Christine’s expression softened, seemingly grateful for the return to ordinary conversation.

“Yes, I met him. It had been so long that I barely recognized him at first.”

Still uncomfortable about the engagement issue, Christine continued speaking without looking at Daphne.

“He’s grown into such a dignified man. Befitting someone who guards the western part of the Empire. You remember him, don’t you? When he briefly stayed at our house when you were young.”

Daphne nodded.

I know him all too well. I even married him in my past life.

Her eyes naturally narrowed as she recalled past memories. They weren’t the kind of recollections that would put her in a comfortable mood.

Then again……

Daphne hardly had any pleasant memories from the past.

After a brief silence, Christine carefully broached a subject.

“He actually asked about you.”

“About me?”

“Yes. He said he’d like to see you sometime.”

Daphne’s narrowed eyes instantly widened in surprise.

“Why are you so shocked? His Highness said you were kind to him during his stay at our house. There will be a banquet soon, so let’s make sure to greet him then.”

Kind? Surely not!

Daphne swallowed hard.

Unless he was being sarcastic. It was a memory too difficult to embellish, even with empty words.

But Kartun wasn’t a man who spoke idly. When it came to being taciturn, he was even more so than Werner, not less, and equally single-minded.

Would such a straightforward person speak indirectly?

Daphne’s nerves stood on edge. If he had intended this, then he’d succeeded. In this world where she’d returned to the past, the most dangerous thing was a person who had changed.

She needed to learn more details about his current situation. It seemed unlikely she’d get accurate information from Christine, who knew nothing about Daphne’s past entanglement with him.

Daphne slowly rose and moved toward the door. She opened it herself while looking at Christine. It was very polite, but clearly meant “please leave now.”

To be dismissed by a daughter who had always craved parental love…

Christine felt a stinging sensation in one corner of her heart. It then occurred to her that this was the first time she had looked at Daphne so intently and had such a lengthy conversation with her since giving birth to her.

⁕⁕⁕

Daphne’s previous life had been too cruel.

A couple deeply in love with each other, uniformly exceptional children, and abundant wealth. The Armin family was one that anyone would envy.

But none of it belonged to Daphne. Like oil on water. Although she lived as a daughter of this house and as House Mücke’s fiancée, she didn’t fit in anywhere.

In the year she turned 20, Marquis Werner planned the largest maritime trade venture in history. Nobles and even the Emperor competed to invest, and he set sail with dozens of ships alongside his eldest son, Ludwig.

After they departed, Leonhardt confessed that he had found another woman. Daphne couldn’t tell the remaining family members and suffered alone.

How much time had she spent with him?

She believed it was just a temporary lapse and concluded that if she soothed him well, he would return, so she needed to be even better to him.

She visited him daily, pleading with tears. But Leonhardt remained unmoved and eventually refused to see her at all.

When Christine belatedly learned of this, she quickly sent a messenger to Marquis Werner, but the news that returned was devastating. They had all perished in a pirate attack.

The problem was that the pirates’ base was on an island belonging to the Kingdom of Gael, and the attack had occurred in the kingdom’s territorial waters. This incident severely damaged relations between the two countries.

Christine could no longer receive help from her homeland.

For the time being, the second son, Zenos, became the family head. He was a genius inventor with a meticulous personality who would dig into matters thoroughly.

Zenos didn’t believe his father and older brother’s deaths were simply due to a pirate attack. While asking around and investigating the background on his own, he met a mysterious death.

They said he capsized while boating with friends.

A person investigating family members who died at sea suddenly goes boating? Above all, he had no friends.

Nothing made sense.

Unable to bear the shock of losing her husband and two children in succession, Christine fell ill and took to her bed.

But the tragedies didn’t end there.

This trade venture involved stakes even larger than the fortune the Marquis had amassed throughout his lifetime. Afterward came relentless debt collections. Land, mansions, even Daphne’s dresses. They sold everything they had but still couldn’t pay off the debts completely.

Reading about debt collection in novels was worlds apart from experiencing it firsthand. There were people who berated them saying “Do you know what kind of money this is?”, those who pleaded with tears saying they would die without repayment, and threats to kill if not paid by a certain date were commonplace.

Perhaps due to the attention drawn by the Marquis family’s successive tragedies, Leonhardt came to visit.

He comforted Daphne and made an unexpected promise.

“I will definitely marry you. Just wait a little longer.”

After refusing to even see her, he suddenly wanted to marry? Daphne, who had already given up on him, couldn’t bear the thought.

But her family was ruined, facing daily debt collections and even worrying about their next meal. She should have been deeply grateful just for Leonhardt’s promise to keep his word.

However, they couldn’t marry immediately. Naturally, his family opposed it.

Leonhardt said he would soon inherit the title of duke, so she should wait until then.

As he openly talked about getting married, the debt collections naturally ceased. Moreover, Leonhardt sent living expenses and even paid for the tuition of Daphne’s younger brother, Fabian.

She was so grateful.

Only then did Daphne feel the knot in her heart beginning to dissolve.

But Daphne didn’t just sit around accepting help. She worked as a tutor to pay for her mother’s medical expenses.

After two seasons passed, Leonhardt got married. But the bride wasn’t Daphne—it was Anaïs. Rumors circulated that they had rushed because she was pregnant.

Daphne fell into despair, and Christine completely lost her senses. The youngest, Fabian, quit the academy he was attending and returned home.

And once it was clear that Daphne and Leonhardt were over, the debt collections resumed. They became even more intense than before meeting Leonhardt. There were even creditors who demanded she pay with her body instead of money.

⁕⁕⁕

[Daphne, jump down.]

Gasp!

Waking up, she realized it had been a nightmare plagued by vivid memories of the past. But the voice whispering from the bottom of the cliff still seemed to echo in her ears.

Daphne wiped away her cold sweat only after realizing she had returned to the past. Though darkness surrounded her, there was no chance of falling back asleep.

Daphne rose early and anxiously watched the dawn break.

‘I absolutely cannot fail this time.’

If today’s plan failed, there wouldn’t be another chance.

Daphne finished preparing to go out just as the dress shops were opening. As she was about to leave through the main entrance, someone called out to her.

“Hey, where are you going?”

She could tell whose voice it was without looking—a voice coated thickly with spite.

“Welcome, Brother Zenos.”

“Who’s your brother!”

He exploded in anger, but Daphne didn’t even blink.

“Since you won’t become the family head, I can’t call you young marquis. Should I call you Professor instead?”

“Hey!”

Zenos always picked fights over forms of address.

The problem was that he did this in front of others too. When Werner later learned of this, he warned Zenos. He probably considered it a family embarrassment.

Afterward, Zenos reluctantly allowed her to call him “brother” in public settings. However, in private, he forbade her from using any form of address at all.

In short, he refused to treat her as a person.

“Having a mouth doesn’t mean you can babble whatever you want. You got your engagement broken off, and you still don’t know how to read the room?”

Hearing this, Daphne tilted her head.

There was no way yesterday’s events could have been distorted so quickly. As always, Zenos had interpreted things in his own way and was using it to pick a fight.

“I’ve repeatedly instructed the servants to watch what they say, yet somehow it’s already reached you?”

“You? Ha!”

“Since ‘brother’ isn’t acceptable and I certainly won’t be allowed to use your name, I’ll have to call you ‘you.'”

He stepped closer to Daphne and raised his hand.

Zenos’s personality was simply bad.

As intelligent as he was sensitive, he frequently tormented those around him. Needless to say, Daphne was his favorite target for bullying.

At least when he was appointed as a professor immediately after graduation and began living at the academy, peace returned to the household.

But does a barking dog become quiet just because it leaves the house? Along with his fame as the youngest professor, he was notorious for going through the most teaching assistants.