Please Leave The Sickly Villainess Alone

After returning to the Ducal estate, I wrote a letter to send to Luka. To be honest, I had been hesitating, but meeting him today seemed to dispel various trivial worries and concerns.

After sealing the letter with wax, I placed it on the silver tray a servant was holding.

Watching the letter leave my hands, I wondered if Luka and I could remain cordial pen pals, exchanging occasional letters to inquire after each other’s wellbeing.

I feared my own feelings. Worried that my desire might morph into obsession, and that obsession would consume me.

I couldn’t help but question the affection I felt for Luka.

Just because my core wasn’t Laveria, could I completely defy the natural order of this world?

Every line I had read from the novels seemed to be pointing directly at me.

“…Ah, the spots.”

Confirming I was alone in the room after the servant left, I lifted my top in front of the full-length mirror against the wall.

The distinct red spots on my abdomen remained unchanged.

If anything differed from last time, it strangely seemed the spots had taken on a slightly more defined shape?

‘So these could move around too?’

I gently rubbed the bizarrely relocated, shaped spots. The rare illness afflicting the Princesses Rayes could be traced back to the lineage of the first Duke Rayes.

It was said the Rayes family, having inherited the blood of the legendary elven race across the sea on another continent, possessed striking beauty and silver hair.

Amidst what everyone called a blessing, there existed Princesses of the Rayes family. For them, the potent dark elf blood manifested, but ordinary vessels couldn’t withstand that power, leading to their demise around 20 years of age.

So since I couldn’t cultivate this innate vessel I was born into, I devised a method to disperse the power accumulating within my body through another medium in hopes of curing my illness.

It wasn’t something I thought of alone – Terry had provided great help. Children are imaginative, so I posed questions to them.

The villainess’s illness, undisclosed even in the original work, the fact that it was growing inside me had been the most tormenting reality since my reincarnation.

At one point, everything felt so resentful – what had I done wrong in my previous life to deserve being trapped in an abusive orphanage here, waiting to die from an incurable disease?

-Terry, want to take a quiz from your Sister?

-Yeah yeah! Go ahead!

-There’s a balloon that keeps getting filled with air, but it will surely burst at some point…

-A bursting balloon is scary…

-Right? That balloon absolutely cannot burst. But it can’t completely deflate either. So what should we do?

Terry had laughed then, saying this was too easy.

-Just poke a tiny hole so the air can escape elsewhere! Then the balloon won’t burst or deflate!

It was a one-dimensional thought, but at that moment, part of an episode from the original story flashed through my mind.

There did exist items in this world capable of containing mana.

However, obtaining them would require going through a rather perilous process since they weren’t found in this capital city, or even this country. But from the day that occurred to me, I regained hope.

‘There’s no way I can find it solely by myself.’

I was born into a body that magic would devour, yet I couldn’t use magic. The original story stated that one’s innate conditions and ability to wield them differed.

In other words, the reason was my extremely low mana affinity.

Ria couldn’t use the vast mana within her body until death.

‘The more I think about it, the more miserable my fate seems. I must be getting punished for cursing at Laveria thousands of times while reading this novel…’

Feeling my conscience prick my heart, I properly re-dressed myself.

It was while I was lost in these thoughts that…

Rush!

“Sister Ria!!”

“Terry, why are you here?!”

An adorably tiny, rabbit-like girl leapt into my arms.

“Terry! You shouldn’t be here!”

The one who had followed this little girl was Sister Serine.

The plump life form rubbing her cheeks against mine was Terry, whom Sister Serine had carried and raised since she was a newborn for the first 6 months.

Terry understandably didn’t remember her, but it seemed Sister Serine had returned to being her nanny.

“Ria, I’m sorry. I was just showing her around the estate for a bit.”

“No, there’s nothing to apologize for. It’s our Terry.”

I picked Terry up. She had been the biggest contributor to my escape from the orphanage.

“But is Terry staying at the estate too? How come I haven’t seen her until now?”

“She went to the Rayes Orphanage but came back today. She wants to stay at the Ducal estate and learn to work.”

“What? Terry, is that true?”

Terry nuzzled her cheek against mine again with a bright smile.

“Sister Ria won’t be taken from me!”

Why did she say that now?!

* * *

At the same time, upon returning to the Imperial Palace, Luka felt a peculiar, unpleasant sensation. It was akin to the feeling from his orphanage days when the group dubbed the ‘Ria Squad’ would be wary of him.

They had viewed Luka, who never parted from Ria for even a moment, as an enemy of sorts. Among them, Terry could undoubtedly be considered the leader.

However, Luka had already been informed by Ria about how the orphanage children were rescued and where they now lived, so this familiar feeling he experienced after so long quickly faded from his mind.

Brushing aside the unsettling emotion, Luka was crossing the garden to retrieve the gift Ria had prepared in the reception room.

‘Come to think of it, this is Ria’s first gift to me. Today really is a memorable day…’

“Oh my, who might this be?”

It was then that a woman’s voice reached Luka’s ears.

“I hope you have been well? After your reinstatement, you have remained confined to the Crown Prince’s Palace, so I haven’t been able to properly greet you.”

It was the First Imperial Consort, Lady Jeria. Her snake-like gaze remained unchanged. At times appearing demure, at others venomous like a serpent, she was the daughter of the Croia noble family that managed virtually all real estate documents across the Empire – a veritable real estate tycoon.

“How wonderful for you to grace the Main Palace like this. It must be so difficult for family to see each other’s faces, wouldn’t you agree?”

Luka’s brow furrowed as he looked upon this woman, so vastly different from his withered, bedridden mother the Empress, like a wilted flower.

However, he quickly maintained his poker face, smiling as he replied:

“I have been well, thanks to you. I hope you have been in good health while I was away?”

Jeria smiled radiantly like a blossoming flower. Indeed, it was understandable why the Emperor had been instantly smitten, marrying her in a whirlwind romance.

The Emperor had initially wed the peerless beauty of the Baron Lineph’s family as his Empress, but less than a year later, he took Lady Jeria as a consort.

Love was fickle, especially for those seated on the throne like the Emperor.

The lowborn Empress lacked either a strong familial backing or the Emperor’s favor.

In high society as well, no one treated the mere figurehead Empress with warmth.

The Empress had demanded Luka strive for perfection.

Pouring scathing words with her frail body was all she could do, but having grown up in the cold Imperial Palace without receiving affection from either parent at a young age, Luka’s emotions withered away.

It only worsened once Luka revealed his extraordinary abilities and became the ideal Crown Prince heir.

-Engrave this in your heart. The Crown Prince must never become weak. Only then can your mother, the Crown Prince himself, and your sister… only then can we all survive…!

As if Luka were her sole lifeline, truly as if she would die without him.

Luka’s heart was deeply scarred by her obsessive, incessant clinging.

In this Imperial Palace where every single person, especially Lady Jeria, treated the Empress and her children, who were living in poverty in the castle without anyone to protect them, as if they were pitiful lowlifes.

That was the woman with fiery red hair pinned up elegantly like a beautiful blossom in front of him.

To Luka’s eyes, she was simply a black mamba, hiding its fangs while flicking its long tongue.

In truth, while Luka was absent for two years as he expanded his influence, she had practically seized control of the entire Imperial Palace.

Even at this very moment, it wouldn’t be an overstatement to say her hands were wrapped around Luka’s throat.

Yet Luka calmly opened his mouth, steadily meeting the viper’s gaze.

“How are my siblings faring? It would be nice if we could all gather again, just family.”

Jeria’s lips twitched. The mask she rarely let slip was rendered ineffective before Luka, now as before.

Her two sons could never surpass the noble among nobles standing before them – Luka, who had once received the ardent love of not just the nobility, but the entire Empire.

So just how much effort had she expended over the past two years Luka was missing, to eliminate his remaining supporters still present in the Imperial Capital?

Just the tea they had served at the Marquis Croia’s estate would be enough to fill an entire mansion.

And yet he had returned. As if nothing had happened, he came back.

In a single day, the Imperial Capital was upended. It had already been two years since the Crown Prince’s disappearance. At the very moment her eldest son Gelthuar was being touted as the next Crown Prince candidate.

She had certainly thought him dead. Had not all her vassals whispered as such, consoling her growing unease?

Even Duke Kablos himself!

Jeria smiled crookedly, her mask fully discarded.

“Well, if you wish to see your siblings so badly, you can visit the East Palace yourself.”

Then, with a truly poisonous expression, she added:

“Ah, but perhaps you aren’t quite ready yet. Since ‘that incident’ also occurred there… You’re welcome to come if you can manage it.”

“Are you implying… there’s a reason I can’t go?”

Luka’s voice fell icily.

Seemingly pleased to see Luka’s discomfort, Jeria snapped her fan shut as she spoke.

“It’s been nearly 700 years since the founding of this Greffin Empire. Yet the remnant forces of the defeated Magic Kingdom continue to make moves. If even a nation is threatened by those full of vanity, what chance does a mere frail human stand?”

A gaze colder than a winter frost bore into Luka.

“With just a two-year gap, Your Highness seeks to divide this nation once more.”