MDCP 10

Chapter 10

“Your Highness, my heart is pounding like crazy.”

At Barrett’s words, Javier burst into laughter.

“Yes, that heart of yours. I’ll make sure it keeps beating.”

It was a meaningful remark, but Barrett didn’t register it. Even if Javier suddenly ran off somewhere and started playing the violin, Barrett felt like he could dance to it.

This was not the time. He needed to quickly receive recommendations from his older sisters and brothers for knights to join the order.

He was even planning to go back and study military science and aura theory—subjects he had once detested just at the thought of them.

“Ah, right.”

So busy, so busy. Barrett, who had been about to ask for permission to withdraw, was stopped again by Javier.

What if everything up until now had been a joke? Surely not… As Barrett silently measured the possible consequences of insubordination, something that sounded almost like a joke reached his ears.

“I have a daughter.”

“…Pardon?”

“I went out this morning to see my daughter.”

“Wait, a daughter? Are you sure? If you saw her this morning, does that mean she’s currently in the palace?”

Javier nodded.

Completely unaware of Barrett’s turmoil.

“Wait—I know the hair and eye colors of all the servants in the palace! Unless… perhaps—”

It was fortunate Barrett swallowed the name he was about to say.

It was still too painful to speak aloud through someone else’s voice.

As Javier’s face turned bitter, Barrett clutched his chest as if confirming his suspicion.

“Is it true? How, how…?”

“I don’t know. How could she deceive me like that…”

“Lydia and…?”

Huh? Lydia? Lydia Torsten?

Javier reached out to stop Barrett’s wild imagination, but Barrett rubbed his face roughly with both hands instead. His expression of utter disbelief felt almost disrespectful.

“So that’s it! You’re building the knight order for Lydia Torsten, aren’t you? I wondered why you asked about Sion Farid—you suspected something between him and Lydia!”

“Enough!”

Before Javier could become a petty man jealous of capable knights, he stopped Barrett’s mouth.

But for Barrett, who had just heard that his lord’s sister might be involved in something like that, his mind had gone completely blank.

“What are you even imagining… It’s not Morgana. Of course, I respect her.”

“Then who in the world…?”

The name that had come out so easily in front of that child now felt stuck in his throat.

Yes. She really was too similar. In appearance, in behavior, even in the way she spoke.

“Margot Peril.”

Was that why she refused him so easily too?

At the name, Barrett’s expression gradually cooled along with Javier’s tone.

If my small, narrow world as Annabella could be called a universe, then I was a satellite orbiting the planet named Margot Peril. I was caught in her gravity, endlessly circling her. That gravity was the love she gave me.

Sometimes she would look at me with a distant expression and murmur like a spell, “Everything will be fine, right?” She would open her mouth as if to say something more, but more often than not, she would end things with trivial words instead.

I wanted to tell you.

Back then, no matter what she said to me, I wanted to tell her everything would be alright. That the two of us could accomplish anything. Even if I hadn’t regained my past life memories, I think I would have felt the same.

Even if I ultimately chose my country over her, I don’t resent or hate her.

I wanted to support Margot Peril’s life—she had so much more she needed to protect besides me.

But there was one thing I did resent.

She loved me too much.

By the time my past life memories gradually returned, I was already a naive child raised under Margot Peril’s overflowing love. I had become too accustomed to being loved.

I had realized I was from another world. I remembered things like writing systems, transportation, and communication technology from my previous life—but I had no memories of myself from that world.

And after entering this palace as a low-ranking maid, I began to recall everything while being met with inexplicable hostility.

I was “Jung Green,” someone who had always lived on eggshells.

That kind of baseless hatred was painful—but strangely familiar. And then my memories began to return. My stepmother who hated me, my father who ignored it, even my younger sibling who fully understood the difference in our positions. When I finally remembered everything, I could only cry.

I wondered if my mother might come to take me away. If the original story was different.

And then I realized—I had never let go of my expectations toward her.

After letting go of those expectations, I actually felt relieved. I decided I would stand against those who hated me.

But what do you do when those same people suddenly start trying desperately to get on your good side?

“Ah, A-Anna-bella!”

“Yes?”

It felt like I had been stopped ten times just on the way to the detached palace. It was like a video game where a boss waits on every floor.

At first, I was startled by people suddenly talking to me—but now I was calm enough to respond casually.

“Want this? It’s really good.”

I nodded and took it. Food has no sin.

It seemed rumors were spreading through the detached palaces. Soon, the entire imperial palace would know.

Even if I wanted to stop it, I couldn’t.

The Second Prince had called me “my daughter.” I had never once been under this kind of attention before.

Maybe I was overthinking it, but everyone felt desperate to talk to me. If I were the protagonist of a high school movie, I could have enjoyed this reversal and blown a kiss.

But I’m not the protagonist. I just have to survive.

First, go to the strawberry field.

I still needed to find the pocket watch.

Just as I tried to head there, someone grabbed me again.

“Ah, A-Anna-bella!”

Is my name “A-Anna-bella” now? Why does everyone say it like that?

The one calling me was Susan, wearing an awkward expression I had ever seen.

“Where are you going at this hour?”

Only then did I notice the sky had turned dusky.

“So?”

I pulled up my shawl and answered lazily.

“Just somewhere.”

“Oh, are you going to the strawberry field?”

“…Yes.”

Why ask when you already know?

“Should I… go with you?”

“No, I’ll go alone.”

“It’s getting dark and dangerous. And there are reports that a magical beast that’s been disturbing the duchy’s territory has appeared near here.”

A magical beast troubling the ducal territory.

A memory suddenly surfaced, and I grabbed my hair without thinking. Susan looked startled, but I couldn’t care.

Wait, isn’t this around the time Declin starts attacking Javier by targeting surrounding areas first?

Because I was at the lowest and most isolated part of the palace, I couldn’t help being ignorant of current affairs.

The only reason I had survived so far was the occasional fragments of the original story that came to me…

Soon, the magical beast would cross the borders of Temble territory and even target the imperial capital.

A knight order under the Duke of Temble would pursue it.

And then an unprecedented magical beast—would be defeated by a trainee knight from the conquest nation.

What was his name again?

Sion something, I think.