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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 37
Chapter Title: Met After 3 Years
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Roje slowly regained consciousness, her gaze shifting between the old ceiling and the people surrounding her.
‘…Who are these people?’
She remembered seeing Grand Duke Arteum, but after that, her memory was blank. Roje looked at them with a confused expression. Her gaze settled on the pink-haired woman.
‘Ah…’
A woman with delicate, innocent features. Though her violet eyes were slightly different from Roje's, anyone could tell she was her mother. They resembled each other so much, she recognized her at a glance.
‘This must be Roje’s mother.’
Roje tore her gaze from Ribera and looked at the middle-aged man in front of her. He looked quite stubborn. Beneath his resolute eyes, his tightly pursed lips trembled visibly.
‘So this is Roje’s father. He… he’s still holding my hand.’
Did he care for her deeply? The hand holding hers was incredibly warm. Roje had no idea how to act with these parents she was meeting for the first time.
‘What should I say? Judging by their expressions, it seems okay if I approach them with a smile first.’
She was almost certain they were worried about her, but the words wouldn't come out easily. They were ‘Roje’s’ parents, not hers. She was inexplicably afraid that if she acted even a little strangely, her 'fake' identity would be exposed.
‘Parents would notice if their daughter was even slightly different.’
Cold sweat trickled down her spine. To face such a dilemma right after waking up. Roje nervously darted her eyes around. Meanwhile, the Count and Countess Serviate were overcome with emotion at being reunited with Roje.
“My child…”
Ribera was the first to approach Roje. She embraced Roje, her voice thick with tears. Roje silently melted into Ribera’s arms. Her slender embrace felt incredibly warm and comforting. Ribera, still holding Roje, slowly lifted her head and met her gaze. She fumbled over Roje’s face and spoke.
“My child, have you been well all this time?”
Ribera’s hand, resting on Roje’s cheek, trembled. Roje simply nodded, feeling the warm touch on her cheek. For some reason, beyond Ribera’s form, she saw her own mother from Korea. Even though Roje’s mother and her own mother shared no resemblance, her heart felt strangely heavy. Her mother, who always said ‘I’ was her pride. She, who had gotten into a prestigious university without expensive private tutoring and landed a job at a major corporation right away, had always been her mother’s source of pride. Roje actually thought her life wasn’t that special, yet to her mother’s friends’ children, she had lived a life often called the ‘ideal daughter’.
‘…Are they doing well?’
Suddenly, her mother and father in Korea came to mind. Until now, Roje had been too busy adapting to life in the novel to even properly miss them. Her parents’ faces flickered before her eyes. A surge of emotion, a choking sensation, washed over her at the faint images. Like the original Roje, she too hadn’t seen her parents for three years. The difference was that for her, it wasn’t because of ‘marriage’ but because of ‘divorce’. The wound in her heart was so deep that she cut ties with both family and friends, fleeing with the sole reason that she didn’t want to see anyone. She could have leaned on them and grieved freely, but why was that so hard back then? Thinking of her parents from her previous life, her nose stung. Roje blinked rapidly, trying to suppress the rising tears.
‘The news that I died… did they hear it?’
After the divorce, for the end of her runaway daughter to be merely an accident in a studio apartment.
‘I’d rather… they didn’t know.’
She wished her parents wouldn’t know that her life, which hadn’t even properly bloomed, had ended so pointlessly. Even if the entire nation knew of her death, she only wanted two people, her mother and father, not to know. She hadn’t wanted to commit the unfilial act of leaving before her parents…
“...How hard it must have been for you, alone. And I didn’t even know my daughter had become so thin… I’m so sorry, my child. I’m truly sorry.”
The Countess Serviate kept repeating apologies to Roje, despite having done nothing wrong. Hot tears splashed onto Roje’s shoulder. Ribera held Roje close, weeping endlessly.
“Oh…”
At Ribera’s words, the tears she had held back finally streamed down her cheeks.
“Oh, oh…”
The person holding her felt like her real mother, still in Korea, and her heart ached.
“...I’m sorry.”
Roje managed to open her mouth with difficulty. Her voice was muffled and choked with sobs, making it hard to speak properly.
“Mom… Dad… I’m truly sorry.”
Having found her voice, Roje’s shoulders shook as she began to sob. She poured out the words she had held back, as if confessing to her parents in Korea.
“I’m so sorry I couldn’t visit you for three years…”
If she had known she would die so futilely, she would never have disappeared like that.
“I truly… missed you, Mom and Dad, so, so much.”
These were the words she had swallowed down while huddled alone in her tiny studio apartment, drinking through the nights.
She missed her parents’ embrace. In truth, she had been incredibly lonely on her own. Swallowing her pain with alcohol as her only companion was not enjoyable at all. She missed people, but seeing anyone connected to Lee Dohyeon was excruciatingly difficult. Lee Dohyeon had been so deeply ingrained in her life that she thought the only thing she could do was leave for a place where no one would remind her of him. Ribera held the sobbing Roje even tighter. Perhaps it was because Ribera’s embrace felt so warm? Roje ultimately wailed like a child, crying out for her mom and dad. Clinging to Ribera, she sobbed uncontrollably. What must her parents have felt, shedding tears at her funeral? After three years, the news they received was their daughter’s obituary… What would they think, looking at her, transformed into a cold corpse? She felt sorry for the original Roje, but if she could, she wanted to tell them that she was alive. That she was living well, even if in a different form, and that they shouldn’t suffer so much. Watching Roje and Ribera, clear tears welled up in Demon’s eyes as well. Demon hastily wiped away his tears, as if trying to hide his reddened eyes.
‘I should leave them alone for now.’
Grand Duke Arteum, who had been observing them, quietly excused himself for Roje and her family, reunited after three years. The mansion was a sea of tears for a while. None of the three could easily stop crying. They embraced each other in the joy of their reunion.
***
Meanwhile, laughter bloomed in Cedric’s mansion.
“Haha, yes. He finally got divorced?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
Cedric, still unaware that Gwen had been expelled, simply burst into laughter at the news of Eric and Roje’s divorce.
“That sluggish fellow actually handled things decisively for once.”
He muttered with a rather satisfied expression.
“See? I told you our Eric would handle everything well on his own.”
Tersia, seated across from Cedric, put down her teacup with a relaxed smile. Her eyes, as she swept back her thick, wavy hair, were annoyingly upturned. Tersia slowly gripped her fan with a satisfied smile. Then, unable to hide her smile, she fluttered her hand.
“Eric certainly takes after you when it comes to getting things done. Whose son do you think he is?”
She was Tersia, Eric’s birth mother. With her heavy makeup, she looked quite extravagant at first glance. Not only did she wear numerous necklaces, but her fingers were also laden with ornate rings. The atmosphere was amicable. Cedric and Tersia seemed quite pleased to have gotten rid of Roje, who had been a thorn in their side. The only person not smiling there was his valet, just one man. He couldn’t laugh freely in front of Cedric and Tersia.
‘I also need to tell them that a maid from that house is pregnant with the Count’s child…’
Looking at Cedric and Tersia, drunk with joy, he found it difficult to speak.
“What about the documents? Did he definitely stamp them?”
“Yes. They’ve already been submitted to the temple, so you don’t need to worry about that.”
The valet bowed his head and spoke calmly. At his words, Cedric’s laughter grew even heartier.
“Oh my. It seems our Eric was really determined. He handled things so quickly.”
Tersia chimed in with the valet’s words, wearing a satisfied smile. Indeed, she knew her son Eric would come to his senses someday. His nature, being too kind to refuse any woman who came his way, was merely regrettable in Tersia’s eyes. Even though it was ‘fickleness’ rather than ‘kindness,’ she was quick to deny it. To Tersia, Eric was a child she loved dearly, so she always doted on him. Unlike Cedric. The valet watched Cedric and Tersia in silence for a long time. It was because he needed to find the right moment to speak, but it was proving incredibly difficult. The valet, sweating nervously as he watched them, finally opened his mouth with difficulty, thinking, ‘What happens, happens.’
“However, there’s been a bit of a problem…”
At the valet’s trailing voice, Cedric’s booming laughter, which had filled the room, instantly ceased. Cedric, who had just been smiling heartily, was now glaring at the valet with a cold expression. The valet flinched, seemingly intimidated by Cedric’s sharp gaze. Cedric wasn’t the only one who stopped laughing. Tersia did too. Tersia stared at the valet with sharp eyes.
“Problem?”
Cedric’s voice cut through the air, chillingly. He slowly leaned his upper body forward from where it had been reclined against the chair. Cedric clasped his hands together and rested his chin upon them.
“A problem with the divorce…”
The amicable atmosphere instantly changed. Tension filled the room. The valet swallowed hard and opened his mouth.
“The Count has a child.”
“What?”
“Our Eric has a child?”
Cedric and Tersia reacted simultaneously from both sides. Their attitude was far from joyful about having a grandchild. The valet simply watched their reactions, which he had anticipated, even more carefully.
“That vixen Roje finally seduced my son and made him do this!”
Tersia spewed vulgar words that shouldn’t be uttered, expressing her rage towards Roje. Tersia, who had been huffing with indignation, closed her mouth at the valet’s next words.
“It’s not Lady Roje’s child.”
At the valet’s words, Cedric’s eyes narrowed.
‘Surely not…’
A certain maid from the Count’s estate suddenly came to mind. The woman who, despite being a mere maid, even stole and used her mistress Roje’s cosmetics. Cedric’s suspicion was precisely correct.
“He’s said to have gotten one of the maids working at the mansion pregnant.”
“What?!”
At the valet’s words, Tersia sprang to her feet and shouted. The table shook violently, causing a teacup to fall to the floor with a crash. They had just managed to get rid of the daughter of a ruined family, and now a mere maid was clinging to them? Tersia couldn’t hide her eyes blazing with fury and gritted her teeth. She deliberately stepped on the broken teacup shards beneath her feet. With a crunch, the teacup shattered into tiny pieces.
