Translator: Nox

Chapter 7

“Noah.”

Then, she smiled as brightly as the sun.

“Anyone seeing you now would mistake you for a brother who cherishes his sister.”

“L-Let go of me!”

She didn’t let go. Instead, she tightened her grip.

“If Danae’s body had a soul in it, she would have said this to you.”

“Said what?”

“‘Don’t act like a good younger brother now. You’re such a hypocrite.’”

“……!”

Noah’s eyes wavered. Dana continued in a soft, calm voice.

“If you, Noah, truly considered Danae your sister, you should have visited her at least once.”

“You…….”

“Danae spent seventeen years recuperating at the Holy Land. No one—not a single person—ever came to visit her.”

“……!”

“You left your sister, who suffered from the doll disease, stuck in the Holy Land her entire life and treated her like she didn’t exist.”

Noah’s face turned pale. His lips trembled violently.

He looked like a man whose conscience was being torn apart.

Yes, she must have struck a nerve.

“Is it because I’m moving around just fine now that you find it so displeasing?”

The previous Duke Winzer had sent his daughter, Danae, to the Holy Land to recuperate.

‘It wasn’t just him. All the Winzers who caught the doll disease ended their lives at the Holy Land.’

The doll disease.

That bizarre illness, where a body is born without a soul, was a hereditary disease unique to the Winzer family.

Every few generations, there were blood relatives born with the doll disease.

Whenever that happened, the Winzer family heads sent them away to the distant Holy Land for “recuperation.”

It was called recuperation, but it was no different from abandonment. They sent them somewhere out of sight.

‘Right. It was basically abandonment, so why did I try to ignore that fact?’

Danae’s empty shell of a body had spent seventeen years lying in the Holy Land, being “managed” by the priests.

In those seventeen years, her family had never visited her once.

In other words, they treated her as if she didn’t exist.

“You treated me like a non-entity when this body was an empty shell. But now you’re acting like a brother with great sibling affection……”

Dana let out a mocking laugh.

“It feels a bit like a deception.”

Noah was completely speechless. He seemed shattered by a shock that went beyond mere embarrassment.

‘I should have done this sooner.’

With an indifferent expression, Dana shook off his hand, which she had been holding until now.

“So, I’d like you to leave my room now, Noah Winzer.”

Since I’ll be leaving this body soon enough anyway.

---

“Karl, how could you!”

As soon as they returned to the bedroom, Sandra Winzer let out a scream-like cry.

“How could you do that!”

Her heart felt like it was crumbling. Her body shook with rage.

“How could you take Danae’s side right then and there!”

Alice, her daughter, had been struck.

She had been assaulted right in front of her parents!

And yet, he shielded the girl who had committed the violence?!

“Dana’s guardianship is at stake. I had no choice.”

However, Karl seemed embarrassed himself, as he couldn’t look Sandra straight in the eye.

“Just bear with it for one year, Sandra. Just one year.”

“You really—!”

“Think about it. In a year, Dana’s fortune will be ours. You know how enormous my brother’s wealth is.”

His brother’s wealth.

At those words, Sandra bit her lip hard.

Karl’s brother, Damian Winzer, had discovered a treasure island and instantly became the wealthiest man on the continent.

“But still!”

“Brother left his entire fortune to Danae as an inheritance. Aren’t you greedy for that?”

Sandra glared at Karl, but she couldn’t argue.

Because he was right.

The Winzers were originally an old military family.

‘And soldiers aren’t exactly known for making big money.’

However, the Winzer family had now been reborn as a wealthy house that surpassed even the Imperial Family.

All thanks to the treasure island.

It was thanks to the gold from the treasure island discovered by Karl’s brother, Damian Winzer.

‘Of course, his son Viego Winzer is also said to be thriving as a businessman, but……’

If it hadn’t been for the gold found on the treasure island, he wouldn’t have been able to start a business of that scale in the first place.

That massive fortune of Damian’s was all inherited by Danae.

Damian Winzer had left it all to a girl who was merely suffering from the doll disease!

“If we just wait one year, Dana’s inheritance rights will come to me, honey.”

“I know! Do you think I don’t know that?!”

“So please, bear with it. Why am I doing this? It’s all for our family.”

Slowly, Sandra’s anger began to subside.

It wasn’t just because of the inheritance. The reason was…

‘Why is my husband so handsome!’

It was because of her husband’s looks.

Karl Winzer, a husband ten years younger than Sandra, was excessively handsome.

Who would look at Karl and see a man with two children?

Karl, in his thirties, still looked like he was in his twenties and was still breathtakingly gorgeous. He was one of the most popular gentlemen in social circles.

‘I can’t stay mad when I look at that face!’

It felt unfair, but her anger had long since melted away like spring snow.

“Still, you didn’t have to go that far for Danae.”

“Hmm?”

“Leaving your own daughter like that while tenderly comforting your niece is too much. Was that really necessary? You could have just used words, words!”

“I understand. I won’t do it again, so don’t be mad, Sandra.”

Looking into her husband’s eyes, which were as clear as a forest, Sandra felt a deep sense of helplessness.

Yes, this was the price of having such a handsome husband.

“One year. I’ll endure it exactly until then.”

Karl let out a sigh of relief. Fortunately, it seemed his wife understood.

“But where is Alice? Where did she go?”

“She went to see the Crown Prince.”

Sandra murmured with a face full of resentment.

“I hope His Highness the Crown Prince will soothe Alice’s grievances.”

---

Alice shuddered with sorrow.

‘How could Papa do that to me?’

She didn’t know the details, but she had heard that they needed to maintain the guardianship over Sister Dana.

But even so.

‘And how could Sister Dana do that to me?’

I even got down on my knees and begged.

So how could she not forgive me?

‘I thought Sister Dana would surely understand.’

Until now, Dana had always understood Alice.

Whenever they wanted the same dress, she always yielded to Alice, and when Dana got her hands on pretty jewelry, she would gift it without hesitation if Alice showed any sign of wanting it.

It had always been that way.

There wasn’t a single time she hadn’t done so.

So Alice thought she would surely understand this time as well……

But instead, she poured water on her, slapped her, grabbed her hair, and even manipulated her father into using a switch!

To think Sister Dana was this narrow-minded!

“Ugh, hic, ugh.”

On the way to meet Raios.

Alice couldn’t stop crying the entire time she was in the carriage. Her situation felt so miserable.

The tears didn’t stop even after she met Raios.

“Alice, why are you crying?”

“I-I’m sorry, Your Highness……”

“What happened? Tell me.”

“No. It’s all my fault.”

“What?”

“It’s just…… I feel so sorry for Sister Dana. She must have been so hurt to do such a thing to me……”

At those words, Raios’s face hardened.

“What did Dana do to you?”

“Huh? N-no. She didn’t do anything!”

Startled, Alice shook her head vigorously.

At this rate, she would look like someone who was taddling!

She would never do something so cowardly.

She didn’t want to make Sister Dana out to be a bad person!

“I-I really, really, really didn’t mean that!”

Ah, but I’m so bad at lying.

Stuttering like a fool.

“No. It’s really not like that, hic……”

And crying like a fool.

“Just what happened for you to be like this, Alice?”

Truly, she didn’t want to say it. She wanted to hide the bad thing Sister Dana had done.

She really wanted to, but……

‘Telling a lie to someone who believes in me is wrong.’

So, for the sake of Raios, who believed in her, it must be right to confess the truth.

“Actually……”