Chapter 3
Whenever people from the Bellose family came looking for her, it was as annoying and exhausting as facing her senior, Jake. …… No, it’s not just a matter of being annoying.’ It was so uncomfortable that her stomach felt twisted inside out. The moment she saw the butler, the cold treatment she had received from her family all this time and the sense of alienation she felt in the midst of it revived like a long-standing pain. Despite being blood relatives, her parents and twin siblings treated Mona like an ugly duckling, ostracizing her. In her childhood, due to family circumstances, her parents had left three-year-old Mona in the care of her grandmother, and that was when the cutoff from her family began.
“Mona, we aren’t in a state to take care of you in a safe environment right now. I’m sorry.” “Just wait a little while with Grandma, and I’ll make a lot of money and come pick you up, Mona.”
Having said that, it was the Count and Countess Bellose who boarded the trade ship. Yet, the parents who returned after eight years treated Mona as awkwardly as someone else’s child.
“About Mona, I don’t know why she feels so unfamiliar even though she’s my own child.” “Sigh. Leaving Mona to Mother, who does bizarre research, was a mistake. I never thought she’d turn out so weird…….”
Her younger fraternal twins, four years her junior, went a step further in avoiding and detesting Mona.
“Why is she our older sister? To me, the only older sister is Olivia!” “Showing up out of nowhere and calling herself a sister? Whose permission! I don’t even want to look at her!”
Parents treating Mona with distance. Fraternal twin siblings shunning Mona like a plague. There was simply no room for Mona to squeeze in, having belatedly joined a family that had already formed tight-knit bonds over a long period. So, she had moved out of the house just as they wanted, yet…….
“What business brings you here?” At Mona’s cold question, the butler pulled a large letter envelope from his pocket. “An imperial invitation has arrived for Lady Mona.”
Lazily tearing open the seal stamped with the imperial crest, Mona quickly scanned the contents of the letter. It was a summons to attend the victory banquet and memorial banquet to be held just three days from now. “Do I really have to attend this? If I go out there, my parents will just think it’s a disgrace to the family.” Flicking the edge of her worn-out yellowish-brown robe and grumbling, the butler let out a short sigh. “You have failed to attend the imperial-hosted ball last time, following the banquet before last, Milady. If you repeatedly skip major events, people in high society will start talking.” “I don’t care what high society chatters about me.” “As long as you are using the Bellose surname, the head of the family has instructed you to cooperate with the family’s reputation.” “……”
Damn it. To cowardly bring up the name of the Bellose family—she hadn’t received a single penny of support from her parents since leaving home, yet the thing that always held her back was that damn Bellose surname. Every time the family used that surname as an excuse to impose burdensome aristocratic duties on her, she ran out of things to say. Yet she couldn’t even ask to be disowned, because under imperial law, without a surname, she would be treated as a commoner and face numerous restrictions. Books related to monsters, in particular, were classified as forbidden books, so commoners couldn’t even approach them. ‘…… That absolute cannot happen.’ The reason Mona was enduring sleep deprivation to graduate early was precisely because of this. If she earned a master’s degree from the Imperial Academy, she could receive a surname along with the title of ‘Academic Knight.’ Of course, an Academic Knight was merely a lower-level aristocrat roughly equivalent to a baronet, and it wasn’t even a hereditary title, but so what? There would be no restrictions on her research, and she could bid farewell to the damn Bellose family forever—it was killing two birds with one stone. ‘However, to do that, I first need to pass my primary graduation thesis…’
Repeating the exact same dilemma she had wrestled with all day long like a recurring song, just as she was instinctively chewing on her lips—Mona suddenly judged that attending this banquet wasn’t merely a bothersome chore. ‘I should attend the banquet and track down the whereabouts of my advisor, Professor Thomas.’ She couldn’t shake the ominous feeling that the damn professor hadn’t even bothered to look over her thesis and was just leaving it neglected. ‘If I’m lucky, I might run into him at the banquet venue.’ He was a man who strutted around wearing a mustache meticulously styled with wax. Even if he never showed his face in the faculty office under normal circumstances, there was a high likelihood he would show up at an imperial banquet. Mona slipped the envelope containing the imperial invitation into her pocket and said, “Tell my father. I will attend this imperial banquet.”
—Grandma. This experiment is from the old book; I want to try doing it once!
This was probably a dream. A dream featuring herself around the age of seven.
—If this experiment succeeds, wouldn’t monsters be able to become friends with humans too!?
Back then, having found an old book titled 《The Synthesis of Fragrant Substances Promoting Heteromorphic Responsiveness》 in the basement of the annex, Mona had spoken with an excited voice. Though the title was unfamiliar and difficult, having received high-level education from her grandmother—who was a monsterologist—and having read many books usually, Mona could roughly understand the contents of the ancient text. The core of the book was a perfume manufacturing method that could elicit friendly reactions from monsters that were hostile to humans.
—Right, Grandma?
Yet her grandmother’s expression was dark. Her grandmother always encouraged Mona no matter what she tried, but at that time, she touched her own left eyepatch without meaning to and said—
—Mona……. A child who looks just like me. —Yes! —How alluring the abyss born of chaos is, this old woman knows better than anyone. —……. —However, do not gaze into the abyss for too long. There is an old saying that the abyss swallows up those who measure its depth….
Her grandmother’s warnings didn’t enter her ears at all. Near the villa where she lived alone with her grandmother, the neighborhood children openly looked down on and bullied the small, frail Mona. Now that she had discovered the possibility of becoming friends with interesting monsters, she couldn’t give it up. Grandma. The darker the night, the more vivid the light. I can find the light within the abyss.
Before she could make any retort, however, the background of the dream began to blur and soon started transforming into a musty, cramped attic.
—I have a good feeling about today……? The mixture concentration is also perfect; I somehow feel like this is going to succeed.
Time in the dream jumped forward rapidly, and she saw her 17-year-old self completing the experiment written in the old book. Consumed by excitement and ecstasy, her past self pulled something out from her bosom.
—Now, if I just put this in…….
Yet the moment she dropped the final ingredient, the substances inside the glass tube suddenly began to expand all at once—Boom—! . . . “Gasp—!”
Drawing in a sharp breath as she woke up from the dream, Mona instinctively clutched her right shoulder. Was it because of the nightmare? She felt a burning sensation, as if the burn scars from the experiment failure back when she was 17 were stinging. Her entire body was already drenched in cold sweat, and her heart was beating like crazy. Roughly wiping her forehead, where beads of sweat had formed, with the back of her hand, Mona startled. It was because a turbid gray liquid, not transparent sweat, came off on the back of her hand. ‘…… Damn it.’
As expected, the sight reflected in the mirror was a spectacle. Not even a month had passed since she dyed her hair, but the alchemy-crafted hair dye had turned to powder and crumbled away entirely like dust. Because of the grayish dye melted by her sweat, her face looked as though she had taken a dive into muddy water. Scrubbing fiercely to wash away the dye smeared on her face, Mona frowned. ‘The dyeing cycle is getting shorter and shorter.’
She had merely wanted to make a perfume that could allow her to be friends with monsters. However, the result differed from her intentions. As a side effect of the experiment’s failure, her entire constitution had changed. ‘A physique that monsters follow, of course.’ That wasn’t all. Her once dark gray hair had turned completely snow-white, and the pigmentation of her grayish irises had also faded. The irises, diluted to a silver hue, subtly shifted in grain whenever light permeated them, taking on a bluish tint. To use a metaphor, it looked like mist hanging over a blue dawn. Even her fingernails had turned whitish, prompting an involuntary sigh. ‘And Grandma, the only person I can consult about this bizarre symptom, is completely out of touch…….’
Groaning in agony, Mona picked up the cheap hair dye and re-dyed her hair a deep gray. After finishing the dyeing, she let her bangs fall messily across her forehead again and put on her glasses. Wearing the thick glasses that obscured her face, a sense of mental stability finally returned little by little. Right then. Knock, knock. There came the sound of knocking on the dormitory door. The morning visitor was none other than the butler who had come from the family.
“Lady Mona. The carriage is prepared, so please come down.”
Today was precisely the day of that victory banquet hosted by the imperial family. That meant she would soon have to face the family she had turned a blind eye to for a long time. Her heart began to beat wildly and uncomfortably once again, but Mona suppressed it, took a deep breath, and said, “Let’s go.”
