Chapter 159: A Personal Story

Chapter 159: A Personal Story A Personal Story

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Well then, Emi.

Let me begin with a proper self-introduction.

My name is Nare.

Nare Luclees.

The head of the Luclees family.

A 16-year-old girl.

...At least, physically.

The Luclees family owns and has managed the Makaringis ore mines in this country of Saryunas for generations as a prestigious household.

As the sole daughter, I was an elite promised a future from birth.

Naturally, I was strictly disciplined by my mother, the previous head.

Mother...Torre Luclees was capable at work, but lacked emotion and was inept at handling personal matters.

She was quite hard on her subordinates like Doj and the same went for my father, that man Sarelka.

Especially since my father was utterly incompetent at work.

That man was actually the fourth son of a wealthy merchant family and should have received a decent education.

But his meek personality clashed severely with my arrogant, cold-hearted mother’s, leaving him unable to perform in that environment... That may be true, but still.

Whenever she saw Sarelka’s face, Mother would heap scorn on him, and that man could only shrink back without retort.

To me, that was the very definition of a married couple.

From the start, I was raised in quite a warped family environment.

In the end, that man moved into the household of his mistress Fateu and stopped returning to this manor.

But Mother just left that man be.

In Mother’s mind, his role was likely finished the moment I was born.

She paid no heed to the half-sisters born around my age.

Now, while Mother was like that, her end was quite abrupt.

There was a cave-in accident in the mines, you see.

Mother had gone for an inspection and got caught up in that accident, never returning.

I was shocked and saddened.

No matter how harsh a person Torre Luclees was, she was still my mother.

My only family.

Father?

I couldn’t consider someone who never returned home as family, could I?

In any case, I was just a helpless young girl back then.

Just an ordinary young girl mourning her mother’s death.

Which is why I was utterly shocked and indignant when that man Sarelka suddenly came to me demanding I relinquish the family headship to him as the father.

In this country, the family headship is inherited by the legitimate child.

For the live-in husband Sarelka to succeed this family, he needed my consent as the legitimate child.

Of course, that wasn’t an impossible scenario.

I may have been strictly disciplined by Mother, but I was still just a 16-year-old girl.

With time to mature and gain experience, having my father handle the duties as proxy would be understandable.

Normally, it would be an acceptable arrangement.

Except the person in question was an incompetent manchild who never returned home.

Naturally, I couldn’t accept such a demand.

I quite rudely berated him, calling him a joke.

You know what that man did then?

He took out a knife from his pocket and said, “Do as I say unless you want to die!”

Hahaha, thinking back, it’s quite impressive that cowardly man mustered the courage for that.

Apparently Fateu had instigated him, but it was still uncharacteristic behavior nonetheless.

For a cowardly father to muster the courage to point a blade at his own daughter – it’s just not a funny joke at all, is it?

Hm?

What’s wrong Emi, have you had your father point a blade at you too?

Hahaha, my condolences then!

It makes me feel unexpectedly empathetic toward you.

In any case, as for me, the daughter Nare Luclees who had a knife pointed at her back then was just a helpless young girl.

Seeing that sudden transformation from the usually meek man, I became utterly terrified.

So I fled.

To the head’s study room.

And locked myself in there, beginning my seclusion.

Fortunately, the manor’s keys were kept in the study room, so that man could no longer lay a hand on me.

Trapped in that room, I just trembled in terror.

Having been raised by my harsh mother’s personality, even I as her daughter was disliked within the manor.

I had no allies. I couldn’t trust anyone.

Utterly confused, unable to think of anything, I just trembled.

That state continued for about a week.

Food?

There were some baked goods on the shelves in the study room, so I survived on those.

For water, I ate the snow piled on the windowsill.

During that week, Sarelka did quite a few outrageous things.

First, he announced to everyone that I had “followed after Mother in death.”

That was an utterly thoughtless move, you see.

If I stepped outside, that lie would be immediately exposed.

But Sarelka had been instigated by Fateu to “kill me if he couldn’t steal the family headship.”

Since I had fled into seclusion, he couldn’t convey that to his mistress, so he lied instead.

In any case, I appealed to the authorities.

It caused quite an uproar.

Attempted murder against a prestigious family’s daughter, and a household takeover.

Sarelka’s actions were clearly grave crimes.

That man was promptly arrested.

And Fateu who had instigated him, along with the mastermind Doj behind the scenes, were also arrested.

The Luclees family was safely returned to my hands.

Thank goodness, I thought it would all be resolved!

......But unfortunately, it didn’t turn out that way.

There was someone who took issue with this outcome and harbored intense resentment toward me.

That person was Karashia.

From her perspective, the position of heir to a prestigious family that should have fallen into her lap by chance was inexplicably snatched away by me.

Well, not snatched away, just restored to its proper form, but still.

In any case, she resented me deeply.

Ah, Karashia and Keranko weren’t involved in Fateu and Doj’s scheme at all, so those sisters were just banished from the manor, not arrested.

By appealing for help from the authorities like I did, it was inevitable I would become enemies with Karashia.

Things would go smoothly at first, so I tried this method several times, but no matter what, Karashia would end up killing me in the end.

Sometimes she cut me down with “Agzeliary,” her father’s keepsake.

Sometimes she poisoned my food.

Sometimes she used explosives in a suicide attack to blow me up.

That woman would come after me to kill me with tremendous determination, no matter what.

She’s seriously dangerous.

Absolutely terrifying.

Since Karashia herself didn’t commit any crimes until she killed me, I couldn’t have her arrested beforehand.

Even if I hired bodyguards to increase my defenses, she would find an opening and kill me.

She was truly an unmanageable woman.

Through all this, after being killed over and over and over again, I honestly stopped caring about the family affairs.

Until then, I had thought about inheriting and passing down this long-standing Luclees family to the next generation and so on...

But honestly?

More than the family, I just wanted to live a peaceful life for myself.

That’s a normal desire, right?

So I tried to flee.

I secretly slipped out of the manor, intending to escape somewhere far away.

But that didn’t work out either.

Fundamentally, it was winter season.

A harsh time for an inexperienced young girl to travel far.

On top of that, terrifying monsters lived in this area.

Have you heard of the Ranrananga White Lizards?

Lizards that act in groups and can even move in winter.

They’re hailed as “symbols of hardy life force undefeated by ice and snow,” and their forms are even engraved on the family’s treasured heirloom ring passed down for generations.

These things would obstruct my journey, you see.

No matter how I changed the time or route, whenever I tried to leave this small country, they would invariably attack me.

Unfortunately, I had no combat training.

Each time they attacked, I was easily killed.

What a mess, right?

Being eaten alive was quite the harsh experience.

No matter what I tried, it didn’t work out.

I couldn’t escape.

And yet time kept repeating over and over.

Gradually, my heart became steeped in despair.

I stopped caring about anything.

Even when time rewound and I returned to the head’s study room, I lost all motivation to take action.

In which case, this is what would happen – before I starved to death, Sarelka would have a master key made to enter.

Seeing me utterly devoid of will to live or resist, that man judged me harmless and began confining me to a room in the manor.

A nuisance to keep me alive, but he didn’t want to soil his own hands if possible.

Quite the typical cowardly, passive manifestation of malice from that man.

Ironically, this confined life ended up being the one allowing me to live the longest.

But unfortunately, while long-lived, it was also the most painful life.

Food was only provided in the bare minimum amounts to avoid starvation.

Moreover, after some time, my existence would be discovered by Fateu and the others.

From then on, it was terrible.

Daily torment and abuse.

Vicious violence inflicted, then abandoned.

Keranko was especially cruel.

Karashia was dangerous, but Keranko was dangerous too.

How could she inflict such violence on a helpless person with a smile on her face?

My confinement always ended with Keranko’s cheerful smile.

......Truly.

I was utterly exhausted.

Repeating hell over and over and over and over again.

But you know.

At some point, I realized something interesting.

I discovered an incredibly amusing, refreshing, and delightful way to view this show!