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It was Charlotte who was more surprised about my unresponsiveness. With her face turning pale, she thrust her finger at me in astonishment.
“Anissa! How could you say that?”
“What? Should I have cursed instead?”
I continued, swatting away her finger indifferently.
“Revealing the secret behind my birth will change nothing now.”
“The Duchess is your real mother, Anissa!”
“There’s no reason for me to believe it, and I don’t care even if it’s the truth.”
I stood up from my seat, pushing away Charlotte who was agitated. I didn’t want to listen to anything from them anymore.
“I heard you can tell the difference between truth and lies.” The Duchess assessed me with cold eyes. “Are you saying you won’t help your family despite knowing that what I’m saying is the truth?”
I snorted at her words feeling dumbfounded.
“Duchess, who the hell are you saying is family with who?”
The Duchess pressed on her chest as if she had received a severe shock and had trouble breathing.
“I didn’t know you would grow up to be a child like this.”
You probably didn’t even know I lived. I turned away from Dona Euclid’s face filled with disappointment in me.
“You might have thought that I abandoned you, but that’s not true. You were kidnapped.”
“I’m not really interested.”
“......If you’re not going to be on our side, then can’t you at least stop the Grand Duke of Lagrange, whom you know as your brother?”
‘In the end, you’re doing this because you thought you’re going to lose.’
However, I had only encountered him twice, moreover, we didn’t have a good encounter in those two times, so what did it matter to me whether all of Hermann’s arms and legs get cut off or not?
“Yes, I don’t have any thoughts of stopping him. Because we’re not going to lose.”
“Don’t you feel bad that your brother is hurt?”
“Who’s hurt? Dietrich is fine though?”
I turned my back after observing their ashen faces as if they would pass out anytime soon at the current ridiculous situation.
“I think you’ve said everything there is to say, so I’m going back now.”
Charlotte, who had been biting her lips to the point that they bled, grabbed me a little roughly toward her.
“Anissa! Do you know how anxious the Duchess was in coming to the North?”
“She must have been feeling guilty.”
Finding her daughter she had wanted to kill and asking for her help would have been difficult without some level of shamelessness after all.
At my apathetic words, tears dripped down Charl’s eyes. I felt that she was genuinely hurt by the current situation, so I called her with a sigh.
“Charl.”
“Anissa, you’re not this kind of cold-hearted person. Didn’t you help me without any strings attached?”
“You’re right. I’m not really the cold-hearted type.”
I was someone who couldn’t let Dietrich live as a villain because of his useless affection, so I twisted the original.
‘That’s far from being heartless.’
“Then, why are you like this to the Duchess?”
“Charl, she would have known in the capital that I was her real daughter.”
“Th-that time, she wasn’t sure yet!”
“Then, why is she sure now? Because Dietrich defeated Hermann?” I tilted my head at Charl’s hesitancy. Before she could open her mouth, I asked first, “What does Dietrich’s victory have something to do with my bloodline?”
“I simply don’t want to see you turn your back on your family, Anissa.”
“I’m not turning my back. Euclid is just not my family. So stop crying now.”
As they were talking, Charl’s face had been dripping with tears all the while, so she quickly turned red. When I rubbed the corner of her eyes with the back of my hand, she staggered backward in surprise.
“Don’t tell me, you know everything?”
“Pardon?”
“.....Anissa, from the start, you wanted the relics of the sun god. Did you know the effects of the holy relics?”
“I know you can use the holy relics to strengthen your abilities.”
“If you knew that then how could you take away the power of your real brother?!” Charl continued in shock, “How could you?”
I’m so used to her treating me like a villain that I’m no longer particularly offended. I shrugged my shoulders swallowing my words and she approached me as if to press me.
“Is it because you hate me?”
“....Excuse me?”
“Anissa, you hate me for no reason.”
She was a person who firmly believed that the world revolved around her. I shook my head as I pondered on how to break Charlotte’s solid belief.
“I don’t hate you though.”
“Liar!”
“It’s the truth. I don’t really care enough to hate you, Charl.”
Charlotte wrinkled her lovely eyebrows as if she didn’t like what I said. But to this day, I didn’t feel any hate toward her.
“And even if I do hate you, there would a reason. Wasn’t I detained because of you?”
“Then why do you say you don’t hate me? And again, it was really not my intention. I have a reason–”
“I know. I know what you’re trying to say isn’t a lie.”
Eredia’s ability wasn’t easy to use all day.
Still, whenever I meet Charlotte, I tended to focus in order to read her intentions, however, I never felt any malice from her.
Of course, all her actions were a nuisance to me, and even if she didn’t mean it, she was very tiresome. However, this was a world where people who try to do something with malice would get knocked down.
‘Like that woman behind Charlotte.’
Although I didn’t want to think of her as an enemy. Since it seemed like it wasn’t only Lagrange’s children who were trapped in a predetermined role since they were born. And because of that, I couldn’t entrust Charlotte with Dietrich’s fate.
‘I already know how painful it is to live a life that someone had already decided.’
“I don’t hate you because I understand you didn’t mean me any harm.”
“Then, why are you abandoning your family and even extorting my relics? Exactly why?!”
I rubbed my face with my hands while looking at her uttering lines like that of a protagonist of a play who was facing tragedy.
“As I’ve told you, Euclid isn’t my family, and because I wish for Dietrich’s victory.”
“The North won’t get saved that way. I like His Grace, but if the empire falls on his hands, the people will only suffer!”
In the first place, Dietrich didn’t even have an interest in the empire. He didn’t like troublesome things.
“You don’t have to worry about that. Dietrich doesn’t have an ounce of interest in southern lands.”
“How can I trust those words? How can I believe that the Grand Duke does not want the southern territories?!”
Dona Euclid, who had been silently listening to our conversation, asked back sharply. I looked at her and smiled lightly.
“Why can’t you believe it? Because he’s evil and you’re good?”
Even since I was born as Anissa, I had been struggling to live my life in order for the children of Lagrange not to live as villains.
So to them, I would be like a thorn in their side.
‘After all, the main characters were the ones who need a villain to stand out.’
It’s probably the members of the Euclid Duchy who were more anxious than anyone else because Dietrich didn’t kill his siblings.
‘After he became a Grand Duke, I had been working hard to reform the image of the North.’
Now, the respect of the Northern people for Lagrange was as high as the sky. Words have no feet so, through word of mouth, the news would quickly spread to the south and capital. And if Dietrich stopped playing the villain, people would no longer support Euclid in the rose war.
‘Fortunately, we also came back from the capital with no major incidents.’
In the meantime, Hermann’s nose had been broken during this round, so they must be extremely anxious.
‘That’s why they even came to me.’
“...Anissa, if that’s how it will be, I will also not stay still.”
Charl murmured with firm lips. She clenched her fist as if she had made a decision.
“It’s my duty to make the prophecy come true. I like His Grace and you, Anissa, but I have no choice.”
“Do whatever you want.”
I opened the drawing-room’s door myself and gestured with my chin. At my gesture of turning the guests away, only then did the Duchess and Charlotte moved their heavy behinds.
“As expected, Anissa must be the clown who plays as a god stated in the prophecy.”
Charlotte, who came close to the door, looked at me with serious eyes. Noticing that she was trying to draw her courage from somewhere, I coldly raised the corner of my lips.
“But, you won’t be able to help His Grace that way.”
I looked at Charlotte as if she was a pretty glass doll. I had once believed that Dietrich would have been happy if I waited for her, but I had already realized in the past that this world was not that convenient.
Even if they were saved by good people, the evil ones would always be evil.
“Whether it be mimicking a god, or destroying a temple, I can do anything that would terrify you, Charl.”
“!”
“I will do anything to give Dietrich his freedom.”
That’s my way of saving him.
“Escort them out, Lancel.”
Bang!
As soon as Charlotte and the Duchess left the drawing-room, I closed the door at them, leaving them twitching their lips as if they still had something to say.