Cinderella is... the Male Lead? - Chapter 30
After the day at the lakeside, Rona didn’t see Cinderella for several days. Despite having new servants, Cinderella used to still do small household chores. Rona searched for ‘her’ in places where she would usually be at different times of the day, but there was no sign of her.
It wasn’t just one day—she hadn’t seen even a glimpse of her for several days. It felt like Cinderella was deliberately avoiding her.
‘Did I do something wrong? Or is she just busy these days?’
Without seeing her at all, Rona couldn’t even ask. It was frustrating, especially when they needed to get closer, and now she hadn’t seen her for days. Reflecting on their time at the lake, there wasn’t anything that would have upset Cinderella. That made it even more frustrating.
Sighing, Rona rummaged through her wardrobe. She noticed something strange.
‘Where are the new clothes and underwear? The servants did the laundry a few days ago, so they should be hanging in the closet…’
Since hiring the new servants, Rona’s life had improved. Her room was always clean, and her laundry was done promptly, so she always had fresh clothes to wear. It finally felt like a proper rofan novel life, despite the bleak revenge novel setting.
Rona went to the maid to inquire about the missing clothes.
“Um, I washed all the clothes you took off a few days ago and hung them in your closet, Miss.”
“Really? That’s strange. Hmm, okay, thanks.”
Rona tilted her head in confusion.
They were hung in the closet, but now they’re gone? How is that possible? In a mansion with so few people, clothes disappearing seemed unlikely.
She briefly suspected the maid but had no evidence to accuse her. In a rural village where it was hard to find good help, accusing a maid without proof could cause big problems. As a villain in a novel trying to survive, she needed to avoid any sudden events.
From then on, Rona took her laundry directly to the maid, and the clothes stopped disappearing. This made her even more suspicious of the maid. If the clothes stopped disappearing after she asked about it, it meant someone had been taking them. But what could she do?
Rona soon forgot about the missing laundry, as her mind was preoccupied with the fact that she hadn’t seen Cinderella in days.
***
“Oooo…”
Late at night, Rona shivered under her blanket. She had started hearing the same hallucinations that Susan had experienced. It had been several days since the ghostly wails first started haunting her.
On the first night she heard the ghostly wails outside her door, Rona had doubted her ears and opened the door slightly, causing the wails to stop. But as soon as she tried to sleep again, the eerie ghost wails resumed. This repeated for several days, leaving dark circles under her eyes.
‘What is this? Is there really a curse on this mansion? This isn’t something that happened in the novel.’
The hallucinations had initially been Rona’s way to manipulate Susan. This wasn’t in the novel, but now she was experiencing them herself. It was a mystery.
Suddenly, Cinderella’s face flashed through Rona’s mind.
Why hadn’t she thought of it before? Could it be that Cinderella had already awakened her magic and was using it to torment her? But why would she? If Cinderella wanted to torment her, there were plenty of other ways. Moreover, there were no hallucination spells described in the novel, only offensive spells.
(In reality, Cinderella had known various spells even before his full awakening, and using an illusion spell to create hallucinations would be child’s play for him. But Rona had no way of knowing that.)
She furrowed her brows, thinking that Cinderella had no reason to torment her now. Despite not seeing her for days after the lakeside incident, their relationship had been quite amicable. On the surface, at least.
‘Cinderella has no reason to do this. Have I gone mad? Maybe the heat is getting to me…’
Maybe she was just sensitive to the heat. Knowing the future, there was always a low-level anxiety at the back of her mind, and the rising temperatures might have been making it worse.
Rona instructed the servants to change her bedding for summer. This world had its own ways to deal with summer, one of which was placing waterproof leather filled with ice on the bed. It was similar to a cool mat in Korea. Once the brown leather was laid on the bed, it felt pleasantly cool, almost chilly.
With this improvement, perhaps the hallucinations would stop. But Rona was mistaken.
“Ugh… So tired…”
Exhausted from the strange wailing that had plagued her all night, Rona staggered towards the dining room. She had asked the servants, but no one else had heard the hallucinations. So what could it be?
“Sister, it’s been a while.”
When she arrived at the dining room, there was Cinderella, whom she hadn’t seen for days.
