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TW: Mentions of familial abuse
“Oh, my word! My goodness! What are the odds, Enne! It’s really you!”
The person calling me looked amazed, blinking and exclaiming in surprise.
Familiar brown hair fluttered in the air.
As I felt the woman take my hands and shake them vigorously, I quietly opened my mouth.
“Aimee.”
She was the maid with whom I had worked with through ups and downs when I had lost my memory and worked as a maid at Tremain County.
Back then, she used to order me around, saying that she was my senior.
With my memory restored, I now knew I was actually older than her.
“How is it that your skin got so much better, Enne? What happened?! Everyone was wondering whether you were dead!”
“Haha
 It’s been a while. How have you been?”
Although Dovea sent me a questioning look, I gestured for her to stop for now before laughing awkwardly.
In all honesty, it wouldn’t be a huge problem even if it were revealed that I had become a queen to the Emperor.
However, I wanted to pass by quietly if possible, since there was no benefit to revealing my identity in such a busy place.
Besides, Aimee was the loose-lipped type.
It was obvious that she would spread crazy rumors about me.
Duke Valkirino might hear those rumors while investigating me and realize something.
Considering the potential dangers, it wasn’t worth telling the truth. For now, I would go along with the conversation.
“I’ve been well, of course
 But what happened to you? You disappeared with just a letter! Everyone was worried sick!”
As soon as my memories came back and I found out about Hadel’s condition, I abandoned the county in the middle of the night and left just a letter behind.
I didn’t know how to tell everyone, and my head had been a mess with my thoughts in disarray.
But who would’ve thought that people would assume I died?
“Isn’t that rumor too much? I’m perfectly fine and alive.”
“That’s what I’m saying! So hurry up and tell me, what happened? And who is this child next to you?”
Aimee’s gaze turned to Dovea, who was looking at her with wary eyes.
Dovea must have been confused by the words “this child,” for she opened her mouth before closing her mouth.
Right. Dovea was still a lady from a noble family, so this must be disconcerting for her.
“T-This is my colleague from the place I’m working at now.”
“Work? Oh, where are you working? How come you suddenly quit?”
“I had important personal business to deal with, so I couldn’t help it. It was so urgent that I had to leave in the middle of the night.”
Please don’t ask anything more.
I wanted to quickly end the conversation with Aimee, but somehow her eyes shone brighter before she pressed closer to me.
“Urgent personal business? What is it? Are you going to be like this even with our history, Enne?”
What is our relationship for you to be acting like this? I want to know too.
I tried to calm myself so that I wouldn’t pop a tendon in my head and forced a smile.
“It’s personal
 It’s not something good, so it wouldn’t be fun to talk about. If everything gets sorted out, I’ll tell you later.”
“Yeah
? Okay. Anyway, what are you doing here? Do you work nearby?”
“N-No, I just came to buy something.”
Aimee paused for a moment at my response, before looking around.
She looked me up and down again before smiling.
“What are you trying to buy here? This is Milpelle Street.”
With that tone of voice, she was clearly looking down on me.
Even though we worked together as maids, Aimee always looked down on me.
She even used to talk behind my back, saying that I was classless because I lost my memory.
I was quite hurt back then
 although now I’m fine


since Aimee isn’t someone who lives in my kind of world anyway.
“Not me, but for my master
”
I wanted to just end this conversation, but

“Excuse me, your words are a bit too much. Aimee, was it?”

it seemed Dovea, a noble lady, couldn’t let this slide.
“My words were too much? What part of it?”
Sure enough, Aimee’s tone of voice sharpened.
This is going to make things difficult.
Oh well.
I let out a small sigh before nudging Dovea to the side and grabbing Aimee’s arm.
“A-Aimee! I’m so happy to see you, so let’s continue our conversation somewhere else!”
“Huh? W-Wait-!”
“Dovea, wait here for a bit. I’ll be back soon, okay?”
Dovea was still mad. Her lips were pursed shut, and she didn’t respond.
However, she didn’t do anything else, so I quickly took Aimee a block away.
My plans would be slightly delayed, but it was better than causing a commotion.
Since things had already come to this, I wanted to hear how Tremain County was doing.
After losing my memory, I worked there without caring about the county’s affairs, but things were different now.
Because Count Tremain and Duke Valkirino were quite close.
“Serinne, your friend is kind of weird. Why does she speak like that?”
“Haha
 Anyway, Aimee, how’s the head maid doing? And is everyone else healthy?”
“Well, yeah. Other than the fact that you disappeared, everything’s the same.”
“I see. I apologize for suddenly leaving.”
“If you’re sorry, come back! Everyone’s waiting for you. And stop looking for work elsewhere!”
“Thank you for saying that. And are the Count and Countess well?”
“Why wouldn’t they be? They’re high nobles.”
Then, Aimee must have remembered something, for her eyes sparkled before she glanced around.
“Oh yeah, Enne! I just remembered, now that you mentioned the Count
!”
This is it.
The way Aimee looks when she’s dying to gossip!
* * *
Bang!
Viscount Melliot hit the table with his burly fist.
The pen that had been on the shaking table rolled to the ground.
Clack, clack, clack. The air was punctuated with only the sound of the pen knocking on the ground and his rough breathing.
“Lepea
! You useless bitch!”
His rage-filled voice was followed by his crumpling face.
He had never felt this much anger before.
How dare she ruin the scene that had been perfectly prepared. He’d treated her well because of her half-decent appearance, but now she had caused an accident.
“Aaaargh! Lepeaa! Philip! Get Lepea, that wicked thing, and put her in the basement!”
At the Viscount’s furious command, Philip, the butler trembling by the door, ran off in a hurry.
The Viscount, who glared at the shut door for a long time, turned his gaze to the piece of paper clenched in his hand.
<Notice of declaration for Revale Forest as a no-build zone>
The amount he’d spent investing in Revale Forest in order to prepare for his new business was astronomical.
It had almost been completed, and all that was left was to reap the profits.
The moment when he would gain mountains of wealth had been right in front of his eyes!
“Aaaaargh! Ugh! Emperor, Emperor, Emperor!”
The document in Viscount Melliot’s hand crumpled as he howled.
No matter what he did, his anger would not subside.
After shouting out his rage a few more times, he pulled out the whip from his wardrobe.
“This must have happened because I didn’t discipline her for a while
!”
He had refrained from doing so for the last few years in case her pretty face and body would get scarred.
He’d put so much effort into it, his plan to offer her to the Emperor

But not only did the Emperor not want her, she got trampled on by the Queen and caused harm to the family.
“Judging from the situation, it doesn’t seem that the Emperor will come to like Lepea any time soon.”
Viscount Melliot’s lips contorted wickedly.
His footsteps left the study and headed toward the basement.
The dark and damp air seemed to welcome him by twisting around his entire body, and his earlier anger cooled off a bit.
“F-Father
!”
Inside the basement, Lepea trembled, her face streaked with tears.
“F-Father, p-please save m-me
! I-I was wrong! Father please, hic, hic, i-it was all my fault! Heuk..!”
Seeing her crawl to him on her knees,  her hands rubbed together and tears dripping down her face, reminded the Viscount of his wife, who had died a few years ago.
She had looked like this right before she’d died, too.
“If you made a mistake, you need to receive punishment, Lepea.”
“N-N-N-No, Father
!”
Lepea’s silver eyes filled with fear and dread.
Her eyes darted back and forth between her smiling father and the whip in his hand.
Since she was younger, she had always been abused in the name of discipline.
In order to escape from this dreadful place, she had worked hard to receive the Emperor’s favor. But in the end, she returned to the basement anyway.
She flailed her body in a futile attempt to struggle.
“Ugh, ughhh
 please
”
The slap that the Queen’s Head Maid had thrown was nothing.
She could receive that a hundred times— no, a thousand times.
As long as she could escape from this basement.
Viscount Melliot slowly raised his hand.
Lepea’s pupils, filled with the image of her father, trembled in fear and spite.
The Silver Lily.
This only happened because of that woman.
“I-I’ll kill her
!”
Then the Emperor would look at her again.
As long as she got rid of the Silver Lily
!