CH 23

Chapter 23: Let’s have another nightmare

As soon as the visitors leave, there is suddenly nothing to do.

In the first place, the days of a noble young lady are spent changing clothes in the morning, afternoon, and evening, practicing embroidery and music, writing letters to people, and reading books until it is time to go to bed.

It takes too much time to change clothes and prepare, so the day ends like this.

And today, I heard that the moving luggage was not yet finished, so I decided to spend the evening without changing my clothes.

As a result, time was left over.

At the same time, since I had slept all day, my body was not tired and I could feel like walking around the house or going out to the garden.

That’s what I thought when I started embroidering, but…

“My shoulders are sore.”

I don’t like embroidery. I put down the embroidery tools because my shoulders and arms felt heavy.

Then I feel better somehow.

“Yes, it’s okay to be free.”

I don’t have to worry about deviating from what a young lady should do. After all, I’m not going to get married. Embroidery is something that noble women should wear only for the purpose of getting married… That was the only reason I was made to practice it.

In the spare time, I thought about the recent anomaly, taking notes on paper.

“First, when I started having nightmares, Lars-sama and the others were not dreaming.”

I tried to arrange in chronological order the events from the day I had my nightmare.

“The skill manifested the next day.”

And then I started talking with Lars-sama and his group, and although I continued to have nightmares, there was no particular change.

“From the day I was exiled to this mansion…?”

It was around this time that Lars-sama and his group began having strange dreams.

“There were two kinds of dreams. One in which my father aided in the invasion, and one in which he did not.”

Making a note, I mutter to myself.

“Did I…change something by taking action?”

If the future changed…I almost found hope, but I scolded myself.

“No, that’s not necessarily the case. It could just be that I stopped dreaming about the war. And it’s not like I can’t dream the same dream again.”

In conclusion, in order to verify this situation, I need to dream.

I decided to go ahead and do it right away.

First, I called Katie.

“I’m sorry to call you when you’re busy. I’m still feeling tired, so I’m planning to take a nap after lunch. If I don’t wake up by tomorrow morning, have me eat one of this.”

I put the box of sweets that I received from Asher-sama earlier on the shelf by the pillow.

“Understood. But, what should I do if My Lady doesn’t wake up with those sweets?”

It is not surprising that Katie is worried. She asked for a doctor to be called to the mansion, but it was in vain.

(…I wonder if they thought that if I sleep and die, the daughter’s curse would be resolved… Depending on the case, “someone” may have intended to use it as a material to pull down the person “who cursed me” as the perpetrator of a political enemy)

While having such dark thoughts, I quickly wrote a letter in front of Katie and handed it to her.

“Please deliver this to Duke Svald Lars-sama. He will surely do something about it. The knight who came earlier was from Lars-sama’s guard.”

“Is that all? Understood.”

Katie held the letter as if embracing it and nodded.

Well, let’s have a nightmare.

I take out the box of sweets that Oji-sama gave me.

There are still more than half of the beautiful sweets that look like a cut-out of a black and blue night sky. I suddenly decided to eat two of the petals.

“If I woke up normally in the daytime, let’s try to dream again after dinner.”

Then, I took some flower sweets and lay down on the bed.

***

“Take a good look.”

That’s what the person with the sandy hair, who I’ve seen somewhere before, whispers. When his red eyes are turned towards me, I feel paralyzed as if I’m being shot through.

“That’s the path your father chose.”

The person who said this and gave the instructions is walking confidently through the castle.

His hair, a brighter shade of brown than mine, is shorter now, and he doesn’t have a mustache anymore. Additionally, his clothes have changed to those of an unfamiliar foreign country, but there’s no mistaking them.

That’s my father, Count Elvasti.

Even though he is the one who led the invasion himself, I am the one who is chained and restrained like a dog. 

He walks with a foreign prince leading the way in front of the disdainful noblemen.

“——the country’s general. Since the foreign prince guarantees his identity under a different name, we can’t lay a hand on him. To abandon his daughter and escape…”

The young man with red eyes laughs deeply in his throat.

“As expected of a parent and child. You’re alike in every dirty way.”

“I am different from my father!”

The young man looked at me scornfully as I shouted hoarsely.

“If you become a nuisance, I’ll throw you away… like you did the same thing to Michelia.”

“That was…!”

What came to mind at that moment was the phrase “It wouldn’t matter if I punished the servant of the commoner who insulted me.”

But before I could say it, the young man declared,

“But, you’re not just discarded and left to end like this, right?”

The young man with red eyes turned to the end of the corridor. There was a person with silver hair shaking down to his shoulders——.