TFLB 07

There was no doubt that my mother seemed to have something she wanted to say to me, so I cautiously asked her.

After hesitating for a moment, Mother spoke in a voice full of worry.

“Belita… are you all right?”

“Huh?”

I looked at my mother.

Her face was filled with concern.

“Are you really all right?”

When she asked if I was okay, I realized that Mother had been worrying about my heart being hurt by the broken engagement all this time.

“I’ll be all right… eventually, right? I’ll be okay… Mother.”

It wouldn’t have made sense for me to immediately say that I was perfectly fine, so I carefully chose words that would ease her worries as much as possible.

“Belita…”

I gave my mother, who was looking at me with pity, a weak smile.

And then I realized that the time had finally come to say what I had been waiting to say.

This was the very reason I had endured all that difficult acting until now.

After carefully looking at both of my parents, I opened my mouth.

“So… I was wondering… would it be all right if I left the capital for a while?”

I was planning to leave this place temporarily.

The original story had already begun, but now that I had broken off my engagement with Kane, I no longer had to live like the Belita from the novel.

However, I was still the daughter of a ducal family, which meant that I would inevitably run into them from time to time.

And if I wasn’t careful, I could end up getting involved in the original story again.

But that was the one thing I absolutely refused to let happen.

After finally escaping the original story, why would I ever want to get dragged back into it?

I wanted to leave this place and return only after the original story had ended, so that I could start everything anew.

“You want to leave? The capital?”

“Yes. I want to leave this place, which holds so many memories of Your Grace, and take some time to think about how I want to live from now on.”

“Are you having a really hard time?”

“…I want to forget. And I’m going to try my best to forget. But right now, I think it would be too difficult for me to face not only His Grace, but also the people who will whisper behind my back about what happened to me…”

“Belita, you haven’t done anything wrong! So you should hold your head high and—”

“Dear.”

Mother cut Father off sharply.

Her voice was so firm that it was obvious how strongly she wanted to grant my wish.

“I understand. Do as you wish.”

“Dear!”

Permission had been given.

But Father seemed unable to simply let me leave, and he raised his voice excitedly.

“Dear, let Belita do what she wants. Our daughter needs time. We should give her that time.”

Mother calmly and logically persuaded Father, and in the end, he finally raised the white flag.

“Belita, don’t worry about anything happening here. Do whatever you want. But you must come back. Understand?”

Ah…

For some reason, I felt like I was really about to cry.

To be a daughter loved this much…

To have parents who trusted and supported their daughter this much…

So this is what having parents is like.

“Yes, I’ll definitely come back. Don’t worry. I’ll come back stronger than I am now, so that I can forget everything and start over.”

And I made a promise to myself that when I truly returned this time, I would become their real daughter—not someone pretending to be her.

A few days later, we officially completed the process of breaking off the engagement, and I legally received Grens.

My parents said that since I had obtained it as compensation, it belonged to me, so they made the territory my personal property rather than placing it under the family’s ownership.

As a result, within just a few days, I had suddenly become one of the wealthiest people in the capital—or rather, in the entire empire.

In the meantime, I finished preparing for my departure and said my final goodbyes to my parents in front of the carriage.

“Be careful on your journey.”

“Yes, I will, Father.”

“Belita…”

Although Mother had agreed to let me do what I wanted, her face was still filled with worry, as if she couldn’t completely stop herself from worrying about me.

“Mother, don’t worry too much. You know me.”

I answered cheerfully and hugged her tightly.

“I’ll be back safely. Both of you have to stay healthy too.”

After promising that I would return safely, I climbed into the carriage, and Mary followed me inside.

Because I stubbornly insisted on traveling with only the minimum number of people, only Mary, who would attend to me, and a knight named William were accompanying me.

I’d heard that he was one of the most skilled knights in the family’s knight order.

Besides, as a member of the Fire Family, Belita had talent not only for controlling fire but also for swordsmanship.

I wasn’t as skilled as the real Belita, but I had occasionally trained since possessing her body, so protecting myself wasn’t particularly difficult for me.

The carriage set off.

William rode alongside us on horseback.

“My Lady, where are we going first?”

As soon as the carriage passed through the main gate of the estate, Mary spoke to me.

Her voice was filled with excitement and anticipation.

“I don’t know. For now, I just want to go wherever the road takes me.”

Although I said that to Mary, I was actually planning to go to Grens first.

I was extremely curious to see whether there really was a diamond mine in the territory that now belonged to me—and if there was, what it actually looked like.

I wasn’t particularly materialistic, but the thought of seeing a place filled with diamonds was too fascinating.

I’d never seen anything like it before, so just imagining it made me excited.

However, Grens was extremely far away. It would take several days of traveling by carriage to reach it.

Since we would naturally stop at other places along the way, what I had told Mary wasn’t entirely a lie.

“By the way, My Lady, I’m so excited.”

Mary clasped her hands together, her eyes sparkling brightly.

Her innocent and adorable behavior brought a faint smile to my lips without me even realizing it.

“You’re that excited?”

“Yes! I’m so happy. This is the first time I’ve ever gone somewhere this far away.”

“It’s the same for me. I’m really excited too.”

“My Lady, but I…”

The smile that had filled Mary’s face suddenly disappeared, and her expression darkened.

It was obvious that she had something she wanted to say, but she couldn’t bring herself to say it and kept hesitating.

“I… Are you really all right?”

But eventually, as though she had made up her mind, she asked me about the broken engagement.

“I’m fine. No… I’ll be fine, so don’t worry.”

Although I had broken off the engagement and left the capital, so it seemed like everything was finally over, I still had to be careful for a while so that not even the smallest detail went wrong.

Most importantly, I was someone who had only just been dumped.

I still had to pretend to be a woman wounded by heartbreak, so I answered with a calm but sorrowful smile.

If I acted as though I didn’t care about the broken engagement at all, Mary might become suspicious.

Of course, I didn’t think she would go around telling anyone about it, but there was no harm in being cautious.

“That’s a relief. I was worried that you might stay depressed for a long time…”

“Then you should make me laugh.”

“Huh? Me?”

“Can’t you do even that much for your sad mistress?”

I casually joked with Mary in an attempt to lighten the gloomy atmosphere.

“All right. Is there anything I wouldn’t do for you, My Lady?”

But Mary seemed genuinely determined to make me laugh.

She stood up with a serious expression and began preparing to do something.

“It’s fine, Mary. Don’t do that. Instead, let’s look outside. Look over there!”

I grabbed her hand and pulled her back down beside me.

Then we looked out the window together and spent a long time chatting about all sorts of things.

The carriage traveled on and on, eventually passing through the capital, Harn, and arriving at an outlying village called Feorat.

The country where I lived, Balteus, was a vast empire located at the center of the continent.

Naturally, with such an enormous territory, its capital was also incredibly large.

Perhaps that was why it took us an entire day of traveling by carriage just to leave the capital and reach Feorat.

By the time night fell, we decided it would be too difficult to continue traveling.

So we decided to spend the night at an inn and leave again the next morning.

A little while later, the carriage stopped in front of an inn that looked quite luxurious at first glance.

I dragged my tired body inside.

I’d never stayed at another inn before, but perhaps because this one was expensive, it wasn’t crowded or particularly noisy.

We climbed the stairs, walked down a long hallway, and entered the room where I would be staying for the night.

The room was much smaller than my bedroom at the ducal residence. It contained only the basic necessities—a bed, a table, chairs, and even a bathroom.

Mary followed me inside and helped me settle in.

“You must be hungry, right? I’ll bring your meal right away, so please wait just a little.”

She went out after saying that and soon returned carrying food.

“Let’s eat together.”

“No, My Lady! I’ll go downstairs and eat. Please enjoy your meal comfortably.”