Please Leave The Sickly Villainess Alone

I tilted my head and doubted my ears. I knew he didn’t like me, but to say it so openly?

He seemed to be an idiot blinded by pure-blood supremacy.

No matter how you looked at it, showing such disgraceful behavior to the daughter of the final decision-maker just a day before his succession approval was madness.

When I stood still without responding, Kesil’s face crumpled unpleasantly as he opened his mouth again.

“Did you not understand what I said? You’re just like Damon, unable to comprehend. I said move aside.”

“Weren’t you the one who blocked my way and hit my hand, Uncle?”

When I looked up at him directly without avoiding his eyes, Kesil became enraged.

“What? You rolled-in stone of Rayes! Only the direct line of Rayes can call me uncle!”

At Kesil’s thunderous shout, Damon, who happened to be passing by in the corridor, ran over to stop him.

“B-Brother! Whatever the issue is, please calm down. She’s still just a child!”

At those words, Kesil swung his fierce hand and struck Damon’s cheek.

Slap-!

A loud friction sound echoed through the middle of the corridor.

“Didn’t I tell you not to call me brother! These people must be looking down on me, a pure-blood! Uncle, brother. Do you think you can be on the same level as me with such words?”

Unable to control his anger, Kesil now raised his foot to kick Damon’s abdomen, but I summoned the Crimson Blade to stop him.

Or more precisely, I struck his ankle with the scabbard.

“Stop it, mister.”

“Aargh-!”

I didn’t put much strength into it, but it seems this Crimson Blade had enhanced itself again, as Kesil clutched his ankle and hopped up and down the corridor.

Seeing that serve him right, I stuck my tongue out at him.

Seeing this, Kesil glared at me with eyes almost rolled back and shouted in anger:

“To strike me, Kesil, the eldest son of the Marquis Einhasil! Do you want to die?!”

I didn’t have a hobby of hitting people either.

Thinking it was just self-defense, I gripped the Crimson Blade properly, intending to blow his head off if he charged at me again.

Seeing this, Kesil instinctively stepped back.

“Y-You violent wench!”

“What’s all this commotion!”

At that moment, Dad appeared with the butler.

It seemed the servants passing through the corridor had reported to him.

“You’ve come at the right time, Duke! Those children attacked me. Look at this.”

Kesil’s ankle that he pointed to was indeed bruised blue.

It might even have a crack in the bone.

I glared at him, waving the Crimson Blade, incredulous at how he was acting like the victim.

Dad assessed the situation and then asked Damon first.

“Tell me what happened.”

“I-I too just ran over because I heard a commotion. But that child was only trying to stop my brother from hitting me…”

“Would I have done that for no reason, Duke! If it turns out like this, I’m the one being wronged!”

Ignoring Kesil’s desperate voice, Dad now looked down at me with warm eyes.

“Now you tell me what happened, Ria.”

“He blocked my way in the corridor and insulted me, calling me lowborn. Lord Damon got slapped while trying to stop him. When he tried to attack Lord Damon again, I just restrained him with my scabbard.”

Kesil’s face filled with bewilderment, as if he hadn’t expected me, who couldn’t exchange a single gentle word with him since we first met, to speak so clearly.

He might have thought a young girl raised in an orphanage would be in the palm of his hand.

“I was only trying to teach them out of concern that these lowborn children might tarnish the Rayes name somewhere!”

“Lowborn, you say…?”

At Dad’s questioning words, Kesil nodded repeatedly and said:

“Shouldn’t we teach these uneducated children so as not to be ashamed? It’s wrong for a girl to threaten people crudely with a sword!”

At those words, I felt the Crimson Blade in my hand quiver.

It seemed to want to strike that head right now, just like me.

“And would someone who kidnapped the Duke’s own daughter just hide the child in an orphanage? Seeing that this child awakened as a healing mage, while she might be of Rayes blood, it’s more likely she’s a descendant of one of the many illegitimate children from previous generations!”

Many illegitimate children from previous generations. That was a well-known fact.

Dad’s grandfather, Gasent, the previous Imperial healing mage, had over twenty illegitimate children.

And it was said that the descendants of those illegitimate children were often abandoned, not accepted as members of the family.

It seemed many people thought I was one of them.

Regardless of me becoming a healing mage, they were trying to make me lowborn somehow.

People who were hostile to me without ever meeting or speaking to me. I had just met one of them today.

On one hand, they might be jealous of my sudden rise in status, and on the other hand, their arrogance that valued noble birth over ability reached the heavens.

I looked up at Dad. I wanted to know what expression he was making, seeing only his back.

Surely he wouldn’t be swayed by those words, after I had cured his insomnia and gone on night walks with him?

But on the other hand, my heart was unsettled.

The silence that had seemed so long was broken in an instant.

“What… did you just spout from that unrestrained mouth?”

I had to flinch at the chilling voice. Even though I knew it wasn’t directed at me, I was afraid. Everyone standing there looked at the Duke with the same fear as me.

It felt as if midwinter had suddenly arrived.

“Kesil, I wasn’t planning to allow your succession to the title tomorrow, but that decision seems to have been correct.”

“W-What do you mean by that!”

“The Einhasil Marquisate is the center of Rayes power in the west. I can’t entrust such an important position to you.”

“B-But because it’s such a position, shouldn’t I, a pure-blood, take it! How could a bastard with a lowborn mother take on such an important responsibility?”

At those words, Damon beside me hung his head low.

Looking at his face, I could tell that the expression of seeming uninterested in the title at dinner was actually forced.

I could imagine how suppressed he must have been living with this terribly pure-blood obsessed, self-centered person in the same mansion.

Damon, who looked only in his late twenties, had become accustomed to Kesil’s harshness.

Yet he had stood in front of Kesil when he was about to hit me earlier. He was far more worthy of the Rayes name than that pure-blood nonsense.

As if sensing my gaze, Damon looked at me.

With his cheek red from where Kesil had hit him, he mouthed a thank you to me.

‘Thank you for helping earlier.’

His handsome face smiled gently.

Just then, Dad’s voice was heard.

“You had dinner with me and conversed with my children. And you also saw the servants of the mansion. Yet you still haven’t grasped who this child is to us.”

Hearing those words, Kesil’s face twisted terribly.

He probably didn’t have the luxury to care about such things, and likely only saw what he wanted to see.

“If you had, you wouldn’t have treated this child like that, and you wouldn’t have spoken such rude words in front of me.”

“B-Because of that! You’re treating me like this because of that lowborn girl?”

To Kesil, who was still raging without discernment, Dad said with flashing eyes:

“If you mention the word ‘lowborn’ one more time, I won’t stay silent.”

Leaving Kesil, who was just opening and closing his mouth at the murderous aura, Dad moved to stand in front of Damon.

“You said you didn’t want to inherit the title of Marquis, but in fact, you’re the most suitable person for that position. Uncle’s judgment wasn’t wrong.”

Then he checked his watch, saying it should be about time.

Just then, a butler who had spotted us from afar walked over.

“Here is the information you requested. When we examined the medicine the late Marquis took, we found components that are fatal to patients with liver disease.”

“Uncle suffered from liver disease for a long time. You couldn’t have not known that.”

“D-Do you mean Father didn’t pass away from illness?!”

Damon stepped forward as if jumping and said.

“The source of that medicine was the family doctor, and when I tried to make him confess to find out who was behind it, he had already been murdered by someone when I arrived.”

“D-Did you deliberately agree to visit to investigate while I was away from the mansion? The doctor was killed in retaliation by someone he owed debts to.”

Not having gotten the result he wanted, Dad muttered with a troubled expression.

“Tomorrow is the last day for succession…”

He seemed to think Kesil was the one who killed the Marquis and had circumstantial evidence, but couldn’t find definitive proof.

“Even if it’s the Rayes Duchy, investigating the Marquis’s family without prior notice is unacceptable! When we return, we will certainly raise this issue and proceed with the succession without the Duke’s permission, who treated our family like such ruffians.”

“Brother! In a situation where there are indications that Father was murdered by someone, what could be more important than that? We must find out who instructed the doctor!”

As I silently watched the situation, a fleeting memory of the notebook that Kesil had knocked away from my hand and preciously put in his breast pocket earlier flashed through my mind.

On that page that had been lying open, surely…

I struggled to remember those words I hadn’t paid attention to at the time.

“January 29th, start of administration.”

At my voice, the attention of the noisy people focused on me.

Dad turned to me and said:

“What do you mean, Ria?”

“February 8th, high fever due to overdose.”

As I continued speaking, Kesil’s complexion turned pale.

“It was written in that person’s notebook. It’s in the right pocket of his jacket now.”

Hearing those words, Damon subdued the struggling Kesil with one hand and searched his jacket to find the notebook.

As he turned the pages and read, Damon’s face turned blue.

“How, how could you do this?”

Damon, who had never lost his smile until now, grabbed Kesil’s collar.

“How much Father loved you, that’s why I gave up the title!”

Kesil, who had been pale with shock, now shouted with his mask off:

“Ha, he loved me? He loved you, born of a mere maid, even more! When I checked the contents of the will, it had been written 5 years ago! He finally…!”

“How could this be…”

“For now, both Kesil and Damon, you’ll have to come to the succession ceremony together tomorrow. We need to hear the judgment of the relatives again.”

Kesil was dragged away by the family knights.

Watching his retreating figure, Damon spoke in bewilderment:

“While Father was dying at that person’s hands, I knew nothing. I’m not worthy to be called a son…”

As he was wrapped in terrible guilt as if the dead Marquis was flashing before his eyes, I approached him.

“Don’t say such things. Lord Damon, you’re just a victim like the Marquis. Inherit the title, punish him properly, and avenge the Marquis.”

At my words, Damon nodded with determined eyes.

* * *

It was when I was about to head back to Terry’s room, who would be waiting for me, after leaving the corridor where the commotion had occurred.

“Laveria, don’t take that person’s words to heart. They’re just nonsense.”

Dad’s voice held my footsteps. He seemed to have been inwardly worried about something even I hadn’t really cared about.

“Why would I be swayed by such words? When I have someone who cares for me so much.”

At my words, Dad finally smiled and placed his hand on my head.

“If it weren’t for you, Kesil would have inherited the title of Marquis tomorrow and attacked Rayes. How did you know about the notebook?”

“I saw it when I tried to pick it up from where it had fallen on the floor. I couldn’t read it properly because Kesil kicked my hand away.”

“He… kicked your hand?”

Dad muttered, looking at the scratch on my hand.

“I should crush his hand first.”

I moved my feet, smiling as if I hadn’t heard the brutal content.