Screeeeech.
The iron gate of the massive mansion closed with a grating sound one hated to hear, at the hands of imperial soldiers. It was the end of Lombardi, which had stood shoulder to shoulder with the Lembru Imperial Family for 250 years as the greatest family on the continent.
Like the World Tree of their crest, endlessly stretching out, the clan they had believed would stand firm forever came to a futile end as the family head, Bieje Lombardi, and key figures were dragged away under the pretexts of tax evasion and aiding treason.
Countless citizens of the city of Lombardi, named after the family, had gathered before the mansion. There were those who incessantly dabbed their tears with handkerchiefs, and those who could not bear to watch and turned their heads away.
And there I was, Pirentia, standing in the very front row.
“You fools.”
A grinding sound of gnashing teeth rang out, but it hardly mattered now. Glaring at the main gate chained shut by a huge, unsightly padlock, I spat out a few more words through clenched teeth.
“Blockheads, incompetents, lazy lumps who’d roll around even if they caught fire.”
I could feel the people around me flinching in surprise and turning to stare, but so what? It was already the ruined House of Lombardi.
But no matter how much I cursed, the boiling rage inside me refused to subside.
“I told you the First Prince was no good. I told you again and again, countless times, that bastard is nothing but delinquent scum who could never become Crown Prince!”
Despite my repeated warnings, the fools of Lombardi had supported the First Prince.
The First Prince, Astana Nelempe Durelli.
They claimed it was because he was the legitimate son born of the Empress, but in my eyes, they had simply chosen someone exactly their own kind. One of ‘noble blood,’ with a head stuffed full of luxury and pleasure, and a body permeated to the bone with laziness.
Lombardi’s glorious history was such that it would be no exaggeration to call it the history of the Lembru Empire itself. It was the Lombardi family that had made the head of House Durelli, once a mere rural lord of a kingdom, into the first Emperor. It was Lombardi that had brought the Empire to where it stood today.
Was that all?
Starting with merchant guilds, they had accumulated tremendous wealth. Every time war broke out, they stepped forward and achieved bloodless victories through outstanding diplomacy. They supported excellent artists throughout the Empire. There was no corner of the world that the name Lombardi did not reach.
And the one praised for pulling such a Lombardi up to another level was the previous family head, Rullak Lombardi. When the young Rullak had just inherited the position, the Imperial Family issued the Golden Gate Edict to restrain him, barring him from entering the Imperial Capital, where the Imperial Palace stood and the political and economic heart of the Lembru Empire lay.
And what Rullak devised then was a scholarship system. Without discriminating between noble and commoner, he spared no expense in supporting students, nurturing outstanding talents in every field. Where the loyalty of those who had studied under Lombardi’s patronage since childhood would lie was only too obvious. They were not Lombardi, yet they were Lombardi’s people.
Thus, the previous family head, Rullak, succeeded in planting his people everywhere without stepping a single foot outside Lombardi’s territory. In the end, the previous Emperor, who had no choice but to acknowledge Lombardi’s influence, was forced to repeal the Golden Gate Edict after twenty years.
And yet.
“No matter how stupid you are, there’s a limit. How could anyone ruin such a family in just two years!”
Two years ago, the previous family head, Rullak Lombardi, died, and Bieje Lombardi, his eldest son, ascended to the position of family head.
And that was the beginning of the fall.
Bieje was a hollow man who loved nothing but flowery speech, lacking the ability to lead a family that was no different from a kingdom. With the strict previous generation gone, the bloodline of Lombardi, each and every one selfish and spendthrift, must have run wild like unbridled foals.
It was obvious even without watching.
The reason I knew them all so intimately was simple. Because I, too, had once been a Lombardi.
To be more precise, I had lived in a country called South Korea, died in a traffic accident, and was reincarnated into this world. And with the bloodline of the Lombardi family, no less.
When I first opened my eyes in an infant’s body, I had let out a cheer instead of tears at the luxurious surroundings.
I was finally born with a golden spoon!
There had indeed been a time when I greeted every morning in that massive mansion and fell asleep gazing at the World Tree crest carved into the ceiling.
But unfortunately, I was a half-breed. Though my father was the third son of the previous Lombardi family head, my mother was a wanderer who had come from outside, and she had died in childbirth; thus, under the strict family laws, they could not formally marry.
Born between them, I was strictly speaking a bastard, but thanks to Grandfather’s permission, I was fortunate enough to bear the Lombardi name.
That did not mean I was recognized as a member of the family. I was always just a child in an ambiguous position—not a formal member, yet bearing the Lombardi name.
It was all empty show, yet for a time I was somewhat happy. That lasted until a few days before my eleventh birthday. After my father died of an incurable disease and I became an orphan, I was forgotten by the family.
Without my father, the link that had connected me to the clan, I was no longer a Lombardi. Before long, I was no longer invited to family events and gradually lost my place. Yet I could not simply fade away, so from the age of fifteen, when my body had grown enough, I began to work.
The beginning was looking after the library within the mansion. It was the place where I had spent the most time with my father when he was alive, and afterward, with nothing to do, I had come and gone as if it were my own room. Then the librarian suddenly resigned due to illness, creating a vacancy, and I barely managed to take the position.
Entrusting an entire library to a fifteen-year-old child was absurd, but the name Lombardi I bore had been useful then, if nothing else.
Ordering books as people requested and organizing them was something I enjoyed, and it was not very difficult either. Having taken a liking to it and working hard, the library gradually became more comfortable, and I began to be acknowledged for the first time.
As I slowly but surely began to look after the affairs of the mansion,
by the time of my eighteenth birthday, when I came of age, I had unknowingly taken on the role of managing the household affairs inside and outside the Lombardi mansion.
It was quite an extreme job. My father’s brothers were all haughty nobles living only to indulge their pride, and my cousins, the delinquents of Lombardi, caused accidents nearly every day.
And the year I turned nineteen, Grandfather collapsed from illness, and I came to assist him with his work at his side. There was no one who knew the family affairs as well as I did, so it was only natural.
Unlike my other cousins, whose heads were blank sheets of paper, my quickness to learn anything and my precise handling of affairs came as quite a shock to Grandfather.
“If only I had known you were such a child a few years earlier!”
As his illness worsened, my grandfather, Rullak Lombardi, who had been worrying about the future of the family, would habitually sigh.
“I would have handed this family over to you……”
Each time, I would smile and sigh.
“Nothing would have changed anyway, Grandfather.”
“Why do you think that?”
“Because I am a half-breed. How could someone with a commoner mother become the family head?”
“No, Pirentia.”
Grandfather’s voice as he shook his head was quite firm.
“You are a Lombardi. Since you have inherited the family’s blood, your qualification is more than enough.”
But it was nothing more than belated regret, and Bieje, Grandfather’s eldest son, was counting down the days until he would become the family head.
However, the last three years I spent with Grandfather were not meaningless. During that time, for the first time since my father’s death, I was able to feel the affection of kin.
“I’m sorry, Pirentia. I should have taken better care of you when you were young. You are my granddaughter as well…… Truly, I am sorry.”
It might sound laughable, but to me, those words were enough. The resentment toward Grandfather, who had not cared for me in my youth, melted away like snow at his sincere apology.
I did my utmost for Lombardi. I spared no means or methods to make this family greater, pouring my affection into it. I stayed up all night reporting on work, and I did not hesitate to clean up after my cousins’ filthy messes.
I truly loved Lombardi.
But.
“Get out. No need to say more; you know what you must do, Pirentia.”
After Grandfather’s funeral, my uncle and the new family head, Bieje, tossed a bag in front of me and spoke.
“I tolerated you until now out of consideration for Father, but I can stand no more. The sight of you not knowing your place and throwing your weight around.”
Tolerated? Was my working for the family so unsightly? Despite everything I had done, in the end, I was not one of Lombardi’s people.
“You may take the Lombardi name from me. Please let me work for the family. I am needed here.”
I spoke almost like I was begging. But Bieje merely scoffed.
“You don’t know your station until the very end. Never show your face around here again!”
I was driven out like that. Even though I rightfully possessed inheritance rights as a Lombardi, I received nothing.
And exactly two years later, those fools ruined Lombardi!
That great family!
The beautiful Lombardi to which I had devoted my youth!
Bang!
The glass I slammed down rang out loudly. The tavern owner glared at me, but I was too furious to care.
“This is why you should have backed the Second Prince!”
He was the Second Prince, whom no one paid attention to because he was born of a maidservant.
The Second Prince, Peres Bribachau Durelli.
No one had imagined that a prince cooped up in a small detached palace, rumored to have died from never coming out, would grow up so splendidly.
And to think he boldly graduated as valedictorian of both the civil and military tracks of the Imperial Academy with tremendous talent, stamping his mark on his father, Emperor Yovanes!
That was not all.
The Second Prince had even used tremendous charm to bend to his will at once the nobles that the First Prince and the Empress had painstakingly courted, swallowing the entire parliament whole.
*Sigh*. If only we had grabbed the right rope, Lombardi would never have fallen.
“One more here!”
No matter how much I drank, the thousand fires burning inside me would not go out.
“Anyone with two eyes should know! Anyone could see that the Second Prince was far more suited to be Emperor than that First Prince, whose only skills are womanizing and gambling!”
But the fools of Lombardi did not know that. Probably because they were rolling around in gambling dens with the First Prince.
In the end, the Second Prince was appointed Crown Prince, and not long after, the Emperor collapsed. Lombardi, which had committed all manner of vicious acts against the Second Prince to make the First Prince the Crown Prince, reaped the whirlwind.
“*Sigh*…… I should head home.”
Maybe because I had drunk too much, my head spun. Fortunately, the house where I paid monthly rent was only two blocks away. My steps swayed unsteadily in a zigzag as I walked out of the tavern after roughly dropping the drinking money on the table.
“Worthless scum, muscle-brained fools, scoundrels.”
I was cursing, recalling the still-vivid faces of my uncles and cousins one by one, when—
Slip.
I misstepped with one foot and my body tilted to the side; I twisted around desperately trying not to fall.
And the place where I finally steadied myself was in the middle of the road where carriages passed.
The moment I realized that,
“Bang!”
Something struck me hard from behind, and I felt my body lift into the air. I thought I heard a horse’s whinny from afar.
I died in a traffic accident in my previous life too; this time it’s a carriage accident? Isn’t this a bit much?
Grumbling like that did no good; my once-airborne body was dutifully falling toward the ground under gravity.
Soon, darkness came for me.