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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 27
Chapter Title: A Mother's Legacy
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A day passed as she waited, trembling in fear with her ears covered.
The sounds eventually ceased, and unfamiliar servants and knights came to the tower where Lellia was staying.
They recognized Lellia and left.
Then, a few days later.
A servant came to take Lellia to the main castle.
‘Is Emperor Perseus looking for me?’
Lellia tried not to tremble as she followed them. Having hidden in the closet all that time without food, she found it difficult to walk.
The path to the main castle was a mess. Traces of battle were everywhere, and the smell of burning bodies filled the air.
Fortunately, the stench disappeared once they entered the castle building. Lellia glanced around at the splendid interior. Aside from a time she couldn't remember, this was her first visit to the main castle.
They entered the castle, climbed the stairs, and were passing through a gilded corridor.
“Wait.”
The servant walking ahead stopped, and Lellia halted as well.
“Is this her?”
Someone was asking, pointing at Lellia. She instinctively held her breath, her throat tightening.
Peeking through a gap between the servants, she saw two boys taller than her.
‘Of all times…’
If Lellia’s guess was correct—no, there was no need to guess. It was certain. Those two were Emperor Perseus’s sons.
And…
‘Yuriana’s doting, foolish older brothers.’
They also happened to despise Lellia.
“Step aside so I can see her face.”
At his words, the servant standing protectively in front of Lellia moved aside. Lellia clenched her fists and looked at him.
She didn't want to hide or run away. She had done nothing wrong.
“Look at how brazen she is. Hey, I heard your mother tormented our mother before she died… Are you shameless just like her?”
The one who spoke was Damian, the younger of the twin brothers.
“…”
Lellia had nothing to say. It was a fact, even in the original novel, that Princess Iris had tormented Perseus’s wife.
“Your Highness, if you have something to say, please save it for later. Right now, we must see His Majesty first…”
“Quiet.”
The anxious servant immediately shut his mouth at Cedric’s command. The two were now, in name and reality, the princes of the Aurarian Empire.
No one could treat the future of the empire carelessly.
Cedric took another step toward Lellia, his face twisting.
“Lellia Auraria… On the day you were born, my younger sibling died the moment they left our mother’s womb.”
“…”
“My sibling is dead, yet you’re alive. Isn’t that unfair?”
Damian, who had been listening quietly, chimed in with a sneer.
“That’s right! Your mother, Princess Iris, conspired with Raidios to torment our mother to death! Our mother died right after her stillbirth… You daughter of a murderer!”
Cedric and Damian glared at Lellia, grinding their teeth.
Despite their young age, their eyes were fierce. When Lellia hesitated, unable to answer, they grew even angrier.
It was then.
“Brothers!”
A cheerful and lively voice called out from a distance.
At the sound of that voice, Damian and Cedric started and turned their heads. Yuriana was approaching, waving her hand.
In a pretty yellow dress with her hair in pigtails, Yuriana looked cute and lovely at a glance.
“What are you doing here? Don’t tell me you’re playing without me?!”
“Of course not! Ah, it’s nothing! Let’s go, Yuriana!”
Damian shot Lellia a look as if she were something dirty that might contaminate them, then quickly stood in front of Yuriana.
And Cedric blocked the view again in front of him.
“How dare you look at her, you filthy thing…”
Cedric spat the words while looking at Lellia, then followed Damian and Yuriana.
“…Let us go.”
The servant, finally able to breathe a sigh of relief, spoke to the knight standing behind Yuriana. Lellia started walking again, following the servant.
Thanks to the novel, she had expected it to some extent… but her first impression of Cedric and Damian was truly the worst.
After walking for a while, they arrived before a massive door. The servant knocked, then opened it and went inside.
It seemed to be the emperor’s office. The interior was large and ornate, yet it had a distinctly business-like atmosphere.
A large mahogany desk was the first thing she saw, followed by the man sitting before it, his chin propped on his hand.
‘Emperor Perseus…’
The servant gave her a shove from behind, and Lellia stumbled forward.
“…So, you are Lellia.”
His voice was low and cold, like a harsh winter.
The true master of the throne. A man who had reclaimed the crown through a storm of blood, but with just cause. He was cold and ruthless, without a shred of mercy in his actions, but…
To his adopted daughter, Yuriana, he was a gentle father who was endlessly soft and revealed his own wounds.
Lellia lifted her head and looked straight at him. His vivid blue eyes stared at her like a predator.
It was a gaze filled with a hatred that seemed to want to chew her up and swallow her whole.
‘And…’
Lellia clenched her fists and met his gaze without looking away.
‘My real, biological father.’
Lellia stared blankly at Emperor Perseus before lowering her head.
“…”
In the original novel, she was a device created for a certain episode.
The first device was to show how ridiculously overprotective Yuriana’s brothers were, and the second device was this.
A character who brings great pain and sorrow to Emperor Perseus.
In short, she was an expendable character. A supporting role with a tragic fate, created for Perseus’s sake.
In the original story, Emperor Perseus learns the truth long after Lellia’s death.
He suffers and falls into despair upon learning this fact, but… his adopted daughter, Yuriana, comforts him and becomes his hope to live on.
‘Honestly, I don't even want to think of him as my biological father…’
She had deliberately ignored it until now, but seeing him in person stirred a strange feeling within her. He was different from the brothers, who were just simple children.
“Your eyes resemble that man’s.”
The man Princess Iris loved, that knight, had light green eyes similar to Lellia’s.
And Perseus’s deceased wife, Lellia’s biological mother, Elizabeth, also had beautiful eyes that resembled peridots.
“…”
Lellia lifted her head again to look at Perseus. His face contorted as if in pain, and he quickly turned away.
“Take her away.”
Perseus said to the servant standing behind Lellia.
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
The servant immediately approached Lellia and pulled her back, grabbing her by the scruff of her neck. It was a disrespectful gesture that showed no courtesy to a member of the royal family.
But no one pointed it out.
The emperor turned his chair as if to ignore her, showing her his back, while the other servants and knights simply watched Lellia with cold eyes.
‘How absurd. What’s the point of regretting it later?’
Lellia scoffed at Perseus inwardly as she returned to the tower.
In the novel, Emperor Perseus later learns that Lellia is his biological daughter and regrets hurting her.
But his regret came too late. In the original story, Lellia was already dead.
Honestly, a part of her wondered what would happen if she told the emperor the truth right now, but…
‘There's no way.’
If she said such a thing with her own mouth and no proof, she would surely be treated like a madwoman.
‘I won't be able to reveal it until the nanny who disappeared shows up.’
But the nanny wouldn't appear for a long time yet. She had no intention of just waiting around here until then.
‘Before that, I'll be used in a political marriage.’
It would be useless if the truth came out after she was married off like chattel to some strange brute.
‘The only way is to escape.’
Lellia returned to the tower, her resolve firm. Her body felt drained of all energy, and she collapsed onto the bed.
‘I'm exhausted…’
Facing Cedric, Damian, and then Emperor Perseus had completely sapped her strength.
Lellia lay motionless, staring at the ceiling as she recalled memories of the original novel.
‘The nanny is the key to the secret…’
The nanny who had cared for the young Lellia and then suddenly disappeared one day. In the novel, her whereabouts were revealed much later.
She had been a handmaiden to Princess Iris and was living under the princess’s orders to protect Lellia. Then one day, she received urgent news from her family. Her parents, who lived in the countryside, had been mistaken for heretics and thrown in prison. Those branded as heretics could never escape execution. She immediately stole the princess’s valuables and fled. She took her parents and escaped across the border.
No matter the princess's last wish, nothing was more important than her family's lives.
The nanny, the only person who knew the truth, would return to the imperial castle much later.
‘And she will recall the situation at the time and confess everything to Emperor Perseus…’
At that time, both Elizabeth and Princess Iris were pregnant.
Normally, their due dates would have been different, but unfortunately, Elizabeth gave birth earlier than expected.
Perseus was away on a military expedition at the time, and their two sons were being cared for at Elizabeth’s family home.
And around that time, an incident occurred: Perseus's father, the emperor at the time, suddenly collapsed.
It was all a scheme by Raidios, who coveted the throne. Even Crown Prince Perseus’s departure on the expedition was part of it.
Elizabeth, who had noticed everything, realized that Perseus might not return.
And that not only her own life, but also the child in her womb, would not survive.
In the midst of this, Elizabeth’s labor began, and she dismissed all her servants to give birth alone.
Perhaps it was for the best. She had to smuggle the child out before Raidios’s surveillance intensified.
Holding the child who had come into the world prematurely, Elizabeth sobbed. But this was not the time for tears.
‘What should I do…?’
She tried to think of someone she could ask for help, but there was no one in the imperial castle who would aid her.
Her mother-in-law, the empress, had passed away long ago; her father-in-law, the emperor, had collapsed; and her sister-in-law, Princess Iris, despised her.
‘There must be a way…’
Elizabeth thought that even if she died, she had to protect this child, and she left her chambers.
Late at night, she went to Princess Iris’s quarters.
Coincidentally, Princess Iris had also just given birth. But the princess’s bedchamber was filled with gloom.
The moment she stepped inside, Elizabeth felt the shadow of death.
Princess Iris’s child, born at full term, had died.
Princess Iris was writhing in agony, weeping. The man she loved was dead, and now, even her last remaining child was gone.
She no longer had the will to live.
Elizabeth knelt before the distraught princess and begged.
“Princess Iris, please save this child… I beg you, as a fellow mother, show mercy just this once…”
Princess Iris glared at Elizabeth, whom she had always hated.
“My child is dead, and you’re asking me to save yours? Did you really come here thinking I would grant such a request?”
Princess Iris wanted to kill the mother and daughter on the spot, but…
Seeing the baby in Elizabeth’s arms made her heart waver.
Her own child had died right after birth, but she was still a mother.
As a mother, she could not harm that child.
After sobbing for a long time, Princess Iris made a decision.
“Leave the child here.”
“Princess Iris…”
Princess Iris took her own dead child from a handmaiden and gave it to Elizabeth.
Iris, who had to send away even the body of her dead child, and Elizabeth, who had to leave her own child behind.
That day, Lellia’s fate was sealed.
Elizabeth returned to her chambers, weeping uncontrollably as she held the stillborn child.
Raidios heard the news later and was overjoyed. The child he had planned to kill at birth had died without him lifting a finger. God was on his side.
Following that, he received word that Crown Prince Perseus and his older brother’s two sons were also dead.
Raidios had no reason to hesitate any longer. He poisoned Elizabeth as well, and seized the throne that should have gone to his older brother, becoming emperor.
In the midst of the chaos, Princess Iris began raising Elizabeth’s child in her stead, but her heart grew sick, and she started to waste away.
Sensing her own death, Iris entrusted Lellia to the handmaiden who was the only one to know the truth, and then closed her eyes for the last time.
All of this was Perseus’s tragedy, and the lovely daughter, Yuriana, who would heal him. It was a narrative prepared solely for those two.
Lellia had not the slightest intention of becoming a tool for that narrative.
“…”
Getting out of bed, Lellia stared blankly at the wooden floorboards. Beneath them were the fountain pen and letters she had shared with her friends.
There might have been more letters, but Lellia had no intention of ever opening up those floorboards again.
If she saw them, she might be tempted to write back.
‘I don't want them to feel the betrayal of being deceived by me.’
Lellia turned away completely and burrowed deep under the covers. The happy memories from her time at the temple felt like a distant dream.
The image of herself laughing brightly seemed like a lie. Come to think of it, she hadn't laughed so freely even once since returning to her home country.
The thought made her heart ache for no reason, but Lellia shook her head.
‘This isn't the time to act like a child. I need to get a grip.’
Lellia remembered her original plan and pictured the nearby cabin in her mind.
The cabin left behind by Emperor Perseus’s deceased wife, Elizabeth—Lellia’s biological mother.
‘My food supplies are running low anyway.’
There should be emergency rations there, as well as some useful magical tools.
‘There might even be something that could help me learn magic.’
Mana affinity was usually hereditary, so there was a chance she might have some ability.
‘If I could use magic, I wouldn't have to wait until I'm older to leave the castle…’
She would be able to protect herself.
Lellia bit her lip anxiously.
The time of her death in the original story was not far off.
‘It was after the doll incident… so it'll probably be within two or three months.’
Just in case, she planned to stay cooped up in the tower as much as possible during that time.
‘I shouldn't even go near the pond. Not that I'd die even if I accidentally fell in.’
During her time at the temple, Lellia had learned to swim from her friends.
Recalling that time brought a smile to her lips.
How hard she had tried to keep them from finding out she was a girl. After swimming, she would snatch all her friends' towels, wrap herself up tightly, and run back to her room.
It was a happy memory. The beautiful lakeside reflecting the sunset, her friends shouting and laughing boisterously.
Thanks to them, she had practically mastered swimming.
‘I might not survive an ocean or a river, but there's no way I'd drown in a mere lake or pond.’
Thinking of that time made her miss her friends even more. Lellia forced herself to think of something else.
‘It's too late today… I'll go to the cabin first thing tomorrow.’
Lellia looked out the window at the setting sun, trying to shake off her gloom.
The next morning.
As soon as she woke, Lellia washed up and changed her clothes. Then, with a large bag slung over her shoulder, she left the tower.
She didn't remember the exact location, so she wandered a bit, but she eventually managed to find the cabin.
The wooden cabin was old but had a certain charm. Lellia carefully opened the door and stepped inside.
‘It's cleaner than I thought. Emperor Perseus must have visited.’
It seemed he had sent servants to dust the place.
Lellia began to inspect the interior, moving cautiously so as not to leave any traces.
Inside the small cabin, the heartfelt touches of someone's hand remained everywhere.
A small frame with a pretty landscape painting, a tablecloth that looked to be hand-embroidered, and charming little decorations.
They were all things that the late Elizabeth had touched.
‘…’
Within that space, Lellia was overcome by a strange feeling.
Until now, Elizabeth had only been a character from a novel in her mind.
Even though she had been reborn in this world, she still had memories of her past life.
But upon entering this small, narrow space, her heart began to stir strangely.
The fact that she, too, had a person she could call Mother struck her with a fresh reality.
Being here, she felt she could understand what kind of person Elizabeth had been when she was alive.
In the novel, too, she was a lovely and warm-hearted person, enough to capture all of Perseus’s heart.
Lellia’s heart swelled.
This place felt as warm and safe as the mother’s womb she couldn’t remember.
It was so cozy that she had the illusion it might have been created just for her.
Is this what it would feel like to be held in a mother’s arms?
For the first time, Lellia imagined what it would have been like if her mother had lived.
Elizabeth would have surely protected her child as something more precious than her own life.
She would have loved her with all her heart and taught her all the beautiful and just things in the world.
That alone was enough.
“…”
Lellia stood there blankly for a long time, just gazing into the space around her.
