WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Malfoid

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◈ I Don't Need a Family ◈

Episode 33

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Footprints sank deep into the piled snow.

The servants must have only cleared the snow roughly earlier, because the path outside was terribly slippery.

As I carefully made my way along it, the aide, who had practically run after me, stopped me.

“Pant, pant, my lady! Didn’t you hear me calling you?”

“Do I have to turn around whenever I hear someone call?”

“Where are you going in this cold winter weather?”

Cold? It was not even as chilly as early winter in Korea.

You people have been too warm for too long.

Erenston, and Vivette’s affection.

I gave a mocking laugh to people who had lived so comfortably that they could not bear even a slight chill.

“Does the aide not know that the mansion is colder when the heating is not on?”

“What do you mean? Surely the maid did not fail to stoke the fire?”

“Do you think I would honestly say yes? So they can curse me behind my back again for tattling?”

“I am truly sorry for my rudeness. My lady, please come inside. You will catch a cold.”

‘...How irritating.’

The flustered aide irritated me terribly.

It grated on me even more because the aide seemed genuinely worried about my health.

The aide was an ordinarily kind person.

Even when the aide had scolded me earlier, it was likely because he truly thought I was behaving ungratefully, not because he meant harm.

The truly bad person was the aide’s superior. I knew that.

I knew what he intended when he ordered the aide to stand at the door and turn me away.

It seemed he had put a subordinate forward to be hated in his place, but no chance.

“I will inform His Grace and have the maid punished.”

“Forget it. There is no punishment left to give. They have acted like this even after their wages were cut. What more punishment could you impose?”

“They should be dismissed, if necessary...”

“No, dismiss me instead. I will leave this house.”

That was why I had come.

I had come through the falling snow to be expelled from this family.

For that alone.

“You are being too emotional right now. Please warm yourself inside and think it over carefully.”

“Do I look emotional to you right now?”

When I asked with every trace of expression erased from my face, the aide hesitated.

“Well...”

“I will come back another time. Everyone seems busy.”

More than anything, I wanted to get out of this stifling mansion as quickly as possible.

I strangely missed my not-so-old home, where Lady Fadde made cabbage soup and Lola practiced the cleansing magic Lady Fadde had taught her, only to ruin the new carpet.

Had that place truly become my home?

It was the first place where I had felt comfortable since coming to this world, so perhaps it was only natural.

“No, wait. Please wait just a moment.”

For some reason, the aide seemed desperate as he operated a crystal ball.

It was a communication device possessed only by people such as the Duke and his chief aide.

As someone who was not a mage, I did not know what they said to each other through it.

But I soon learned what purpose it served.

“My lady, His Grace asks that you come up immediately.”

“Hah? Until just now, you said he was too busy to make time.”

Of course, he had been busy, but not too busy to eat dinner.

But suddenly he had time? Because I said I was leaving?

‘His intentions are so obvious, I do not even feel like cursing him.’

“Please come with me.”

It rubbed me the wrong way, but I began walking.

There was still something I had to settle.

* * *

The corridors of the ducal mansion were long, long indeed.

The aide stopped before the largest door I had seen yet, the door to the Duke’s office.

The aide knocked carefully, then opened the door just a crack and announced my arrival in a soft voice.

“Your Grace, the young lady has arrived.”

Once permission was granted, the door opened wide, and bright light poured through the gap.

“Leave us.”

The aide bowed deeply to the Duke, then vanished without looking back.

Late that evening, only the Duke and I remained in the office.

A silence heavier and more suffocating than the deep sea settled over us.

The Duke was the first to break it.

“So it has come to this in the end. I knew you would return. If you have any brains, you should know that too. You are only a ducal daughter while you are in this house. Once the Ashwilt name is stripped from you, you are a useless girl who has never worked a day in her life.”

Cruel words, sharp as needles, poured from him from the very beginning.

I merely stared blankly at him, my face still expressionless.

Such blatant insults did not work on me.

First, because I was not Vivette. Those words were for the real Vivette, not me.

And second, Vivette was not worthless.

If she was worthless, then there was not a single decent person in the world, including that Duke.

‘As long as someone can manage daily life independently, that should be enough. What else do they need to prove?’

I gave an inward snort.

“It seems you wish to be accepted back as a member of this family, but I wonder. I do not see why we should do that.”

“Is that so?”

“Yes. Did you not return after thoroughly realizing that you are a person of no value? But House Ashwilt is not so easygoing that we would accept even a worthless child merely because she is blood. So what will you do now?”

The Duke sneered mockingly.

Yet rather than angering me, it pleased me.

How could I not be satisfied at a moment that proved my choice had been right?

Choosing to abandon House Ashwilt had been the right decision.

I was proud of my clever self, regardless of how the Duke belittled me.

“Vivette, say it yourself. What is your value? Do you possess even one admirable quality? Only then might I consider it.”

“Ahahaha.”

“You are laughing?”

The Ashwilts really hated seeing other people laugh. Especially Vivette, who chattered and laughed so freely.

But what was I supposed to do when it was funny?

“Ah, Your Grace.”

“Your Grace?”

“It feels just like a job interview. Do we really need to weigh and measure each other like this?”

“What nonsense are you talking about?”

“It may be a tired thing to say, but... we are family first. If Your Grace wishes to leave even the slightest room to repair our relationship, I would be willing to do so.”

“Huh?”

“You speak of value and such, but... what value could compare to family?”

The Duke looked up at me with an incredulous expression.

“I did not know you still expected such things from me. If you had been lost in such sweet dreams, you would not have left home.”

“That is true as well.”

“Stop talking nonsense and answer my question. What can you do for us? We hold the power here. Think carefully.”

What could I do for them?

Simple. Everything Vivette had done for them until now.

And exactly what they wanted.

I was sorry, but that was the best she could offer. She had always done her best.

What was more regrettable was that, unlike Vivette, I had no intention of doing the same for them.

Unlike Vivette, I could not stand them.

I would gain nothing from them, and they would gain nothing from me either.

It was not that I was worthless.

This relationship was worthless.

That was why I wished to cut it off. This thin, threadbare relationship dressed up in lofty words like blood ties.

The reason the Duke was so persistent about asking after Vivette’s “value” was obvious.

He wanted her to recognize her own pathetic circumstances and come crawling back on her own.

It was pressure to faithfully fulfill the obligations of this contract for the rest of her life.

To behave obediently, never even dream of rebelling by running away like this, and remain a sweet, kind daughter.

Then, in return, he would give a little affection and attention. No, he would “consider” giving it.

Just as he had for the past twenty years.

But... I did not want that.

There was no reason to grant their wishes.

What they offered as payment held no appeal at all.

“Before asking what I can do for this house, please tell me what House Ashwilt can do for me.”

“Hah, what did you say?”

“That way, I can consider whether to keep you as family, at least on paper, or...”

“Or what? Are you saying you will remove me from the family register as well?”

“You understood correctly.”

My impassive gaze swept over the Duke’s startled face.

“Permanently expel me from House Ashwilt. That is the proposal I came to make.”

Once again, air as muffled as water weighed down everything around us.

“Huh.”

Crushed by the atmosphere, the Duke seemed to stagger despite sitting down.

“W-what? What did you say you would do?”

“Permanent expulsion, Your Grace. We are over.”

Click.

The fountain pen the Duke habitually held in his right hand fell limply.

“Over.”

The Duke repeated only that word over and over under his breath.

“You are saying you will never see me again? Is that it, Vivette?”

“Why act as though this is new? When I withdrew from the Academy, Your Grace said it first. You said you would never see me again and would not hear another word about me.”

“So this is how you repay me? By saying you will abandon me first?”

‘First’?

Then he must have planned to abandon me someday. But the Duke was certainly the kind of person who would do that.

It was nothing unusual. There was no reason to be shocked anew.

“You were the first to prevent me from going to the main house and the first to refuse conversation. At least let me be the one to make the final decision. Before Your Grace abandons me first.”

“What foolishness! When did I ever say I would sever our ties? Do not make wild assumptions.”

The Duke’s roar struck painfully against my ears.

Just moments ago, he had spoken as though he would discard me, yet he changed his attitude in an instant.

The very image of a coward.

“Vivette, do you think I do not know you? That thought of ending it yourself before you can be hurt, it is all a mistaken judgment born from your weak heart. It is a foolish decision. You will surely regret it.”

“Are you worried even about the distant future that has not yet come for me? Thank you.”

I gave Vivette’s father one final smile in her place.

It was a faint smile, as faint as the weathered traces she had left in my soul.

“But I would rather regret cutting all of you away than live regretting that I was born at all.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“I have blamed myself, thinking I should never have been born with a body like this, one that cannot even use magic.”

Of course, Vivette had not been “born” that way.

She had simply suffered an accident at an early age.

But at some point, she had begun to see herself as someone born worthless.

That was the power of indoctrination.

“But Your Grace, do you know something? There is a place where someone like me is not a problem. You did not know that, did you? You thought I would be scorned wherever I went.”

But you were wrong.

Vivette was not the one who was wrong. She had simply been born in the wrong place.

If I did not leave this place that denied my very existence, that would be the truly wrong choice.

“If you want me to be happy, just let me go. And if Your Grace wishes to be happy yourself, well, you will have to let me go anyway.”

If you keep me here, I will show you a hell unlike any other.

‘If nothing else, I cannot tolerate anyone attacking my self-respect.’

I had already hacked away huge pieces of my self-respect in my past life.

There was nothing left for anyone else to cut down.

So let us end this here. This unnecessary conflict.

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