Translator and Editor: Skye and Nabi

────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────

Chapter 5

It was already dusk when I returned to the Duchy of Icard.

‘I’ve got to eat Okracia!’

I never intended to die.

As soon as I got back to the Duchy, I sneaked out alone and ate the Okracia fruit.

‘I was told if I eat regularly, then I’ll be cured, right?’

It is a treatment from the East Continent, and only there’s only one fruit per tree.

But when I started eating Okracia, my body was definitely better. It was so fast that I didn’t know if it was really this wonderful.

‘But if I leave like this right now, I’ll end up being a beggar. I’m not completely healed yet.’

This is the best environment for me, an orphan with no foundation.

First of all, I have to make a lot of money, so everything is the best, including meals, furniture, clothes.

‘Let’s stay here as long as we can.’

Besides, I can’t believe there are so many Okracia trees here to help support my health.

The greenhouse was even close to my room. It was the best environment since I didn’t have to look for the cure.

‘The best thing to do is to cure myself and run away secretly.’

My father-in-law and my completely indifferent husband.

Are the only two people I can’t get caught by.

Of course, I will have to be more cautious near the Duke since Duke Icard has eyes and ears everywhere.

Lisa, the maid who is attached to me, might also be Duke Icard’s pawn, so I must be on guard for now.

‘You can do it. You are level ten-thousand in acting.’

Determined to survive, I made a concrete plan.

Plan A.

I have to survive here somehow, secretly save a lot of money, and run away. It’s too difficult to run away without any money.

It was a neat and safe plan, but it seemed to be a long journey.

And Plan B.

I will be stuck here.

I will be loved by the Duke of Icard, and he would decide, “Hey, I’d rather live with Laria than take over the Imperial Family!”

…If I don’t do well, won’t everyone hate me? They would take out my liver and gallbladder.

What the Duke of Icard wanted to do was to take control of the Aristocracy and the Imperial Family. She knew his dream of being the villain…

Wouldn’t ‘Plan B’ be a success if I do it right?

I want to know what the Duke of Icard wants, but there’s no way to know.

So instead, I had to run away alone and live while hiding.

Rather than doing so, I wanted to live well, even if it was a family that had an evil purpose from the beginning.

Honestly…when he offered to pay my debts at the funeral, I was shocked.

‘He’s my savior.’

However, I could not rule out the possibility that Icard would change for the better for his daughter-in-law in exchange for his ambition.

‘If I blink, I could die…I have to be careful about my chances. Let’s go with ‘Plan A’ for now.’

‘Plan B’ seemed to be a good idea to keep as a distant dream. The difficulty was winning the lottery.

‘Plan A’ and ‘Plan B’ would be as if a salaryman who works at a company is gambling with Lotto.

Therefore, I concluded that I will do my best with Plan A for now.

Fortunately, the male lead and Seymour of the original novel “The Great Transaction of the Empire” are extremely capitalist and hard-working to raise money.

I thought I could make money easily using that information.

Of course, there is a high-level condition that the Duke can’t catch me.

When I went up to my room after eating the Okrasia fruit, books I had never seen were piled up in the room.

…What is this?

Originally, there were no books in my room.

“Now that my husband is here, do they want me to study?”

I’ve only been sucking honey in my stay here.

Duke Icard has not given me any money for the education that I needed.

Of course, he played no role in society. I couldn’t have gone to a hotel even though I didn’t get married.

He just left me alone. As if it’s my role to die quietly.

‘Well, maybe it’s a little too much for him to look at. Maybe it looks like I am having a lot of fun.’

With a slight prick, I opened the top book.

‘…Huh?’

I bit my lower lip angrily. What I opened was not a book.

「 Reading fairy tales until you sleep, stroking your head, complimenting you, sharing your favorite food, going for a walk and talking about things together, and choosing clothes for an important occasion. 」

It was a diary.

Even the diary was titled, ‘If only I had a mother.’ I hurriedly closed the diary and put it back where it was.

No, no. Why would Evan’s diary be here?

‘He’s in the room, right?’

I thought I had done something very wrong, so I rushed to the bed and closed my eyes.

‘Yeah, no matter how insensitive that man would be when he grew up, Evan is still a kid now.’

Evan, who had been neglected due to his father’s indifference, went to the academy since he was still six years old.

‘He wasn’t insensitive to people from the beginning.’

I would feel sorry to see myself standing there alone among the children who were being congratulated earlier.

I might have been more concerned because I was an orphan in my previous life.

‘Usually, parents’ indifference is bearable, but on special occasions, it gets even more lonely.’

It was better after I became an adult, but the child who thinks that he or she is not loved is always pitiful.

‘But…’

I thought, soothing my pounding heart.

‘…It’s exactly what I wanted before.’

A sense of homogeneity came in with pity. This was because the only one who was blindly kind enough to protect was well aware of the feeling that he desperately wanted.

While I was lying still with a throbbing heart, the door suddenly opened.

“Lisa? You should knock.”

Lisa was the only one who came into my room, so I said it casually.

“And why is there a pile of books in my room…”

Though, I couldn’t go on after that.

“I’m coming into my room. Do I have to knock?”

I opened my eyes wide.

It was Evan’s harsh voice.

“And those books are all mine. I’ll take care of it, so don’t touch it.”

No way. I got up slowly with a horrible feeling.

“My… room?”

“Then did you think this was your own room?”

Evan, in his indoor clothes, said casually.

“This is my room.”

Well, this room is too spacious and fancy for me to use alone.

Somehow the bed was wider than needed, half the closet was empty, and the bookshelf was empty. However, no one had explained why to me. Well, Duke Icard’s employees must have been at a loss for words, as he brought me in one day saying, “I’m her daughter-in-law.”

“We’re a couple, so we need to share a room.”

Well, we were already legally married, so there’s no reason to use separate rooms.

‘But I’m not ready to share a room with a man…’

Evan went on expressionlessly.

“Oh, and let’s discuss it before that. There’s something I want to do.”

“Yes. What is it?”

I laughed as sweetly as I could because I was guilty of peeking inside his diary.

However, I couldn’t even control my expression at his subsequent remarks and opened my mouth wide.

“No matter how we sleep in a bed together, I don’t want to make a baby.”

“…What, what?”

“I don’t want to have babies yet.”

I wasn’t embarrassed at all, but what I heard made me utterly speechless.

“I think we should at least be adults if we want to take full responsibility for the baby.”

Are you crazy? At the age of thirteen?

While I listened to everything he said, my ears went red.

“So we won’t hold hands in bed.”

“…Hmm?”

I blinked my eyes.

“You didn’t know? Well… I just found out too.”

He raised his chin and spoke with a slight smug on his face.

“If we sleep hand in hand after marriage, we’ll have a baby.”

“…Oh.”

I blinked, staring at his mature face.

Of course, it doesn’t matter how old we are, um…

“I was a little shocked when I first heard it. But I need to say it as we will not stay kids forever.”

His eyes looking down at me, made me feel a little tingling.

“You’re fourteen years old.”

“Uh, yes…”

I answered out of a daze.

Suddenly, I felt ready to share a room with Evan.

────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────

Advanced Chapters!

Rate the novel on Novel Updates.

Join our discord to receive the latest updates as soon as possible!