My father-in-law was a man who just threw his weight around and morally abused everyone. My mother-in-law was a nasty woman with a penchant for picking on me.
I had no affection for this house. In fact, I hated it so much that I would have preferred to be in the royal capital instead.
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Whatâs more, Marquis Lediere was trying to form an alliance with the Northern Kingdom and start a war.
Making weapons using the metal harvested in my homeland, and a suspicious medicine made from poppy flowers under the pretense of it being a pain reliever.
Once the war began, Marquis Lediere would sell them all and make huge profits. It was truly the darkest of schemes.
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(Theyâre trying to sell their weapons and drugs to both the Northern and Central Kingdom. These people donât seem interested in peace, but rather, they want to prolong the conflictsâŠ)
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Since they were on the southern side, were they underestimating the possibility of an invasion from the Northern Kingdom, or was there some kind of agreement with them?
It seemed that Marquis Lediere had already begun to sell to them.
At some point, the marquis had headed overseas for a while. From there, he was transporting weapons and drugs somewhere by ship. Villerey, who was generally enthusiastic about research, also seemed interested.
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(At any rate, this is looking very bad. I⊠I have to escape from here, quickly.)
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I wouldnât be able to endure being treated as an accomplice of this madness.
And yet, a few days ago, they realized I had been snooping around, and locked me away in this storeroom.
Because of that, I couldnât move a step away from this house. I couldnât even reply to Brittanyâs letter. I was in a real pinch.
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(And I have so much to talk about!)
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I couldnât get out of the room I was locked into, so I felt totally helpless. And whatâs more, they havenât been bringing me food since this morning.
The mansion seemed strangely quiet today.
Unfortunately, there were no windows here so I couldnât find out whatâs going on.
But Iâd hoped to avoid being starved to death in this storeroom before anyone could find me. I wouldnât be satisfied until I give these devils a piece of my mind.
As I was thinking about my hopeless situation, the hallways downstairs became very noisy for some reason.
And someone was making a very loud voice.
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(Huh, that voice is⊠Brittany? How?)
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I hurried to the attic door.
As I tried really hard to listen to the noise that was happening downstairs, I heard a voice that I knew very well.
My friend was calling my name.
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âBrittany!â
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After calling her name, I started slamming against the attic door. I had to get out of the room as soon as possible.
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âIâm here! Iâm here!â
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Her voice sounded as if she was getting closer. I hoped that she had heard me.
Footsteps echoed outside and stopped at the other side of the door.
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âNora, stay back!â
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I could hear Britneyâs voice clearly, and I moved to the back of the room as I was told.
Then, the door of the attic was broken with a loud noise.
On the other side, Brittany was standing there with an imposing look and her arms crossed in front of her chest.
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âSo they had you locked up here after all, huh? Iâm glad youâre safe, Nora!â
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Brittany entered the room and took my hand, taking me out of that dirty storeroom.
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âLetâs get out of here.â
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As we headed out, I found Ricardo was there as well. He had been on the lookout for any pursuers sent out by the marquis.
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âGlad to see youâre safe, Lady Nora. Letâs return to the carriage.â
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Led by Brittany and Ricardo, I followed them into a carriage.
It seemed that no one had noticed us yet, and no one was chasing after us.
They asked some familiar-looking soldiers to keep me safe.
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(These guys⊠these are the soldiers of the platoon that always trains in the castleâs yard.)
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Since Iâve seen them before, I feel somewhat relieved to be in their care.
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âWeâll go get Lady Angela. You wait here, Nora.â
âO-OkayâŠâ
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A little bit later, Brittany and Ricardo returned.
Lady Angela and the other members of the platoon were with them.
And walking next to them, were the now captured members of the Lediere family.
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(Why are all of them covering their eyes like that?)
I got out of the carriage.
Brittany and Angela were talking about something.
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âLady Angela, you used the pepper spray right away.â
âYes, it was very useful. The Ledieres tried to capture me as soon as they realized that their excuses wouldnât work on me. I really wish I had used those Molotov cocktails instead, thoughâŠâ
ââŠWell, I think using pepper spray was the correct answer.â
âAnd also, once their sins were exposed, they tried to pin everything on Nora! Theyâre just despicable.â
Villerey noticed my presence, and was glaring at me with his bright red swollen eyes.
At first, he put up his usual face of someone whoâs indifferent to his wife because he is enthusiastic about work and research, but then I noticed a gradual change in his expression. His face outside and the one he usually had at home were completely opposite to each other.
He turned out to be nothing more than a mamaâs boy who only has eyes for his own pastimes and is a lion at home but a mouse abroad.
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âDamn it! Itâs all your fault, Nora! You uselessâŠ!â
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Right after Villerey cursed at me, my mother-in-law started to shout.
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âTo begin with, the reason why we decided on you for our sonâs engagement was that site for digging iron that your family has. All you had to do was inherit the damn place! Otherwise, who do you think would marry a girl from such a remote place!?â
âThatâs right. Far from being useful to the house⊠you betrayed us!! You ungrateful wench!!â
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My father-in-law was on the same train as them. I just stayed there, with my head unusually cool as I looked down at them.
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(These guys⊠Do they think they were doing me a favor!?)
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However, after hearing Villerey and his parentsâ abusive words, Angela started hitting them repeatedly with a fan. Slap slap slapâ What a delightful sound!
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âSilence, you fiends! To think that not only you dared disobey the country, you would cause my dear friend so much pain! You should start reflecting on your actions from now on. Though you may be punished long before you even realize what youâve done wrong!â
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Before I knew it, a large number of soldiers that werenât part of the platoon started to arrive. It looked like someone had called for reinforcements.
Brittany pushed me into the carriage, hiding me from the members of the Lediere family.
As she did that, I couldnât help but think⊠Has her ass grown bigger?
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âYouâre safe now, Nora.â
âThatâs right. Iâll look after you. I wonât let anyone else do something like this to you!â
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My two reliable friends each took one of my hands as they smiled.
Feeling the fatigue that had accumulated over many days, and the hunger from this morning⊠I collapsed on the spot.