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Chapter 15
This was the main conference room on the top floor of the Feard Trading Company.
Count Feard, Dave, and Sherry were gathered together, heads in their hands, deep in discussion. Sherry let out a sigh as she looked over the states of the count and Dave. They had both been utterly dazed since yesterday.
“That’s understandable. Vanessa was proposed to, after all.”
Sherry clasped her head with both hands and thumped her forehead against the mahogany table. She herself looked no better—hollow eyes and disheveled hair made it obvious she hadn’t slept a wink all night.
She shot a fierce glare at the proposal letters scattered across the desk. Since the banquet, the person who had refused to leave her mind had reappeared in a manner so flamboyant it was almost absurd.
“So that’s what it meant?”
Grinding her teeth, Sherry recalled what had happened at the victory commemorative banquet.
“Sherry, are you listening to me?”
“Yeah, I’m listening.”
Sherry forced an awkward smile and gripped her wineglass.
She had found everything about the banquet tedious—the nobles gossiping loudly in their heightened emotions, and the academy colleagues who spoke to her as if they were close.
It wasn’t that she hated noble culture. Even traditions and customs she had no desire to pass down existed for a reason.
Simply put, it was a hassle. From the moment she faced the angel who had descended from the heavens called “Vanessa,” all of her attention had been focused on her. There was no room left to care about anything else.
When Sherry was around twelve, Dave once asked her:
“Why do you like Vanessa so much? Just because she’s your little sister?”
Sherry didn’t love Vanessa simply because she was her sister.
In a year and on a day she could no longer remember, she had once saved a kitten that had fallen from a tree and had a branch embedded in its leg, sneaking around the overprotective eyes of her father and Dave.
From the moment the cat fully recovered and began to run around again, Sherry realized she preferred protecting others to being protected herself. It was almost instinctual.
“Vanessa! Don’t worry—your sister will protect you!”
In the storybooks she read aloud about sibling bonds, Sherry wanted to be the reliable older sister rather than the one being looked after. And when she heard the news that her younger sister had gone missing, her whereabouts unknown, she understood.
Ah… Father must be afraid of losing Dave and me as well. Then the bravest person in this family should step forward.
“Stop this at once!”
As Sherry packed her belongings, determined to go find her sister, she heard her father’s furious shout. It was the first time she had ever heard such a roar from him, filled with the fear that he might lose Sherry too.
In truth, Sherry had harbored an idealized image of Vanessa. Perhaps because of that, she was inwardly shocked when she saw her for the first time.
Ragged clothes, purple hair that looked as if rats had gnawed at it, gloomy eyes full of wariness, a body hunched in fear of an unfamiliar environment—everything about her reminded Sherry of the kitten she had once cared for.
“Hello, Vanessa. I’m Sherry—your sister.”
Perhaps because of that, Sherry couldn’t simply throw her arms around her sister and jump for joy. More than happiness at having found her, she felt an aching sorrow.
While Sherry had lived carelessly under her family’s protection, Vanessa had lost her family, and the childhood that should have been her happiest years had been destroyed. What kind of life had she lived? Their father, feeling the same way, also couldn’t bring himself to approach Vanessa easily.
That evening, Sherry thought that an older sister, of course, should read fairy tales so her younger sister could sleep peacefully.
“I’m going to see Vanessa! My little sister!”
In truth, it was just an excuse to see her. Sherry fidgeted with her hands as she hugged several storybooks to her chest, unsure of what Vanessa might like.
“Ugh, that hurts…!”
She accidentally dropped one of the books and struck the top of her foot. Sherry hopped in place, tears welling up in her eyes.
“No, it doesn’t hurt!”
It was fine. As long as she could see Vanessa. Avoiding the servants’ eyes, Sherry tiptoed toward Vanessa’s room. She hesitated over whether to knock, but worried that if she was discovered, their father might scold her. Carefully, she grasped the golden doorknob and opened the door.
“Vanessa, your sister’s he—”
At that moment, Sherry froze in shock and dropped all the books she was holding. The corners struck her foot one after another, but it didn’t hurt like before.
Because her heart hurt far more.
Inside the room, Vanessa was hurriedly stuffing bread into her mouth—the bread she had secretly hidden away.
“Waaah!”
As Sherry wiped her eyes with both hands and cried, Vanessa looked at her in confusion, crumbs clinging to her cheeks.
Sherry couldn’t even bring herself to say that she was in pain. Compared to Vanessa secretly hiding away and wolfing down bread as if it were natural, her injured foot didn’t seem painful at all.
From then on, Sherry found Vanessa unbearably pitiful and adorable.
Sherry pulled herself out of her memories and surveyed the banquet hall from a distance. I shouldn’t be here right now.
“Vanessa… She looked like she hadn’t even eaten properly. Is she okay?”
Vanessa, who had shown signs of catching a cold since the day before the banquet, had locked her door and refused to come out.
If only Sherry hadn’t lost her bet with Dave over who would stand guard outside Vanessa’s room, she would have stayed by Vanessa’s side instead of attending the banquet.
As she let out a deep sigh, Sherry noticed the most troublesome man among the group of men hovering nearby, trying to approach her, and she scowled.
“Ilya Orkshum.”
The worst person who had followed her around throughout her academy days—the eldest son of the Orkshum count family, which ran the Orkshum Trading Company.
The Orkshum Trading Company was a rival of the Feard Trading Company, though their differing goals sometimes put them in a cooperative relationship.
“If only that weren’t the case…”
She wouldn’t even have acknowledged him. Sherry glared at Ilya and gripped her wineglass as if she might crush it. Somehow, he always had impeccable timing—every time she tried to visit Vanessa at the mansion, he would catch and detain her.
“Ahem! Sherry, how about we help the professor together?”
He would try to rope her into assisting with a professor’s thesis, suggest that they all dine together as classmates—there was no doubt that, to Sherry, he was the absolute worst.
Ilya was proud, arrogant, and selfish. He had convinced himself that Sherry liked him but was merely playing hard to get, and would occasionally make advances, making her life miserable.
“I wasn’t being nice to you.”
When Sherry snorted and stared at him, he gathered his friends and swaggered about. Sherry found him utterly contemptible.
“Sherry, are you listening to me?”
When an academy colleague tugged at her sleeve, Sherry turned away without hesitation.
“Sorry, what did you say?”
“His Grace Duke Dustin is about to enter.”
Evan Dustin. Even Sherry, who cared about nothing but Vanessa, knew that man well. He was the star of the victory commemorative banquet, the one personally bestowed a sword by the emperor—the man known as the “Sword of the Empire.”
Having majored in swordsmanship, Sherry had heard his name countless times. An unparalleled swordsman and the youngest duke in the empire.
Well, if it wasn’t Vanessa, she wasn’t interested anyway. Sherry shrugged and took a sip of her wine.
At that moment, the Duke of Dustin appeared, announced by name.
“Wow…”
“So that’s His Grace Duke Dustin!”
Everyone held their breath as they stared at Evan. It was only natural—even Sherry, accustomed to Vanessa’s beauty, was taken aback.
He was a handsome man with striking features and blue eyes. Those eyes, like the sea itself, were cold, as though frozen solid through the winter.
Those once-cold eyes now held expectation as they swept across the banquet hall.
“Who is he looking for?”
Sherry’s colleague whispered in her ear. Moments later, Sherry found herself face-to-face with those blue eyes.
Under his lingering, searching gaze, Sherry frowned.
“Why is he looking at me?”
As more eyes began to follow Evan’s gaze toward her, Sherry hurried out to the terrace to avoid attention. Soon after, hearing music fill the hall, she let out a sigh.
“Finally, I can be alone.”
“You don’t resemble her.”
At the unfamiliar voice, Sherry quickly turned and stared at the stranger.
It was him again. Evan Dustin.
She met his keen, piercing eyes, as though he could see straight through her.
“I don’t understand what you mean.”
A bitter smile curved his lips.
“Your sister.”
Vanessa. If he meant her sister, there was only one—Vanessa. But how did he know her? He should have had not even the slightest connection to Vanessa.
Before she could dwell on the question, his next, bombshell statement left her frozen.
“I’ll be coming to take your sister soon.”
Take her? What kind of nonsense was that?!
No matter how much she turned it over in her mind that night, she couldn’t find an answer, and eventually concluded that he must have misspoken while drunk. The very next day, a storm might descend upon the Feard family.
From that day on, the worst person on Sherry’s personal ranking—position zero—was no longer Ilya Orkshum, but Evan Dustin.
Bang!
Sherry slammed her face down on the desk, ending her recollection.
“No wonder it felt so unsettling!”
Her eyes flew open as she stared at the papers scattered across the desk—the proposal from the Dustin family that had nearly ended up inside her stomach.
“How dare he look at Vanessa like that!”
Vanessa wanted to find a lover, but rarely met anyone she could truly connect with. Men who approached her without knowing their place were swiftly dealt with.
On occasion, someone would persistently send love letters, which Sherry and Dave would secretly take care of, but most were rejected by Vanessa herself.
“He just sends a proposal out of nowhere? Does he think our Vanessa is easy?!”
Sherry raised her fist to slam the desk, then paused. Wait—could there be some connection between them?
Before long, she shook her head and cast the thought aside. No—Vanessa already had a first love.
Yes, it would be fine. Vanessa still hadn’t forgotten her first love, and Evan was probably just like all the other men, approaching her because of her looks.
Narrowing her eyes, Sherry recalled the men who had crossed Vanessa’s path.
“That’s Vanessa Feard?”
“No way. Didn’t they say her face was grotesque?”
She remembered the shock and cheers that had erupted when Vanessa first appeared before society.
The nobles arrogantly appraised Vanessa’s worth. Having never debuted in high society and labeled a reclusive loner, Vanessa was easily forgotten by people. Some compared her to Sherry; others called her a blemish on the Feard family.
Some even spread malicious rumors that her appearance was so hideous she couldn’t come outside.
To wipe the smug expressions off such people’s faces, Dave and Sherry buried themselves in books and took up their swords. If the offender specialized in art, they picked up a brush; if archery, a bow.
When Sherry occasionally spoke about Vanessa at the academy, her colleagues would ask in astonishment:
“Sherry, you had a sister?”
“Well, you see…”
They would trail off, exchanging looks, as if Vanessa were someone flawed and cast aside by the world.
From then on, Sherry cut ties with those colleagues.
“Does everyone have to live the same kind of life? What’s wrong with Vanessa? Why should she have to hear things like that from you?”
When those same people later tried to cozy up to Vanessa after she appeared in society, Sherry felt, for the first time, true contempt for others.
