WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Malfoid
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◈ I Don't Need a Family ◈
Episode 22
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Unlike the Duke, who carried on with his work despite his daughter running away, her brothers were beside themselves.
Even Gillian could not remain indifferent this time.
Instead of being busy receiving the guests who flooded in at the start of every year, the two young lords spent hours pacing through the annex, the most secluded part of the estate, without sitting down once.
‘If I had known this would happen.’
Gillian muttered to himself.
‘I should not have said that.’
The problem was, what exactly had “that” been?
There were far too many things to feel guilty about. He had no idea which words that had slipped from his mouth had driven Vivette away.
Was it because he had taken Harris’s side over hers?
Yes, perhaps that was it. Vivette had always been jealous of the two of them.
Or perhaps he had ignored her for too long.
He had been busy, had not spent time with her, and had done nothing but hurl cutting remarks at her. It was only natural that she would become upset.
Perhaps it was because he had stopped her from caring for the sick old woman when she had wanted to.
It was a childish sulk, but then again, that was Vivette.
‘She had been unstable for a while, hadn’t she?’
If she had been Harris, or one of the other children from the collateral branch, something would have happened long ago under those conditions.
Gillian calmly admitted it.
He had noticed that something was wrong with his younger sister, yet set the matter aside because he was busy. As the one responsible, that was his fault.
Harris seemed to think that the sly Lady Fadde had lured innocent Vivette into this, but Gillian did not see it that way.
Lady Fadde was merely an outside factor that had suddenly appeared. Blaming her might feel satisfying, but it would not help resolve anything.
They had to find the cause of this. Of course, he had done so many things that there were causes and triggers everywhere. Still, he had to find the real one.
‘But what will I do after finding it? Nothing will change. Even if this sort of thing happens again and again, I will not change.’
Gillian knew himself well.
Similar things had happened more often when Vivette was young, yet look at the kind of brother he had become in the end.
He had been born with this temperament. What was he supposed to do about the sort of person he was?
He took after his father. Vivette and he were natural opposites.
Only one of them had always been hurt.
A self-mocking laugh escaped him. Whenever he faced Vivette, he felt like a terribly bad person. He hated that feeling.
As always, Gillian quickly washed away those complicated emotions.
In their place, he filled his mind with one productive thought.
‘I should have handled things more carefully when I drove Lady Fadde out.’
It was fine. He only had to acknowledge and correct his mistakes.
He was still learning, after all. He would never become an incompetent heir.
Of course, no matter how excellent a leader he became in the future, it would not erase the fact that his younger sister had left home.
The annex was dark, with few lights lit. Vivette’s room, the room of the annex’s true mistress, was darker still.
Yet the darkness was comforting, like so many nights from his childhood.
Then a bright light suddenly poured in. Gillian frowned.
“Brother. Turn some lights on.”
It was Harris, entering the room.
Unlike Gillian, whose sleep had been troubled for days, his younger cousin looked relatively fine.
It was unlike Harris, who usually came running to complain whenever something about Vivette displeased him even a little.
Did he have a stronger mind in a crisis?
Gillian had wondered why someone with a heart softer than pudding seemed so composed. There was a reason for it.
Harris was simply too busy dreaming up another fanciful scheme for his scatterbrained mind to work properly.
“Once this holiday is over, I should start seriously looking for her. She’ll be waiting for us to find her too.”
Sometimes Gillian envied that carefree, empty-headedness.
Unaware that Gillian was staring at him in disbelief, Harris puffed out his chest.
“I want to go looking for her right now, but there are still family elders I need to greet. And I have to wait for Father too.”
“Your father.”
Tired of thinking about Vivette, Gillian changed the subject.
“Is he coming this year?”
“Uh, probably?”
He did not sound certain. Which meant that Milox not coming was confirmed.
Knowing that, Gillian gave a bitter smile. Harris, however, only scratched the back of his head with a silly grin.
“He came when Vivette enrolled, right? I’m enrolling this time, so won’t he come?”
“Vivette...”
Gillian swallowed the words that she had received unusual affection from their uncle.
Milox Ashwilt, Arion’s younger brother by five years and Harris’s father, rarely remained in the territory.
He had left his young child with his older brother and gone far away. Every so often, just when they wondered whether he had died because no one could reach him, he would return and play with the children.
By children, that essentially meant Vivette.
He was particularly fond of his niece.
He traveled alone with hardly any luggage, yet he always brought Vivette all sorts of presents. He was distant from his own son, though.
Gillian did not know why he cared so much for his older brother’s daughter, but it was not strange.
Other relatives also found gentle, sweet Vivette more endearing than Gillian and Harris, who were both blunt and unusually tall.
More precisely, it was closer to pity for someone powerless.
The relatives openly adored Vivette as though she were a pet.
Vivette, who had lived her whole life reading people, could not possibly have failed to notice that they found her an easy target.
Yet she pretended to notice nothing and only smiled sweetly as they wanted.
That affection was still affection. She must have been happy to receive it.
But Milox was different.
Gillian could confidently say that he was the most straightforward mage in all Erenston.
Despite being a mage, Milox Ashwilt liked swordsmanship more than magic, and liked his fists more than swords.
With his bold nature, it was understandable that he found a sweet and charming little girl adorable.
Even when young Harris hid from his large, burly, unfamiliar father in fear, Vivette had bravely climbed onto his knee.
But as time passed, Harris became the pitiable one.
Harris spent every month of the year waiting only for his father.
Because he never knew when his father would return, he always lingered in the main house, watching to see whether a letter arrived.
Yet when the day his father came finally arrived, he would only hover from a distance. He could not even grab his father’s trouser leg and ask him not to leave. Why was he like that?
Perhaps Vivette was the same. Perhaps everyone had such weak sides to them.
Gillian turned away.
“Ah, right.”
Harris spoke carefully.
“What if Father finds out Vivette is gone when he comes and starts looking for her?”
“...”
“We should keep it a secret from the other family members, but we can tell Father the truth, right? Don’t you think so, Brother?”
“Yes.”
“Right? We should ask Father to find her. My father is a capable mage, so he’ll find her right away.”
“Harris.”
“Huh?”
Gillian cut him off firmly.
“Don’t look for her. Didn’t you hear what my father said? Just pretend not to know. Until she walks back in on her own.”
“Why?”
“Us falling into confusion, making a fuss, and going out to look for her, that’s what she wants. Are you going to dance to her tune?”
“So what if we do? Finding her even one day sooner is what matters.”
“Harris Ashwilt.”
Even when Gillian called his name quietly, Harris only looked confused.
“Give her what she wants. Act like you can’t help it. Then she’ll come home. What’s so difficult about that?”
“We’ve done that our whole lives. We granted her practically everything she wanted. Hasn’t that spoiled her enough to make her leave home?”
Gillian tried to keep his head cool as he explained.
“I understand how you feel, but wait for now. Time will resolve it. We can reconcile or do whatever else afterward.”
“Will there even be an afterward?”
Harris let out a short sigh, his face full of dissatisfaction.
His uncle had confidently declared that Vivette would return before the New Year Festival holiday ended.
But if life went exactly as people wanted, why had his sister run away? Why did his father, who had left home, not take him with him?
Harris had treated his sister as a substitute for the father who had left him behind.
For more than ten years, Vivette Ashwilt had filled the void left by his father and given him a mother’s warmth. But she could never replace the real things.
Now that even that was gone, it felt unbearable.
His chest felt tight and uncomfortable.
Whether it was his father or Vivette, he hoped he could see at least one of them soon.
‘If not, what am I supposed to rely on to live?’
Harris shook off the anxiety that suddenly came over him.
It was fine. His father would come soon.
Milox Ashwilt was several times more hot-tempered than his older brother, Duke Arion. If he learned that his beloved niece had vanished, then no matter how much his brother tried to stop him, he would rush out and bring her back.
Then everything would improve.
It might not be perfectly resolved, but still.
* * *
“Ah, this is the capital of the Empire!”
The moment we entered Plaford, Lola cried out with sparkling eyes.
“I’m a native of Erenston, so I thought I’d never set foot in the capital in my entire life. Thank you for bringing me, Miss! And you too, Madam.”
Her stamina was remarkable for someone who had driven the carriage through the night. Lola busily looked around the streets in the early morning.
The sun was steadily climbing across the sky between buildings far lower than anything in Erenston.
Even when we first went out onto the streets of Erenston, I had not felt much like I had entered another world. Plaford was different.
The architecture alone, and the clothes people had worn for the festival, were distinctly different from Erenston.
Even generously estimated, it was at least three or four centuries behind Erenston.
If the capital where the Emperor lived was like this, the rest of the Empire had to be even worse.
Seeing young beggars wandering through the middle of the plaza made me feel heavy-hearted.
“Lola, are you really sure you don’t want to go back?”
I had grown up seeing all kinds of ugly things in my previous life, so I was used to it. But Lola must have grown up cherished in a safe mage household.
“Oh, what are you saying? I’ll stay by your side until the end, Miss.”
“Remaining a maid of the ducal house might be better for you in the long term. Your standing, too. If our financial situation worsens, I don’t know what will happen to your wages.”
“Miss, don’t say that!”
I had meant it quite seriously, but Lola spoke playfully.
“I’ll still follow you, Miss. If you’re my master, then my working conditions are basically guaranteed.”
I wasn’t the Vivette she remembered, though...
I suddenly felt sorry for Lola.
“And Miss, Plaford is incredibly cheap! No matter how little you pay me, I’ll be able to survive.”
“Plaford is the capital. The Empire’s most prominent nobles live here, so how can living costs be cheap?”
According to Lola’s explanation, Plaford’s prices were perhaps only one-fifth of Erenston’s.
That was only in comparison to Erenston, of course.
Whenever “magic” was attached to an item or service, the price was inflated tenfold or more.
As befitted the Empire’s capital, its living costs were brutal compared to any city on the continent. But they were nothing compared to Erenston.
Every mage was wealthier than most noble houses.
And Lady Fadde before us was the wife of the former head of the Empire’s foremost mage house.
‘What a relief. At least I won’t have to worry about rent.’
As I roughly calculated our budget and Plaford’s real estate prices, a mocking laugh came from beside me.
“You children worry about the strangest things. Vivette, you are a daughter of House Ashwilt and my heir. How did you end up worrying about money as well?”
“Ah...”
“Enough useless thoughts. Follow me. First, we need to find a house.”
Lola and I exchanged stunned looks, then hurried after Lady Fadde.
“Madam! Wait for us!”
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