Chapter 49 – I’ve been doing well.

Of course, after the divorce, I planned to find a separate home and live with my mother, but she doesn’t know that I’ve already agreed to the divorce. From her words, it felt like she had her own plans.

“Come sit down, dear. The journey must have been tiring. How about we lie down and chat for a while, just like old times?”

“Oh, um, Mother. Wait a second.”

I quickly grabbed my mother’s hands, which were trying to sit me down at the vanity. Even though I had come intending to tell her everything, I was so worried about how shocked she might be.

“Please sit down first, Mother. Let me do it for you.”

“You don’t look well; you should rest first.”

“I want to do it. Please, hurry.”

I gently pushed my mother into the chair and started undoing her hair accessories. As I slowly combed her hair, my racing heart began to calm down a bit. But soon, I noticed the significant increase in her gray hairs, and it made me feel a little sad. It seemed like she had aged a lot while I was gone.

“Liv, my dear daughter. I’ve been doing well.”

When I looked up, I saw my mother gazing at me with a pitiful expression in the mirror.

“I believed you were living well. You’re strong. That’s why I was able to manage.”

I felt a lump in my throat but tried hard not to show it as I neatly gathered the strands of hair I had been combing. After placing the comb on the vanity, I rested my hands on my mother’s shoulders, and she held my hands in return. That warmth gave me the courage to speak.

“I’ve been doing well, too.”

My mother patiently waited for me to continue; even though she seemed calm, I knew she must have been deeply hurt inside. It pained me to think that I was the cause.

“It would be a lie to say it wasn’t hard, but I’ve been managing. Living alone was actually kind of fun.”

“I see.”

“I missed you, but… I was doing so well that I didn’t want to come back.”

“I see.”

“Mother… Please, don’t be too shocked.”

I slowly removed my bonnet, revealing my short bob haircut that fell just below my ears. My mother’s eyes widened in shock. Even common women would only cut their hair if they were pushed to the absolute brink. Although I knew this, it was only after I sold my hair that I truly realized the severity of my situation. Even those who were used to poverty pitied me when they saw my short hair.

“You… cut your hair and sold it.”

“Yes.”

“How hard it must have been… for you to…”

“No, it’s not that I sold it because I was struggling… I cut it right after I ran away to cover travel expenses.”

My explanation couldn’t stop the tears from welling up in my mother’s eyes. I sank to the floor and wrapped my arms around her waist, desperately trying to explain.

“It’s true! And I also wanted to avoid being caught. My hair was so healthy that anyone could tell I was a noble. But if I cut it, no one would suspect me.”

“Who could have imagined? This hair…”

My mother wept, her trembling hand gently stroking my head.

“So that’s why no one could find you. To be honest… at first, I thought you had been kidnapped.”

“…”

“You didn’t give me, Benjamin, or Jane any warning, so we couldn’t even imagine that you had left on your own. Ian immediately started a search operation the day you disappeared.

He mobilized the Keppel family’s knights without a warrant. The next day, with His Majesty’s permission, the Imperial Wizard Corps was deployed. Until a light magician from Laran showed us a restoration of you leaving the bank alone, everyone was beside themselves with worry, thinking something terrible had happened to you. I…”

Her trembling hands carefully lifted my face. Though tears still clung to her eyes, she forced a smile as she looked at me.

“Once we knew you had left on your own, I felt somewhat relieved. But Ian was devastated.”

I knew the central district had been in an uproar at the time. I had found lodgings as far away as possible and stayed hidden for a while. The place I stayed was a boarding house near a factory district, where many women with no connections in the capital lived. Since they didn’t know much about the city either, I blended in easily without raising any suspicions.

“I was the one who convinced them to stop the search. I said that the more they searched, the farther you would run. Ian seemed to accept it, but then he started secretly monitoring noble families, thinking someone was hiding you. After I left for the Hershey family, he came by several times to ask if you had returned… In the end, I had no choice but to tell him.”

My mother bit her lip as if she felt guilty. I looked at her curiously, not understanding what she meant.

“About your… dream.”

Dream?

“I told him you have the power of foresight. I was scared that Ian might stir up trouble among the noble families and start a war… if I didn’t tell him.”

“What?”

“I’m sorry. I should have kept it a secret until I died, but… I only told Ian. No one else knows.”

“No, no, Mother. Foresight?”

Feeling rather confused, I stood up slowly and scratched the back of my head. Sure, I have good intuition and dream often, but I don’t think that qualifies as foresight.

“I know you wanted to keep it hidden. That’s why your father and I planned to take it to the grave with us. But Ian kept insisting—how could an ordinary noblewoman evade a search like that? He started suspecting Benjamin, thinking there was a leak close by. They were on the verge of a huge fight, so… I had no choice… I had to tell him to make him understand. I’m so sorry…”

“No, it’s okay. I understand the situation. But still… that was… a lie, wasn’t it? I mean, do I really have foresight…? Did Ian actually believe that?”

Feeling embarrassed, I scratched my head and plopped down on the bed. My mother looked at me, her face full of disbelief.

“A lie?”

“No, it’s just that…”

“Did you think I wouldn’t know by now? We only pretended not to know because we thought that’s what you wanted. You’ve even warned us to prepare for wars and disasters.”

But that… I only said I had nightmares because I couldn’t tell them it was from reading the novel. I thought my parents went along with whatever I said out of love, not because they actually believed I had foresight… I couldn’t have imagined that.

“I suspected it from the moment you started talking. Looking back, I think your development was delayed because your power was so strong.”

Well, every parent thinks their child is special… I was at a loss for words when my mother suddenly said something astonishing.

“You wouldn’t remember, but when you were little, your predictions were never wrong. A toddler would point at the clear sky and say, ‘It’s going to rain,’ and a few hours later, it would rain. It was eerie…”

“I… said that?”

“Yes. And that’s not all. Once, you cried in the middle of the night, saying people were drowning, and that month, we had a flood.”

“… When?”

“Let me think, you were about three or four… You’d cry and make a fuss, and by the next day, you wouldn’t remember. At first, your father and I weren’t sure. But when you turned five, we finally accepted that you were having prophetic dreams…”

This… is all very overwhelming. Blinking in confusion, I said,

“But our region has always been prone to flooding during the rainy season… And when I had those dreams, didn’t Father take me to the territory to show me everything was okay?”

“That’s because your father would fortify the levees and evacuate people in advance, all because you said you had a dream. He couldn’t exactly tell people he was doing it because of your dreams, so he studied statistics, math, and prediction models to convince the council…”

“… Really?”

“Yes. Did you really not know? About your ability?”

Seeing my speechlessness, my mother looked at me with a mixture of disbelief and resignation before letting out a deep sigh.

“Well, maybe it’s better that you didn’t know. There were even things we couldn’t change, even if we knew.”

I could understand what my mother wasn’t saying. I had always thought my father was just an extremely studious person. I thought he was so kind that he worked day and night for the people of our land.

The people in our territory revered my father as if he were a saint, but other nobles didn’t understand him, and we lived more modestly than other noble families. But knowing now that it was all due to the burden of my foresight, I felt deeply sorry for my late father.

“… I’m sorry.”

“What do you have to be sorry for? I’m the one who brought you into this world like this…”

My mother cautiously came over and hugged me. I buried my face in her shoulder.

“I even prayed to the goddess once. Why did she give our daughter such a power…? I was terrified that someone would discover your ability and try to exploit you.”

I tightened my embrace around my mother as her voice quivered with emotion. The warmth we shared was comforting.

“If anyone found out about your power, they might use it to try to become emperor… I even thought it might be better to bring you to the emperor and have you become empress. But then one day, you said, “The empress has already been decided.””

Oh, that… I remember that. One day, my parents asked me with a smile about my future dreams.

“What do you want to be when you grow up? How about becoming the empress?”

“No, the empress is already chosen.”

Celia was there, and besides, Cade wasn’t my type. My type was Ian… Oh no, the memories are embarrassing.

“When you started reciting scripture flawlessly as you got older, I was scared again. I was afraid you’d use your power to try and save the world… I’m sorry for being selfish. I just wanted my daughter to live a normal, happy life. So, I pretended not to know. About your power, about your feelings… Every week, I begged the goddess for forgiveness. I prayed that your father and I would take on any punishment so that you could live a simple, happy life…”

Oh. Her last words made me tear up, and I couldn’t hold it back any longer.”