AWLITEB Chapter 33

"What is it?"

When Rosalie froze, unable to even breathe, Martha snatched the newspaper away to see for herself.

Below the headline, a description of the recent engagement banquet incident unfolded.

『Isabella White, having completed her engagement to Grand Duke Genos Perdian, had an excellent initiation at the banquet held at the Grand Duke's northern estate.

A boy from a northern village, enraged that his father's death compensation from battle had not been properly paid, committed an impropriety toward the Grand Duke at the banquet.

The Grand Duke left the judgment to his fiancée, Isabella White. Contrary to everyone's expectation that she would immediately punish the boy, Isabella ordered an investigation into the boy's circumstances.

The investigation revealed that the boy's relatives had embezzled the death compensation, and through this, 34 additional identical crimes that occurred during the Grand Duke's absence from the North were discovered.

Stories are spreading throughout the North that the Grand Duke, revered as the North's hero, has found a worthy fiancée to stand beside him.』

Martha's face turned ashen as well.

Rosalie was forgetting how to control her emotions.

Isabella White. How did this stupid girl, how?

Rosalie's hand gripped the wine glass with excessive force.

Then—crash!—she shattered it with a tremendous sound.

"Oh my, Rosalie!"

Martha rushed over in alarm and examined Rosalie's hand. Blood dripped steadily from where the glass had cut her palm.

But Rosalie showed no pain, merely staring blankly into space. She felt her life plummeting helplessly downward.

"Miss, we'll treat that right away."

Gina shoved Emma's back hard as she spoke. When Emma turned in surprise, Gina mouthed chance to score points.

Points? How you love your points.

Emma glared at Gina as if ready to kill her, but having already stepped forward, there was no going back.

"Just a moment, Miss."

Emma approached and grabbed Rosalie's wrist to examine the wound, but Rosalie shoved her away hard.

Emma tumbled backward with a crash, catching herself on the table where glass shards had spilled.

Blood flowed freely from the palm that had been injured before by Rosalie's cruelty.

"How dare you try to touch my body!"

Rosalie's eyes blazed as she grabbed Emma by the collar, when Ethan roughly tapped his fork against the fine plate.

"This isn't the time to be grabbing a maid by the collar. Do you think that stupid, timid Isabella White actually spoke properly in front of people? The Grand Duke obviously orchestrated it. But either way, Isabella's reputation is rising, so we need to execute the plan I mentioned."

"Bow and scrape to Isabella White, waiting for crumbs to fall? I'll stick a knife in your throat before that happens, brother dear."

Rosalie glared at him as she gripped Emma's collar even tighter.

Choking, Emma struggled, but couldn't overcome Rosalie's angry strength.

"Well, we don't have to bow and scrape—it'll be easy enough to manipulate that stupid b*tch however we want. But if it wounds your pride that much, go ahead and take it out on a maid."

Ethan shrugged lightly and waved his hand as if to say do as you please.

"I swear I'm going to age to death trying to please you two. Where did my lovely children go? Where did all that sibling affection go?"

Martha shook her head and gestured to summon the butler.

The butler discreetly began clearing away the wine glass Rosalie had broken, along with all the food on the table that might have glass in it.

"Don't throw out the food—take it to the maids and servants. We may have money, but it's good to conserve resources."

Martha told the butler.

The butler made a sour face but couldn't refuse the order.

Meanwhile, Rosalie had grabbed both of Emma's arms and was dragging her out of the dining room.

"Please spare me, Miss! Please!"

Emma screamed as she realized Rosalie was heading for the basement, but Rosalie didn't stop walking.

Gina helpfully opened the door so Rosalie could exit easily.

"I've never been so irritated by the empire's vast territory as I am today."

Isabella turned to Genos with a vacant expression.

Among the row of carriages and horses, Isabella crouched on the grass, retching up nothing but stomach acid.

"How much farther do we have to go?"

"You're better off not knowing, so I'll save my breath."

At Genos's words, Isabella shook her head with a dying here expression.

She'd been suffering from motion sickness for days.

The terrain traveling from the North to the West was far more treacherous than the journey from the capital to the North.

So the carriage kept jolting, and the motion sickness wouldn't stop.

When Genos handed Isabella a water bottle, she took it with trembling hands and rinsed her mouth.

"What about the knights?"

"They went to eat. If I showed them any more of you vomiting, you'd completely lose their reverence, so I ordered every last one to leave."

"...Good choice. But why didn't Your Highness go eat? You could have stationed a guard at a distance and gone for a meal."

"You want me to go eat alone while you're suffering like this? I don't want to be the worst fiancé."

"Liar. You lost your appetite watching this, didn't you?"

At Isabella's words, Genos paused, then deliberately looked up at the sky.

"Fortunately, it hasn't rained these past few days. Right?"

'Changing the subject, are we?'

Isabella let out a small laugh. But immediately, nausea surged again, and she had to bend her head toward the ground and retch.

"You can stand over there, urgh, it's fine."

Isabella waved her hand backward as she spoke.

Genos grimaced a bit but gathered Isabella's hair and held it back from behind.

"It's a bit unpleasant, but I'll endure."

"How kind of you, urgh."

Just as Isabella was spitting up stomach acid from her completely empty stomach, a noble's carriage came racing down the opposite road.

Hearing the carriage, Isabella quickly wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and stood up.

Genos wrapped one arm around Isabella's swaying waist to steady her.

"Your Grace! I doubted my eyes."

A young man leaned out the carriage window. He quickly opened the door, stepped out, and bowed on one knee before Genos.

Behind him, a small boy peeked his head out cautiously.

"Terry, come greet them. His Grace the Grand Duke and..."

The man flinched when he saw Isabella.

Her face was utterly haggard.

"This must be the future Grand Duchess, Lady Isabella White."

The man immediately composed his expression like a proper nobleman and extended his hand.

Isabella also extended her hand, suppressing her nausea, and the man respectfully kissed the back of it.

The small child approached shyly and bowed.

"This is my son."

"The future Count Kaeshyr."

At Genos's words, the man chuckled.

Then Isabella's eyes caught something bulging in the child's pocket.

Half-protruding from the pocket was unmistakably a mint candy.

Isabella's eyes gleamed like a beast spotting prey.

"I heard you received praise in the North."

"Praise? That's quite a burdensome word."

"Hardly. Not only Your Grace but the future Grand Duchess displayed remarkable ability—it was even in the newspaper."

"That article greatly exaggerated things. No need to flatter us with it."

While Genos and the man exchanged polite conversation, Isabella's gaze remained fixed solely on the child.

The child found Isabella's stare so uncomfortable he grabbed his father's coat and hid behind it.

"Then I'll be on my way. My wife must be waiting."

"Understood, Your Grace. May peace and blessings fill you both."

The man bowed one last time, and the child followed suit.

As the two returned to their carriage, a faint red light bloomed from Isabella's fingertips.

Using that magic, she smoothly extracted the candy from the child's pocket.

The candy floated through the air and landed safely in Isabella's palm.

The carriage passed them, gradually shrinking before disappearing completely.

Then Isabella, like someone being chased, hurriedly unwrapped the candy and popped it in her mouth.

As the cool mint flavor spread, the nausea subsided.

"I didn't know you'd use a witch's power to steal a kid's mint candy."

At Genos's words, Isabella looked at him with a guilty expression.

"...I know. It was incredibly petty. But I was about to vomit not just stomach acid but my gallbladder, so I had no choice."

Isabella spoke while rolling the candy around with her tongue.

Well, her face truly was a disaster. All the weight she'd gained from the North's rich, nutritious food had melted away into this wretched state.

"Yeah, I get it. But we can't keep robbing every passing kid's pockets, so when we find a shop, let's buy a whole basket of mint candies."

Genos supported the strength-depleted Isabella toward the carriage as he spoke.

The western estate was much smaller than the northern one, but about twice the size of the capital estate.

Along with the main building, there was an annex housing the servants' quarters, and the number of rooms and bathrooms wasn't as uselessly excessive as in the North.

But regardless, Isabella had been holed up in her bedroom for half a day straight since arriving in the West.

She lacked the energy to figure out the estate's size, where the drawing room was, where the dining room was located—none of that information.

"How are you feeling?"

Genos opened the door abruptly and asked.

Isabella stared at him while sprawled across the bed like a corpse.

"Even warhorses have some privacy, you know. Are you really going to do this?"

"Do what?"

"What if I'd been changing clothes?"

"You get nauseous just from moving—how could you change clothes?"

"...Point taken."

Genos closed the door and entered, hearing Isabella's mutter.

"So, how's your body?"

"Like a future Grand Duchess, or honestly?"

"Honestly."

"I'm at death's door. Today might be the last day you see my face."

Isabella spoke to Genos with a pale face.

Looking at that face alone, it wouldn't be strange if she headed to the next world today.

To prevent those words from becoming reality, Genos held an herb before Isabella's lips.

It was a long, thin green stem with a bitter scent.

"What is it?"

"An herb highly effective for dizziness and upset stomach. I had a servant buy it from the pharmacy. It works much better and faster than regular pills, so chew it quickly."

When Isabella opened her mouth, Genos placed the herb between her lips.

Isabella grimaced as if dying from bitterness, but Genos kept his eyes fixed on her as if he'd watch until she swallowed completely.

"Ugh, bitter."

Finally—gulp—Isabella swallowed the herb and trembled.

Genos placed a lemon chocolate in her mouth and said:

"Until your motion sickness aftereffects are gone, you need to take this herb once every hour."

"What?!"

"Looking at me with those rabbit eyes won't change anything. You need to recover quickly so we can inspect the Grand Duchy and travel around, right? Like in the North."

"True. I just do the same work here, right?"

"Yeah. We'll do the same orphanage volunteer work, travel around various villages greeting the people. Check if they have any complaints, confirm the crops are doing well. The West frequently suffers crop damage from tidal waves, so pay special attention to that."

"Understood. Phew, yeah, a bitter mouth from herbs is a hundred times better than motion sickness."

"You should focus especially hard on the western activities."

"Why? Wasn't the North the most important of the Grand Duchies?"

Genos twisted his lips and clicked his tongue.

"It is, but we need to move to the South quickly."

"What? What needs doing there?"

"Someone came up that I need to meet."

"An important noble?"

"Well. Not so much important as..."

Genos crossed his arms to choose the right word.

Then he tapped his fingers on his forearm before speaking.

"Someone who needs killing."

"Someone who needs killing? Who?"

Isabella asked with curiosity-bright eyes.

Genos smirked.

Why did her madness-tinged gaze sparkle so brilliantly?

Genos thought not even light conjured by magic could glitter this much.

"It's a secret."

Genos spoke, then flipped Isabella's body over like turning a pillow.

"What...!"

"Wait. I'll just unbutton this and leave."

Genos began unfastening the buttons from her neck downward.

"No, I can... do it."

"You're wearing a petticoat underneath anyway. Why so modest? Hurtful."

Isabella couldn't help laughing at Genos's teasing.

Meanwhile, Genos's hands descended to Isabella's waist.

As the buttons came undone and the fabric parted to both sides, his fingers brushed lightly over the thin petticoat fabric.

Isabella bit her lip hard while lying face down.

Genos's fingers brushing over her skin made her unaccountably warm.

"I'll have them prepare a bath in the main bathroom, so go wash up in a bit."

"Alright."

"Good. Rest a little longer before getting up."

Genos left the room.

When the door closed, Isabella turned her head to confirm he'd completely exited, then released a held breath.

He'd only unbuttoned her dress, yet somehow her body felt warmer.

"Possessiveness is a far more troublesome emotion than I thought."

Isabella murmured quietly as she pulled her arms from the dress.