TMLOH 140

Chapter : 140

For Sione, Valere was an unexpected existence.

After all, the children of high-ranking nobles were all raised by wet nurses, and there wasn’t much sibling affection between them.

Sione herself didn’t think she could love or cherish a younger sibling even if one were born.

But at the very worst timing, a sibling had been born, and not being able to receive their mother’s care was, in part, her own fault.

That was why she came to look in on him and care for him.

‘Noona!’

When the baby actually arrived, he was far too adorable.

Meeting the baby’s pure smile, Sione fell into an unexpected kind of love.

It was a love different from what she’d felt for her mother. If, with her mother, she only wanted to act spoiled and be loved endlessly, Valere made her want to take care of him and give him everything.

‘Sione noona!’

From when he was still wriggling like a tiny baby, Valere would beam at her without fussing whenever he saw her.
When he learned to walk and talk, he always sought out Sione and followed only her.

Does he like me that much?

‘Do you like me that much?’
‘Yeah!’
‘Why?’
‘Because you’re noona!’

It was probably from that time onward.

The resolve she’d had—to grow up, become an adult, and the moment she had the chance, leave this wretched household without looking back—had begun to waver, and at last collapsed completely.

‘Noona likes Valere, too.’

Even when Valere followed her all day without a break, even when he broke her things, Sione never found him bothersome or annoying. In fact, she only found it endearing.

‘I have to raise him well.’

Though she herself was still a child, Sione thought that as she looked at Valere.

‘I’ll protect you, Valere.’
‘Okay!’

She decided firmly: she would raise Valere well, and make him into a fine person entirely unlike their trash of a father.

Sione resolved anew.

By her own hands, she would make sure that her sweet, soft younger brother—so unlike a Halbern—would never grow up seeing filth. She would do whatever it took.

‘You mustn’t become like that man. Understand?’
‘Yes, noona.’

The younger brother who had grown up receiving only pure love, thankfully, became a child who knew how to share love.

Pleased by that, Sione even took care of the boy Mahen, whom Valere had picked up.

‘Mahen, you don’t look like you’ll be able to live an ordinary life either, do you?’
‘Excuse me?’

How had he ended up in Halbern?

Maybe he’d have been better off rolling about on the streets.

Sione pitied Mahen, but at the same time felt relieved that there was someone who could stay with Valere even when she wasn’t there.

After Valere was born, Sione no longer provoked Morden’s temper.

Though she had already fallen out of his favor, she acted like the tongue in his mouth, biding her time, making sure Morden’s attention did not fall on them.

Anyway, Morden’s concern was entirely on their mother; he didn’t care what his children did.

Sione thought:

For her wish, for her mother’s revenge, for Valere’s future, the father had to be removed.

‘Then it’s better I do it myself.’

Not leaving it to a mother who couldn’t even lift a finger anymore, nor to a little boy like Valere.

Sione wanted to give Valere only good things.

She wanted to teach him only happiness and love.

Those were the best things she herself had ever had.

‘My adorable little brother.’

For you, I will change this miserable household, Sione swore.

Just a little longer.

Once she became an adult and could exercise her rights as a member of Halbern…

She would sort everything out, choose only the best of Halbern, and give it to Valere.

That day was not far off.

‘Sione, a marriage proposal has come for you.’

The cunning father moved first.

‘Marriage?’

Everything Sione had prepared collapsed with a single decision from Morden.

It was a truly fitting move.

‘He already found out.’

‘He knew all along about my plans to push him aside and kill him.’

There was nothing that could help Sione, standing on the edge of a cliff.

‘Will you at least run away?’

An old friend reached out a hand, but she couldn’t take it.

‘If I run away…’
‘……’
‘That man will kill Valere.’
‘……How do you know that?’
‘I already tried once.’

The fact that Valere was Morden’s son didn’t mean much to him. He was the kind of terrible man who could, without hesitation, wield Valere’s life as the most lethal weakness to punish a daughter who dared to defy her place.

‘Azeni, my only friend. Please take care of my brother.’
‘Sione…….’
‘You must marry someone you truly love. All right?’

Sione could die for Valere without hesitation, but she could not allow Valere to die because of her.

Thus she went to the Southern Empire—Phaital.

And the man she took as husband: Ludwig.

‘Love?’

She had lost everything she had risked her life to prepare, and now they dared to talk to her of love?

Sione laughed bitterly.

Love, huh.

How could she feel love for a man just like her father?

Even when she asked to be sent back, he didn’t send her. His words that it was for her sake were nothing but absurd.

If he truly cared for her, shouldn’t he have sent her back even if it killed him?

‘Valere…….’

She couldn’t sleep a moment, worrying how her younger brother would be ruined in their father’s hands.

Her anger boiled.

‘This is my life.’

She hadn’t chosen to be born in Halbern, yet until now she’d been crushed by her father and unable to live the life she wanted.

Even this marriage wasn’t what she wanted.

The helplessness, anger, pain, and torment of not being able to choose anything for herself.

What tore at her heart even more than that was the fact that her beloved brother had been taken from her.

‘And then you talk of love?’

Love? From me?

‘Go ahead and love all you want yourself.’

Sione knew very well that as long as she lived, she was Valere’s leash.

As much as she loved Valere, Valere loved her.

So Sione decided to die.

All her life she had been tossed about by other people’s hands and choices. But if death was the one thing that was “hers,” wasn’t that, in its way, splendid?

‘I can’t just die like this.’

She had to die alone, evading the eyes watching her.

How could she die well?

Sione’s gaze turned to the south of Phaital, to the Land of Death where no one dared to go.

To the forbidden ground of Phaital, where a forgotten god was said to have died.

Like a film, the memories of the past I could only watch were suddenly overlaid with noise.

The scene that had felt so real was instantly shrouded in mist.

“They said there’s a monster here that kills humans… Are you perhaps the monster?”

Sione’s figure was clear, but I couldn’t see who she was meeting, wrapped in fog.

“Sorry for asking if you’re a monster the first time we meet. But do you really not kill people?”

“This is troublesome.”

“I really need to die, you see.”

Even when I first began reading the memory, I’d thought she wasn’t an ordinary, fainthearted woman. But watching like this, I could feel it even more.

Who talks about dying like that, smiling?

The voices faded, and because of the noise I couldn’t hear what the two were talking about clearly.

‘What’s wrong with the transmission?’

I was frowning when—

“Then…”

Sione smiled, looking beyond the mist.

“Hold me.”

‘……?’

I tilted my head, thinking I’d misheard.

“I want to screw over the bastard who thinks my body is his. Will you help me?”

Wait, Mom?

I froze, not knowing where I was supposed to start being shocked. Sione said something more.

I couldn’t hear because of the noise, but she was definitely smiling.

And then, at some point, I saw Sione holding her belly.

Even though the transmission was a mess and I couldn’t read Sione’s thoughts anymore, I wasn’t so stupid as not to grasp the truth this scene clearly showed.

‘The regent duke wasn’t my real father?!’

“I was going to die but…”

Sione postponed her death.

“My baby.”

“Forgive your mother.”

I lifted my head at the sound of Sione’s voice. She shouldn’t be able to see me now, shouldn’t know who I am, but her calm, serene manner as she stroked her full belly made me even sadder.

“If it were for your sake, it would have been right not to give birth to you. I’m sorry for bringing you into a world like this. But since you came to me, I wanted to have you.”

“I’ll want to see you. To see you grow, to see you as an adult, even as you age.”

“But I won’t regret it. You are everything I chose for myself.”

“I’m sorry I can’t be with you.”

“Mom…”

Beyond the crisscrossing memories, Sione’s smile made me ache.

Mom really did love me.

“I love you.”

“This is all the love I can give you.”