Episode 8
‘What should I do?’
Wouldn’t it be weird for a little kid to have figured all this out on her own?
“M-My uncle said it!”
I quickly blurted out.
“…You mean Marquis Tarenka?”
“Yes! I saw Uncle telling a man wearing really, really nice clothes that Daddy had invested!”
It wasn’t a lie.
At the time, I hadn’t known the word investment in this world, so I hadn’t understood exactly what they were talking about.
But after seeing the same kind of situation happen several times, I naturally figured it out.
“Uncle showed that man something and said it was proof…”
Worried that they might not believe me or simply ignore me because I was a child, I kept chattering away.
Even if it came from a child, specific details would make it more believable.
“Proof?”
“It was a super, super pretty card! It was really black, but it sparkled… Oh! It looked like that!”
Just then, I noticed a card on the assistant’s desk.
“This…”
The assistant picked up the card.
“Are you saying Marquis Tarenka showed you this and said that?”
“Yes! That’s the one!”
I nodded as I looked at the card the assistant held out.
It was my first time seeing it this close, but I was certain.
The pitch-black card sparkled with a strange pattern whenever the light hit it, and a red, glowing, simplified crest was printed on it.
‘Let’s see. Issuer … Phaeraton Ducal Family. Huh?’
I followed the writing on the card with my eyes and widened them.
‘This is like a check?!’
The amount hadn’t been written yet because it hadn’t been issued, but it was definitely a check under the name of the ducal family.
Then did the duke give money to Marquis Tarenka? Or… no way, is it a forged check?’
While I was shocked, the retainers also began murmuring among themselves.
“To call this proof of investment!”
“Unless he’s insane, how could he dare do such a thing?!”
“It wouldn’t matter if real mana stones were found in the mine, but if they aren’t, this will become a serious problem.”
“Yes. People will start saying that the Phaeraton ducal family was involved in fraud!”
The office suddenly became noisy, but the Duke of Phaeraton was strangely quiet.
Feeling a little puzzled, I quietly raised my head.
The moment I did, my eyes met the duke’s.
He was still resting his chin on his hand as he looked down at me.
‘Has he been watching me this whole time?’
The duke’s red eyes darkly shimmered.
I couldn’t even turn my head away and instinctively shrank my neck.
His lips parted.
“How did you happen to hear that?”
His voice was low and cold.
It was practically an interrogation.
Huh?
An interrogation?
‘Gasp!’
A realization flashed through my mind.
‘Is this one of those situations where the tyrant dad questions and suspects his daughter?!’
My romance-fantasy instincts were screaming at me.
This was a very important moment.
Normally, romance-fantasy heroines managed to get through situations like this and survive.
But what about people who weren’t heroines?
‘I have to clear his suspicion. Otherwise…’
The original character before the heroine possessed her body.
Or the heroine before she regressed.
They couldn’t deal with the tyrant’s suspicion properly, and as a result, their…
‘…heads got chopped off!’
Goosebumps spread all over me.
‘I absolutely can’t be misunderstood. I have to prove my innocence! The moment he suspects I’m some strange child, I’m dead!’
The cruel and merciless tyrants from novels…
My body trembled.
I hurriedly opened my mouth.
“W-When Uncle was meeting that man, I was cleaning Uncle’s shoes. That’s why… that’s why I heard them.”
Since I had only done menial work at the Tarenka estate, every guest who came and went thought I was a slave.
Most of the servants thought the same.
Only a very small number of the Marquis’s closest people knew that I was the daughter of the Phaeraton ducal family.
“You heard them while cleaning his shoes…?”
At one retainer’s question, I clenched my fists tightly.
‘Of course they don’t believe me. Why would anyone commit such a huge fraud in front of someone else?’
The marquis enjoyed seeing me, a duke’s daughter, working like a slave in front of other people.
That was why he often called for me whenever he met someone at the estate.
‘He probably thought that since I was young and had never received an education, I wouldn’t understand anything even if I heard it.’
“Good heavens! Marquis Tarenka did that…!”
“As far as I know, all the checks that the Phaeraton family issued to Marquis Tarenka over the past few years were…”
“Yes. They were child support payments.”
My eyes widened.
“Child support?”
“Yes. Your child support, young lady.”
I stared blankly with my mouth open before hurriedly shouting,
“No, no! I never received anything like child support!”
The retainers frowned.
“What do you mean? The ducal family sent an astronomical amount every month!”
“Didn’t Marquis Tarenka tell you? That the money His Grace sent was an investment in the marquis’s mine…”
“I-It’s true!”
I was so shocked that my lips trembled.
“He said there was no money, so I only ate a little food and worked really hard washing dishes and cleaning. I did everything Uncle told me to do. That’s why Uncle let me sleep there and gave me food.”
The retainers were stunned by my words, and their frowns deepened even more.
“Even so, how could he make a child do work like that…? I simply can’t believe it.”
“Isn’t Marquis Tarenka particularly famous for being obsessed with his daughter?”
Why didn’t they believe me?!
“Uncle told me every single day. He said Daddy didn’t give him any money and abandoned me. He said I was…”
I was abandoned.
As I said those words, I suddenly felt sad.
My eyes started to sting, so I forced them wide open.
You were abandoned even by your parents.
That was the first thing I had heard after I became old enough to understand what people were saying.
He probably started telling me that even before I could properly understand it.
After being reborn, my entire life had been like that.
No matter how much I had endured it, saying out loud how I had been treated…
Saying out loud that I had been abandoned…
It was really…
“But when we received reports from the marquis’s family, it clearly said… They send records of the child support payments regularly.”
“No! I couldn’t even work that much, so they only gave me two meals a day! There were many times when I only got one meal because I hadn’t finished all my work. There were even days when I didn’t eat at all…”
I was frustrated by how the retainers kept saying that couldn’t possibly be true.
I couldn’t bring myself to look at the duke.
What if this really was a situation where the tyrant dad suspected me?
I spoke too much like an adult earlier! And I even interrupted the duke…!’
Surely he wouldn’t suspect a child like this.
But this was a romance-fantasy world.
Anything was possible.
‘I have to sound as harmless as possible and talk like a child my age.’
I clasped both hands tightly.
“Uncle said I should be grateful to him. He said that even if I woke up every day before the sun came up and did everything he told me to do until the moon was directly above the tallest roof, I’d never be able to repay my debt.”
I glanced at the duke.
His bright red eyes were shining more fiercely than ever as he glared at me.
Damn it.
I felt like I was going to cry.
‘I don’t want to die…’
How hard had I worked to survive until now?!
All because I said one wrong thing!
“I-It’s true!”
I hurriedly climbed down and began wiping the duke’s shoes with my sleeve.
The foot inside his shoe flinched.
“L-Like this, like this… I was cleaning his shoes when Uncle told that man, sob, that this card was proof of the investment. He also said it to another old man and a red-haired man! Sob. It’s true… really…”
The sadness I had been holding back finally burst into tears.
I startled myself and quickly covered my mouth with my other hand, lowering my head.
Nobody likes a crying child.
The room became completely silent.
Drip.
Drip.
Drops of tears spread across the duke’s black, polished shoes.
My chin trembled.
I bit my lips tightly and clenched my hands so that not even a small sob could escape.
I couldn’t bring myself to raise my head.
Instead, I kept rubbing his shoes hard.
As if they were my only lifeline.
No matter how many tears I wiped away, new ones kept falling.
Then a low, deep voice quietly fell from above my head.
“Enough.”
The voice sent a chill down my spine.
I slowly raised my head.
The Duke of Phaeraton was looking at me with an expression I couldn’t describe.
“Who do you think you have the right to interrogate?”
Those words weren’t directed at me.
They were directed at the retainers.
For a moment, I couldn’t understand.
Wasn’t the duke the first one to question me?
He had asked me how I knew about it.
“Your Grace? We weren’t interrogating her. We were merely…”
The retainers couldn’t finish their words.
A pitch-black, dense energy filled the office.
It was so dark that not even a single ray of light could get through.
It violently tore through the room, yet at the same time, it was frighteningly silent.
‘What… is that?’
It was similar to the black energy that had surrounded the sealed book.
But it wasn’t the same.
When I’d seen it before, I hadn’t felt this completely overwhelmed.
Thump.
Without realizing it, I fell backward onto my butt.
At that exact moment, the black energy disappeared as if it had never existed.
The retainers, who had gone pale and were frozen so stiffly that they barely dared to breathe, finally let out their breath.
“There is no need to say anything more.”
The duke spoke to me.
When I looked up, he was reaching a hand toward me.
But then he suddenly hesitated and pulled his hand back.
Without thinking, I grabbed that hand.
The duke flinched.
Then his body stiffened slightly before he firmly lifted me into the air.
Up to the level of his eyes.
“You remembered something you didn’t need to remember.”
The duke clicked his tongue quietly.
For some reason, his displeased words sounded almost like he was telling me not to remember unpleasant things.
Perhaps the duke hadn’t been interrogating me from the beginning…
‘Was he… worried about me?’
The duke’s eyes moved away from my face and down to my wrist.
He frowned when he saw my heavily wrinkled sleeve.
“Call a tailor.”
While everyone was startled by the unexpected order, the chief butler professionally bowed his head.
“Understood, Your Grace.”
The duke placed me down on his lap.
As I raised my head, the duke’s hand pressed down on my hair.
Aaaah! It hurts when you press that hard!’
It was far too rough and clumsy to be called a gentle pat.
He pressed so heavily that I, a little child, could barely keep my head upright.
But it was warm.
“Umm…”
I tossed and turned before opening my eyes.
Huh?
Had I fallen asleep?
The last thing I remembered was being in the duke’s office, but I was lying on my bed in my room.
And someone had even tucked the blanket neatly around me.
‘Did Anna carry me here?’
I tilted my head and sat up.
The maids who usually noticed the moment I woke up and came rushing in like ghosts were nowhere to be seen.
They must have been busy with something else.
Then…
‘This is my chance!’
I pulled back the canopy and jumped out of bed.
‘My book!’
I looked around and saw the sealed book sitting neatly on the bedside table.
I quickly picked it up and examined it carefully.
It really was a book that shared the history of the Phaeraton ducal family.
It looked old-fashioned, and anyone could tell at a glance that it wasn’t an ordinary object.
Or at least, that’s what I wanted to say…
‘It’s way too old!’
Honestly, it looked like a piece of trash.
If I opened it, the pages might fall right out.
I’m a little worried, but I should check it quickly.
I had complained to the quest window about how everything should move quickly and the story should progress quickly, but I was a romance-fantasy reader.
Of course I loved a fast-paced story.
Without hesitation, I opened the book.
And then…
Fwoooosh!
The pages turned by themselves, and starlight poured out.
“Wow…”
I couldn’t help but gasp in amazement.
A river of stars flowed out from the book and spread around me.
A wind had started blowing without me noticing, making my hair flutter through the air.
More and more starlight rose into the air, becoming brighter and brighter.
I reached out as if hypnotized, trying to touch the starlight.
Then…
Whoooosh!
Balls of light burst from the stars and covered the entire world in white.
Unable to withstand the intense brightness, I squeezed my eyes shut.
The book in my hands shook nonstop as its pages continued turning.
Flip, flip…
Until finally, they reached the last page.
Thud.
The moment the book closed, the light and wind disappeared.
I carefully opened my eyes.
And in front of me…
“T-This…”
The old book that had looked ready to crumble was now completely transformed.
It was shining beautifully in my hands.
Soft leather that fits perfectly in my grip.
Gold decorations protect the corners of the book.
Sparkling pieces of stars embedded in the cover.
And jewels polished into delicate heart-shaped cuts.
It was as if the book had shed its old skin.
The book that had looked like it would crumble apart at any moment had completely changed.
They had called it a summoning medium, a sealing book, and the treasure of the first Phaeraton duke.
It really was no ordinary book.
‘…It’s not broken. It just got cleaned up, so it’ll be okay, right?’
I remembered the cold duke’s face and winced.
‘Forget it! It’s already happened. I’ll worry about it later!’
What could be written inside?
Forbidden magic?
A way to borrow the power of a god?
Since it was called a sealing book, maybe it contained instructions for sealing a demon.
‘…It couldn’t possibly be a way to summon a demon, right?’
I ran my fingers over the cover, swallowed nervously, and opened the book.
And…
There was nothing written inside.
I stared at the completely blank white pages.
Disappointment flooded over me, and my face immediately scrunched up.
“What is this?!”
At that moment, a notification appeared.
[The seal on has been released.]
[The usage restriction on the Trait has been removed.]
At the same time, the Trait window appeared.
The warning and the Unavailable mark I had seen before were gone.
‘Wow! I can use it now! My ability! Finally!’
[A new quest has arrived.]
<The Path of the Good Reader (1)>
Congratulations, Reader!
Reader! You finally got your hands on it!
Please uphold your duty as a reader and diligently read books from now on.
A reader is a reader because they read books.
A reader who doesn’t read books is bad.
Become a good reader.
Condition: Use Cash to summon a novel and extract and use its ability.
Reward: $1,000 Cash
‘Oh! For once, it gave me a quest I actually wanted?’
Of course, the wording was still annoying.
‘Whatever. Accept.’
[You have accepted the quest.]
“Umm, but how do I summon it? Come out, be summoned, abracadabra! Or maybe something a little more fantasy-like…”
I rolled my eyes before clearing my throat.
‘It’s a little embarrassing, but there’s no one here.’
I checked the firmly closed door and took my position.
Then, as if I had become the heroine of some magic story, I began chanting.
“O one with the blood of cold cider, I beseech you, appear before me now and grant me the power to defeat the—”
[Please state what you wish to summon.]
A notification appeared as if it were interrupting me.
Huh?
Why did it feel like I could sense emotion in those words?
It almost seemed like it was looking down on me.
‘This is so embarrassing.’
I covered my bright red cheeks and checked the next notification that appeared.
[With your current grade, you can summon romance-fantasy novels that you have read.]
“Hmm, then…! <I Have a Golden Spoon, But I’m Running Away>.”
I’ll get that heroine’s taming skill and take over this entire ducal family!
With this one skill, I’ll never again have to tremble in fear over when I’ll die or get kicked out!
I looked ahead confidently.
But then…
[Insufficient Cash.]
Sob.
A familiar notification appeared.
‘I don’t have enough Cash here either…!’
As I stood there in despair, another notification appeared in front of me.
[You currently possess 1,000 Cash and a 5,000 Cash Draw Ticket.]
[Would you like to use the 5,000 Cash Draw Ticket?]
