Chapter 6 - The World That Had Been Left Alone

Chapter 6 – The World That Had Been Left Alone

“Who would ever sell this house? This house belongs to me and the Perrington Family! You can’t move in here and live here without my permission!” I yelled.

My tears continued to fall freely down my cheeks. Everything that I had based my foundations and hopes on was collapsing.

It’s just so unfair.

My feelings had already spiraled out of control and were arousing deep frustration and agony within my heart.

My grip on the woman slackened, and she twisted out of my hands.

“If you have anything to say, go somewhere else! Go and complain somewhere else!” She screamed back at me.

I exhaled shakily, my hands grasping at nothingness.

“You’re right. I’ll go and complain elsewhere. But you should first come out of my house. This is my property.”

The woman looked at me flabbergasted and turned towards the mansion, calling for someone else.

“Bern, Bern!”

At her call, a sturdy man walked out of the mansion. He was dressed like a servant who was working in the mansion.

But I couldn’t back down. I wouldn’t back down if it was 2 people against me or a hundred.

If I stepped away from here, I would lose everything. I would have no connection with the home I had lived in for 20 years.

All at once, my energy seemed to have left me and I fell to the ground. My legs had grown weak, but I still clasped the gate with my hands as if there was no tomorrow.

“…heuk, it’s mine.”

I don’t have anywhere else to go except this house. I didn’t have anything in my hands except the gate I was holding onto.

“Heuk, Mom.”

I missed my mom terribly. I wanted to tell my mom that my sisters had bullied me. But she was now gone, and there was no one to listen to my troubles or reach out to me.

“Bern, drag that woman away before she barges inside,” the woman ordered, pointing her finger at me.

“Who is it?” The man asked.

“I don’t know who she is, but she’s crazy.”

“Okay,” the man called Bert said, unlatching the gate and bending down to pick me up.

With no energy left, I just sat there in misery as I watched him get closer and closer.

“Stop right there,” came an unexpected voice.

The sudden voice made everyone’s eyes, including mine, turn in the direction of the sound. He was behind me, and his white coat fluttered with the wind.

It was the alchemy professor from Kamar Academy.

“Don’t touch my precious specimen,” he declared.

The man, who was trying to pull me up, tilted his head upon hearing the word “specimen.”

“Who are you?” Bern asked.

“Me? I’m the Professor of Alchemy at the Kamar Academy.”

“Well, I don’t care who you are, just don’t meddle in our business,” Bern said, frowning.

“Surely you would’ve heard of me before,” The professor declared arrogantly. “I am Marquis Fredoff.”

The professor’s true identity surprised everyone there, including me.

The Marquis Fredoff Family is a distinguished family of the Valkanus Empire. I’ve heard rumors before that the current head of the family was a genius, but I didn’t expect him to be working as an alchemy professor at the Academy.

“I’ll say it again. Don’t touch my precious specimen.”

Even though he just repeated the words he had said earlier, everyone reacted differently after hearing his identity.

This time, the man stepped back a few steps away from me.

Meanwhile, I was staring at the professor in a daze, in disbelief.

Glancing at me, he smiled. For some reason, the expression on his face made me feel as if he was a demon leading me to destruction by delivering tempting words.

“The offer I made earlier is still valid. If you help me with my experiment, I’ll get rid of the reparations you have to pay, and give you the job as the assistant pharmacist.”

I had already heard his offer, but now that I truly know what kind of situation I am in, the offer sounded different and more appealing.

There was no way I could tell Medina and Claire that I had returned young again. I didn’t know what they would do if they found out.

They had already disposed of the Perrington family’s property and had even discussed trying to marry me into another family or sending me to a convent.

I couldn’t even imagine how my sisters would look at me now.

I had nowhere to go.

I could no longer cry and beg to be let back into my home. The contract that the professor was offering is no longer an option, it was a necessity to survive.

“Will food be served as well?”

For the first time, his smile did not look scary. It looked genuinely happy and proud. He seemed to notice that I would no longer reject him.

“Of course it will. You won’t have to worry about a thing,” He said with a laugh. He held out a hand to help me back onto my feet. “My name is Jerru Ivan Fredoff, but you can also call me Professor.”

***

Jerru had given Belia a place to stay at the Kamar Academy and returned to the lab with a pleasant look on his face.

He could have taken her as a retainer of the Fredoff Family, but it would be more convenient to have a follower near the laboratory.

Just thinking about the experiments he would do to her from now on made his heart flutter.

He honestly had no idea that Belia would encounter such a situation. He had just chased her to intimidate her into agreeing with his contract.

He was very lucky.

While Jerru was humming and planning his experiments, he heard a knock on the door.

“Come in,” he said, glancing at the door.

When he permitted entrance, a man wearing a white gown came in. This man was the man who had given Belia the experimental liquid on accident. He was actually one of Jerru’s assistants who also worked as a guard.

“P-Professor, I heard you were looking for me. I was so careless about accidentally administering the experimental drugs to that woman that I couldn’t sleep for days… ”

“You said you didn’t sleep well, yet you took a small vacation when I sent you away for not doing your job properly.” Jerru’s former joyous emotions quickly began to dissipate.

“A-as soon as I heard the news that you were looking for me again, I was quickly on my way back . . .”

“You were the catalyst for the depletion and loss of the liquid solution. Do you understand that?”

“I’m so sorry. I’ll do whatever I can t-to … ”

“Starting today, you’re fired,” Jerru declared, cutting off whatever the assistant had to say.

“What?”

“I’ve told you to be careful, yet you took care of the precious liquid solution like that? How do you plan to take responsibility if it had killed the person who drank it?”

Although he was mad at Belia, he didn’t tell her that there was an even greater fault in his assistant, who didn’t manage the reagent properly, which had given her the opportunity to make her mistake.

It was absolutely careless to simply mistake a drink of water with a bright, pink, expensive, and precious experimental solution.

The assistant had a miserable look on his face, but Jerru only looked at him with a grimace.

“Didn’t you hear what I just said about your resignation? Get out of my lab this instant.”

The assistant’s mistake resulted in Belia becoming an experimental specimen.

It is inevitable that becoming an experiment will result in some negative and unpleasant effects. It is to be anticipated.

Even though Jerru had been humming with joy at the thought of all of the experiments he could test on Belia, that was simply his scientist’s brain taking over at the thought of all of the new things he could discover.

This didn’t mean that he was someone without morals.

He, too, felt bad that Belia would have to risk harmful consequences on her body.

All because of his careless assistant.

It takes a certain amount of looseness in the brain to be unable to differentiate between two extremely different liquids!

The assistant was lucky that the experimental solution didn’t harm Belia, but that didn’t mean that Jerru would tolerate such a mistake again.

The assistant looked at him as if he felt like he was being falsely accused, but in the end, his shoulders dropped and he left the lab without saying another word.

Being left alone in the office, Jerru stroked his chin and smiled joyfully once more.

“Now . . . What kind of experiments should I start with?” He asked joyfully.

He had planned everything out perfectly to be able to get Belia’s consent, but there was a whole lot more about the experimentation process that he had omitted from her.

If he had really told her all of this information, there would be absolutely no chance that she would ever agree.

It would truly be a disaster if she realized how dangerous this experimentation would be, and were to run away.

***

That night, I arrived at the Kamar Academy again with a servant that Jerru told me would lead me to my room.

So I didn’t ask any questions and just followed the servant around.

This entire hallway we were walking through seemed to be the lodging used for employees working at the Academy.

“Here you go,” the servant said, stopping in front of a room and opening its door for me.

When I peeked over his shoulder at the room, the room was nothing special. It was small but clean.

There was a big difference between the room I was currently facing and the luxurious accommodation that Theansis lived in.

Walking past the servant, I explored the room some more and found that it had a bedroom, kitchen, and bathroom all in one space. There seemed to be no inconvenience in living here.

Of course, it would also not be a satisfactory room condition for aristocrats to use, but it would be okay for someone like me, who didn’t belong to a wealthy family and held the lowest ranked title among the aristocrats.

But putting all of that aside, I was most grateful that I now had a place to stay.

“You can stay here from now on,” the servant stated while handing me a key engraved with [No. 201].

I nodded silently. He only said what he needed to say, perhaps because he noticed that I didn’t want to say anything else.

“The Marquis has told me that you may take a day off for today and come to work as an assistant pharmacist tomorrow morning. You’ll hear more details about what your position and your duties are from the Marquis’ lab tomorrow.”

“Okay,” I responded.

“If you ever need help, you can always look for me. I will be on duty until 9 a.m.” The servant closed the door after what he said.

For the first time, I was finally left alone.

I felt relieved that there was no one else around.

Now I can cry without holding back.

“Heuk.”

No one needed me, and no one loved me.

Whenever I would wake up, my first thoughts would go to my mother.

‘Where is she?’

‘Is she awake yet?’

But not long ago, my mother left me alone and my sisters abandoned me cold heartedly.

How could I ever begin to accept my new reality?

Even the furniture in this room was more realistic than all of the emotional stress I had been going through these past days.

I silently sobbed and beat my stuffy chest.

It had only been a few days since my mother’s funeral, and my heart still aches when I think about my old life.

I should have done better.

I should have opened my eyes and told her that I love her.

Mother used to say this phrase when she was alive: “As you grow older, you will realize that all stories have an ending.”

Not just stories, but also parties, love, family, gifts, and every other little thing that we tend to spend our lifetime on, will end.

Just like what I’ve done for the past 20 years, taking care of my mother with dementia.

It had ended, without a single warning.

I sighed, got up from the floor I had unconsciously sank down to, and walked to the bathroom sink. I turned on the cold water and splashed it onto my face.

I looked up and saw my young face in the mirror.

My eyes were devoid of feeling and emotion, and they looked back at me with a sense of helplessness.

Slap!

I came to my senses by slapping my hands on the cheek.

I cried as much as I could, and I embraced my anguish.

I still feel angry and sad when I think of my sisters, but I can’t just let it go without doing anything.

I had to move forward as long as I am alive. I had to find what I could do in my current situation, so I can’t just sit back and cry all throughout.

I gazed hard at my figure in the mirror and touched my wet cheeks. Unlike before, the skin that I touched with my own hands felt warmer.

I had only realized that my youth had passed in the blink of an eye after it had already happened. I would never get those days back.

Who would know that as a 38-year-old, my youth would come surging back?

It would be difficult to learn new skills with an old mentality, but at least I am fully aware of my situation and willing to give my new life a try.

Although my situation was worse since I, an aristocrat, no longer had my property or my title, I still held hope that I could make a fresh start.

Although I still wasn’t used to my new appearance, there are so many new things that I can accomplish with my newfound youth.

‘Yes, let’s do it,’ I decided confidently.