Chapter 95

Tara gives the Countess an ultimatum and gains support from an unexpected place.

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Episode 95. About a Year (22)

My mother was smiling, her eyes filled with tears.

"I was so nervous, but I'm so happy that my baby girl came back. Can I give you another hug?"

Ah... Oh my.... She must have been so scared....

I couldn't resist her uninhibited trust and affection.

I almost ran, falling into my mother's arms. When I had first woken up in this body, I hadn't needed this, but the person I was now did.

It felt like a realization. I was Tara Elias now, and this delicate woman in front of me was my one and only mother.

I patted her on the back, feeling the emotions rising from the bottom of my chest, and made a vow.

I... I was going to do everything in my power to save this damned family!

After parting ways with my mother, I went straight to the Countess's room, knocked on the door, and entered immediately despite the lack of answer.

The Countess seemed to recoil slightly when she saw me enter, but then she began shouting angrily.

"Pardon? How rude!"

"I'm here to get an apology."

“What? Ha! You're crazy.”

“If you apologize to me and my mother, I'll do everything I can to help Jason.”

“Ha ha ha. Ludicrous. How could you possibly help me! You're crazy, and stupid!”

"I'm giving you a chance. For now, I'll take an apology in words."

“What?”

“After today, you'll have to get on your hands and knees in order to convince me to help Jason.”

As soon as she heard that, as if she had been waiting for it, the Countess lunged from the bed like a jack-in-the-box on a spring.

“Yes, it's you! You're the reason my son went through all this trouble, it's all because of you!”

I thought she'd been lying about her illness, she hadn't eaten all day, but her voice was hoarse.

She reached over and tried to grab me by the hair.

Slap!

“Ouch!”

How easy. Compared to being trapped in a secret room filled with poisonous gas, this was a piece of cake.

The Countess's wrist felt like it would break if I applied even the slightest pressure.

“You can’t blame me for the consequences of your own mistakes. Let me ask you again, will you apologize?”

“How dare you! What are you doing? Aaaaaaaah!”

She screamed at the top of her lungs, so loudly it felt like my eardrums were going to burst. And then gasped for breath after she finished.

"First, take your hands off of me."

“What? You ignorant... What are you doing? Get off me!”

The Countess's eyes were half rolled back in her head, and her face close to mine was an unpleasant sight.

“Y... Yes, my Lady.”

I immediately bent her wrist a little further.

"Aaah!"

I had only twisted it slightly, but she yelped as if I had broken it. The truly astonishing thing was that despite how she carried on, she didn't have a single hair out of place.

In any other situation, I would have been tempted to ask her where she'd gotten her hair done.

I gritted my teeth and laughed.

“If the maids come near me to take me away, I'll break this, My Lady.”

My current smile was probably so grotesque that it was practically Luciferian.

“Stay still! It hurts! Ah..... Don't come here! Don't!”

The maids were so startled that they seemed unable to come any closer.

“Now. What would you like to do? Are you going to apologize?”

“You never seem to learn! Are you crazy? How dare you threaten a noblewoman with death! Apologizing to a commoner... I would rather die!”

“Ha, even though I said I could help Jason?”

“You're speaking nonsense! I don't need your help! Let go of me right this instant!”

My ears rang from her shrieking, and I was reluctant to hold onto her any longer. When I let go, the maids rushed over and picked the Countess up as if she were a frail princess.

“You're so shallow! So base, so ill-mannered, so disrespectful of your elders, so... You've been acting so demure all this time, and now you're showing your true colors... How dare you insult the Countess of House Elias!”

The matriarch gasped, shook off the maids who were supporting her, then tugged on the third rope beside the bed.

The one that summoned the guards.

“When the palace sealed off the mansion, the first thing they did was disband the family's knights.”

“.....!”

She hadn't thought that far, the Countess's face contorted.

I watched unblinkingly, a cold chill running down my spine.

"That's what I expected. And mark my words, next time a simple apology won't move me."

“You dare threaten me and think you'll get away with it? You have no power over me. I'll make sure you suffer the same humiliation some day!”

“Ha. Now I know why they say that line so often in dramas.”

“What? What the hell are you talking about?”

"You. Have. No. Right. To. Blame. Me. For. Your. Crimes."*

"Y- You..."

I walked out, slamming the door in the Countess's face as she fumed in anger. It seemed like she had no intention of abandoning the self-righteousness that was ingrained in her down to her bones.

Now I had yet another justification to resolve the attempted assassination of the Emperor.

***

Across the hall, Chloe and Logan stood with two associates of the merchant group and three lawyers I'd seen a few times before. They all stared at me with the same stunned expression on their faces.

It was like they were frozen! A few seconds passed, as if a spell had been cast, then the businessmen and lawyers bowed briefly and moved to the conference room, while Logan disappeared toward the central staircase.

Only Chloe stepped toward me.

“You're not a pushover. I have a good guess what transpired, but what happened?”

I shrugged, but didn't give a proper answer. Instead I changed the subject.

"I was reassigned to the Capital. How are things?"

“Hmm We're still trying to figure that out. Go on in. Dylan's been staring at the door ever since he heard you were back.”

"Alright. What is the state of the business?"

“Still unknown. Only time will tell. A few business partners have cancelled their contracts with us.”

“The longer Father's gone and the longer this mess drags on, the harder it's going to be for the company...”

Chloe nodded in agreement.

“My mother and brother have made a big mess of things. I was so focused on you this whole time... But it turns out I should have been keeping my eye on someone else. And oh, by the way, have you been using the emblem I gave you?”

Mother? So the Countess was involved in this.

I was curious, but deliberately didn't ask. I didn't want to interrogate her about her mother's private affairs.

“Oh, no. Not yet. I'll use it once this is all over.”

“Okay. If this situation gets resolved successfully, let's go together. Things are quite serious, but our father is not the kind of man who would break down over something like this. So don't worry about that either.”

As expected, the eldest daughter was built differently than the rest of my siblings.

Or rather, it was exactly because she was the eldest daughter that she had become this way.

Chloe patted my shoulder as if to tell me not to worry and walked away, leaving me lost in thought .

Should I... keep an eye on her?

As I expected, my encounter with Chloe had been easy.

***

Count Elias's Office.

I would rather spare the details of Dylan's reaction to my transformation, but he quickly briefed me on the incident.

I was surprised to learn that Jason had used the family seal without Father's knowledge, with the assistance of the Countess. I'd heard that she often finalized business deals related to House Philippe, but this was something else entirely.

Wow... The Countess was playing with fire…**

As a result, Father had been arrested and detained alongside Jason as the representative of the Elias Family's merchant group.

Who would believe the story that the son of a top 5 merchant family had arbitrarily taken on a new business venture by stamping the family seal?

“Perhaps the Empress might believe it after seeing the Count's stupid act.”

Nodding at my words, Dylan let out a deep sigh.

“Hah... We should have sent him to the provincial estate back then.”

“What?”

“Ah. You may not know, Miss, but after the embezzlement incident, we tried to send Master Jason down to the sheep ranch in the south, but the Countess spent days and days harassing the Count about it. House Philippe threatened to withdraw all their investments. There was a big fuss.”

“Hmm... Well, what's done is done. Jason was the one who got into this mess. Give me a minute.”

After asking Dylan for his understanding, I grabbed a pen and paper and wrote down all of the thoughts I had been organizing in my head. Dylan watched with interest as I wrote everything down.

<Summary of the Incident.>

1. Viscount Robinson, First Clerk of the Enforcement Division of the Treasury, has confirmed that the exclusive rights to the trade of Dragon Fruit were transferred from House Toulouse  to  House Elias according to standard procedure.

2.  The distribution and sale of dragon fruit has been monopolized by the Elias Family Merchant Company, and the dragon fruit intended to be presented at the banquet was stored in an Elias warehouse. Jason Elias, the general manager of the company, had direct care and control of the  stored dragon fruit for the past week leading up to the banquet.

3. On the day of the banquet, Jason Elias personally arranged the basket of fruit that would be presented by the Kingdom of Barron's delegation.

4. The dragon fruit was presented to the Emperor, and the Emperor in turn gave it to the young Margrave and his sister.

5. The young Margrave and his sister vomited blood and collapsed. Their symptoms also included shortness of breath and a rapidly occurring skin rash. There is no known cure for their condition.

‘Hmm...'

I stared at my notes thoughtfully for a moment, and then slowly asked.

“What did the lawyers say?”

“They say it will be hard to avoid liability. If they can't pinpoint the exact cause, we'll be stuck with it. There's too many witnesses, and there's no other prime suspects besides Jason.”

I shook my head.

“We have another prime suspect.”

“What? What do you mean....? Another suspect?”

“Well, assuming it's not actually Jason. There's plenty of hard evidence that points to someone else. The true perpetrators might be assuming no one will figure it out... The causative agent is going to be the key to catching them.

“Eh? What the hell do you mean by that, Lady?”

I took a deep inward breath, stood up from my seat and raised my gaze skyward, my hands clasped to my chest.

My voice trembled as I spoke, “I truly believe the heavens have given my family a chance.”

"...Excuse me?"

My posture and expression remained unchanged....

“It means that this family is not yet destined for ruin.”

“Haha... I don't know what you're talking about. Miss... Are you religious?”

Sweat trickled down Dylan's temples.

Oh... Of course... Clearly I was still no good at acting.

I quickly unclasped my hands and composed my expression. Then I turned back to face Dylan with a serious look on my face.

“Seven months ago, right before I left for Durben, there was something I asked my father to do for me.”

“Yes. There were several things, your servant Niels' admission to the Academy, Peter's training..... And your sponsorship of a researcher. Does that have something to do with this 

'divine opportunity'?”

I nodded vigorously.

“Do you happen to know the book [The Fruit That Becomes the Medicine]?”

“Hmm... No. Is there such a book?”

“Yes. I stumbled across it in my father's study earlier this year, but it didn't really grab my attention at the time. I was still in the middle of reading the histories of the Empire's neighbouring countries, so I just filed it away.”

“Why mention this book all of a sudden?”

____

Editor’s Notes -

* The phrase used here was a little bit tricky to untangle, but 적반하장도 유분수지 roughly translates to 'the criminal has no right to hate the victim'.

** The literal translation of the Korean metaphor is 'jumping in with gunpowder on her back’, which is a pretty hilarious situation to imagine the Countess in, LOL.

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