The woman that May saw at the palace.

‘Is this what I think it is?’

Can you call this a coincidence? There won’t be many people who are similar to the person the High Priest described….

“You must be so shocked, right?”

My sister looked so elated when she saw my jaw drop.

“Of course, you’ll be very shocked. That’s understandable. Be honest, you didn’t believe what I said, right? You’ve been acting like you’ve known everything but can’t even imagine yourself being an abandoned kid?”

Observing my sister’s twisted look, I was speechless for a while.

Actually, it was true that I was shocked.

‘I had such a dream…’

My chest was throbbing.

“What will you do? It’s true that we picked you when you were thrown away and raised you. Do you see how sweet and nice my parents are?”

“…So what?”

“What?”

“Are you finished?”

“You seem reluctant to make a deal with me. Ho, are you going to ditch me after I’ve told you everything?”

Gritting her teeth, my sister leaned toward me. She looked so aggressive as if she intended to hit me right away.

“No, I’m not like that. What’s the necklace that the woman left me?”

“Ah, that…”

But my sister, who had been speaking confidently until just now, quickly trailed off at the end of her boast. The way she looked and behaved made me nervous.

“What’s wrong? Why are you muttering now?”

“I sold it because it looked expensive.”

“Crazy bitch.”

I had held myself back from swearing, but I ended up cursing for the first time ever since I possessed Leona.

“W-Why are you swearing!”

“Do you think I can’t do that?”

“But if I hadn’t sold it, my mom and dad would have sold it. You should be thankful that I did it since I could tell you about it.”

Jane was looking pretty confident.

“..Yeah. I should’ve been thankful.”

“If it’s you, I’m sure you’ll be able to find it.”

“What do you mean? Where did you sell it?”

“It was a necklace with a transparent gem the size of a finger. A necklace that glowed red. I sold it because I thought it was a ruby, but I found something strange.”

The way she kept beating around the bush made my blood boil.

“What was strange?”

“Not long after I sold it, I was contacted by the jeweler who said that the red jewel suddenly lost its color. He berated me so much about it, saying, ‘what the hell are you selling to me?’”

I suddenly recalled what May had said to me. The ring worn by a woman with silver hair had a similar appearance to that.

–It was big and transparent red. It turned red briefly when she passed by me.

When I thought about it, there were two items–a necklace and a ring, but the jewel itself sounded the same to me.

“But don’t worry. You’ll be able to find it.”

“Okay. I’ll compensate you if you manage to find it. But I won’t give you anything if you don’t.”

“Aren’t you going overboard?! You’re trying to make a deal with me even though you know I probably can’t find it?!”

“Of course, that’s exactly why I want you to find it.”

“I even told you that you have a genetic illness! It’s a big deal. You can survive when you listen to me and see a doctor.”

I raised my own voice at my sister who shouted at me.

“I’ll find out anyway when the doctor arrives, and I already expected that I’m not the real daughter of the Selen family. The only information you brought to the table was the woman who you claimed to be my mother and the necklace she wore.”

“T-That’s true, but…”

“So go and find that necklace.”

It was actually a big deal to learn about my mother, but I pretended to not care and urged her more.

As a result, my sister got up from her seat with a groan.

“…I’ll go find it. But you must keep your promise.”

“Yeah.”

Knock, knock.

Just then. I heard a knock right when our conversation came to an end.
“Madam, it’s May.”

“Come in.”

May opened the door and entered immediately.

“The guest you mentioned before has arrived and is waiting.”

“Let him in. And May, please prepare for Jane’s outing.”

“Yes? But…”

“I assure you she’ll return.”

May seemed reluctant but nodded.

“I’ll heed your order. Then follow me, Jane.”

“….”

My older sister went out of the room with a disapproving look. And a man entered the room right when she left. A man whom I saw for the first time.

“I heard you were looking for me.”

“I’ve been looking for you for quite some time, and I finally met you. I heard you treated me?”

“I’m not sure. My memory is kind of blurry.”

The man seemed reluctant to talk and kept muffling his sentence as if to appear nonchalant.

“Are you going to feign ignorance?”

“I guess it’s because of my bad memory.”

As I was contemplating what to do with a man who refused to cooperate, several men showed up.

They were the duke’s knights who had escorted the doctor here. I didn’t know their names, but I had seen them several times.

‘It seems the doctor doesn’t come here voluntarily.’

From then on, I made use of the luxury I didn’t know I had.

“I won’t force you to say it. I understand everything. Nothing will change if you refuse to speak, anyway.”

“Nothing will change?”

Only then his voice trembled a little as if showing interest in what I said.

“You act like you’re coming here willingly when in fact you’ve been dragged here. Isn’t that right?”

“Hoho. No, I’m coming here on my own…”

“I get it. Now leave.”

“What?”

“I don’t need to waste my breath on someone who is uncooperative.”

The doctor laughed as if he had been waiting for me to say that.

“Then, I’ll take my leave.”

“Yeah, but you won’t be able to live like you used to. The knights next to you will follow you like ghosts for not giving me the answer I want. Even if you try to escape to other countries, you probably won’t be able to take a single step out of this country.”

Only then the doctor approached me with a grim look.

“Are you threatening me now?”

“Strange, isn’t it? How come people who have nothing keep asking me if I am threatening them today? Sorry to disappoint you but this isn’t a threat. I don’t really need your information. I’ve already heard what you’ve done, and what you’ve diagnosed.”

“Then why did you call me here?”

“Well, I don’t remember why I did that, either. Ah, I think I called you here to punish you for trying to hide it even though you knew the name of my illness?”

I spoke in a low tone and got up from my seat.

“P-Punish me?!”

“Don’t worry. I don’t intend to punish you. Well, my husband will probably react differently. You knew about the Duchess’ illness but tried to escape instead of curing her.”

The man looked aghast as if his soul had left his body.

“I-I…t-that…”

“I’m sure that you ran away after I became duchess, so does that mean you’re trying to hide my diagnosis?”

“This isn’t fair! I thought your family would have told you about your illness! I wasn’t trying to hide it! If I really wanted something out of that illness, I would have come to the duke.”

“Then you tried to run away for a different reason?”

I approached him to close the distance he had built between us. He flinched as I got closer to him.

“Why can’t you speak?”

“I-I can’t…speak more than this….”

“You don’t mind getting punished?”

“…I-I didn’t mean to run away. T-That’s all I can say.”

He should’ve told me the reason he ran away at this point, but he was so adamant.

“Didn’t you try to run away to avoid me?”

“….”

“Does that mean you didn’t mean to run away, but someone else urged you to. Did he tell you to leave?”

It was very subtle, but his body trembled.

“…So I’m right. Who asked you to leave?”

“I can never tell you. Never.”

“The way you speak, it seems to me that you’re trying to ‘get away’ so you won’t face me. And there’s only two people who are higher than me, a duchess.”

“….”

“His Majesty the Emperor and the High Priest. You won’t zip your lips like this unless one of these people told you to. The men who rise above the duke.”

He bit at his lips as if I hit the bullseye.

“I-I…”

“Those people won’t protect you. They would have pulled strings to avoid you getting dragged here if they had the slightest intention to do that.”

“…..”

“So tell me. I’ll protect you with my name on it. Why did they ask you to run away? What are you hiding?”

“…..”

“I can’t help you if you refuse to talk.”

And after a long time he finally spoke.

“..A long time ago…there was a disease called the God’s curse. It was a genetic disease, and I discovered that the Duchess has it. Driven by my curiosity as a doctor, I tried to investigate further right after finding it, and I was able to meet with a certain person.”