CH prologue 3

Let me introduce myself here. My name is Risha Verdigo.

My father’s title is Count, which is reasonably high.

However, in terms of family influence, it’s not that great.

However, if you only look at our bloodline, it’s pretty satisfactory.

If we were in debt, my family has such a prominent lineage to the extent that lower class nobles who want to rise to the top would be lining up with money.

My family is quite famous, despite the lack of influence.

Not in a good way, of course. In a bad way.

My father married my mother in a political marriage.

Mother was the direct lineage of the Count’s family, and Father was the so-called in-law.

However, in this country, only males had the right to inherit the title, so Father who was closer to the direct line in the branch of the family was chosen.

The miscalculation here, however, was that because of the consanguineous nature of their marriage, they had difficulty having children.

Of course, it wasn’t an incestuous marriage to the point of breaking the law, but it still had an impact.

Amids the difficulty of bearing children, Father betrayed Mother, whom he did not like very much, and had an affair with another woman, which resulted in a child.

My father blamed my mother for their inability to have kids, and told her to adopt the child as the heir. But of course, Mother stubbornly refused it.

If the child had been a boy, my mother might have given it some thought. However, she was a girl, and she resembled my father’s mistress since she was a baby.

Moreover, my father even suggested hiring that baby’s biological mother as the nanny.

Although my father inherited the Count title, my mother was in charge of the household affairs, including the hiring of personnel.

Furthermore, my mother, who was his legal wife, managed almost all of the assets. Thus, even if my father was also a Count, he couldn’t withdraw money that easily.

At one point, they even discussed a divorce, but then my mother discovered that she was carrying me.

Even though my mother thought that I was the child of an unfaithful man, she decided that I was innocent, cancelled the divorce, and gave birth to me.

Of course, I became the first heir, being the child of the legal wife and a direct descendant.

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Unfortunately, however, my mother gave birth at an advanced age, and her postpartum confinement was poor. She did not recover well.

Then, when I turned seven, she died of illness.

She was a kind mother.

She was worried about me being left alone and arranged all the measures she could.

She left a will that stated, “You are the daughter of the Lord of this family. Be happy and don’t be as unhappy as I was.”

And, well, you can figure things out from there, right? This is how my story unfolded. 

First of all, my father, the heir to the Count’s throne, made his mistress his wife and brought her child, my half-sister, to the Count’s mansion.

Several of my mother’s loyal servants who had worked at the Count’s mansion for many years were forced to quit, and even the butler was almost replaced. However, he was too involved in the operation of the Count’s mansion and the estate to be cut off so easily.

Thanks to this, the butler was able to provide me with various training while keeping his shoulders hunched. I still respect him to this day.

Anyway, he was the one who had helped me in many ways to complete the chores that the master, my father, had forced upon me since I turned ten.

Yep, I’ve been involved in estate management since I was ten years old.

I don’t know anything about what your mother was doing. You’re the one who received training, so you should do it.

Swine dad.

In addition, he drank, gambled, and attended social gatherings every day.

Of course, his wife, who was a prostitute, was the same way. My half-sister also spent money extravagantly, just like her mother. 

I was left in charge of running the fiefdom when I was ten years old, but in the three years since my mother died, it seemed like nothing was seriously being done.

Whenever there was a problem, they never took action. Even when there was a bad harvest, the taxes stayed the same. In fact, they raised it.

As a person who knew where they were using the money, I was furious.

The retainer, who was supposed to be in charge of the fiefdom, took bribes and even evaded taxes.

I wanted to do something about it, and I had desperately tried to protect the fiefdom for seven years since I was ten years old, but that was as far as I could go.

In the end, the authority to make decisions on the fiefdom had been transferred from my mother’s hands to my father’s, and any decision that was ever slightly unfavorable was not taken seriously. Despite my best efforts, the subjects under the fiefdom considered me as part of the Lord’s family, so they lashed out at me.

I understood their feelings, but it was both physically and mentally exhausting.

To be honest, the fiefdom was really dying seven years ago due to my father’s reckless management, but I wished I could see more of the results of its recovery to this point.

Even though I worked hard every day with dark circles under my eyes and neglected to eat and sleep, I was treated as incompetent because everything was wonderful during my mother’s time.

Moreover, it was actually my stepmother and half-sister who fueled everything.

They spread outrageous rumors of my atrocities here and there, and turned people’s anger against me.

It seemed that they planned on snatching my title away with the fiefdom’s subjects’ support.

Luckily or unluckily, my father was a branch of the Count family, and I have inherited the Count’s blood.

In other words, my half-sister also had our blood in her veins.

I was forced, you might say, but it wouldn’t be a surprise if my half-sister became the heir.

What was more, most of my relatives sided with my half-sister, probably because they thought that she was easier to control than me, who, like my mother, was inflexible.

Thus――.

“You’ve been abandoned by both the branches of the family and the subject, so you’re not eligible to inherit the Count’s title.”

That said eligibility was transferred to my half-sister.

All I felt at that moment was resignation, like I didn’t care anymore.

They also kept the habit of forcing me to take on more work with the intention of wearing me out.

I had dark circles and rough skin due to lack of sleep on a daily basis.

My half-sister, on the other hand, spent all her time playing around and used all the money from the Count’s family to look radiant and beautiful.

Even in social circles, I was ridiculed when people couldn’t tell which of us was a nobleman’s daughter with excellent lineage.

Just when a lot of things were getting ridiculous, I received a life-changing offer.