-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: Vine
Chapter: 56
Chapter Title: The Tea Party Invitation
-----------------------------------------------------------------
“You’re the one who shouldn’t be getting beaten up without my permission.”
“Me?”
Lumina blinked. She couldn’t recall being hit recently—she’d been the one doing the hitting, if anything.
“I saw the injuries you had all over last time. Someone at your family home did that to you, didn’t they?”
Karayan wasn’t guessing; he was certain.
“If you’re afraid to go back for that reason, tell me honestly. Tell me who it was.”
Because just catching that bastard and tearing him limb from limb wouldn’t be enough.
Karayan swallowed the vicious words that followed.
“When exactly did you see these injuries?”
“The first time you used your power on me.”
Lumina realized that Karayan was under a huge misunderstanding.
“They were transferred from you, Karayan, when I used my power. All of them.”
Lumina said in a calm tone.
Karayan fell silent.
He seemed somewhat ashamed.
He was a Legion with a strangely active conscience.
Seeing this, Lumina couldn’t help but laugh out loud before she spoke.
“So you don’t have to worry about me. Oh, I mean, think about me, not worry!”
Lumina made a preemptive strike, in case he tried to insist again that he wasn't worried.
“If a moment comes when no one can help you, Karayan.”
Lumina pointed a finger at her own feet.
Then she drew a long line through the air, pointing directly at the third-floor window. It was their room.
“Just as you ran from there to here in an instant, I’ll come find you.”
She looked like someone who would get into a squabble with a squirrel and still lose, yet her words were surprisingly bold.
But it was also true that Lumina definitely had powers.
She must be running around everywhere because she was confident.
Karayan found himself unconsciously mirroring Lumina with a faint smile.
But the smile didn’t last long.
“You’re not thinking of divorcing me and leaving this house right away, are you?”
“…Divorce?”
Lumina’s eyes wavered.
“I know we’ll get divorced once you become an adult anyway. But I want you to leave this house right now.”
“…”
“If I overthrow the imperial family, I can make even the legally impossible possible.”
An early divorce. Breach of contract. No alimony.
“No!”
Lumina desperately grabbed onto Karayan.
“We can’t get a divorce! Absolutely not! Over my dead body!”
Karayan, whose hand had been suddenly grabbed, was at a loss. He hadn’t expected Lumina to react so strongly.
“Don’t ever talk about divorce again. Got it?!”
“…Uh. Okay.”
Overwhelmed by Lumina’s spirit, Karayan, who had inadvertently nodded, came to his senses.
“Let’s say we can’t get divorced right now because of the law. But I still think that person could kill you. It might not be today, but it could be tomorrow.”
“…”
“That’s why I warned you repeatedly, but you didn’t listen.”
“Because I like you.”
Lumina replied reflexively, like a teddy bear that shouts ‘I love you!’ when you press its chest.
It was a textbook answer, faithful to her role.
“What is it about me that you like so much?”
Ah.
She hadn’t expected this question.
A touch-and-go situation.
Lumina’s brain spun rapidly.
It was a moment where her sincerity would be doubted if she didn’t answer quickly.
“…Your face?”
The sentence slipped out as a question.
It felt like an excuse that was far too clumsy.
She was anxious that all her actions, all her chatter about loving Karayan, would be exposed as an act.
Should I quickly come up with another excuse? But what would I say?
He wouldn’t believe it if I said I fell for his personality. He himself must know that makes no sense.
Just as Lumina’s mind was racing.
“So if someone more handsome than me shows up, you’ll just divorce me and marry him?”
Give me a break!
Karayan, who had been looking dumbfounded, soon grew angry.
“…?”
His reason for being angry was strange.
He seemed to have noticed her excuse was flimsy, but he didn't seem to know it was an act yet, so she didn’t know whether to be happy or not.
“See. You’re hesitating even now.”
“N-No! Of course not! I’ve never seen anyone more handsome than you in my entire life, Karayan! And you’re the first person I’ve ever said I liked!”
Shake, shake.
Lumina hurriedly shook her head.
*‘…Did that work?’*
Lumina carefully studied Karayan’s expression. He still looked full of anger.
*‘Was I mistaken in thinking it went well?’*
It still seemed too weak.
Lumina took a deep breath.
She had no choice but to bring out her secret weapon.
“Karayan.”
As she began in a calm tone, unlike before, Karayan looked at her quizzically.
Lumina put on what one might call ‘the look of love.’
“They say the world sparkles when you fall in love. The moment I met you, Karayan, I felt my whole world light up.”
“…”
“Did you know? After meeting you, night disappeared from my world.”
Her lower lip seemed to tremble as she spouted such words without batting an eye.
Lumina tried her best to separate her body from her soul.
I am a fool.
A fool who knows nothing but love.
“So…”
“Are you going to keep saying such cringey things so casually? Stop it.”
Her sincerity had been acknowledged!
Lumina quickly shut her mouth.
Whenever she had to act like someone blinded by love, a piece of Lumina’s pure, fragile soul took a heavy blow.
Which was probably why she had no pure soul fragments left.
This was all Karayan’s fault for being so moody.
While Lumina was blaming Karayan, he, in his own turmoil, rubbed his face with his dry hands and muttered, “This is driving me crazy.”
“Do you really feel like you’re going crazy?”
Peeking.
Lumina suddenly poked her head out.
If that mumble was genuine, it would be a huge problem, as she’d have to use her power on Karayan, who would have already entered a berserk state.
So, even if it was just a figure of speech, she had to confirm.
Hearing Lumina’s rather naive question, Karayan looked up.
As their eyes met, he let out a deflated, weary laugh.
This tiny girl kept playing with his heart.
“You asked earlier if I was going to leave this place.”
“Yes.”
“For now, I’ll stay until your injuries have completely disappeared.”
Karayan reached out to Lumina.
“Because they were originally mine.”
Karayan caressed Lumina’s cheek.
It was where an injury had been.
It was completely healed now, but the cheek wasn’t the only place where Karayan had transferred an injury to Lumina.
Lumina found the difference in their temperatures somehow pleasant. It felt like having a cool towel placed on her forehead.
“Yes! Please do.”
Lumina replied energetically.
She wouldn’t have a whole bed to herself, but it wasn’t all bad.
Perhaps it was because the part of her that opposed excessive greed felt its burden lightened.
As she was thinking this, a maid, Annie, came running from a distance.
“Young Madame! Young Madame!”
Was she here to tell them the door had been reattached?
But she looked too frantic to be delivering such trivial news.
“Someone from the imperial palace is here!”
Karayan’s face crumpled like a piece of paper headed straight for the trash.
“Is it Arabelle?”
Pant, pant.
Annie, an ordinary human, was gasping for breath after running nonstop across the vast garden.
“It is the princess, but…”
She was too out of breath to speak easily.
Meanwhile, Karayan was shooting her a look like a creditor demanding repayment, which seemed to make her even more anxious.
Realizing it would be faster to show him than to explain, she quickly held something out.
“The princess sent someone with this…”
It was a letter envelope stamped with the imperial seal.
Feeling as though she were holding a time bomb that could go off at any moment, Lumina carefully opened the envelope and unfolded the letter.
And as they read its contents, both Lumina's and Karayan’s expressions hardened.
It was an invitation to a tea party hosted by Arabelle.
***
“I need to pick out a dress for the tea party in advance. Call for Hannah.”
“Yes, milady.”
Having made an excuse to Karayan about something urgent, Lumina went inside alone and spoke.
“Young Madame. It is Hannah.”
Soon after, Brandon, disguised as Hannah, returned, and the two of them entered the dressing room.
Somehow, the dressing room had become their secret hideout.
“To think you’d even consider accepting Princess Arabelle’s invitation. Your nerve is something else.”
“We were bound to meet eventually.”
Lumina shrugged.
“It’s better to deal with her moderately in the beginning. She’ll be less of a bother later on that way.”
Unlike the composed Lumina, Brandon looked full of worry.
“Considering that princess’s temper, she’s not inviting the little lady just to build a friendly rapport.”
High society wasn’t always kind to newcomers.
And that was no different for gatherings of young, undebuted lords and ladies.
They would haze newcomers and establish a pecking order under the pretext of ‘instilling discipline.’
In slang, it was called ‘stomping on sprouts.’
Arabelle must have sent the invitation to properly stomp on the sprout that was Lumina.
But there was one thing they had overlooked.
Lumina was no sprout.
