TMLOH 135

Chapter : 135

My eyes met the Regent Duke’s in midair.

“Do you really want to know about your ‘mother’?”

He asked again, as if testing me.

I thought for a moment, then nodded with conviction.

“Of course I’m curious.”

To be honest, my feelings were half wanting to know, half not wanting to know.

It wasn’t that I wasn’t curious about my mother, but I didn’t want to dig up an old story that was safely buried. I was afraid that if I touched it carelessly, something I couldn’t handle might come spilling out.

And also…

‘Because I have Mehen.’

If the word “mother” didn’t just mean the person who gave birth to me, then the only person I wanted to call that was Mehen.

To go looking for my real mother under those circumstances felt… like a betrayal of Mehen.

Mehen was the only one I felt attachment and limitless affection for. No one could surpass that.

‘I’m sorry, Pession.’

I like you, but I love Mehen more!

At times like this, I felt like I was still shackled to the idea of “mother” just as in my previous life, and the thought that I hadn’t grown at all sent a chill through me… but at the same time I thought, so what?

I was born this way; I was destined to spend my life as a child in one-sided love with “mother.”

And the biggest difference from my previous life:

‘Even after being apart so long, I’m not afraid Mehen will abandon me.’

In the past, even if “mother” disappeared for a short while, I would feel anxious that I was being abandoned. Now, that feeling was gone.

Wasn’t that alone already a huge difference?

‘That’s why I have to go back.’

My resolve hardened.

I didn’t want to achieve my goal by tearing open someone else’s wounds.

With that softheartedness, I would remain on parallel lines with this man forever.

It was time to face the uncomfortable truth.

“Was my uncle even really my dad? I’ve never heard anything about my mom from my dad, and now all of a sudden you’re saying my aunt is my mother?”

A strange light flickered in the Regent Duke’s green eyes.

“With how much you resemble her, isn’t it odd you don’t realize?”

“I resemble my mother?”

“Yes.”

A faint longing passed through his cool green eyes.

“…Anyone would think you were a clone.”

For the first time, the Regent Duke, who always looked as hard as a fortress, looked human.

“If you weren’t really my daughter, Grand Duke Halbern would have had no reason to hide your existence so thoroughly.”

It wasn’t even surprising anymore to conclude that Schrödinger’s father had actually been my uncle.

But isn’t it odd? Even after learning the truth, nothing changed.

Still, a dad was a dad—just as Mehen was my mom.

“That’s all? That’s not very convincing.”

“Don’t worry. We’ll be doing a paternity test soon.”

“…”

For a moment, I was at a loss for words at his arrogant smile, as if whatever the results, it would reveal the truth.

‘No, calm down. Think. I can’t back down like this.’

“Please send me back.”

“You already know my answer.”

“Why are you so obsessed with me?”

A man who’s obsessed isn’t attractive at all!

Perhaps he hadn’t expected that question; the Regent Duke slowly closed and opened his eyes.

And then he answered.

“Because you’re mine.”

I stared, speechless at the one-line answer with all the context cut out, as his empty gaze swept across the air.

“Everything that woman left behind is mine.”

I shivered and involuntarily stepped back. The Regent Duke, radiating a dangerous atmosphere unlike before, warned me.

“You’d better not try to shake me using Sione.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m already crawling through enough filth.”

All emotion vanished from his sunken gaze.

“Do you really want to see the bottom of me?”

…That was what the Regent Duke said.

‘How does he not understand that talking like that only makes someone want to know more?’

So this was all the Regent Duke’s fault.

In the dead of night, when everyone was asleep—

Tonight of all nights, the maids and attendants had relaxed their watch on me, fooled by my unusually “quiet” behavior. I opened my eyes on the bed.

“Sometimes playing the troublemaker pays off.”

I slipped out of the room through a small hole like a mouse’s exit, aiming directly for the direction of the Grand Duchess’s room.

“If no one will tell me, I’ll just find out myself.”

Duke Idikels was my excellent helper. Even though his superb eloquence and astonishing diplomatic skills couldn’t save me,

“Thinking you can achieve something with words alone is an illusion.”

In diplomacy, the most important thing was to know whether persuasion, compromise, or force worked on the other party. Unfortunately, the Regent Duke wasn’t someone any of those worked on.

But he helped me in other ways. It was Duke Idikels who told me which room the Grand Duchess Sione was likely to be in.

“I couldn’t even approach because of surveillance and checks, but you’ll be different.”

And indeed, Duke Idikels had been right. The area near the Grand Duchess’s room was heavily guarded, but thanks to my small body, I managed to slip in secretly.

All of this was also thanks to…

[Navigation ON]

[You have reached your destination.]

…the “Ask Me Anything” power I’d recently acquired.

“A 30-minute cooldown, huh.”

That was enough time to use it again when leaving after checking things out.

Thanks to all my little experiments, I’d figured out roughly how long the cooldown was.

The lower the importance of the information given, the shorter the cooldown—but I didn’t know how it judged importance.

And if I asked about something I already knew, the cooldown was short too.

‘So that means this really is the Grand Duchess Sione’s room.’

Then why did it feel so creepy?

The building with the Grand Duchess’s room had a gloomy atmosphere, like a haunted house.

‘I’m terrible with stuff like this.’

I grimaced, but thinking I wouldn’t get another chance, I took a step.

I opened the door and went inside.

“Wow…”

I froze at the entrance, speechless at the sight before me.

The sheer number of portraits of a single woman filled the entire room, overwhelming me.

Recording crystals ceaselessly projected moving images of Sione. Items she might have used—furniture, clothes, accessories—were displayed like a museum.

Even as I wandered in a daze, the madness permeating the room made my skin crawl.

‘No wonder no one approaches this place.’

Everyone in the gloomy castle said the Regent Duke was crazy about the Grand Duchess.

He hadn’t exactly seemed normal before, but seeing this room, he really did seem insane.

“If you’re going to go mad, at least do it gracefully.”

But the fact that I saw no sign of the Grand Duchess’s presence—no trace of her touch anywhere—suggested the rumors were true.

That she’d died, or gone mad and been locked up…

‘She hardly ever showed herself even before, but supposedly for six years not even a hair has been seen?’

Swallowing the ominous feeling that I was starting to understand, I moved further inside.

It was when I reached the deepest part of the Grand Duchess’s enormous room, which was as big as three normal rooms combined.

There, unlike the other objects, was a dagger gleaming ominously as if it were a sacrificial offering on an altar.

It felt as though it were calling to me, and before I knew it, I was stepping closer as if bewitched—

Tap.

“Don’t touch it.”

I was startled by the large hand grabbing mine just as I reached out without thinking.

Even more startled when I saw the hand’s owner was the Regent Duke.

So a person can be so shocked they can’t even make a sound.

At his calm green eyes taking in my silent scream, I hiccupped.

Hic.

My body doing that on its own at such a moment was enough to drive me crazy.

“Slowly. Breathe.”

Surprisingly, the Regent Duke waited until I calmed down.

“W-why are you here?”

“Is it strange for me to be in my wife’s room?”

“That’s… not strange but…”

If I’d known I’d run into him here, I wouldn’t have come!

My heart raced wildly. For the first time, I felt real danger.

Why—why did it have to be here that I ran into the Regent Duke?

Am I going to die? Am I really going to die?