Translator: Nox

Chapter 2

Chapter 2. An Unexceptional Tragedy

Yuan first met Louise ten years ago.

To maintain the Pellieresse family's reputation, which had produced prominent medical scholars for generations, her parents were always busy.

Her father, the head of the family, interacted with medical scholars in the capital, and her mother followed him to events to assist him.

Young Yuan could only see her parents in the dead of winter.

Because in winter, her parents returned to the Pellieresse mansion to plan and prepare for the coming year.

During all seasons except winter, young Yuan writhed in loneliness.

She chased after his traces in her father's study and wandered around her mother's bedroom, searching for her scent that lingered throughout the winter.

Her parents said that living such busy lives was the destiny of the Pellieresse.

Nobles do not work, but the Pellieresse are different.

The reason the Pellieresse had such a reputation was that the first head of the family was a famous doctor and had once saved the Emperor from death a long time ago.

They said that the roots should not be forgotten and that the power of the Pellieresse must be protected.

Her parents were quite strict but also affectionate at the same time.

So Yuan always waited for winter.

Her parents and Yuan. She loved that such a perfect family was at home.

Ah, no.

To be a 'perfect' family, Louise also had to be there.

Louise was Yuan's older sister, whom Yuan, who was ten years old, had never met since she was born.

It was because she had a disease that all of Pellieresse's capabilities could not cure, and she was recuperating on some island in the warm south.

[Yuan, my dear. I can finally bring your sister to Pellieresse. Be happy.]

Winter at the age of ten.

Yuan was overjoyed by the short letter that arrived from her mother.

Finally, her sister is coming to the mansion.

In this vast mansion where her parents are absent, a small family that I can rely on is finally being created.

Her parents, Louise, and I, the four of us will spend this winter in this mansion as a perfect family.

The simple enumeration of that fact made young Yuan's heart swell.

From that day on, Yuan had happy imaginations every day.

A beautifully dressed 12-year-old girl smiling brightly at Yuan.

And her parents watching them contentedly from behind.

The two of them walking down the hallway that she had walked alone, and running together through the servants who were always indifferent.

Even the scene of the sisters growing up and choosing the dresses they would wear to the Imperial Palace debutante ball, which was every girl's dream.

Just imagining it made her happy.

But the reality that came was the exact opposite of her imagination.

"My lady, the madam... the Count..."

Urgent footsteps.

A blizzard blowing in from the wide-open grand entrance.

Knights with small icicles hanging from their beards and a pale-faced butler.

"While driving the carriage on the snowy road with Louise, they..."

Behind the knight kneeling and wailing, another knight entered the mansion protecting a girl.

The unfamiliar girl, frozen red and unable to shed tears, stood still as if struck by lightning as soon as she found Yuan.

And soon, refusing support, she staggered towards Yuan.

"You must be Yuan."

Her thin, trembling voice was very delicate.

"You're my sister."

The girl came closer to Yuan, who was standing still like someone who had forgotten how to speak.

"I'm your sister, Louise Pellieresse."

And she pulled Yuan into her cold embrace and hugged her tightly.

Beyond Louise's small, lowered shoulders, something covered with two cloaks could be seen.

It was her parents' bodies.

There was nothing particularly special about the tragedy of the Pellieresse Count's family.

The death of the Count and Countess was a common carriage accident in winter.

And the situation of orphaned children being entrusted to relatives is very common.

The fact that uncles and their families rushed into a house with only children left to inherit the title was, in a way, not such a unique situation.

"Now we are all Pellieresse!"

However, to young Yuan, her uncle was someone she had never seen before in her life.

"This means we're really one family now!"

And the important thing was that the care Yuan was thinking of did not exist.

Yuan had to accept a new family before she could even escape the grief of losing her parents.

"So this is your brother's study."

Her uncle, Geret Pellieze, with his curly black hair forcibly slicked back with oil, sat heavily on the desk in the study filled with her father's traces.

As if deeply moved, he stroked the majestic armrest of the chair with his hand, then became emotional on his own, and rubbed his cheek against the desk.

"I can't believe I'm sitting in this seat."

The uncle, who opened the safe and clicked his tongue, saw Yuan standing blankly in front of the study door and said only one thing.

"Doesn't your father have a safe where he hid gold or land documents?"

Her aunt, Priscilla, was a very short woman with a skinny body.

She wore heavy makeup and tottered around on high heels to hide her short height, rummaging through the bedroom where her mother's scent remained.

"There's not much in the way of household goods. But there are a lot of things that look quite precious."

The flamboyantly dressed aunt frowned at the closet filled with her mother's neat clothes.

"I expected it because she's a noble, but all the clothes just smell like books."

The aunt immediately kicked out most of the maids and filled the Pellieresse mansion with people she had brought.

She opened her mother's jewelry box and sold it as much as she wanted, and changed the Pellieresse mansion to her taste.

"Does this little girl know how to read ledgers?"

Her aunt, who was the daughter of a merchant but was far from good with numbers, heard that Yuan, whom she treated as a maid to be kicked out, had been learning ledger organization over the butler's shoulder, and her eyes sparkled.

"It's perfect since I needed a maid."

The cousins that the new Pellieresse Count and Countess brought were children who completely surpassed Yuan's common sense.

Regina, who was the same age as Yuan, opened her mouth wide as soon as she entered the mansion following her uncle.

The young Regina, who was picking at everything from the entrance to the first-floor lobby to the decorations on the staircase railings, let out a scream-like exclamation when she entered Yuan's room.

"This is all mine now!"

Even though the owner of the room had followed her, Regina did not bat an eye and hurriedly opened the closet to rummage through the clothes, and opened the drawers and jewelry box to haphazardly put on the accessories that Yuan had received from her parents as birthday gifts.

"They all suit me better, don't they?"

Neither the uncle nor the aunt pointed out their daughter's rudeness.

The uncle was busy consulting with a lawyer about whether his father had hidden assets, and the aunt was also busy rummaging through the entire house to find the works of art and jewelry that her mother had brought as dowry and putting a price on them.

"The Pellieresse Count's young lady? Pfft."

When the butler, who had protected the house until the end, called Yuan that, Regina grabbed her stomach and rolled on the floor laughing.

The red-haired, green-eyed, and pretty cousin, who was laughing so hard that tears came out, unhesitatingly spewed out harsh words to Yuan.

"Now the Pellieresse Count is my father. You are now my mother's maid and my servant. You need to know your place."

After being kicked out of her room, Regina, who always came to Yuan's newly assigned room with her eyes lit up to see if there was anything else to take, eventually replaced the black dress that Yuan had been wearing throughout her parents' funeral with a real maid's dress under the pretext that it did not suit a 'maid'.

The butler who protested was kicked out, and even the head maid, who had been dumbfounded, left the mansion, Yuan could not hide her shock and gradually withered away.

The newly arrived servants did not treat Yuan and Louise as young ladies, but instead colluded with Regina and Frederick to harass them when the Pellieresse Count and Countess were not watching.

They had to take care of their own meals, and the sisters had to wash the old clothes that Regina had taken away and that were left with only a few that had become too small.

It was only when her uncle, who knew nothing about the Pellieresse's family business, started asking Yuan about this and that that she started to not be treated like a maid.

The uncle, who was always being compared to his predecessor, would vaguely explain to his family and call Yuan into the study.

Naturally, the servants could not treat Yuan, who came and went to the study, as a maid, and the aunt also needed Yuan to organize the troublesome ledgers, so her attitude improved a little.

In the meantime, Regina and Frederick were the most annoyed by Yuan in the mansion.

In particular, the fact that Yuan could freely enter and leave the study, which was off-limits to everyone, became a twisted opportunity not only for Regina but also for Frederick, who had no interest in housework.

"I hit girls too. If you act cocky, I'll make sure you can't use that face."

Taking care of the family's affairs instead of her uncle.

Helping her aunt without even being able to rest.

After Regina took away all the candy and cookies that her uncle had given her as a reward for doing well.

Frederick was a sturdy boy who aspired to go to military academy, and Frederick's threat was terrifying to Yuan.

Yuan felt like she was walking on thin ice every day.

While the visits of condolence continued to the mansion for quite a long time, she lost her words like a person with aphasia and was at a loss as to how to live among the unfamiliar family, so she just squatted down blankly.

To Yuan, her unfamiliar family also included her sister, Louise.

Then, one day, when she heard her uncle and aunt fighting over the issue of kicking Yuan and her sister out, Yuan's anxiety reached its peak.

Louise, who was listening to the couple's fight that echoed through the mansion, quietly approached Yuan and encouraged her.

Even though there were clear bruises on her arms and legs from where she had fallen or been beaten.

"Let's do anything, Yuan."

"..."

"Let's work harder at whatever we want to be, whether it's a maid or a servant."

"..."

"If we become useful people, they won't abandon us."

Yuan quietly nodded as she was held in Louise's arms.

But she could not stop the unfairness, anger, and resentment that remained in one corner of her heart from turning towards the innocent Louise.

'If it weren't for you.'

If her parents hadn't forced the carriage to run so hard to bring you home on that snowy day.

Even if I couldn't see them often, my parents, who always hugged me warmly, wouldn't have died.

Even with the sister she had always dreamed of in front of her, young Yuan was often overwhelmed by resentment and despair.

While relying on Louise and living through hellish days, she always had nightmares.

The scene was always the same.

Early morning. A day when snow was falling heavily.

The bodies of her parents brought by Louise, who entered through the front door with a blizzard.

When things were difficult, Yuan always had nightmares of returning to the day she lost everything, and Louise hugged Yuan even though she knew that.

"Yuan, your sister loves you. I'll always be by your side."

I'm glad I have a sister.

As ten years passed, at some point, Yuan melted away her resentment and felt the urge to tell Louise that.

Although she had never told her.

And now again.

Yuan, like that day ten years ago.

Like the nightmare she always had.

She faced the snowstorm blowing in from outside the front door alone.

Slowly replaying the words that the man who had taken the living Louise and now brought the dead Louise had said to her.

"Deposed Empress Consort."

It was natural that the mansion became noisy at the title that the man called Marquis Kompani used to call Yuan.

"You must come with me right away."