TVIOWHFW 79

I suddenly saw flowers blooming all around me and felt an overwhelming sense of crisis.

‘Am I going to be discovered as a fairy like this?’

Nervous, I swallowed my saliva, but luckily, John just let it slide. So I calmly opened my eyes and spoke to John.

“What’s going on? You startled me! Are you going to keep messing around like this?”

“Sorry. Your reaction is just too cute, so I keep teasing you.”

John grinned mischievously and raised both hands.

The atmosphere was lively and cheerful.

But the red eyes John was facing were strangely shrouded in profound darkness.

‘Is there some problem?’

While tilting my head in concern, John reached out and guided me somewhere else, holding my hand. It was the stairs leading down to the passenger ship.

“Be careful. The stairs are steep.”

“I’m not going to slip just on the stairs.”

“You’re going to fall alone in an empty corridor?”

“That was a mistake!”

To be precise, I was walking and talking to the wood, distracted, and then fell.

As luxurious as the vessel was, the interior of the passenger ship was also neat and beautiful.

‘There’s definitely something here…’

I was originally sensitive to others’ emotions, especially when it came to John, who I cared about the most.

Suddenly, I felt that John’s heart had changed.

Thinking this way, an inexplicable fear crept over me. I even felt anxious about descending into the ship’s basement.

‘What is he planning to do now?’

I asked John, who was walking with clasped hands.

“John, you’re not going to scare me again, right?”

“When have I ever lied?”

John gently shook his clasped hands and asked softly. But I looked at him with distrustful eyes.

“You lied just now,”

“That wasn’t a lie. It was more like preparing for a little surprise.”

“No matter the reason, lying is lying.”

John chuckled softly at my suspicious face.

“I didn’t think you’d be so distrustful.”

“So, just behave better. Don’t make me anxious all the time.”

The atmosphere was so natural that I accidentally revealed my true feelings.

“If you keep deceiving me, it’ll be hard to tell what’s real.”

“…”

At the end of the corridor, I saw a room. John looked at me silently, as if pondering whether to leave the room behind. His smile remained, but his red eyes held an emotion I couldn’t understand.

I quickly added a word.

“Of course, I’ll trust you no matter what you do.”

“Yeah, that’s fine.”

John slowly nodded.

“There’s no need to be confused. Everything is real. Everything you see, feel, and experience is genuine. No need to worry or doubt pointlessly.”

John whispered affectionately, gently ruffling my disheveled hair, then tucking it behind my ear.

“But I suppose that’s all my fault for making things confusing. I’m sorry I couldn’t give you trust.”

“No, John, there’s nothing to apologize for. I was just joking lightly.”

Unconsciously, I waved my hand dismissively so my true feelings wouldn’t sound too heavy. John then pressed his lips to my forehead and slowly opened the door.

“I’ll try to make sure you don’t feel anxious from now on.”

He whispered softly in my ear.

“So, just open the door once. When you do, your heart will feel less anxious.”

Another gift?!

‘Surely he wouldn’t prepare the same kind of gift twice, right?’

I believed that the mastermind wouldn’t prepare such a creative gift twice in a row.

Still, I entered the door cautiously without relaxing my guard.

Near a gray pillar, piles of newspapers were stacked high.

Glancing at John, he nodded as if to say I did well.

‘Are these my newspapers?’

Unlike the ones that had been shredded by reporters earlier, these were professionally arranged. Even with a quick glance, my name was prominently written.

‘All of this is about me…’

There were dozens of stacks of newspapers, each issued on different dates.

“John, why are these newspapers…”

“These are from my investigation into your reputation.”

John looked at the newspapers I held with a strange expression.

“Eventually, I found out that there’s someone behind the outrageous articles spreading around.”

I swallowed hard.

‘I was planning to get definitive information from Miryu, who’s in prison.’

“So, who is the mastermind?”

“Duke Libertan.”

John put his hand in his pocket and kicked a bundle of newspapers with his foot. His gentle, polite appearance twisted into a somewhat sinister smile, making him look oddly rogueish.

“Of course, it wasn’t just the Duke of Libertan. Many other nobles were involved too. But the first to start was the Duke of Libertan.”

In the backlight, his red eyes gleamed. Even as he casually tossed the newspapers like trash, his gaze remained fixed solely on me.

“Isn’t it strange?”

“…”

“Until now, when I was investigating you, I didn’t hear any of this. Until recently, these reporters had no connection to Libertan at all.”

“…Then suddenly, evidence linked to Libertan appeared?”

I barely managed to separate my tightly pressed lips.

“How can that be?”

John slightly furrowed his eyebrows.

“Well, I’m curious too. How is that possible? I investigated thoroughly, and now a witness who recalls that the reporter who wrote this newspaper had actually been frequenting Libertan has come forward. How could human memory be so consistently strange, even after such meticulous investigation?”

His red eyes looked fierce, like a predator about to devour its prey. There was an inexplicable anger in his voice.

‘He’s scary.’

Afraid to meet John’s gaze, I lowered my head. My shoulders trembled involuntarily. I saw the newspapers discarded all over the floor.

Estelle Libertan.

My name was clear even in the tiny print.

‘Did he really do those things at Duke Libertan’s house?’

It was the first I’d heard of it, and I swore it was news to me.

‘I thought people just hated me…’

In fact, the reporters John had brought just now testified that they had no choice but to slander me, the most sensational person in the empire, due to unavoidable circumstances.

That’s why I became an evil woman.

People tend to hate as much as they envy someone they think is lucky.

‘Would John believe me?’

I was the victim in this situation, but I knew nothing about it. Even though I had lived at Duke Libertan’s house for so long, I hadn’t noticed anything. In short, I was of no help at all.

‘That suspicion, too.’

Now I knew what the Duke and Duchess of Libertan had done, but how could I understand this strange phenomenon?

I heard John approaching, footsteps on the newspaper. But I couldn’t lift my head. I saw John’s shoes in my field of vision.

He looked at me silently for a while and then asked.

“Do you know anything about this?”

“…I don’t know.”

John’s elegant, long hand gently lifted my chin. It was a cautious gesture. Fortunately, he didn’t seem angry.

“I didn’t know that my parents manipulated my infamous reputation. Now that I think about it, I guess they had no choice.”

I thought the Duke and Duchess of Libertan hated me so much that they allowed Miryu to spread strange rumors about me in high society.

But that wasn’t it.

Since they wanted to turn me into an evil woman anyway, Miryu would have been a perfect tool. My quiet, disappointed smile made John’s jaw tighten stiffly.

“Is there anything else you want to say?”

“Honestly, I’m not sure.”

I looked at John, who was so handsome he looked like a painting, and spoke as carefully as I could.

“I really hadn’t thought about this. I’ve been weak because of my illness, so I was out of the loop—”

“But then, why do you look like that?”

“Huh?”

I touched my cheek, where John’s hand had just been.

‘What expression am I making?’

John bit his lip at my reaction and spoke slowly.

“You’re not showing any sadness at all. Like you expected this.”

“…”

“Really, you have nothing to say?”

My mind went completely blank.

‘John suspects me.’

My heart pounded loudly. A chill ran down my neck, and cold sweat broke out. I was so scared that I couldn’t think straight.

‘I already seemed suspicious enough…’

The Duke and Duchess of Libertan wanted to make me into an evil woman, which was quite shocking. But I had long since let go of my attachment to those two.

So I wasn’t that sad. I even revealed my face right in front of John.

‘I should have kept pretending.’

All this time, I wasn’t just ‘Estelle’ standing before John. I was supposed to be ‘the adopted daughter loved by Libertan,’ standing before him.

‘When did it all go wrong?’

At some point, I even forgot I had to act in front of John. I let my guard down too much. And I fell for the trap way too easily.

‘Now that I’ve investigated even the newspapers like this, John must have known I wasn’t loved.’

A primal fear coursed down my back.

‘And somehow, I looked like I knew something, too.’

If only I had pretended from the start that I wasn’t loved. I had no idea how disgusted I must seem in John’s eyes.

“I… I, I…”

I had been pretending to be a loving daughter all this time.

‘What do I do now?’

In times of crisis, I need to calm my mind. But I couldn’t relax at all. It felt like I was falling off a cliff, realizing I’d been walking on the wrong path.

“J-John, I didn’t mean to deceive you.”

Tears welled up in my voice.

‘Why am I crying again?’

Having been caught acting as the beloved daughter, even this appearance would seem worse. I needed to show more composure. I had to somehow fix this situation right now.

“So I…”

My body wouldn’t respond as I wanted. John’s red eyes seemed to glow even more fiercely. Frightened, I desperately grasped his sleeve.

“I didn’t want to disappoint you.”

My true feelings spilled out without any explanation.

“I’m afraid this moment will end.”

“…”

“I was wrong. If you ask me anything, I’ll answer honestly. Sorry for deceiving you all this time.”

John. Why are you not saying anything?

“So.”

As the unloved daughter, I was no longer worth being a target of revenge. I’ve finally realized that clearly.

‘Is he planning to abandon me, worthless as I am?’

~·~·*· . ·**##^^##**· . ·*·~·~

Hey there, It’s Green Rose 😉

Since I human I might have make some mistakes while translating so please if you find them let me know here in the comments or in the Discord group so I can correct them and be careful in the future so they do not repeat.

Thank you so much for reading, I hope you enjoyed this chapter.

~~~Next Chapter~~~

Next chapter will be released Tomorrow.

See you then!!