WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Malfoid

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◈ I Don't Need a Family ◈

Episode 36

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* * *

Snow as white as the Ashwilts’ hair soaked the deep night.

Vivette left the estate when the thin crescent moon, slender as a woman’s eyebrow, had nearly crossed the southern sky.

“Travel safely, Miss.”

As a final courtesy, the head steward bowed deeply and did not rise for a long time.

“This may be the last time I see you.”

There would be no reason to meet again.

The talks with Duke Ashwilt did not end until the moon was close to setting.

For someone, they had been nothing but painful.

Vivette had always been the one wounded by everything that happened in Ashwilt, but this time was different.

The night passed, the conversation ended, the other party turned away.

The ones left behind, wounded, were them.

The head of the family, Duke Ashwilt, and his son.

To someone unaware of the circumstances, the meeting held under cover of night would have looked like a dispute over interests between the head of the house and a family member.

The Duke’s side had tried to frighten her with power and coax her by invoking the family’s honor.

The ducal daughter had used the Deus shares held by herself and Lady Fadde as a shield to protect herself from being confined.

But none of that had truly mattered.

There had been a real subject the proud Duke Ashwilt could not bring himself to discuss properly.

Their feelings.

His only goal had been to make Vivette yield and return to how things had been.

In the process, unpleasant means such as disregard, threats, and force had inevitably been used.

But his true goal had been only one thing.

He wanted to be loved by his daughter again.

And he wanted his son, his nephew, all his other subordinates, knights, servants, and subjects to continue living within her love.

As they always had.

That was the real reason he could not bring himself to say aloud because of his pride.

The family’s honor and the Deus land he had mentioned meant little to him.

Losing them would not deal him any immediate major blow, and he was not someone incapable of taking them back.

He had pretended to fight for those things, but in truth, he wanted Vivette alone.

In a one-on-one contest, the Duke should have won.

He had a castle, an order of knights, and the immense wealth and power of the continent’s absolute ruler.

But such weapons were useless before someone who had already made up her mind.

Having decided it was no longer possible to keep his daughter by his side, the Duke made an offer.

“Let us do this, Vivette. Leave the family register as it is. In return, I will guarantee your freedom.”

He seemed to think he could rest easy if he could at least keep her name in the family register, untouched.

Ashwilt would continue to follow behind Vivette’s name like a shadow.

Until she married and took her husband’s surname.

“You are formally independent from our family.”

It was a compromise that preserved the Duke’s honor without damaging Vivette’s reputation.

Announcing that she had become independent would benefit both sides more than calling it a simple runaway.

‘Independence.’

In the Empire, it was certainly unusual for an unmarried noble lady to leave her family and live alone.

But if she was mage-born, that was another matter.

Mages were a difficult lot to pin down.

They were so individualistic and self-directed that the people of the Empire tended to shrug off whatever eccentric behavior they displayed.

Mages who were not heirs usually became independent when they came of age.

Even Fadde Meyer had become independent as soon as she reached adulthood after realizing she had mage talent before marriage.

Still, the Ashwilts had an abnormal habit of clinging to their family members, so it was rare for someone of the direct line to become independent as soon as they came of age.

And if they announced that they had suddenly sent away a daughter who could not even do her part as a mage, people would naturally find it suspicious.

But that was not Vivette’s concern.

‘Well, Duke Ashwilt will make up an excuse himself.’

Vivette’s bluish lips curved in a long arc.

This was more than enough.

As an independent family member, she would no longer be controlled by the main house.

‘They will not even know where I am in the first place.’

Vivette stubbornly secured a clear answer from the Duke, whose resolve had faltered after giving up so much.

“Can you promise that you will not search for me, control me, or interfere with me?”

“Yes.”

There was no strength in his voice.

Neither the aggressive venom he had shown before nor the toxic mana that had curled through the air.

Not even the strength that came from emotion remained.

He merely stood there expressionlessly, like a marionette with its strings cut.

‘The Duke usually keeps his word, so it should be fine.’

She wanted to demand a written oath in case he changed his mind later, but if she did, the offended Duke might withdraw even this much.

‘A verbal promise will have to be enough.’

Vivette looked back at the head steward, who seemed as though he would soon be buried beneath the snow.

Dressed in a black suit without even an outer coat, the head steward remained there until she was no longer visible.

* * *

Only the Ashwilt family remained in the wake of Vivette’s blizzard-like departure.

Like flowers bent this way and that by a cold wind.

They could not withstand the north wind. The estate had always been spring, all year round.

But the good days had passed.

Vivette was gone.

The girl who had always stood there smiling, in happy times and sad ones alike.

Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!

Someone came down the stairs with footsteps like a hail of bullets.

“Brother, what is this supposed to mean?”

Harris Ashwilt glared at Gillian with eyes reddened like a demon’s.

It was early morning, but even taking that into account, his appearance as he entered the dining room was terribly disheveled.

He wore only a dull robe thrown over clothes meant for sleeping.

It looked as though he had run out before he had even finished combing his hair.

Gillian, who would normally have said something at the sight, only lowered his head.

“Sit down. Come eat.”

You need to eat to have strength.

Only then could you at least complain to the heavens about how unfair it all was.

It was the best advice he could offer as an older cousin, but Harris’s voice shook along with his clenched fists.

“What do you mean? What nonsense has my maid been babbling about since this morning?”

His voice was not as booming as his uncle’s or cousin’s, but it was loud enough to summon the servants of the main house.

Those lingering near the dining room entrance hurried inside and pressed themselves against the wall.

They were preparing to intervene in case things grew worse.

Harris Ashwilt had never caused such a commotion before.

If anything, when she was younger, Vivette had sometimes been unable to contain her anger and thrown a vase in the dining room.

While Gillian was not one to express positive feelings, Harris tended to bottle up negative words.

He had an older sister who embraced his wounded heart.

The servants swallowed dryly as they watched the second young lord, who usually stayed quiet, rage while the first young lord, who would normally never have let him be, sat in silence.

‘Something terrible must be about to happen in this house today.’

For the servants of the main house, it was an especially unfamiliar shock.

When Miss Vivette returned to the estate yesterday, they had expected a small disturbance.

But they had assumed it would be within the usual bounds, with the Duke shouting at his daughter in anger.

Who could have known?

That the affectionate young lady would insist on cutting ties so cleanly, and the two young lords, solid as rocks, would collapse like that.

Of those gathered here today with their heads bowed, not one had slept properly through the night.

The main house felt like a place in mourning, and the mood had reached even the West Wing.

‘Today, I absolutely have to lie low.’

That maid repeated it to herself again and again.

If she was caught by the Ashwilt family today, she was finished.

She could not be caught gossiping behind Miss Vivette’s back again like last time.

Especially not by Harris Ashwilt, who already disliked her.

“Brother, I almost saw my sister yesterday.”

His quiet voice rang through the people staring only at the floorboards.

“There was one narrow door between us. My sister was on the other side of that wall.”

Gillian did not answer.

“All I had to do was open the door and walk in, and she would have been right there! Do you know that? But I did not. I thought Uncle and you would handle it better than I could. But what is this?”

At dawn, before he had even realized it, Vivette had left. Forever.

The family had already made a promise that they would not search for her, hold her back, or do anything to her.

He had lost his sister without being able to do a thing. It had all happened in less than a day.

“I expected to have breakfast with Sister Vivette this morning. I hoped for a new beginning. But... what is this supposed to be?”

A hollow sigh.

After that sound, though no one knew whose mouth it had come from, the dining room was swallowed by white silence.

The servants could not even breathe.

Neither of them released toxic mana, but long-held, more poisonous emotions pressed heavily upon their chests.

‘I could have seen her if I had gone into that room yesterday. I could have at least said goodbye.’

It was unfair.

That was all he could feel.

The cold morning air slipping through the gaps in his thin robe, the remorse surging up from the distant past.

His mind was too tangled to feel any of it right now.

So he buried his face in both hands, so he would not see anything.

“Harris.”

His older cousin’s attempt to soothe him did not matter.

“...I can’t.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I will not accept this! Why should I have to let my sister go because of your mistake and Uncle’s mistake? I have not even had the chance to do anything!”

“Harris Ashwilt!”

“You forced her again, did you not?”

“What?”

When Harris lowered his hands, his face had become completely different.

‘Good grief.’

It was such a familiar face that Gillian drew in a breath.

“You both must have pushed her until she was sick of it. She would have quietly stayed in the annex if you had left her alone, but you practically drove her out. You did.”

“Hey.”

“I did nothing wrong. So I will go. I will go and bring my sister back.”

After saying that, his cousin turned away without hesitation.

His face bore a striking resemblance to that man’s face from before.

Milox Ashwilt.

The face he had worn when, after losing his wife, he left for the Western Continent to punish his enemy.

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