Side Story Episode 7

Mother, who had been looking at me with disbelief in her eyes, slowly descended from the bed.

“Anelli, you…….”

Gradually, a fierce emotion welled up in her eyes, which had been wide open in shock. It was rage.

“How dare you!”

Unlike Father, Mother immediately expressed her anger. It was exactly the image I had imagined.

“How dare you, with what nerve!”

“What nerve is needed to come here?”

“You!”

Mother let out a roar. But her voice was neither as vigorous nor as sharp as before. It was closer to a strained, forced exertion, squeezing out strength that was no longer there.

It was not threatening or frightening in the least.

“You remain as you were. It must have been quite some time since you were imprisoned.”

Mother glared at me with a face flushed red as if she had been insulted to her face. Her panting breaths were clearly audible to me.

“Indeed, you are still the Duchess of Roam.”

It seemed Mother was the protagonist of the remark the guards had mentioned: ‘It’s been ages since the title was stripped, yet she still spouts such nonsense.’

Recalling the mother I knew, it wasn’t particularly strange. Mother had always lived her life flaunting her high status wherever she went.

Even in this situation, it was unlikely that attitude would change overnight.

“Does it feel good to mock your own mother like this?”

“It wasn’t mockery, but admiration. Frankly, this isn’t an environment where one can act high and mighty indefinitely.”

I glanced around the interior of Mother’s cell. It was identical to Father’s.

An old chair, an old desk, and a hard wooden bed. A small jar for relieving oneself.

It was an environment a noble aristocrat couldn’t endure properly for even a day. All the more humiliating for a proud noble like Mother.

“How shameless you are, having driven your entire family to their doom!”

“I’m surprised to hear such words from Mother’s mouth.”

I muttered dryly and tilted my head.

“I was the one pushed to the brink first.”

“How can you be so selfish, thinking only of your own pain? Your affair was a sacrifice for the family!”

“So what help did my sacrifice bring to the family?”

If anything, it only created an avenging spirit leading the charge to annihilate the family.

At my question, Mother fell silent as if at a loss for words. Yet, the gaze she fixed on me was still filled with intensity.

To my eyes, it simply looked like Mother’s last remaining shred of pride. Stubbornness raised to its peak, unable to bear showing a broken appearance even in this state.

“I’m curious, Mother.”

Seeing that desperate pride of hers, a question suddenly arose.

“Even by my own estimation, I was an excellent candidate for Empress that you created.”

Until Lilia appeared, that’s what I was. Even I thought I was truly perfect. A flawlessly prepared prospective Empress.

And the one who created that was Mother. While Father was making Phrygian sister the perfect heir of Roam, Mother was making me the prospective Empress.

But why then?

“I wasn’t so… pathetic as to be replaceable by anyone.”

It wasn’t that I regretted losing that position now. I was just curious. Why did they do that to me?

Why did I have to be pushed into that situation?

Even if Lilia, backed by her birth, appeared, and even if everyone was unconsciously influenced by the threads of fate.

Still, shouldn’t Mother, who raised me herself, have felt even a moment’s hesitation?

“So why did you do it?”

Mother’s pupils shook violently. Her tightly closed lips were pale and bloodless.

“Why did you discard me so easily?”

“……What words do you want to hear?”

The words I finally heard after waiting were a twisted retort. Mother, forcing up her trembling lips, strode briskly toward me.

“Do you want to hear that I regret everything, pleading with tears?”

Her posture—back straight, head held stiffly high—was exactly the image I had always seen.

“Whatever I say now, would it change this situation?”

“Of course not.”

“Right. So you still want to hear some glib apology from this mother’s mouth?”

“As you said……”

I opened my mouth in a calm tone and gazed intently at Mother, who had come close. At the face of Mother, who was once as famed for her beauty as Father.

The woman who soared as the queen of social circles, whom everyone believed without a doubt would naturally become Empress.

My magnificent mother, whom Duke Roam had to kneel and beg to bring to the Roam residence.

“Because you are my mother.”

And I had been evaluated as being the very image of that mother.

“Because you are my mother, I was merely curious. I was the child you bore yourself, the doll you raised with care to fulfill your dreams in your stead, yet you discarded me so easily.”

As my dry voice continued, Mother’s complexion grew paler. Perhaps she was clenching her teeth; her jawbone protruded sharply.

“Yes, I raised you perfectly. You were truly a child who took after me.”

“Yes, I was.”

Seeing how calmly I am facing my imprisoned parents like this, perhaps even now I am a daughter who takes after Mother. Where my own safety and goals take precedence over the name of family.

“That’s why.”

A cold voice reached my ears, which had been briefly lost in thought. Raising my gaze, Mother’s contorted face came into view at once.

“I couldn’t bear to watch you, who took after me so well, be ruined.”

Mother’s face was terribly… humiliated.

“I couldn’t bear to watch you hang on pathetically, mocked by everyone. So I gave you a final chance to sacrifice your life for the family.”

So she packages my death that way until the end. It wasn’t surprising.

“That’s a fascinating statement.”

“It was you who became the laughingstock of the entire social circle with your ridiculous love talk. Even though you were ultimately going to bring that man down like this, all because of such shallow feelings!”

It was Mother who had settled into Roam due to her own ridiculous love talk. Father had spent his life elevating the name of Roam for that Mother’s sake, but……

Faintly, I could gauge what was in Mother’s heart. It wasn’t a pleasant realization.

“Listening to you, I think I was mistaken.”

I lowered my gaze indifferently and shrugged my shoulders. Mother, who had been breathing heavily, frowned and stared at me suspiciously.

I smiled sweetly at that Mother.

“It seems I didn’t take after you, Mother. Fortunately.”

“What?”

“I’m still engaging in ridiculous love talk. Of course, this time I’ve chosen a proper one.”

A confused emotion clouded Mother’s eyes. For a moment, as if a thought struck her, Mother asked urgently with a changed expression.

“Surely you don’t mean Prince Heinri? Are you engaged to him?”

“Ha, Mother……”

How fitting for someone who considered the position of Empress a lifelong regret. To think of Heinri at this moment.

I swept back my bangs and answered in a somewhat bored tone.

“I am the Resurrected One. What use is the position of Empress to me now? Such a position is merely a nuisance to me now.”

I could receive treatment nobler than anyone’s based on my name alone. Without needing to rely on power or status.

At my words, Mother looked at me with confused eyes.

“Then who on earth……”

Mother probably couldn’t even imagine. Frankly, by Mother’s standards, Xenon fell short in everything except status.

Even his position as the Tower Master’s successor would only be acknowledged, she’d think, once he officially became the Tower Master.

So how could she imagine it? That the object of my love talk is a frail, timid, yet romantic mage who could die for me.

“As I said, he’s a proper one. However, I can’t show him to you. I don’t want to show him something that might needlessly trouble him. He’s a tender-hearted man; he might cry.”

Perhaps interpreting the laughter in my voice as mockery, Mother’s expression hardened stiffly. Perhaps she thought I was mocking her by positing a non-existent subject.

“So you intend to leave your parents locked up in a place like this and live well on your own?”

Mother’s voice was again filled with condemnation. But it stirred no emotion in me.

“If you were to leave here, what could you do?”

When I asked calmly in return, Mother fell silent, at a loss for words.

“Roam is gone, Mother. It means there is nowhere for you to return to outside.”

I didn’t think Mother was unaware of that. The reason she was raising her voice to me like that was precisely because she could do nothing.

Because nothing remained. Yet, she couldn’t bring herself to beg from me. To protect that lofty pride of hers.

I quietly stepped back. Asking about Mother’s feelings was meaningless.

Even without asking, I knew exactly how Mother was now, what state of mind she was in.

“Rest in peace.”

Offering wishes of peace while having made her a criminal. Even I thought my words were contradictory, but I couldn’t find better words for a final farewell.

Just as I was about to turn my back first, a sudden call erupted from beyond the iron bars.

“Anelli!”

Mother, who had urgently called me to a halt, trembled her lips.

“I have a request of you. It’s the first and last plea I’ll make.”

I stopped my intended step out and quietly gazed at Mother. She swallowed dryly and contorted her face.

She seemed to feel immense shame at asking something of me. Or perhaps the request she was about to make would crush her pride.

“Give me poison.”

Her low voice held a touch of pathos.

“Give me poison.”

All the exaggeratedly inflated anger and hatred vanished from Mother’s face. What remained in their place was only a desperate desire to end this entire situation.

The Mother who had raised her voice so much that the guards whispered, shouting of past glory, was merely an illusion.

I could understand Mother’s heart. Because I had been the same.

So there was no need to ponder deeply.

“Why would I show such mercy?”

When I tilted my head and asked calmly in return, Mother’s lips twitched. But no other words came out.

I spoke to the despairing Mother.

“Don’t worry, Mother. It will end someday.”

I moved my lips, forming the kindest smile I could muster. Praying it would sound like sincere advice from one who had been there.

“Because life is finite for everyone.”

Of course, I was an exception.