How to Live as the Terminally Ill Younger Sister of the Villain - Chapter 9
But because of that, oddly enough, she didn’t seem likely to hand over the sword that might be politically helpful to him.
It wasn’t because she was in a power struggle or faction fight with her brother, it just felt like that was her nature.
“Well… let’s say that’s the case.”
Mason, knowing that his lord’s ‘hunches’ were usually right, didn’t argue.
Instead, he voiced another concern.
“But isn’t it only a matter of time before Your Grace’s identity is revealed? Even if she didn’t recognize you, the guards beside her seemed to know.”
Then she might not meet… Mason muttered, but Blake spoke in a tone that showed little concern.
“That doesn’t matter either.”
“What? But then the sword…”
“We’ve created enough reason to visit the Marquis Flaubert’s house.”
Blake carefully tucked the wooden tag he received from her into his chest.
At any rate, he had prevented the sword from falling into the Crown Prince’s hands and created a connection with the Flauberts.
This outing was profitable enough.
“Well, if Your Grace says so.”
Mason couldn’t quite understand his underlying intentions, but he went along with it. Surely he knows what he’s doing.
“Let’s go back.”
Instead of pondering, he followed Blake as he turned to leave.
“Phew, next time you meet, I should just stand beside you.”
Of course, he didn’t stop talking the whole way back.
“Do you know how menacing the aura was from that guard standing next to her? To think someone exuding such a dark aura was pretending to be a maid.”
Mason shuddered as he recalled that maid-like-no-maid who was called ‘Laura’.
“I was clearly concealing my presence, but she kept staring directly at where I was, repeatedly showing throwing knives from her sleeve…”
He spoke while rubbing his arms vigorously. His complaints continued until they arrived at the duke’s residence.
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“What?!”
Having returned to the mansion and changed clothes, Angelina, unlike her usual self, let out a loud exclamation while drinking tea. Goosebumps rose all over her body.
“Say that again. What did you say?”
She asked again with a look hoping she had heard wrong, but Laura’s answer remained the same.
“That man wasn’t just a knight, but the Duke of Kadenhart.”
Chapter 2. Bucket List
“So, you mean Blake Kadenhart? The one called the Empire’s finest sword? His Majesty the Emperor’s nephew?”
Though she spewed out words as if denying the fact, Laura’s answer remained unchanged this time as well.
“Yes.”
At the crisp, almost refreshing clear answer, Angelina’s mouth fell open.
Her expression became a bit comical, mixed with shock and bewilderment.
‘No, what the…!’
Angelina rubbed her forehead.
It was beyond ridiculous.
‘Why on earth was someone of male lead status getting extorted in our domain…!’
A hollow laugh escaped her.
Blake Kadenhart.
He was the male lead in the novel of her memories.
Not just any male lead, but a perfect, extremely popular one. He had all the elements necessary for a male protagonist in a romance fantasy.
First, it was described that even passing by in a carriage, one could tell he was handsome enough to be called a beauty.
As the Emperor’s nephew and the Empire’s only duke, his status was guaranteed, and he was also endowed with outstanding skills to be called the Empire’s finest sword.
That’s not all. He had a good personality too.
He was always by the female lead’s side when she needed him, always respected her, and was a gentleman who spoke beautifully.
On top of that, he was a man of pure love who only had eyes for the female lead. From any perspective, he was an excellent male lead figure and was incredibly popular among readers.
Of course, even he had one flaw.
‘Right, he was perfect except for not having money.’
That’s it, he had no money.
The duke’s family was penniless, unbecoming of their title.
In the novel, it was described as ‘even if you shake out every warehouse, not a single grain of rice would fall out’.
The duke’s family wasn’t always struggling with poverty. They too had their time of glorious shine.
This reversal happened when the previous duke brought in the wrong new wife.
Blake’s birth mother, although from a count’s family from the frontier, was an excellent woman who loved the duke.
But sadly, she passed away not long after giving birth to Blake.
It would have been good if the duke had a gentle personality, but being emotional in everything, he couldn’t overcome that loss.
He tried to alleviate the depression consuming his mind by going on monster subjugation trips.
And the Empress, who had always been wary of the duke’s family, saw this as an opportunity and made her move.
Whispering in the duke’s ear that young Blake needed a mother, and if he planned to continue going on subjugations, he should at least have a mistress of the house.
The duke, who had lost his judgment after losing his beloved, took in the woman introduced by the Empress as his second wife, and that was the beginning of all misfortunes.
The new wife, who had disguised herself with love, was actually the Empress’s pawn.
The new duchess completely ruined the duke’s family.
The first to disappear was wealth, then the honor of the duke’s family was destroyed, and finally, they lost people’s trust.
‘The duke did come to his senses later, but…’
Although the duke immediately divorced her when he realized this, unfortunately, it was too late to rectify what had been broken.
The wounds he received during the subjugation battles worsened, and he too passed away.
Thus, what was left to young Blake was only the empty honor of being a duke, an enormous amount of debt, broken trust, and a ruined domain.
Blake, who suddenly had to shoulder so much, struggled in his own way.
But it wasn’t easy. It was because of the Empress’s interference.
The Empress kept pushing the powerless Blake into monster subjugations, and people who didn’t know the inside story were quick to point fingers at him, calling him a blood-crazed madman resembling the previous duke.
It was a lonely fight.
‘But that setting made the male lead into an even more formidable man.’
Of course, as a capable male lead, Blake grows to overcome everything.
He dried up the seeds of orcs in the north and swept away the toads in the east, erasing any pretext or method to push him into subjugations anymore.
When he returned from the frontier, he was no longer a child. He was a monster harboring revenge and deep anger.
‘I knew that was two years before the novel started, but…’
Angelina sighed.
She knew the novel started with her death. And that the death was two years later.
But she didn’t think to connect it with the time the male lead returned.
It was also because she thought she had nothing to do with the original work…
‘The male lead who should be busy exposing traitors in his domain, regaining lost power, and fixing the ruined domain, why? Why on earth was he getting ‘extorted’ in our domain!’
The more Angelina thought about it, the more incredulous she felt.
‘If I had known he was the male lead, I wouldn’t have gotten involved so deeply.’
Angelina grumbled inwardly while glaring at the magic sword placed on the table.
You’re the culprit.
‘So that must be the item called Aroas or Artoas or something from the novel.’
The family heirloom of the male lead’s family ends up in the Crown Prince’s hands by chance.
In the novel, there was an episode where the Crown Prince, who had been wary of the male lead all his life, tried to use this to manipulate the male lead.
However, with the female lead’s intervention, this fails, and it was an event that gave a small dose of satisfaction against the Crown Prince, who played the role of a mid-level villain.
I wondered how an item that was the heirloom of the duke’s family ended up in the Crown Prince’s hands, but it seemed it was through this auction house.
Perhaps the man in balcony number 5 was a close associate of the Crown Prince.
“Huu…”
Angelina exhaled deeply, imbuing it with her feelings of unfairness.
‘If only the novel had mentioned somewhere that the heirloom was a ‘sword’…’
In the novel, it was only referred to as an ‘heirloom’, and what it actually wasn’t described in detail. That’s why she couldn’t recognize it at all.
Anyway, it was a novel that was unkind in explaining its settings.
There was more reason to feel wronged.
‘They said his appearance would captivate everyone regardless of age or gender.’
They said you could tell he was handsome even if you saw him while doing a backflip.
Even when covered in monster blood on the battlefield, he was said to be as cool as a noble black rose.
But…
‘My brother is much more handsome.’
No matter how she thought about it, her brother Ante was better-looking.
‘Wasn’t my brother the villain and that man the male lead? Since when is the villain more handsome than the male lead?’
It wasn’t that he wasn’t good-looking. He was handsome. It was the first time she thought someone other than her brother was handsome.
The problem was that he didn’t seem to be the kind of beauty that would make you fall head over heels, as described in the novel.
Was it the female lead’s biased perspective?
‘Anyway, it’s an unbelievable novel.’
