Chapter 12

The message from Rosana came three days later.

I had finished the first meeting with the new administrative officials brilliantly and was in fairly good spirits. Then her message arrived, and I nearly lost my mind.

How could a bystander to child *buse have the nerve to contact me first? What kind of shamelessness was that?

I had only been in the marquisate for a short time, but the character Roa Seraphina must have suffered endlessly from childhood. Like the girl currently waiting for a good adoptive family.

Rosana sat in the grand ducal castle’s second reception room dressed far more plainly than usual. I had let her in because I was curious what she had to say.

I composed myself as best I could and sat across from her. Rosana did share a certain resemblance to Roa in her manner. I hated that.

I simply stared at her in silence with sharp, unblinking eyes, and Rosana cleared her throat and opened her mouth.

“Thank you for having me.”

I tilted my head to one side.

“Having you…… invasion seems more fitting than invitation. You’re the last person I expected to hear from.”

“Yes. It must have felt like an invasion to you.”

“It always has. You always looked away. No matter what Marquis Seraphina, Patricia, and Alpheus did.”

I cried out before I knew it, a surge of feeling rising in me. As though she were truly my own mother, I let out the resentment I had been carrying.

My birth mother, who had abandoned me rather than endure the violence. The face I could barely remember anymore flickered before me.

Rosana clutched her chest, startled by my outburst. She looked at me with wavering eyes.

“I’m sorry. I know it’s laughable, saying this now.”

It didn’t feel very sincere. It sounded like something said out of obligation.

Rosana seemed completely unaware that showing up like this to say what she wanted to say was its own wound to an abused child.

My fists trembled beneath the table.

“You only realized your position in the marquisate had become pathetic, and now you’re in a panic.”

Rosana’s mouth fell open briefly at my blunt words.

“Why. Was I the only one left worth latching onto?”

I kept needling her regardless. Her motives were far too transparent.

She had always been looked down on, and now that the treatment had gotten even worse, she couldn’t stand it.

That was all it came down to.

“Ha!”

I let out a sharp sound of disbelief.

Rosana bowed her head and laced her fingers together. After a long pause, she spoke carefully.

“Honestly, you were the first person I thought of. How hard it must have been for you all this time…… I was a coward.”

“You were afraid you’d be treated the way I was. Why not just say it plainly? No matter how elegantly you try to phrase it, an ugly heart can’t be hidden.”

Rosana said nothing at my cold reply. She seemed to be thinking, but it only felt pitiful.

After a long silence, Rosana rose from her seat and knelt before me. The sound of her knees hitting the floor was audible. A noble kneeling of her own will was no different from surrendering all her authority.

I sat with my legs crossed and looked at Rosana with a blank expression.

“So what do you want me to do?”

There was no particular satisfaction in it. I just wanted to get up and leave.

Rosana seemed to sense my mood, and made a proposal she thought would be tempting.

“I…… will tell you everything that happens in the Seraphina marquisate.”

“……”

“It will surely be useful. The atmosphere at home has been rather strange lately.”

“How would you manage that?”

“Pardon?”

“You’re treated poorly by your own family. There’s no way you’d have access to important information about the marquisate.”

The blunt attack left Rosana briefly speechless. Looking at her was painful, so I stood. Rosana pressed her claim to the end.

“You have to trust me! Roa! I’m your mother! I’ll contact you again soon!”

Bang!

I shut the door hard behind me. My stomach felt heavy, like I had eaten something greasy. Rosana’s very existence was a burden to me.

A bystander, perhaps, left deeper wounds than the one who had done the harm.

Even as a child, I had desperately wanted my mother to come and save me.

「Mom…… Mom, save me. Please.」

When I called for her like that, my father used to mock me.

「Mom is never coming. It’s just you and me.」

How terrible those words had been.

I shuddered and walked away.

Whether she contacted me again or not. How accurate the information she might bring would be. Or whether this was her way of trying to reel me in.

Every possibility had to be considered.

I was not the naive young woman in her early twenties that Rosana imagined. I was strong. I knew that much.

※※※

Deep night had come. Achilles still hadn’t been allowed inside my room. He was probably standing guard at the door.

「I will one day stand watch beside you as you sleep.」

Achilles had said it with firm conviction, full of earnest resolve. Perhaps because David hadn’t turned into a boy yet, he seemed fixated solely on protecting my energy from him.

But there was no need to worry about that anymore……

David was steadily bringing women to his room. Touching another woman’s hand, burying his face in her shoulder, tasting her lips.

I didn’t want to think about what came after that. It wasn’t my place to interfere.

But what about the women who came and went like disposable things? I wanted to ask Achilles whether they didn’t need protecting too.

It was a little warm that night, so I lay down in a sheer negligee. The large bed felt unusually empty.

I curled up small and slowly let go of consciousness. And then, before long, the nightmare began.

The sound of pages flipping rapidly filled my ears.

「Roa Seraphina! Why did you go outside, hmm? Have you lost your mind?」

Patricia, the second older sister, raged and attacked the cowering Roa. Roa had only briefly attended a tea party Emma had invited her to.

「E, E, Emma. S, s, said, said to c, c, come.」

「That’s exactly why I’m asking why you went and embarrassed the Seraphina marquisate! I told you that you’re not allowed to go outside, didn’t I!」

「B, b, but. E, Emma s, said, said it was, was f, fine.」

「You believed that? How foolish. Lady Trihin must have been so annoyed by you for not understanding anything!」

「W, w, why do you, you. T, t, talk to me l, l, like th, that, Sister.」

Patricia twisted her curled hair between her fingers and smiled wickedly.

「You’re the shame of our family. A defective doll born wrong.」

Why? Why am I dreaming about the real Roa Seraphina?

It had been quite some time since I transmigrated into Roa’s body, but this had never happened before. I was watching Roa’s situation unfold as my former self, as an observer.

Watching Roa’s past was unbearable. The scenes of her being hurt tangled together in a chaotic mess.

「Stop talking! The stuttering is driving me insane.」

Alpheus said things like that and even hit Roa. Roa didn’t even let out a sound, as though she were used to it.

The defensive posture of both arms raised over her face looked exactly like me as a child.

「Dad! Dad, please don’t hit me! I’m sorry!」

The fist that came flying whenever my birth father was in a bad mood. It hurt twice as much as a stranger’s violence.

「How did something like that get born. It’s your fault! Your background is…」

I saw the scene where Marquis Seraphina blamed Rosana. Rosana’s face flushed and paled at his words, and she turned away from Roa and walked out.

In that scene, the image of my birth mother walking away from me played over it.

「Mom! Mom! Where are you going?」

Even as I burst into tears, my birth mother didn’t look back once. I sank to the floor and wept.

A monster made of Roa’s pain and my own wounds swallowed me whole. I couldn’t breathe, and my whole body shook.

I could no longer tell whether I was sleeping or seeing visions. My body wouldn’t move, pinned down by some invisible weight.

Please……

Please, someone help me!

The wound knotted in my chest tore open, and blood poured from it.

※※※

At that hour, David was wandering near Roa’s room. He hadn’t come to see her.

He simply had a bad feeling since Roa had met with Rosana.

Achilles looked at David with a puzzled expression.

“What is the matter?”

“No, just……”

“……”

“I thought I heard something.”

“Pardon? What kind of sound?”

Achilles moved as though he was about to burst into Roa’s room. David shook his head with a firm expression.