-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: Vine
Chapter: 11
Chapter Title: My Enemy Sister Cherishes Me
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Whoosh- Thwack! Thwaaack-!
“Agh!”
What happened was barely visible. Louis had clearly lunged first, but the next moment, Callista’s wooden sword struck his arm and the back of his neck.
Louis, whose body seemed to fold in half instantly, was rolling on the floor, howling.
“Ugh-huh-huh-ah! H-heugh! Uwaaaah!”
It was as if his bones had been crushed; his arm was twisted at an odd angle, dangling uselessly. Louis cried out, screaming in a way that sent shivers down one’s spine.
“Louis!”
Clarissa, having appeared out of nowhere, pushed past the servants and rushed forward, calling Louis’s name. She tried to grab her nephew’s arm and help him up, but Louis only groaned louder.
“How could this even….”
Thwack-!
Instead of answering, Callista flung the wooden sword she was holding down in front of Clarissa. Clarissa, who had been about to question her about Louis’s injury, simply stared with wide eyes and closed her mouth.
Callista turned towards Soyer.
“Lady…!”
“It’s your fault for failing to control your subordinate, Soyer. Leave the Ducal House with the child.”
To him, who was around her father’s age and had once been Callista’s personal guard, Callista gave her orders with an expression devoid of any mercy.
Clarissa’s face turned pale, and Soyer remained silent, his head still bowed. His face, deeply lined for his age, looked more sorrowful than wronged.
…No.
I tried to turn my head, but contrary to my will, Soyer’s image from my previous life flashed through my mind.
He was a warm person. Someone who gave money and food to hungry children on the streets. Someone who was sometimes too generous and easily deceived.
He had even been kind to me. One year, despite Callista’s order to assassinate me, he saved me by pretending it was an accident.
He, who had been loyal to the Ducal House his entire life and never even started a family, was killed by Calein’s assassin.
How many times had I apologized, clutching the corpse Calein had gleefully forced me to see, blaming myself?
“I will obey your ord—”
“It’s my fault.”
Before I even fully realized what I was doing, my mouth was already moving. Soyer looked at me with startled eyes.
“Y-young Lady!”
“I’m sorry. I talked to Louis. He said he had to go back quickly, but I stopped him, and it’s my fault he fell.”
Callista slowly turned her head and looked at me. No emotion could be read from her cold expression.
“D-did you hear that? It was her fault….”
Louis, who was clutching his arm and rolling, looked at me with widening eyes, and at the same time, Clarissa shouted something with a look of welcome, but Callista ignored them and met my gaze instead.
When I looked up, I saw a beautiful face, as if sculpted with a sharp knife. Her eyes, a much deeper blue than mine, stared at me with a piercing sharpness that seemed to see through everything.
A gaze imbued with innate coldness. That gaze was so chilling it felt as if it would freeze me from head to toe. I couldn’t move a single finger, as if bound by chains.
“…Harper.”
Memories of my previous life enveloped my entire body.
The poison in the red wine I first drank on my tenth birthday, which had half-paralyzed my body.
The assassins who had sneaked into my bedroom at age eleven and held a sword to my throat.
Callista’s cold face, who had relentlessly found me when I was isolated in the hunting grounds at age twelve, and drawn her bowstring while looking directly into my eyes.
‘There is nowhere in this world for you to go.’
The words she’d left me with as I ran away from home, and her people who pursued me to the very end.
My lips and legs began to tremble slightly.
“It’s been a while.”
A voice as cold as her gaze muttered briefly. An inexplicable chill continued to flow through my entire body, and I stood still, unable to offer any reply.
A silence of unknown seconds or minutes passed, and Callista’s gaze finally released me.
“Soyer, take the child away. If this happens again after tomorrow, I will not let you leave in one piece.”
“Th-thank you, Lady!”
She turned her head without hesitation and disappeared down the corridor. Five or six people quickly followed behind her.
“Miss Harper, why didn’t you just stay put….”
As the waiting attendants dispersed, Jena quietly approached and straightened my ribbon. It seemed to have been messily disheveled because of Louis.
“…”
Jena said something more, but I couldn’t properly hear her words. The chill that had gripped my entire body just moments ago still hadn’t receded.
‘Callista is back.’
I thought I just needed to avoid her.
However, the fear that now made my legs and lips tremble, along with the countless memories of my previous life, wouldn’t allow for such rational thought or composure.
“…Oh dear.”
Thud-
“Oh, Miss!”
The remaining strength in my legs seemed to completely give out, the ceiling spun, and then everything went black.
‘I have to find that person….’
In my fading consciousness, a forgotten task lingered in my mind.
***
“My Lady, is it truly alright to leave Louis Evans as he is?”
Callista sat in her private study chair, gazing intently at Aramis Mueller, her academy classmate and personal guard.
“Louis… who?”
“Louis Evans, My Lady. The boy who grabbed Miss Harper by the collar, the one whose arm you crushed.”
“Ah.”
She shrugged as if she had completely forgotten.
“Another Evans? That woman and the old fogeys on the Elder Council certainly have been busy planting weeds.”
“You saw the Duchess protecting him, didn’t you? He’s apparently her biological nephew.”
“No wonder he had that unpleasant resemblance. Are you suggesting I treat him?”
“Anyone listening might think My Lady is confusing me with Vittori.”
Aramis shook his head in disbelief at Callista’s retort.
“I mean, wouldn’t it be better to kill him, lest he harbor resentment?”
At seventeen, an age that could still be considered boyhood, his advice was always cruel.
“Leave him. Soyer will handle it.”
“If that soft-hearted man had educated him properly, the boy wouldn’t have been beaten for failing to even greet someone in the first place.”
“It wasn’t because of a greeting. It’s because he’s a dog that bites its master.”
“Pardon? Then…”
Aramis scratched his head and recalled the situation from moments ago. The boy seemed to have grabbed someone by the collar…
“…Was it because of Miss Harper?”
“Do you think I should just let a Ducal House trainee knight attack a Lady of the house?”
“Well… that’s true.”
Aramis tilted his head, then conceded. Indeed, it was unlikely that Louis’s actions would go unnoticed by Callista, who clearly separated public and private matters.
Even if Callista had no affection whatsoever for the person whose collar Louis had grabbed.
“Where’s Theon?”
Aramis’s eyebrows furrowed slightly when Callista suddenly asked for Theon.
“As soon as you arrive, why is he….”
Click-
The moment Aramis was about to answer, the study door opened. Dark blond hair, round spectacles, and sharp, shining gray eyes behind them.
“Couldn’t you at least knock before coming in? Is your arm too weak to manage it?”
“Her Ladyship told me to just come in. Unlike you, I have a memory.”
Theon replied curtly to a grumbling Aramis. Aramis scowled.
“You’re here, Theon.”
Callista rose from her seat to greet him. Theon bowed respectfully.
“I greet Your Ladyship.”
Callista raised an eyebrow. She was silent for a moment before offering Theon a seat.
“Thank you, My Lady.”
Callista stared at him intently for a while before turning to Aramis.
“Aramis, make me some tea.”
“Pardon? I don’t know how to do that. You should call a maid….”
Aramis jumped up and refused, but Callista didn’t bat an eye.
“You’re an idiot. Pour water into the teacup, then add the tea leaves.”
“Making your guard run such errands makes you a wicked master.”
“If you don’t want to work for a wicked master, then do as you please.”
“Haaah…”
Aramis, no longer able to pretend he didn’t know her words were a signal for him to leave, sighed heavily and exited the study.
“…You didn’t tell him whether to use hot water or cold, My Lady. He’s simple-minded; he’ll get confused if you don’t tell him.”
Theon said with a serious expression.
He and Aramis had been at each other’s throats since their academy days as senior and junior. It was an extreme clash between a scholar and a warrior.
“If he brings cold water, I’ll just tell him to drink it himself. More importantly.”
Callista sat on the sofa opposite Theon and looked up. Her deep blue eyes met his somewhat murky gray ones.
“Are you going to refuse my offer?”
Callista spoke calmly, yet directly. Theon adjusted his spectacles slightly.
“By ‘offer’ you mean…”
“Didn’t you say, even back at the academy, that you wanted a master you could serve for life? That accumulating all the wealth of the Empire would only be worthwhile if there was a reason for it.”
Callista gazed intently at Theon. He received her gaze without a word.
“After that, you rejected every noble and king who sought you out.”
“I did.”
“The last time I returned home, I made you the same offer. To become my person. You said you’d give me an answer once you graduated and came back, because I was too young then.”
“…”
“But you, who said that, still call me ‘My Lady’ instead of ‘My Master’… are you considering someone else?”
“That’s…”
Theon instinctively averted his gaze for a moment, his words trailing off.
He knew she had good insight, but he hadn’t expected her to hit him with such a direct question.
As he evaded the answer, Callista’s eyes widened slightly.
“Surely not my father, or *that woman*?”
“No!”
“Theon, no matter how desperate for money you are, they are not an option. They are the kind of people who will strip their subordinates to the bone and discard them. You’d be better off leaving the mansion and starting your own business.”
“It’s not like that, My Lady. It’s just… I’m a little busy with something else right now.”
“Something else, you say.”
Callista, who had been genuinely worried moments ago, tilted her head in puzzlement.
“…You said you were teaching Harper, that child.”
She pondered for a moment, then slowly opened her mouth. As Theon didn’t deny it, she raised an eyebrow.
