“You must not wager the family’s property at gambling dens as you please. This is already the third ti—”
Smack!
With a sharp, hateful crack, Firentia’s head whipped violently to the side.
“Who do you think you are, daring to lecture me!”
The man shoved her shoulder with a rough hand and shouted her down, his body reeking terribly of alcohol.
“Now, now. Calm yourself, Astaliu. Go over there. And you…”
After gently placating his drunken, staggering younger cousin, Bellesac turned toward Firentia.
And then.
Smack—!
With a sound even louder than before, a large handprint bloomed across the other side of her face.
“You wench. Just because you’ve managed the family’s money a little, do you think it belongs to you?”
Bellesac sneered at Firentia as she trembled, clutching her struck cheek.
“Don’t be mistaken. You may share the same surname as us, but with that lowborn blood mixed in you, you can never become a member of this family. You need only live as a servant we command, just as you do now.”
No matter how many times she heard them, those cruel words pierced her heart like daggers.
“If you tell Grandfather about what happened today, I’ll make sure you regret it with my own hands.”
After warning her in a low voice, Bellesac spat on the ground and turned away.
Soon, she heard the carriage she had ridden in grow farther and farther away.
Left alone in the dim alley of the pleasure district, Firentia clenched her fists.
A drop of red blood fell from her split lip.
* * *
Clatter.
“Whoa—. Whoa.”
As the carriage gave a small jolt and the coachman’s soothing voice reached the horses, Firentia awakened from thoughts of a very distant past.
She lifted the curtain hanging over the window slightly and looked outside, where she saw the imperial palace soldiers.
“We’re here.”
Firentia lowered the curtain again, faced forward, and straightened her back even more.
After smoothing the hair and clothing that had fallen slightly out of place, she looked like a neat and graceful painting.
In the meantime, the carriage carrying her passed through the main gate of the imperial palace and arrived at Lambrew Palace.
Bathed in the brilliant afternoon sunlight, the original gold gleamed dazzlingly along the curved surface of the large World Tree carving decorating the carriage.
“We have arrived.”
As the carriage stopped, the coachman announced respectfully.
“Firentia.”
Soon the carriage door opened, and a beautiful man came to greet her.
“Perez.”
As Firentia stepped down from the carriage with his escort, he pressed a long kiss to the back of her hand.
It was a deep kiss that did not hide the desire in his heart.
“Perez!”
Firentia called his name as if scolding him, but Perez only folded his long-lashed eyes into a lovely smile.
“Let’s hurry. Everyone must be waiting.”
Pulling her hand free from his, she moved first toward the grand banquet hall as she spoke.
Seeing the tips of Firentia’s ears flushed faintly red, Perez smiled even more deeply and soon followed behind her with his hands clasped behind his back.
“There is no one in this Lambrew Empire who would complain just because you kept them waiting a little, my Tia. You may walk a bit more slowly.”
The two of them had come a very long way for this day.
“After all the hardship it took to get here, we ought to enjoy this moment.”
After painstaking patience and effort, today was the day they would finally taste the sweet fruit.
“Yes. It was one hell of a struggle.”
Firentia acknowledged it plainly.
We came a very long way around. Farther than you could probably ever imagine.
She added in a voice too small for him to hear.
“But that doesn’t mean there’s any need to be rude.”
It was a firm answer.
From the very first moment he saw her, the woman who had made him fall in love at once was so wonderful precisely because of such things.
Perez laughed again in delight.
Before long, the two of them stood before the closed doors of the grand banquet hall.
“Are you ready?”
At Perez’s question, Firentia nodded briefly.
“Then shall we enter, Head of Lombardi?” He held out his hand before her.
“Let us go, Your Imperial Highness the Crown Prince.”
A fair, delicate hand clasped his.
“Open the doors.”
Perez gave a short command to the attendant standing in front.
“His Imperial Highness the Crown Prince and Firentia Lombardi, Head of the Lombardi Family, enter!”
From beyond the doors came the voice announcing their entrance.
The sound was like music sweet to the ear, and Firentia smiled.
As the crack between the doors slowly split open, bright light from the grand banquet hall poured out through the gap.
Creeeak.
With an unpleasant screech of friction, the great iron gates of the mansion were shut by the hands of imperial soldiers.
It was the end of Lombardi, the family that had stood shoulder to shoulder with the Lambrew imperial family for two hundred and fifty years and reigned as the greatest house on the continent.
Like the World Tree, the family crest that stretched endlessly outward, the clan that had seemed as though it would remain steadfast forever met a hollow end as its head, Viese Lombardi, and its key figures were arrested on charges of tax evasion and aiding treason.
Hundreds of citizens of Lombardi, the city named after the family, gathered before the mansion.
Some dabbed endlessly at their tears with handkerchiefs, while others could not bear to look and turned their heads away.
And there, in the very front row, stood I, Firentia.
“Idiots.”
I heard the sound of my teeth grinding, but right now, none of that mattered.
Glaring at the family’s front gate, now fitted with a large, unsightly padlock, I spat out a few more words through clenched teeth.
“Blockheads, halfwits, lazy good-for-nothings who’d roll around even if a fire broke out.”
I felt the people standing around me flinch in surprise and turn to look at me, but so what?
The Lombardi family had already fallen.
Yet no matter how much I cursed, the boiling rage inside me did not subside.
“I told them over and over that the First Prince was not the one. I said that bastard was nothing but a born scoundrel and could never become crown prince—how many times, how many times did I say it!”
Despite my repeated advice, the fools of Lombardi supported the First Prince.
The First Prince, Astana Nerempe Durelli.
They claimed it was because he was the legitimate son born of the Empress, but in my eyes, they had merely chosen someone exactly like themselves.
A “noble bloodline” with a head stuffed full of luxury and pleasure, and a body steeped to the bone in laziness.
It was no exaggeration to say that Lombardi’s glorious history was the history of the Lambrew Empire itself.
It was the Lombardi family that had made the head of the Durelli family, once no more than a rural lord of a kingdom, into the first emperor, and it was Lombardi that had brought the empire this far.
And was that all?
Beginning with a merchant guild, they amassed enormous wealth; in every war, they stepped forward and won bloodless victories through exceptional diplomacy; they supported outstanding artists throughout the empire. There was nowhere in the world the name Lombardi did not reach.
And the one credited with raising House Lombardi to an even higher level was the previous head of the family, Lulac Lombardi.
When young Lulac had just inherited the position of family head, the imperial family issued an order forbidding him from entering the capital in order to keep him in check.
And what Lulac thought of then was a scholarship system.
Whether noble or commoner, he spared no money in supporting them and raised outstanding talents in every field.
It was only natural where the loyalty of those who had studied under Lombardi’s patronage since childhood would be directed.
They were not Lombardis, but they were Lombardi’s people.
In that way, the previous head, Lulac, succeeded in planting his people everywhere without taking a single step outside Lombardi territory.
In the end, the late emperor, forced to acknowledge Lombardi’s influence, had no choice but to withdraw the ban after twenty years.
And yet.
“No matter how stupid they were, how could they ruin a family like that in just two years!”
Two years ago, the previous head, Lulac Lombardi, died, and his eldest son, Viese Lombardi, ascended to the position of family head.
And that was the beginning.
Viese was an empty shell who liked nothing more than spouting impressive-sounding words, so he had no ability to lead a family no different from a kingdom. And the Lombardi bloodline, every one of them selfish and fond of spending money, must have run wild like horses with their reins cut loose once the strict previous head was gone.
It was obvious without even seeing it.
The reason I knew them so thoroughly was simple.
Because I, too, had once been a Lombardi.
To explain in a little more detail, I had lived in a country called the Republic of Korea, died in a traffic accident, and been reborn in this world.
As a member of the Lombardi bloodline, no less.
When I first opened my eyes in the body of a newborn, I had looked at my extremely luxurious surroundings and screamed in joy instead of crying.
I was finally born with a golden spoon!
There had certainly been a time when I woke up every morning in that enormous mansion and fell asleep gazing at the World Tree pattern carved into the ceiling.
Unfortunately, however, I was only half.
My father was the third son of the previous head of Lombardi, but my mother, who died in childbirth while giving birth to me, was a commoner, and under the family’s strict laws, they had not been able to marry officially.
Strictly speaking, I was an illegitimate child born between them, but by my grandfather’s permission, I was fortunate enough to use the Lombardi surname.
That did not mean I was recognized as a member of Lombardi.
I was always merely a child in an ambiguous position—not an official member, but one who used the Lombardi name for the time being.
Though it was only in appearance, I did have a brief period of happiness in my own way.
Then, a few days before my eleventh birthday.
After my father died of an incurable illness and I became an orphan, I began to be forgotten by the family.
Without my father, the link that connected me to the family, I was no longer a Lombardi.
Before long, I was no longer invited to family events, and I gradually lost my place.
But I could not simply allow myself to be weeded out like that, so from the age of fifteen, when my body had grown to some extent, I began to work.
At first, I began by taking care of the library inside the mansion.
It was the place where I had spent the most time with my father while he was alive, and even afterward, with nothing to do, it was a place I came and went from as though it were my own room.
Then the librarian suddenly resigned due to illness, leaving the position vacant, and after much difficulty, I took over that place.
Entrusting an entire library to a fifteen-year-old child was absurd, but my name, Lombardi, was truly useful at that time.
Ordering books as people requested and organizing them were tasks I enjoyed, and they were not very difficult.
As I found interest in it and worked hard, the library gradually became more comfortable, and for the first time, I began to be acknowledged.
Like that, one by one.
As a result of beginning to take on the work of the mansion,
by the time my eighteenth birthday had passed and I had come of age, I had, without anyone quite realizing it, become responsible for managing the affairs inside and outside the Lombardi mansion.
It was quite an extreme occupation.
My father’s siblings were all arrogant nobles who lived intoxicated by their own superiority, and my cousins, the scoundrels of Lombardi, caused trouble almost every single day.
And in the year I turned nineteen, Grandfather collapsed from illness, and I came to assist him with his work at his side.
It was only natural, since there was no one who knew the family’s affairs as well as I did.
Unlike my other cousins, whose heads were blank sheets of paper, the sight of me learning anything quickly and handling work accurately was quite a shock to Grandfather.
“If only I had known a few years earlier that you were this sort of child!”
As his illness deepened and he worried about the family’s future, my grandfather, Lulac Lombardi, would lament as if out of habit.
“I would have handed this family over to you…”
Whenever he did, I would sigh and smile.
“Even then, nothing would have changed, Grandfather.”
“Why do you think so?”
“Because I’m only half. How could someone with a commoner mother become the family head?”
“No, Firentia.”
Grandfather’s voice as he shook his head was quite firm.
“You are a Lombardi. As long as you carry the family’s blood, you are more than qualified.”
But it was only belated regret, and Grandfather’s eldest son, Viese, was eagerly counting the days until he would become the head of the family.
Still, the last three years I spent with Grandfather were not meaningless.
During that time, for the first time since my father died, I was able to feel the affection of kin.
“I am sorry, Firentia. I should have taken better care of you when you were young. You, too, are my granddaughter… I am truly sorry.”
It might sound ridiculous, but for me, those words were enough.
The resentment I had held toward Grandfather for not taking care of me as a child melted away like snow at his sincere apology.
I did my very best for Lombardi.
I poured my affection into this family and stopped at nothing to make it greater.
I stayed up all night working, and I never hesitated to clean up my cousins’ filthy messes.
I truly loved Lombardi.
But.
“Leave. I’m sure you know what you must do without me saying more, Firentia.”
After Grandfather’s funeral, my eldest uncle and the new patriarch, Vieze, tossed a single bag in front of me and said those words.
“I endured it all this time for Father’s sake, but I can no longer stand by and watch. The sight of you running around without knowing your place is intolerable.”
Endured it?
Had it been that much of an eyesore for me to work for the family?
Despite everything I had done until now, in the end, I had never truly been a Lombardi.
“You may take the Lombardi name from me. Please let me work for the family. This place needs me.”
Ridiculously enough, those were the words I said.
But Vieze merely snorted.
“You still don’t know your place to the very end. Never show your face around here again!”
And so I was cast out.
Without receiving a single piece of the inheritance I was rightfully entitled to as a Lombardi.
And exactly two years later, those idiots ran Lombardi into the ground!
That great family!
The beautiful Lombardi to which I had devoted my youth!
Bang! The glass I slammed down roughly made a loud noise.
The tavern owner glared at me, but I was too furious to care about that.
“They should have supported the Second Prince!”
He was the Second Prince, born of a maid, whom no one had cared about.
The Second Prince, Perez Brivachau Durelli.
No one had imagined that the prince, who had shut himself away in a small detached palace to the point that rumors even spread that he had died, would grow up so splendidly.
And who would have thought he would suddenly graduate from the Imperial Academy at the top of both the civil and military divisions with overwhelming talent, catching the eye of his father, Emperor Yovanes!
That was not all.
With his tremendous charm, the Second Prince won over in one stroke the nobles whom the First Prince and his mother, the Empress, had painstakingly brought to their side, and even swallowed the entire council whole.
Haah. If only they had chosen the right side, Lombardi would never have fallen.
“One more drink here!”
No matter how much I drank, the thousand fires burning inside me would not go out.
“If they had eyes in their heads, they should have known! Anyone could see that the Second Prince was far more suited to be emperor than that First Prince, who knew nothing except romance and gambling!”
But the fools of Lombardi did not know that.
Probably because they had been rolling around the gambling dens with the First Prince.
In the end, the Second Prince was appointed Crown Prince, and not long after, the Emperor collapsed.
And Lombardi, who had committed all manner of vicious deeds against the Second Prince in order to make the First Prince the Crown Prince, was hit squarely by the backlash.
“Haah… I should go home.”
Perhaps because I had drunk too much, I felt dizzy.
Fortunately, the house I rented was only two blocks away from here.
After roughly placing the price of the drinks on the table, I staggered out of the tavern, my steps weaving in a zigzag.
“Bastards. Muscle-headed fools. Debauchees.”
I was cursing as I recalled, one by one, the faces of my uncles and cousins that I could still picture vividly.
Slip.
My foot missed its step, and my body tilted to one side. To keep myself from falling, I staggered and struggled desperately.
And the place where I finally managed to stand upright was in the middle of the road where carriages passed.
The moment I realized that, something struck me hard from behind, and I felt my body lift into the air.
From far away, I thought I heard the whinnying of a horse.
I died in a traffic accident in my previous life too, and now it’s a carriage accident? Isn’t this a little too much?
Grumbling like that did nothing. My body, once airborne, was faithfully falling back to the ground according to gravity.
Soon, darkness came.