WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Malfoid

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◈ I Don't Need a Family ◈

Episode 15

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* * *

The building stood somewhere between the annex and the main house.

The person waiting in the drawing room was none other than Gillian, arms tightly crossed.

He looked deeply displeased.

“Father has decided not to see you. If you have something to say, tell me.”

It seemed to be a deliberate slight.

Was that why they had summoned me somewhere other than the main house?

Even now, they were firmly upholding the rule that I must never be allowed inside it.

It had already been three days since I made my request before they agreed to see me.

And even then, they had only spared a brief moment after their work was done and before dinner.

Honestly, it was a little underhanded, but there was nothing I could do.

A successor backed by the head of the house held all the power, while I, with people to protect, had none.

“I’ve decided to forgive Lady Fadde.”

I said it without any preamble.

Still, Gillian’s eyebrow twitched, as though he understood.

“So please stop treating her like this.”

Gillian let out a quiet laugh, then his expression hardened.

“Sure. Harris told me. You found out everything.”

“Did Harris tell you everything?”

Had Harris accidentally spilled the secret they had kept among themselves after excluding me?

And Gillian did not even look flustered. Instead, he blamed me.

“Vivette Ashwilt, you really are something. You’ve finally fallen out with even kind-hearted Harris?”

I did not know what Harris had said, but it could not have been anything good.

He must have told the story in the way that benefited him.

As proof, Gillian’s expression grew crueler than ever.

“All right, then tell me. Why should we listen to someone like you, who has no one to take your side?”

“Didn’t you come out here to listen?”

This was ridiculous.

Being the family outcast was truly terrifying.

“I called you here to tell you this. Vivette, listen carefully. Father and Lady Fadde have a relationship much like ours.”

Ours? Did Gillian mean him and me?

...Or me and the rest of the family?

“A relationship that has already been ruined beyond repair. One where all they do is hurt each other.”

Gillian smiled bitterly.

“You’re suffering too, aren’t you? Father endured this painful relationship for seventeen years because of the heavy duty of being the head of the house.”

Was the duke truly the only one who had suffered?

If anyone had suffered, would it not have been Lady Fadde, utterly isolated as she was?

“This relationship will end only when one of them is gone. Wouldn’t that be true reconciliation?”

For some reason, it felt as though he were speaking about me.

When I imagined Vivette hearing those words, my heart seemed to drop.

‘Does he want me gone too?’

Truly? Sincerely?

I asked coldly, “What are you trying to say?”

“The carriage is ready.”

‘A carriage? Don’t tell me...’

The red light of the late evening fell eerily across Gillian’s face.

“At dawn tomorrow, Lady Fadde will leave. Why don’t you go say your final goodbye?”

* * *

Fadde Ashwilt had lived her entire life as an outsider.

She had been one in the family she was born into, and she had remained one after entering House Ashwilt.

She lived a life in which she could never truly mingle with those around her.

It was lonely. But there was nothing to be done. Such was the fate of someone born different from others.

Mage traits were inherited at a very high rate.

Mages gave birth to mage children, while ordinary couples gave birth to ordinary children.

It was a law of nature, one that no one had any reason to question.

But strange things sometimes happened in the world.

A perfectly healthy mage could be born where not even a single drop of mage blood had been mixed in.

It sounded as absurd as a rose growing in the middle of the open sea, yet it did happen from time to time.

Fadde was one such case.

Her parents were not mages.

Neither her relatives nor her ancestors included a single mage.

Her birth family, the Meyer Baronial House, was a typical capital noble family that had lived in Plaford, the Empire’s capital, for generations.

They had feudal values and an inconvenient lifestyle that did not rely on magic.

Baron Meyer was patriarchal and somewhat preoccupied with noble authority, but he was not a bad person. As the youngest daughter, Fadde had grown up claiming her father’s lap all to herself.

Her childhood had been fairly happy among her dignified mother and cheerful older sisters.

The problem began when she entered adolescence.

“Miss Meyer appears to be able to control mana.”

Those were the words of a mage who had come to demand repayment as the family’s fortunes declined.

That single sentence drastically changed her life.

“What? Y-you mean my daughter is a witch?”

Baron Meyer shamefully dropped his pipe.

To a capital noble, mages were far too unfamiliar.

So unfamiliar that even a daughter he had raised for over a decade inspired a sense of revulsion.

“Ha ha, there’s no need to be so displeased. Mages make money, after all. Perhaps... your daughter may be the one to restore House Meyer.”

Her father snorted.

“Our eldest son will restore this family as soon as he finishes this term. What is there to worry about?”

Yet in the end, he pushed his daughter into the role of family provider.

She was not even an adult yet, and she was already expected to repay the family’s debts and restore the crumbling baronial house.

In the Empire, mages certainly found it easy to make a living.

Within a year, Fadde had repaid all the family’s debts and restored its standing.

She had to work while her sisters attended tea parties and balls, but she did not complain.

Taking every request that came her way, she thought:

‘This is for my family.’

She only wanted to be loved by the family that had begun to treat her subtly differently.

But the Meyers grew increasingly distant from her.

“A mage, honestly.”

They had certainly been a close family, but even they could not overcome their instinctive aversion.

“How could a witch come from me? Don’t tell me you were unfaithful?”

Once their finances improved, the baron began suspecting his wife.

Then her mother and siblings began changing as well.

The looks that occasionally regarded her as an outsider grew stronger and stronger.

Fadde was a woman who valued belonging. She could not bear such treatment.

When the workplace of the mage who had once been their creditor became more comfortable than her father’s home, when she realized she spent more time at work than at home, Fadde left.

To be among people like herself.

“In the land of ordinary people, a mage is like a nail that sticks out. Let’s go to a mage city. They’ll accept me there.”

She thought she could be happy among mages.

Erenston, the city she fled to, seemed like a city built upon her dreams and hopes.

No one there was wary of her.

At first, it was good. But in the end, she could not fully blend in with them either.

Even if mutant mages had children, their mage traits were not inherited.

“A half-mage.”

That was another name for mutant mages.

“I want my child to be a mage. I can’t marry you.”

No one wished to be with her.

Not mages, nor ordinary men.

Ordinary people found her unsettling, while mages kept their distance because she was a half-mage.

‘Still, I have to get married.’

From her childhood memories, she knew the warmth of a harmonious family.

After wandering for so long, there was no way she could give that up.

She was lonely. Achingly lonely.

She wanted to make a family.

One that would willingly bring someone as different as her inside its walls.

In that sense, the Ashwilt Ducal House was the ideal choice.

The duke already had two grown sons, so there was no pressure for her to bear children.

The Duke of Ashwilt had only proposed marriage because he wanted to make use of Fadde’s “special ability,” but she had been sincere.

Though the duke was old enough to be her father, she loved and trusted him not as a man, but as family.

She faithfully offered House Ashwilt the ability she had once willingly sold for House Meyer.

Her husband, who had initially been stiff and cold, softened over time, and Fadde was satisfied.

‘Is this what a real family is like?’

She felt secure. The fact that it was a large family made it even better.

The moment she married, she gained two sons. Before long, she had daughters-in-law and even grandchildren.

Still, she had one concern amid all those new family members.

Arion Ashwilt, the duke’s eldest son.

He did not welcome her, a stone that had rolled into the family.

His attitude made it clear that this marriage was merely a transaction, trading her ability for their family name, and could never become real.

Yet outwardly, everything went well enough. Fadde was content with that.

‘I want to become one with House Ashwilt.’

She did her best.

Besides using her ability, she sometimes looked after the children in place of Arion and his wife, who were busy both at home and away.

At Arion’s request, she even baptized her granddaughter.

And it was at that very baptism that everything went wrong.

The baptism where she had rejoiced, believing her prickly stepson had finally reached out to her first.

“What have you done? Because of you, Vivette ended up like that!”

Everyone was angry. Everyone found her dreadful.

She had wanted to fully become part of the family, but things went wrong. In that moment, all her efforts came to nothing.

‘Was a happy family ultimately a luxury I could never have?’

As she repeated the thought that perhaps she should have remained alone thousands of times, seventeen years passed.

Then one day, an accident befell her. Her carriage skidded along an icy, snowy road and went tumbling.

It rolled over several times, and Fadde lost consciousness.

* * *

Fadde came to when the languid afternoon sunlight stung her eyes.

“...?”

Her dim vision gradually cleared.

Fadde looked around her bedroom, which felt strangely unfamiliar.

The first thing she saw was the large message written on the wall beside her bed.

<Caution: Falls>

It had been retraced several times in red ink.

‘Ink?’

Fadde tilted her head.

Normally, people left writing with mana.

It was much clearer and prettier that way.

Perhaps it had been written by a maid who could not use magic.

Of course, Vivette had written those words herself, but Fadde had no way of knowing that.

Fadde pulled the bell-pull to summon someone.

Her throat felt rough, as though she had slept for a long time.

She desperately wanted a glass of cool water.

Bang!

Before long, the door flew open with a thunderous sound, as though it would break apart.

The maids rushed in with a clatter like a herd of wild buffalo.

Not only had they failed to offer even a polite greeting, they looked as though they had seen a ghost.

Fadde narrowed her eyes primly.

‘What unruly children.’

As the former lady of House Ashwilt, Fadde was a noblewoman who valued propriety.

She could not simply overlook such utterly unmannerly behavior.

So, in the stern manner of an elder mistress of the house, she spoke.

“Quiet! Stop making such a racket.”

That was all she did.

Yet tears immediately welled in the maids’ eyes.

Anyone would think she had severely scolded them.

The noblewoman, whose heart could never be cold, panicked and fidgeted.

“W-what is wrong with all of you?”

But their crying only grew louder.

“M-my lady...”

“You’ve come back to us, sob!”

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