that.
‘At most, I have six or seven years left.’
Before her regression, Anisha had been engraved with ancient words as a side effect of the experiments, and before seven years had passed, those ancient words had spread throughout her entire body and killed her.
‘I really am a ticking time bomb.’
A ticking time bomb where the only question was who would explode first, and how.
“I see. I’ll keep that in mind.”
Shakol Aubrey answered quite seriously.
At his response, Anisha snapped out of her thoughts. She quietly looked at Shakol Aubrey’s face before bowing deeply.
“Then I’ll be going! Have a happy day today too, Father!”
Click.
The door soon closed without hesitation.
“Hah!”
She was really leaving just like that?
Yet Anisha, who had actually closed the door and left, did not come back.
When Pedro, who had been standing nearby, approached to clear away the tray, Shakol Aubrey frowned.
“What are you doing?”
“It seemed you didn’t like it, so I was going to take it away and dispose of it. I suppose we could eat it as a snack.”
Pedro’s friendly eyes curved into a smile.
“Put it down.”
“Oh my, I thought you didn’t like it?”
“I’m tired, so put it down and leave.”
A smile spread across Pedro’s lips.
“I’ll bring you another cup of tea.”
Shakol Aubrey, who had been trying to get him out of the room, did not object.
After bringing another cup of black tea, Pedro bowed and immediately left the study.
When Pedro returned later to clean up, every plate on the tray was completely empty.
‘I did my best to make it, but I guess the food wasn’t very good.’
I had put quite a bit of effort into making something that would suit the picky tastes of the crazy scientist.
‘Nobles really are different, I guess.’
Since he had eaten nothing but the finest ingredients and dishes prepared by excellent chefs since childhood, what I made might have seemed rather crude.
Suppressing my disappointment, I left the Duke of Aubrey’s study, only to have someone block my path.
I snapped out of my thoughts and raised my head slightly.
What I saw was a boy with green hair, violet eyes, and slightly sharp eyes who looked remarkably similar to the Duke of Aubrey.
He was probably around thirteen now.
With the handsome face he had inherited from the Duke of Aubrey, he looked down at me with a faint, arrogant smile. But his eyes weren’t smiling at all, making him look like quite the formidable master of pretense.
“So you’re the stand-in.”
And you must be that guy too.
Inos Aubrey.
The Duke of Aubrey’s one and only heir, who would later become a wandering knight after the ducal family was destroyed, and then meet the female protagonist who possessed the power of Green.
‘Huh? What is this again?’
A sudden headache struck me. My vision had gone white for a moment, so I hurriedly shook my head.
Before any more useless thoughts could surface, I quickly spoke.
“Hello.”
I didn’t want to deal with him while I was confused, so I was about to greet him and walk past.
“You still look uncultured even when they dress you up.”
“……”
Why was this kid picking a fight with me too?
“Do you know who I am?”
“Hmm.”
I didn’t know whether I should say yes or no.
When I simply smiled without answering, Inos Aubrey looked at me as though he didn’t like it.
“I heard they brought someone who was going to become my younger sister, so I wondered what kind of girl you were. Turns out you’re ordinary.”
I quietly endured his assessing gaze before tilting my head slightly.
“Finished evaluating me? Can I go now?”
“…You speak rather casually?”
“And you talk too much?”
The Duke of Aubrey would definitely experiment with the idea I had presented to him.
If that happened, I would have another value to the Duke of Aubrey besides being a ‘stand-in for his real daughter.’
“What? What did you just say?!”
Besides, he had already introduced me to the Duchess as his ‘real daughter,’ so I didn’t think he would suddenly throw me out now.
I had realized something painfully clearly during my conversation with the Duke just now.
He cared about the Duchess far more than I had expected.
He wouldn’t be able to throw me out recklessly if he considered her health.
So, in other words….
“I only talked casually because you were talking casually to me.”
There was no reason for me to grovel just to get the attention of this miniature version of the Duke of Aubrey.
I wasn’t going to work hard anymore just to receive someone’s attention.
“What? Even if you’re stupid, don’t you have a brain…? Can’t you read the situation? Normally, you should be trying to get on my good side too, shouldn’t you?”
“Why should I?”
“Why? Obviously, because I….”
“Because you’re the biological son of this household and its heir?”
“……”
In this life, which would end far sooner than most people’s, I had decided to accomplish only two things.
Revenge.
And freedom.
I would take my revenge thoroughly, do whatever I wanted, and live proudly while surviving.
My goal was to live without regrets and then die.
“If you thought I’d grovel before you for that reason, you’re mistaken. I have no intention of doing that.”
“Hah, you know I could tell them to throw you out right now, don’t you?”
“You won’t.”
“What?”
“If I disappear, the Duchess will suffer a huge shock. Are you really saying you’d be okay with that?”
Inos Aubrey’s eyes widened.
Just as his expression turned vicious and he reached for my collar—
“Anette?”
At the frail voice coming from behind, Inos Aubrey’s hand abruptly stopped.
I stared at him with an expressionless face, then suddenly smiled brightly.
For a moment, Inos Aubrey stared blankly at me.
‘You aren’t the only one who can pretend.’
If it was pretending to be a good daughter, I was more confident than anyone in the world.
“You….”
While Inos Aubrey stood there blankly, I spun around and hurried toward Duchess Rosanna Aubrey.
“Mom!”
“Anette!”
She bent down and pulled me tightly into her arms.
Her embrace was warm.
“Inos, come here too.”
Rosanna Aubrey opened the other arm that wasn’t holding me.
I thought Inos Aubrey wouldn’t come because of his sullen expression, but his cheeks turned slightly red as he awkwardly approached and buried himself in the remaining space in her arms.
‘…What are they?’
The arrogant attitude he’d shown just moments ago had vanished without a trace.
All I could see before me was a boy who didn’t know what to do with his mother’s affection.
“Anette, you met Inos. Did you greet each other?”
At her question, I could sense Inos fidgeting beside me.
“Yes!”
Technically, that counted as a greeting, right?
“What were you doing? I saw Inos reaching toward you….”
Flinch.
This time, his reaction was even more intense.
I glanced to the side and saw Inos Aubrey subtly shaking his head.
“We only exchanged greetings! He said there was some dust in my hair, so I think he was trying to brush it off for me. My hair is long, so dust sometimes gets caught in it!”
“What…?”
“Right, Brother?”
I linked my arm through Inos Aubrey’s and smiled brightly.
Inos’s body stiffened completely.
His wavering gaze turned toward me, so I conveyed my message through my eyes.
‘Take the hint and play along.’
Even when an opportunity was practically handed to him, this guy didn’t know how to take it.
“…That’s right. There was some dust stuck in her hair.”
“I see. What a wonderful older brother.”
Rosanna Aubrey gently stroked Inos Aubrey’s hair.
“Mother, are you feeling all right?”
“Yes. Fortunately, I’m feeling quite well today.”
It seemed the Ryeohwa tea was having an effect.
“Still, don’t overdo it.”
Rosanna lightly laughed at her son’s concern.
“Yes, I’ll be careful. I only came to see your father today. Inos, please take good care of your little sister.”
At Rosanna Aubrey’s words, Inos Aubrey glanced at me and nodded.
“Yes, I will.”
“Brother, show me around the mansion!”
I said with a bright smile.
Inos Aubrey paused for a moment before obediently nodding.
“Mother is relieved to see that you two are getting along.”
Rosanna gently caressed both our cheeks before entering the study.
I walked down the hallway with Inos for a little while, and when I thought we’d gotten far enough away from the study, I released the arm I’d linked through his.
‘I’m tired. I should go back to my room now.’
I was just about to walk past him when—
“Do you really think you can become part of our family just by doing this?”
Inos, his eyes filled with hostility, asked me in a heavily lowered voice.
