I Don't Need a Family - Chapter 16

WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Malfoid

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ I Don't Need a Family ◈

Episode 16

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“Waaah! My lady!”

“We thought you’d never wake up!”

The maids wailed as if they had made a pact to do so.

As though they did not care who stood before them.

“W-what is wrong with you...?”

Fadde was dumbfounded. How could they behave like this in front of their strict mistress?

Just as she was about to snap at them, pain spread through her head as if she had been struck by lightning.

“My head hurts. Stop making such a fuss.”

As Fadde rubbed the side of her head and scolded them, she noticed something strange.

A large scar beneath her fingertips.

A chill ran through her. Fadde hurriedly checked the calendar, then froze.

‘This is not the date I remember. There are gaps in my memory.’

She did not even want to remember what had happened. If she had been unconscious, it could not have been anything minor.

‘An accident? Was there an assassination attempt? But who would try to kill me? I am someone everyone has forgotten.’

When she moved her fingers, the maids hurried closer.

“Yes, my lady.”

“Bring Aile. I will ask her what happened.”

She was displeased that her personal maid had not shown herself despite such a terrible thing happening to her.

But the maids only exchanged glances and did not move.

“What are you standing around for? I told you to bring my maid.”

“Um, my lady, forgive us, but Aile is no longer here.”

“Aile is gone? Did she leave for her year-end holiday? Then bring Luna instead.”

“...”

“Did she leave too? No, why is no one answering me?”

Fadde felt frustrated.

The maids from the old wing who knew her temperament were quick and capable.

They seemed to dislike her deeply after she had reprimanded them so many times, but they did their work well regardless.

‘But these children are not my maids, so I have no choice but to be patient.’

Fadde decided to make a concession.

“Anyone will do. Bring me one of my maids.”

She was about to dismiss them after saying that, but the hesitant maids spoke in trembling voices.

“All of those maids were dismissed. From now on, we will serve you instead.”

“What? Who dared dismiss my maids without my permission?”

At that moment, Fadde’s red eyes flashed sharply.

“I hold authority over those girls! Even the Duke of Ashwilt cannot dare cut off my hands and feet.”

“My lady! P-please calm down!”

No matter how the maids pleaded, Fadde’s gaze only grew fiercer.

“Who was it? Who dismissed my maids?”

“Th-that would be...”

“It was Miss Vivette.”

“Vivette?”

Fadde’s brow twitched.

In an instant, her heart seemed to stop, and shock swept through her body as though everything below her throat had been paralyzed.

‘Why would that child...’

The guilt she had honed for over a decade pricked at every part of her body like needles.

But guilt was only an old memory now. She had lived as a sinner long enough.

To begin with...

‘What did I do wrong?’

The moment of that baptism had replayed in her mind thousands, tens of thousands of times since that day.

Yet no matter how often she retraced it, she could not find a mistake she had made.

Just because that child was the victim did not mean I was at fault.

I had performed baptisms many times before then, and there had never been a problem. Not once.

Except with Vivette.

“Waaah!”

After that child burst into tears during the baptism, Fadde’s life had plunged into ruin.

“This is not my fault! Th-that child simply lacked the talent to receive my mana!”

No matter how often she cried it out, no one listened.

Fadde was practically an outcast within the family, with less power than a three-year-old child.

Shut away in a small room, crying alone, Fadde came to resent that child.

She came to hate the granddaughter she had adored before the baptism.

“If only I had not blessed you.”

She knew that her granddaughter had lost something precious because of her.

But that did not mean Vivette could behave however she pleased.

Taking advantage of something happening to Fadde and cutting off her hands and feet crossed the line.

“You wretched girl...”

Fadde, who had resented Vivette for so long already, was furious.

“Bring the head maid. We must discuss reinstating my maids.”

Fadde abruptly rose from the bed.

“And as for Vivette, I will have to teach that girl a lesson myself.”

“My lady! Miss Vivette did not do it with ill intent...”

“Of course that is what she would say. Does she think I will fall for her sweet words? She should know I have seen through countless such transparent little schemes in society thirty years ago.”

‘Dismissing my maids and replacing them with her own people? While I was sick in bed?’

She had already been backed into a corner.

Was it not enough that they had shut her away in this most remote part of the estate? Did they have to take revenge on her like this too?

Fadde was so agitated that she was ready to throw open the bedroom door at once.

If not for the person who appeared just then.

Lola, Vivette’s personal maid, flung the door open without even knocking.

The very fact that Vivette’s maid was coming and going so freely through Fadde’s domain was a problem.

‘Good. I will not even have to go looking for her.’

Fadde steeled herself and called Lola over.

“Miss Lola, when you see your elder, you should greet them first.”

“Eeeek!”

Lola screamed as though she had seen a ghost.

Then she fell backward with the tray she had brought.

“Hah. The annex’s new wing has problems from its mistress to her personal maid and household maids.”

“My lady?”

“Do not waste your breath talking about how I have regained my senses or whatever else. Those children have already said enough.”

There was no trace of the woman who had stared blankly into space and been unable to speak.

Without even the slightest aftereffect, she had returned completely to being the lady of the annex.

‘Miss Vivette was right. She really has come back to herself... and so quickly.’

Lola had never seen someone who had become senile return to normal overnight. Her surprise outweighed her joy.

The lady of the annex’s shadow fell over Lola, whose eyes had grown as wide as the tray.

The noblewoman, strict by nature, was inexplicably furious.

“Now then, let us have a talk. You had better choose your words very carefully.”

Otherwise, I will not let your mistress off easily.

* * *

“Do you expect me to believe that?”

The lady of the annex glared at the maid with a deeply furrowed brow.

Everything Vivette’s maid said sounded absurd.

It was difficult enough to believe that her own maids had abandoned her on a rainy winter night. But to hear that Vivette had been the one who saved her when she nearly fell to her death?

‘And she devotedly cared for me while I was ill? What a joke.’

She knew Vivette well.

Vivette cared about nothing except obsessing over everything related to magic and trailing after her family.

Everyone was mistaken. Vivette was not kind. She simply had a pleasant personality and did not spare even a second a day to think of others.

Her self-pity was too strong for her to care for anyone else.

She only appeared kind because she had grown timid under her seemingly good-natured but overbearing father and did not dare mistreat others. She was absolutely not kind.

She would spend all day buried in magic books she would never use, or think of ways to bother her family. She was not the sort of child to care for someone with whom she had no connection.

Especially not Fadde.

‘If anything, I am curious why she did not kill me when I was vulnerable.’

Fadde scoffed.

“It is difficult to see her intervening as soon as I was bedridden, after pretending I did not exist all this time, as goodwill.”

“You misunderstand, my lady. Miss Vivette only happened to find you and help.”

Vivette’s maid blinked both eyes, pretending to be harmless in a most shameless manner.

“Miss Vivette will be very happy to learn that you woke safely.”

“Well, we shall see.”

Fadde lifted her chin.

“Bring your mistress here. No, let us go see her together. You may be plotting something improper with your mistress in the meantime.”

“It truly is not like that, my lady.”

Even as Lola led Fadde away, she did not seem particularly displeased.

If anything, her manner suggested that she would put up with all the irritable noblewoman’s fussing, which was strangely irritating.

‘...Until now, no maid has ever acted so at ease before me, a strict noblewoman.’

Normally, Fadde would have become angry long ago, but for some reason, she felt herself relaxing today.

Without realizing it, looking at Lola made her feel at ease. She had no idea why.

Since she did not know that Lola had cared for her continuously for days, Fadde only felt uneasy about it.

“Miss Vivette went to discuss something with Young Master Gillian. I think you will have to wait a little.”

“I will wait.”

Lola had expected her to fly into a rage at once.

Thinking this was unexpected, Lola guided the lady of the annex, so changed after one night, to the winter garden.

“Oh, I ran into Young Master Harris around here last time. Do you remember? Ah, he probably is not here today.”

Leaving the overly friendly maid behind, Fadde gazed silently at the garden, unchanged despite the passing years.

“Flowers bloom even in such a cold place.”

“Ah, I heard they make them bloom with magic!”

Lola answered brightly, and Fadde looked at her with pity.

“Even if you make them bloom, will they not wither if they live in such cold?”

Those cruel Ashwilts. Now they were even doing this to blades of grass.

They made flowers bloom in the middle of winter just because they pleased the eye, but surely they would wither soon. Once flowers withered, they would have no value, and they would be cleared away. Blamed for withering so quickly.

“But these flowers are all right. They adapt to the cold weather and endure it well.”

Lola smiled brilliantly.

“They are Miss Vivette’s favorite flowers.”

“My lady!”

At that moment, someone called from afar.

The person running energetically from the other side of the garden was unmistakably Vivette.

Vivette Ashwilt, the granddaughter whose future she had ruined.

That child was calling out to her from far away, running toward her to see her.

“My lady, why are you outside in this cold!”

Vivette quickly approached and slipped an arm through hers as though supporting her.

“Goodness, look how pale you are. Are you very cold?”

Before Fadde could say anything, something soft was wrapped several times around her chilly neck.