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Countess Ernest's Past

Translated by: ME

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*****

After successfully finding a person worthy of being entrusted with her sister—Eides—Wellmy proceeded with her preparations more cautiously and swiftly than ever before.

To ensure her sister was entrusted to him in a manner that Count and Countess Ernest would accept, she first had to capture his interest.

Evidence of the House of Ernest’s corruption, the inner secrets of the family, the plight of her sister as the rightful heir, and the actions she needed him to take as a witness to ensure Lola’s safety. She compiled all of this into a letter that wove together her pleas with practical benefits, enclosing a sheet detailing the location where the evidence was stored.

(I entrusted it to Leo, the son of that poor Baron.)

She knew he showed his face every time her sister went to the library. No doubt Lola herself was telling him her schedule. While Wellmy didn't want him getting close, Leo was someone she could actually trust.

He had stared at the name written on the envelope, his eyes going wide.

「...Why are you giving this to me?」

When he asked that, Wellmy simply gave him a sweet smile.

「Even a coward should be able to handle a simple errand like this, shouldn't he?」

(If you want to save my sister, do as you're told.)
(The one I am entrusting her to is not you.)

She conveyed this implicitly, her gaze sharp and cold. Leo gave a wry smile as he accepted the envelope.

「You certainly don't hide your dislike for me.」
「I simply don't care for a mere Baron’s son fawning over a member of a Count’s house.」

This exchange involved several gambles.

She had prepared two letters. One had been sent anonymously to Magus Lord Eides himself. However, she couldn't be sure if he would go through the trouble of receiving, reading, and investigating an accusation from an unknown source. Since it was obvious Leo had feelings for her sister and wanted to help, she felt that on that single point "alone," they could cooperate.

A while later, she heard from the person guarding the cache that the evidence had been taken. When a formal marriage proposal for Lola subsequently arrived from Eides—just as she had hoped—Wellmy felt a sense of relief from the bottom of her heart.

Anyone who spoke with her sister for even a moment would realize she possessed perfect etiquette and a brilliant mind; once she shed her tattered skin, she was more beautiful than anyone. Even if he didn't fall in love with her, he certainly wouldn't treat her poorly. The fact that the engagement reached the stage of a formal banquet was the best possible outcome.

Furthermore, Wellmy had set another trap.

She had sent an anonymous tip to the aristocratic academy exposing that 「every report submitted by Wellmy was actually written by her sister.」

There was a chance it might be hushed up as a scandal. However, those reports were so exceptional that Wellmy had actually received invitations to work in the experimental divisions of the Ministry of Magic and pharmaceutical facilities. She banked on the fact that they would at least investigate if the author wasn't truly Wellmy. She had also informed Eides that she was doing this.

(And so, we come to the present.)

「Tax evasion and false reporting are acts of treason against the state. At the same time, you will be charged with attempted murder.」

Having heard his crimes declared, Father’s face had completely lost its color.

「I-I know nothing of this! It was Lola! Lola did everything on her own!!」
「Hoh. So she was the one who purchased the magical artifacts intended to kill herself?」
「Th-that was... she was trying to kill m-me...」
「This is pathetic, Count Ernest. Why then does the description of the purchaser match your own appearance so perfectly?」

At the string of increasingly strained excuses, Eides’s gaze grew even sharper.

「Regarding matters beyond the artifacts—if you claim Miss Lola acted on her own, then you are guilty of gross negligence in auditing and dereliction of duty as a Lord. Furthermore, looking back through the ledgers, it means you forced these tasks upon a child barely ten years old. That constitutes the crime of child labor. Either way, you are finished.」

Eides spat out his relentless pursuit and called out to a high-ranking noble in attendance.

「Minister of Justice Kilrain. I request permission to detain him.」

The man at the top of the judicial system had likely been briefed on this beforehand. A man of cool, sharp features, he gave a slight nod. Immediately, two soldiers stationed near the entrance moved forward and seized Father.

「Wh-what...」

Mother opened her mouth, letting out something like a scream as she watched.

「I-I didn't know anything! Besides, I managed the household affairs perfectly!」

As Mother shouted that she was uninvolved, Eides shook his head.

「You face a different set of charges, Countess Ernest.」
「...?!」
「Marriage fraud.」

(I... don't know anything about that.)

Wellmy hadn't originally intended to deal with her mother in any special way. For the cruelty shown to her sister, she might have been charged with abuse, but once Father was caught, the likelihood was high that the Count’s house would be dismantled and they would all fall together. Whatever light sentence Wellmy and her mother received, it was a certainty they would return to being commoners. Once that happened, they wouldn't be able to touch the fiancée of Eides—a man of a Marquess’s house who held the rank of Magus Lord.

At the mention of charges against her mother that weren't in her plan, Wellmy felt a small snag in her design.

「Countess Ernest. I have summoned to this room the person you betrayed.」

At those words, a figure stepped forward from the wall... and for the first time that day, Wellmy wasn't acting. She was genuinely shocked.

「Master Crates...」
「Hello, Wellmy.」

Pale platinum-blonde hair and vermillion eyes. Compared to the strong-willed Wellmy, he had a gentler cast to his features, but looking at him objectively, the resemblance was striking. Mother’s face went pale, as if she were seeing a ghost, and she covered her mouth with both hands.

He cast a fleeting, sorrowful smile at her mother.

(He was the First-Class Curse-Breaker who taught Wellmy the art of decursing.)

「This is Crates Lyloud. He is registered as a temporary mage with the Ministry of Magic... and he is an old friend of mine.」

Eides spoke calmly to those who didn't know Master Crates.

「I-I don't know any such person!」
「He was originally of the House of Duke Lyloud. He once severed ties and fled his house, but after gaining fame in the city, he was granted the qualification of a First-Class Curse-Breaker by the state and reconciled with his family.」

Ignoring Mother’s shriek, Eides continued.

「And recently, by a twist of fate, we were reunited.」

At that, Eides turned his gaze toward Wellmy for some reason. However, the shock of Master Crates’s appearance had already cooled.

(Why is he here?)

She feigned that she hadn't heard what Eides said and was simply feeling that single question. She pretended not to understand the meaning of his gaze, but cold sweat began to pour down her back.

(Surely Master Crates didn't reveal that I was the one who plotted this?)

She wanted to believe that wasn't the case. Her eyes had told her he was a tight-lipped and sincere man. Even though she had sworn him to secrecy so firmly, he wouldn't just let it slip.

As Eides had said, Master Crates ran a clinic in the city. At the same time, he was renowned as a skilled curse-breaker.

When Wellmy first learned of the magical artifacts Father had bought to curse her sister... it was Goldray the butler who told her. He had subtly removed them from Lola’s detached building and reported them to her. So, she took charge of them.

But naturally, a daughter of a Count who had only just entered the academy had no means of dealing with such things.

(I have to learn from someone, or have them decursed.)

She couldn't just leave the items as they were. If Father realized they weren't in Lola’s possession, he would suspect that 「someone is helping Iola.」

The person Wellmy turned to was Master Crates, who was rumored to be highly skilled. At their first meeting, she had been startled by how much his appearance mirrored her own.

『Vermillion eyes are the color of eyes born into lineages with a strong talent for curse-breaking.』

Wellmy had been told by her mother that her eye color came from noble ancestors. Since she had heard Mother was from an orphanage, she had been skeptical... and it wouldn't be true to say the thought that she might be a child of her mother’s infidelity had never crossed her mind. After all, unlike her sister who bore some resemblance to their parents, Wellmy didn't look like Father at all.

However, Wellmy swallowed all those doubts and pleaded with Master Crates. After he told her, 『You have a talent for decursing as well,』 he took her as his disciple. While she was never questioned for leaving the estate, repeatedly carrying magical artifacts out was a high risk. If Goldray subtly removed them and Wellmy simply decursed them and put them back, the risk wasn't as great. He was the only person who could move freely between the detached building and the main manor.

Master Crates had fallen silent as if in deep thought before agreeing to the arrangement.

(He did ask for Mother's name back then, but surely...)

He had asked her if she was Isabella’s daughter, and she had nodded.

(Surely not.)

As if answering that unspoken question, Eides spoke.

「The magical wave-pattern identification for Wellmy and Crates is already complete. We have proof that they are biological father and daughter. This is the evidence.」

He pulled a sheet of paper from between the copies of the double-entry ledgers Wellmy had made.

「That's a lie!」
「It is no lie. Long ago, Crates fled his Ducal house, having fallen in love with a commoner woman and promised to marry her. The person who deceived him, took every bit of coin they had for their new home, and vanished was—」

Eides cut his words there and glared at Mother.

「—You. Isabella, Countess Ernest.」

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