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Chapter 2
After the short commotion, a cautious voice spoke up.
“Still… Sister Serphina kind of has a sister complex. Though I do agree that you need protection too. Lottie is delicate.”
“A sister complex? And hearing you call her ‘Rphina’ feels strange every time.”
“You don’t know what a siscon is? It means you’re really close. And the name… well, I thought I should stop using the family name.”
“Our family name is Rosena.”
“And yet it’s not Rosena Serphina. Western names are hard after all.”
The one sitting beside me and enjoying tea together was my friend, Minabel.
For reference, it seemed another person’s soul was inside Minabel.
A soul from a very distant world, even from a completely different era.
I realized that in the spring when I turned fifteen.
“Lady Cherita, why are you taking your shoes off before entering the mansion?”
“Entering a bedroom with shoes on is strange… and besides, the floor is cold.”
She, who had supposedly mastered every noble custom and etiquette perfectly, suddenly started acting oddly.
One day during a meal together, she kept glancing around and waiting until my mother and father picked up their spoons first before she started eating.
While saying something incomprehensible like adults should eat first.
We had never been especially close to begin with, but she was acting so suspiciously that I had no choice but to corner her and ask directly.
“Who are you?”
“Huh? W-What?”
“You’ve been strange ever since that tea party when you were fifteen.”
Minabel panicked and tried to deny it, but eventually she sighed and confessed everything.
“When I entered this world, I received a power called the Status Window…”
“What’s that supposed to be?”
See? She admitted with her own mouth that she had “entered” this world.
“Well… if I had to explain it, it’s like a magical… blackboard? Something that shows another person’s emotions or condition. I don’t know who made it. And it only appears if I say ‘Status Window.’”
She even explained that what she saw looked like a blackboard instead of parchment.
“You die from poisoning on the night you turn nineteen, and the people who attack the mansion kill you. Your whole family gets accused of treason and executed. That’s why I agree with Sister Serphina’s plan! Though… it might be a little overprotective.”
She casually spilled future information as if she had already seen everything herself.
Back then, Minabel still hadn’t fully adapted to our culture, and she was completely different from the original Lady Cherita I had heard about.
I’d been told she was calm and liked reading and painting, but the actual Minabel Cherita was cheerful and loved wandering around outside.
Since she came from another world, she was also clueless about etiquette and noble customs.
Most importantly, whenever she had the chance, she stared into empty air and muttered “Status Window.”
But not a single person, including the Cherita Marquis family, realized her soul had changed.
Just knowing these two secrets was already painful enough, but it still wasn’t even close to the end.
Now then, where should I start?
The maid who became pregnant with the Crown Prince’s child and went into hiding?
Or the ducal family secretly raising that imperial child?
Or the Third Prince hiding his abilities?
Who knows. Maybe today I’ll accidentally discover another secret too.
“Tie, what are you thinking about so deeply?”
That’s why everyone in this world is hiding something except me.
And what am I hiding, you ask?
I looked at the worried Minabel and forced a thoughtful smile onto my face.
As if I had some kind of problem myself.
“No, it’s just…”
The thing I’m hiding is the fact that I have absolutely nothing to hide.
Flotie Rosena. The second daughter of House Rosena.
Seriously, other than being unusually perceptive, I truly have no special talent at all.
“My lady, what are you worrying about so much?”
“It’s just… I suddenly feel like I’m going against the natural order of the world.”
“……S-Status Window.”
The moment I answered Elian’s question, Minabel quietly muttered under her breath.
Her eyes widened as though she had seen a ghost in midair, and her face turned pale.
“Why? Were you trying to look up information about me on your ‘magical blackboard’? To see if I’d been cursed by black magic or something?”
I meant it as a joke, but her face became even whiter.
I really should be more careful with what I say.
“But is it really black magic?”
“No! No!”
Ever since childhood, I had grown up feeling isolated from the rest of the world.
Because nobody else ever noticed the things that seemed painfully obvious to me.
Whenever I pointed out the suspicious behavior of someone acting strangely, they reacted as though I had struck a fatal weakness.
And then they would desperately tell me not to reveal their secret.
That was what always confused me.
Would their secrets really stay hidden just because I kept my mouth shut?
But somehow, everyone truly didn’t notice.
“T-Tie, so what I mean is…”
“It’s okay. You don’t have to explain. I’ll keep it secret.”
Why am I the only one who knows these things?
I had barely finished sighing when I noticed Elian leaning in and trying to listen to our conversation, so I raised a hand to stop her.
“Elian, don’t you have somewhere you should be going right now?”
“Huh? Where would I go?”
Elian, her chestnut hair neatly tied up, frowned slightly.
“I have something I need to discuss privately with Minabel.”
“But I’m one with you, my lady.”
“No thanks. Let’s stay as two separate people.”
When I coldly shook my head, Elian looked strangely hurt for a moment. At this rate, she was going to ask me to become best friends with her or something.
I deliberately put on a dignified expression and tilted my teacup.
“So, Elian, go back to your room now.”
“My room? Do you mean your room, my lady?”
Why was it so hard for her to understand that I was telling her to go take care of her child?
I waved my hand impatiently, and only then did realization hit her. Her face instantly turned bright red.
Seriously, stop getting emotional over every little thing.
“My lady, if you need me, please call anytime. I’ll run here from the garden immediately.”
“Don’t worry. If something happens to me, my sister will probably jump in through the window.”
Elian looked at me like she was about to cry, then hurried away with quick little steps.
“You really like that maid.”
“She’s a good girl. And she’s loyal to me…”
“Well, I heard you saved her when she was starving to death on the streets.”
“I just… couldn’t ignore her. You would’ve done the same.”
“My child, you carry the blood of the noblest person. No matter what happens, Mother will protect you.”
I wasn’t heartless enough to hear words like that and simply walk away.
Elian has a child.
A child born from a commoner woman who fell in love with a man of extremely high status.
And that man is probably…
“I wonder how the Crown Prince is doing these days.”
“What?!”
The moment I muttered that while resting my chin on my hand, Minabel’s voice shot up loudly.
I hurriedly covered her mouth and warned her to keep quiet.
She struggled desperately and tried to say something through muffled noises, so I loosened my hand slightly, allowing her to whisper.
“Anyone else is fine, but not His Highness the Crown Prince. In the first place, he’s…”
“No, I have absolutely zero desire to become Crown Princess. It’s not like I know nothing.”
When I waved my hands in disgust, Minabel finally relaxed.
The First Prince Vincent, who had recently been named Crown Prince, was surrounded by many rumors.
That he was a notorious womanizer.
That he acted like a reckless delinquent.
But all those rumors were spread by the Third Prince to hide Vincent’s poor health.
“How do you know all this?”
“I just do.”
Not that I ever wanted to know.
“You must never let anyone discover that His Highness the Crown Prince’s health is worsening.”
If only I hadn’t accidentally overheard secret discussions while casually going out for dessert.
“I heard the Third Prince is incredibly talented. To hide that fact, he intentionally acts like a troublemaker and hides behind the Crown Prince’s scandals. Apparently he was originally gentle and wise.”
“With his background, pretending like that is probably safer if he wants to survive.”
If only the whispers of people who were clearly part of an information guild hadn’t somehow reached my ears.
What ridiculous coincidences.
Somehow, I always ended up stumbling into enormous secrets.
At some point, I simply accepted that fate.
At this stage, it almost felt like secrets were walking up to me on their own.
Anyway, the world revealed secrets to me in the most absurd ways.
Like right now, for example—
The silver-haired man beyond the wall changed his eye color a moment too late, letting me realize that his real eye color was ruby red.
…Huh?
