She is the Daughter of the Villainess in a Ridiculous Novel - Chapter 104

“Colton, Colton. I thought it was strange when some unknown person suddenly attached himself to your side… It seems a traitor has extended a hand.”

“……”

Saying that, Melisa rolled his eyes and looked at Idel. Idel did not answer Melisa’s words, but Melisa took the silence as an answer.

‘Idel was friends with the Crown Prince, after all.’

He didn’t think Vilred had been in contact with Idel for a long time. He’s the kind of person who has been cautious enough not to leave a single clue until now.

‘If he had sensed the curse on Idel’s body, he would have tried to keep his distance. Sigmund would have blocked it, too.’

The fact that he entered the Duchy with the ridiculous name ‘Colton’ must be because Idel was the only hope he had of getting Sigmund back.

‘Right. There’s no way a mere brat thought up all this by herself. Vilred must have coaxed the child. Since I’m the one who cast the curse on Sigmund, I’m the one who must be brought down.’

Even if he hadn’t invested any affection, Melisa had watched Idel since she was very young.

Idel was quick-witted but a normal child who wasn’t very assertive. Both in intelligence and temperament.

But as soon as she entered the duchy, she suddenly developed a strong ego and planned meticulously? And even saw through everything he was doing?

Is there anything in the world more implausible than that?

‘And even if that implausible thing were true, there’s no way Idel would have made that kind of expression when she threw the hairpin at me and broke the curse.’

The expression in Melisa’s mind was one that seemed like she was about to cry, a mixture of feelings akin to anxiety.

Even now, she was probably racking her brain, gripping the hem of her skirt so tightly.

‘Even when pretending to be calm, agitation is bound to show.’

Melisa, who thought he had figured out Idel, slowly blinked and then let out a deep sigh.

“Very well. What more can I say now? It’s all my fault.”

Melisa ignored the Duke’s gaze, which seemed to ask what trick he was up to, and raised both hands.

Tilting his head in a gesture of surrender, he slowly stood up from his spot.

As he moved, his face wrinkled in pain that spread through his entire body, but even that could not completely erase Melisa’s unique aura.

“The outcome before my eyes is this ugly, so I must admit my fault.”

“Ha! Surely you’re not planning to appeal to our sympathy with an apology?”

“An apology? An apology, you say…”

He took the accusations being thrown at him without a care and slightly tilted his head. The earring he hadn’t managed to remove jingled and sparkled brilliantly.

“Yes, I am sorry. I should have educated you more properly. No, perhaps I should have chosen a smarter child from the start?”

“……”

“Idel, if I were you, I would have kept my mouth shut the moment I learned the truth. For your sake, and for mine. Wouldn’t you agree?”

“……”

“I made you a child of a good family, didn’t I? A child who could be treated well without ever going hungry in life.”

Hearing Melisa’s words, Idel twitched her eyebrows.

“Aha, so I should have repaid the favor?”

“I never asked for anything grand. I merely expected you to have the sense to know better. Did I ever tell you to do anything bad?”

Melisa lightly scoffed and opened his mouth again.

“So? Did I ever let you come to harm? Not in my memory, at least. The Duke’s case this time is the same. If I had abandoned you, I wouldn’t have bothered to hide the needle, would I?”

“…Ha.”

“I treasured you, Idel.”

Melisa’s violet eyes glinted, intently scrutinizing Idel. After confirming that Idel’s blue eyes hadn’t even flickered, he slightly shrugged his shoulders.

“It’s a pity. To lose everything simply because you couldn’t stay put. Now, you are…”

Now what?

‘Go on and spout whatever nonsense you want.’

Idel tightly clenched her fists as if ready to lunge and waited for Melisa to finish speaking.

‘Does he think those flimsy words will even scratch me?’

It would never happen.

However, all of Idel’s resolve was in vain. Before Melisa’s lips could even part to form a sentence, someone’s cold hand clamped firmly over her ear.

Idel’s eyes widened in surprise at the sudden muffled sensation, and she turned her head.

What met Idel’s enlarged eyes was the Duchess.

“…Uh…”

Was the gaze from below too intense?

The Duchess, who had been looking straight ahead, lowered her eyes and met Idel’s gaze.

Idel suddenly thought that Rowena’s gaze seemed to caress every corner of her face.

But what concerned Idel more was the Duchess’s state.

‘It might not be noticeable from a distance, but she’s trembling.’

Both the hand covering her ear and her jaw, which was tightly clenched and stiff, were subtly shaking.

Just as Idel was observing her red-rimmed eyes, which looked like she might burst into tears at any moment, the Duchess raised her head again and looked at Melisa.

“……”

“……”

A brief silence fell between Melisa and the Duchess.

Of course, the reasons the two were silent were different. The reason Rowena chose silence was to gather her emotions, but Melisa…

Melisa was silent to fully feel the emotions Rowena was pouring out onto him.

To read one by one the intense emotions reflected in his sister’s purple eyes.

‘Only I am reflected in Rowena’s eyes.’

The nature of the emotions inside didn’t matter. It was then, as Melisa’s intense gaze touched Rowena’s lips, that the Duchess, having chosen her words, slowly opened her mouth.

“Thank you, Sister.”

“…Thank me?”

“My mind went completely blank because the things unfolding before my eyes were so shocking, but thanks to what you just said, I’ve snapped out of it.”

It was sincere. Rowena shoved all the emotions that were welling up in her throat deep down into her gut and pulled her chin up firmly.

She felt the faint warmth of the child lightly spreading beneath her cold hand.

Fully embracing that feeling, the Duchess opened her mouth in a cool, determined voice.

“Don’t you dare think of hurting my daughter. She’s not your daughter; she’s mine.”

“……”

“I won’t just stand by and watch, even if it costs me everything I have.”

She was tired of having her relationships shaken by external factors that she hadn’t chosen.

‘Idel isn’t Vincent’s child? And not even my sister’s child?’

So what did it matter?

After spending long, sleepless nights, she had already taken Idel as her own child.

‘How much it must have hurt her.’

Even now, she felt like crying when she recalled the sight of the child standing silently with her back turned after her sister’s cruel words.

“You said to me before, didn’t you, that when the time comes, I would also understand the depth of the love you possess.”

“……”

“You’re right. Now, at this very moment, I’ve come to understand what kind of love you possess.”

Rowena squeezed the hand covering Idel’s ear a little tighter. She worried that it might hurt because she was blocking it too hard, but she couldn’t help it.

She didn’t want to inflict even a single hair’s breadth of hurt on Idel, who had lived her life believing Melisa was her birth mother.

Even if it was just an insult concerning Melisa.

“Your love is sickening and repulsive, repulsive enough that I want to deny that love is even directed at me.”

Rowena, who spoke with cold detachment, glared as if piercing Melisa.

The emotions that had been suppressed since the moment Melisa held Idel’s hand and visited the Duchy burst forth all at once.

“You did all this because you love me?”

“……”

“You lied that there was a child between Vincent and you, and you hurt me by breaking things I treasured…”

Melisa showed no reaction to Rowena’s words. The eyes of the two, which were a similar color, intensely intertwined in the air.

“You tried to kill Vincent by using Idel’s hand? Did you think that would make me love you? How? After betraying me like this, how could you even think that?”

“You betrayed me first, Rowena.”

“…What?”

“You said you’d be with me for life. You said you loved me the most in the world.”

“……”

“Yes, I figured. It probably doesn’t even exist in your memory.”

He scoffed as if he hadn’t expected anything, then closed his eyes briefly and slowly opened them.

“In the end, you’re saying you have no intention of loving me.”

“Look at what you’ve done. That will never happen, not even in death.”

“Right…”

Melisa, who let out a sighing reply, slowly raised his gaze and fully took in his sister.

“But I told you. I gave up on seeking your understanding the moment you introduced the Duke.”

“……”

“If you can’t love me by your own will, I will make you able to.”

First, let’s start by getting rid of this trash here.