When Lariette was very young, her relationship with Raon had not been particularly bad.
Having received nothing but overflowing love since birth, he had been arrogant even as a child, but he had adored his one and only younger sister in his own way. Of course, it was a shallow sort of affection, the kind that amounted to gifting her a toy he had grown tired of.
Raon came to hate Lariette almost to the point of loathing from the moment she began receiving lessons alongside him.
His parents’ love, their wholehearted support, the ducal house that would one day be his. He had all of that, but talent for magic was the one thing he could not possess.
And Lariette, who possessed none of those things, had been born with an astonishing innate talent for magic, as though she had been compensated for it.
She was not exceptionally outstanding in every field, but in certain areas she was so remarkable that no one could follow. The magicians of the ducal house lavished praise on her, saying it was a pity about her specialty, but that a true “Blanchet” who would define an era had been born.
And upon hearing that, Raon immediately pestered his mother until she made it so Lariette could no longer attend lessons. Even the thin affection he had occasionally bestowed on her vanished after that.
Jealousy. That was precisely what caused Raon to hate Lariette.
***
“Aaaagh!! Wh-what is the meaning of this!”
“How noisy. How unseemly.”
With a cold expression, Lariette looked down at the marquis hanging upside down. Then she flicked a finger once.
“Mmph! Mmmph!!”
“Marquis. I will explain this only once, so listen carefully.”
Marquis Segreve wanted to scream, but strangely, his lips were sealed tight and he could not say a word.
“I have absolutely no intention of marrying you. So let us end this engagement as of today.”
“Mmmph! Mmph!”
Lariette reached out with her long, white fingers and patted the marquis’s cheek. It was repayment for her own cheek.
“I simply cannot stand ugly men.”
She shook off her hand as though she had touched something filthy and smiled crookedly. The marquis’s face, already flushed from the blood rushing to his head, grew even redder with humiliation.
Her satisfaction at the sight lasted only a moment before a shrill voice filled the rear garden.
“Lariette!!”
“Good heavens, Marquis Segreve!”
Having heard the situation from the attendants, the duke and duchess came rushing into the rear garden in a fluster. The duchess screamed upon seeing Marquis Segreve hanging upside down, and the duke hurriedly moved his hand to cast a dispelling spell.
Thud!
“Aaagh!”
Because the spell was suddenly released, Marquis Segreve struck his head against the dirt floor and groaned. Seeing the ridiculous sight, Lariette did not bother holding back her laughter.
The moment the duchess heard her laugh, she glared at Lariette as if she had gone mad. Her gaze seemed to ask how she could possibly do such a thing.
“Marquis, are you all right?”
The duke hurried to help Marquis Segreve up, but he slapped the hand away and, panting with rage, rose on his own.
“I will… never, never forget this humiliation.”
“Marquis, my daughter is immature, so please—”
“No! Let us pretend this deal never existed in the first place!”
Marquis Segreve cut off Duke Blanchet and answered firmly. Then he sent a vicious glare toward Lariette and continued as if threatening her.
“Lady Blanchet, just you wait. The day will come when you beg me for forgiveness.”
“I’m not so sure. I have no desire to see that ugly face again.”
“My stomach is rather weak, you see.” When Lariette added that with a smile, the marquis ground his teeth. The duchess roughly grabbed Lariette’s arm, demanding whether she had gone insane, but Lariette coldly shook her hand off.
‘This ends now, too.’
In the end, despite the duke and duchess’s attempts to stop him, the marquis promptly left.
Along with his departure, burning gazes fixed upon Lariette. At some point, Raon had joined them as well and was looking at her with contempt.
“You…”
The first to speak was the duchess. Her high voice trembled with rage.
“You’ve finally gone mad, Lariette!”
“Yes, a little late. I should have done so long ago.”
“What…?!”
“Isn’t it stranger that I haven’t gone mad in this household until now?”
“Hah…” The duke let out a low sigh, as if he found her absurd. Then he began to reprimand her in a sharp voice.
“Do you understand what you have done? This is beyond disgracing the family! Were you determined to saddle the House of Blanchet with debt?”
“Who was it that brought on that debt?”
“How dare you—!”
“I don’t believe it was me. How strange. Why is it that someone else incurs the debt, but I’m the one who must repay it?”
It was a remark pointing out Duke Blanchet’s record of arrogantly expanding businesses here and there only to ruin them all wholesale.
Duke Blanchet could not believe that his daughter, who had always been obedient, would say such a thing. At the same time, rage surged within him at her daring to challenge her father’s authority.
“Someone else? Am I not your father! And as a lady of this house, it is only natural that you—”
“My father?”
Ha! Lariette snorted as though she had heard a ridiculous joke.
“Even after I acted so unlike myself, you have no interest at all in what the marquis did to make me behave this way. And you call yourself my father.”
“No matter how rudely he behaved, this—”
“Have you ever been interested in me in the first place?”
“Lariette! How can you say such a thing!”
The duchess, having endured as much as she could, shrieked that she could listen no longer.
“The dress you wear, the carriage you ride, even the food you eat! You enjoyed all of it because you are a lady of this house. Then should you not bear the responsibilities that come with it?”
“Yes, I thought so too, which is why I tried to take responsibility. I handled the ledgers and the management of the ducal house’s affairs, great and small, which Mother should have been doing. I even made the visits to the territory that Brother Raon should have made. And I accepted marriage to that sinister man in order to repay Father’s debts.”
“Then why are you causing trouble now!”
Her voice was so high-pitched that it made Lariette’s ears ring. Faced with that fierce gaze full of hatred, Lariette bit down hard on the inside of her lip.
To them, Lariette’s devotion had been only natural. She had known it already, but confirming it again made her chest feel heavy, as though a great weight had been hung from it.
“Mother, Father, you do not fulfill your responsibilities as parents, so why do you continue to want me to fulfill mine? Just as there are duties for a child, there must also be duties for parents…”
“Whose money do you think paid for everything you enjoyed!”
The duchess shouted furiously, as though Lariette were speaking nonsense. Lariette let out a small sigh and continued.
“Providing food, clothing, and shelter is not the only responsibility of a parent. If you had treated me kindly even a quarter of the way you treated Raon, I would simply have fulfilled my duty and died.”
“Puhaha! You’re not even a child, yet here you are still whining for milk. How laughable.”
Raon cackled and mocked Lariette for mentioning him. Lariette cast him an indifferent glance and answered lightly.
“Shut up, Raon. Do you still not know that even a newborn brat is more useful than you?”
“You bitch…!”
Raon, who had been joyfully insulting Lariette, began huffing in rage and approached her the moment he was insulted in return. But the duke was faster.
Smack!
The duke’s rough hand struck Lariette’s cheek without hesitation. At the sharp friction, her face burned hot, and soon it began to sting madly.
Lariette stood still, unable even to think of turning her head back to its original position.
The duke spoke in a voice filled with wrath. Words more painful than her stinging cheek followed.
“I indulged you and raised you with care, and now your insolence has crossed the line.”
Indulged me and raised me with care. Even in that moment, Lariette wondered whether he had perhaps confused which child he was talking about.
“I no longer need a woman like you who causes discord. I will strike you from the family register, so leave at once!”
“Dear, that is…”
The duchess, perhaps not having wished for it to go that far, placed a hand on the duke’s shoulder with a flustered expression after hearing his storm-like declaration. But soon she caught sight of his venomous eyes and obediently closed her mouth.
Lariette slowly turned her head forward and looked at the father standing before her. With violet eyes exactly like hers, he was trying to intimidate her.
“…Father, the family register means nothing. That scrap of paper that will burn away in an instant is not important to me at all.”
“…”
“What I feared was not being cut from the family register, but being cut from the hearts of you, my parents. I was foolish. I did not know I had never once been lodged there to begin with.”
“Lariette, don’t do this. Hurry and apologize to your father…”
“No.”
Lariette firmly cut off the duchess’s words. Then, in an unwavering and upright voice, she offered her final farewell.
“Thank you for everything until now. Your Grace, Duke Blanchet. Duchess.”
She calmly bowed her head and turned around. Then she walked straight out. Without looking back even once.
“Do not even think of taking anything from the ducal house with you!”
Those were the final words Duke Blanchet left to his daughter. Lariette smiled bitterly, thinking that he truly was fatherly to the very end.
***
“Oh, my lady. What on earth is happening! Oh…”
“I’m sorry, Anne.”
“What is there for you to be sorry to me about! His Grace, how could he—oh, my poor lady. Hic, sob…”
Anne passionately lamented how a young lady who had never once left the ducal house until now could possibly go out and live on her own. Lariette patted her back and tried to ease her worries.
“Don’t worry. I have everything thought out. More importantly, I’m worried about you, Anne. I don’t know if they’ll make you do harsh work because I’m not here.”
“What can a lady who has never done a single chore do! Do you know how dangerous it is outside?”
“You know, Anne. I’m not that easy to deal with.”
Lariette said it playfully, flexing her arm as though showing off muscles. But when she met Anne’s sharp gaze, she needlessly pretended to hurry out.
“Anyway, thank you for lending me clothes. I’ll definitely repay you one day.”
“Repay me? Don’t be ridiculous! Will you truly be all right with just that little pouch? Please, at least take this, my lady.”
“I said it’s fine. Why would you give me what you earned through your own work?”
Anne, restless with worry, held out a money pouch that she had clearly been saving for a long time. But Lariette merely waved her hand, insisting that she absolutely would not accept it.
From Anne’s perspective, she could not help but worry. Lariette had not even been able to take a single piece of her own clothing and had borrowed Anne’s clothes, and all she had prepared was a small pouch that could only hold a few coins. Dressed like that, it would not be strange if she died at any moment.
“It is still chilly in the mornings and evenings…”
Anne shed rolling tears as she draped a shawl over Lariette’s shoulders. Anger kept rising within her toward the coldhearted duke and duchess who were driving their own daughter to her death.
“Well then, I’ll see you next time, Anne.”
Lariette herself smiled broadly, her face free of worry. At the farewell declaration she had never imagined hearing in her lifetime, Anne finally burst into loud sobs.
Lariette patted her shoulder a few times, then soon walked out of what had once been her room.
She descended the stairs, passed through the main hall, and even by the time she reached the front gate, Lariette had not seen so much as the shadow of the duke or duchess.
“Lariette!”
But the moment she stepped out through the ducal house’s front gate, someone called her name loudly. Since it was not a voice she particularly wanted to hear, Lariette turned back with a displeased expression.
“…I would like to refuse a send-off from you, Raon.”
“What a disgusting thing to say. I wouldn’t see you off even if you died.”
At Raon’s line, which hit rather close to the mark, Lariette quietly gazed into his eyes. It did not seem as if he knew anything.
“You surely didn’t come all the way here just to say something so pointless. Get to the point.”
“There’s still something left between us, isn’t there?”
Raon seemed to have held on even now to what Lariette had said while insulting him earlier.
He took one step after another toward her with a provocative expression. Mana coiled around his hand, and soon crackling sparks began to fly.
“…You were so jealous that you stopped me from taking lessons. I suppose you’ve gained some confidence now?”
“Enough, compared to that pathetic level of earth magic you showed earlier.”
At Raon’s confident voice, Lariette burst into ringing laughter. Then she cleanly acknowledged his words.
“That’s right. I have absolutely no talent for earth magic. As for the other elemental magics, well, I stopped learning halfway.”
“If you knew that, you shouldn’t have acted up!”
Raon shouted in a rough voice and released a powerful surge of electricity at her.
Although Lariette had been slightly superior in childhood, he had continued receiving instruction afterward, while she had not. Therefore, he believed he would be able to overwhelm her easily.
“But you see, Raon.”
Lariette lightly swept her finger through the air and diverted the electricity pouring toward her. At the same time, when she raised her other hand upward, a massive vortex rose from the ground directly beneath Raon.
“Ughhh!!”
Raon was quickly sucked into the vortex with its tremendous suction. When he opened his eyes, his entire body was buried in the ground, with only his face exposed.
“Even so, I’m stronger than you.”
As she finished speaking, she tapped Raon’s head with her foot. Enraged, he screamed at the top of his lungs, but it was none of her concern, so she ignored him throughout.
Lariette hummed and set off again. Now it was a true goodbye.
***
A quiet café somewhere downtown.
Lariette sat by the window, sipping a strawberry smoothie through a straw while swinging the fountain pen in her hand this way and that.
She had written her bucket list only yesterday, yet in a single day, she had already accomplished more than half of it. However, items one through three had only been possible because they were easy; the ones after that seemed rather difficult.
‘Travel is one thing… but where am I supposed to find a handsome man?’
Lariette groaned and tapped the nib of her pen against her notebook.
Finding a handsome man who satisfied her high standards was far too difficult. Lariette blankly thought that perhaps handsome men were creatures of fantasy.
Jingle—
At that moment, the sound of a bell shaking rang out as someone opened the café door and came in.
Lariette’s gaze, which had been on the fountain pen she was twirling, lifted. When she saw the man who had entered, her eyes widened.