Chapter 4

After that, I chatted casually with Sister Pere for a while before we parted ways.

My request to become Sister Pere’s right-hand woman had been brushed aside without a second thought, but there was no doubt that what happened today had brought us one step closer.

Either way, the beginning of my plan to become close to Sister Pere and turn her path of despair into a flower-lined road had gone quite successfully.

As we were parting, I followed Sister Pere outside and handed out drinks and cakes to her maid and the coachman who were waiting by the carriage.

I also placed a latte and some cake inside the carriage so Sister Pere could enjoy them when she got home.

When I saw Sister Pere’s eyes widen at how thoroughly I had prepared everything, I inwardly shouted, Lucky!

Thanks to that, I had also made a good impression on Sister Pere’s maid. And because Sister Pere was delighted at the thought of being able to enjoy this delicious coffee and cake again at home, I even managed to receive a careful farewell from her.

I stood at the entrance of the café, waving until Sister Pere’s carriage disappeared from sight, a satisfied smile spreading across my face.

Afterward, I returned home, took out my communication orb, and contacted the newspaper reporter I had bribed in advance.

Communication orbs were expensive because they required a special gemstone to operate, so most people preferred to use letters. But there was no reason for me, a nouveau riche heiress, to worry about the cost.

“Did you take the pictures?”

[Yes. I took several, and they came out very well.]

“Then please make sure the story is featured prominently in tomorrow morning’s newspaper. I’ll send you the remaining payment after I check the paper tomorrow.”

[Of course. Consider it done. Let me confirm the headline one more time. Is the front-page title supposed to be, ‘Lady Perioje Takes Care of the Mistakes of Oswald’s Nouveau Riche Daughter, Elinea!’?]

“No. It should be, ‘Lady Perioje Shows Mercy to Elinea, the Nouveau Riche Daughter of Oswald.’”

The front-page article described how I had behaved rudely toward the young lady at the tea party, been slapped by her, and returned home. Then, as if that weren’t enough, I had committed the outrageous act of making the noble lady come all the way to the café again under the pretext of apologizing.

But the kind and saintly Lady Perioje had forgiven me.

Therefore, the word mercy absolutely had to be in the title.

[Ah, yes. Understood. We’ll go with that.]

“Good. I’m counting on you.”

After ending the communication, I briefly considered contacting Sister Pere myself, but decided against it.

A person needed to know how to play hard to get, after all. If I didn’t contact her again today, Sister Pere would see the huge article in tomorrow’s newspaper and contact me first.

Patience really was very important for human beings.

Because I had managed to hold myself back from contacting her yesterday, Sister Pere contacted me first thing in the morning.

The moment she said she wanted to see me, I accepted the invitation without hesitation.

“Why on earth does this young lady like me so much?”

I get to see Sister Pere first thing in the morning. How lucky!

I was grinning like an idiot as I went to meet Sister Pere, who had invited me to the ducal residence. She looked at me with an expression of complete incomprehension.

Of course, most of my attention was actually focused on the iced latte and salt bread I had deliberately bought for her, but she looked cute like that too, so I didn’t particularly mind.

Besides, the real reason Sister Pere had summoned me was obviously the article that had been plastered across the front page of the newspaper:

[Lady Perioje Shows Mercy to Elinea, the Nouveau Riche Daughter of Oswald!]

“Is there a reason for liking someone? Then, why do you like His Imperial Highness the Crown Prince?”

“What?”

“If I asked you that, do you think you’d immediately have an answer?”

Sister Pere’s expression instantly turned cold at my question, so I quickly changed the question thanks to my excellent ability to react to a situation.

It would be presumptuous for an ordinary viscount’s daughter to directly question a lady of higher rank like that. In aristocratic conversation, it was much more polite to ask indirectly.

At my question, Sister Pere’s eyebrows, which had looked as though they might shoot straight into the heavens, slowly descended back into place.

Even her eyebrows are pretty.

“Anyway, having someone like me to such an absurd degree isn’t pleasant. It’s irritating rather than flattering.”

“I’ll do my best to hide this blind affection so you won’t be uncomfortable, Sister.”

When I refused to back down and answered right back, Sister Pere let out a long sigh as though she had decided it was pointless to argue with me.

“Eat your bread quickly. It won’t taste good once the ice melts.”

After shooting me a sidelong glance, she took a sip of the iced latte.

“Young lady, you read the article, didn’t you?”

Only then did Sister Pere bring up the real reason she had summoned me to the ducal residence.

I nodded and casually replied that I had.

Sister Pere stared at me for a moment before asking if I was all right.

“All right about what?”

There was absolutely nothing wrong, so I looked at her in confusion.

Sister Pere fiddled with the straw of her latte cup with her beautiful fingers for a moment.

Her hands are pretty too.

“I never showed you mercy, yet that is what the article says.”

Her tone was somewhat indifferent, but there was a hint of guilt hidden beneath it.

Strangely, I felt as though I could understand what Sister Pere was thinking simply by looking into her eyes.

“Who says you didn’t show me mercy? You definitely showed me mercy! Look, even now you’re taking the time to entertain an insolent nouveau riche like me!”

“You do realize that this ‘nouveau riche’ family is one of the most influential families in the Empire’s port industry, don’t you?”

“Of course. And the daughter of that extremely influential nouveau riche family is on your side.”

“……Young lady, you really are strange. You know that?”

“I may look strange to you, but my feelings toward you are sincere, faithful, and pure.”

At my words, Sister Pere let out a small laugh.

Ah. Our Sister Pere looks so beautiful when she smiles, too.

Without realizing it, I murmured,

“Oh, she smiled.”

Immediately, Sister Pere composed herself and looked at me with her characteristic proud and icy expression.

Actually, this is my favorite expression.

“Anyway, as long as you didn’t misunderstand the article, that’s enough.”

“Misunderstand it?”

“Yes. Like thinking that I was the one who had the article published.”

But I was the one who had it published.

“Since you weren’t the one who did it, I wouldn’t make some silly misunderstanding like—”

“Oh my goodness, Sister. Did you call me here because you were worried I might misunderstand?”

“Because I didn’t do it.”

“Of course I know! I know very well. I swear on my life that you’re innocent.”

“Why would you swear on your life for my innocence? ……Anyway, why do you trust me so much? How can you be so certain that I really didn’t do it?”

Because I did it?

“I can’t explain it, but I trust you. Even if you told me you had killed someone and then denied it, I’d still believe you.”

Though, technically, she has already hired someone to kill me before.

“Young lady, you really are strange.”

“Even so, please don’t hate me.”

“What? There’s no way I could hate you……”

Sister Pere spoke with a serious expression, then suddenly realized what she had almost said and bit down on her lip.

I immediately understood exactly what she meant—that there was no way she could hate me.

I grinned happily and said to her,

“Please don’t ever forget that I’m on your side, no matter what happens.”

When I returned home, Gemma entered my room carrying a huge stack of invitations.

Gemma was Elinea’s nanny. She had raised Elinea like her own daughter after Elinea lost her mother at a young age.

“What are all these?”

“They’re invitations from the young ladies of various families.”

“Oh, really?”

I opened them one by one with an indifferent expression. Every single one was an invitation to a tea party.

“Uh……”

I looked slightly flustered by the sudden barrage of invitations, and Gemma smiled warmly at me.

“As expected, everyone has finally recognized how lovable our young lady is.”

Gemma seemed delighted, even getting teary-eyed with happiness as she said she had always known everyone would come to love me.

No, isn’t your emotional gear shifting a little too wildly?

I awkwardly smiled as Gemma wiped away her tears, clearly overjoyed that I would be loved wherever I went.

Then I accidentally cut my finger on the sharp edge of one of the invitations.

“Ah.”

“Oh my goodness! Are you all right?”

“Ah, I’m fi—”

“Davi! Davi!”

Gemma grabbed my paper-cut finger and urgently shouted toward the door.

A freckled girl around my age—presumably Davi—hurried into the room. When she saw the tiny bit of blood on the hand Gemma was holding, she was horrified and immediately shouted toward the outside.

“Relli! The medicine box! Quickly! The young lady is hurt!”

I blinked in bewilderment at how dramatically the two of them were reacting to a tiny cut from a piece of paper.

It had never been mentioned in the original story, but perhaps Elinea had treated her own servants even worse than the villainess, Perioje.

I cautiously asked Gemma,

“I’m fine. Did I ever beat you or the others whenever I got hurt?”

I asked carefully, trying not to make them uncomfortable.

At my question, Gemma and Davi both froze in surprise.

Oh. Seriously?

Did I really transmigrate into the body of someone who treated her servants horribly?

I began wondering how I was supposed to repair my relationship with them when suddenly both Gemma and Davi burst into laughter.

“As expected, our young lady really is such an amusing person.”

“Beat us? You? Hahaha! I’d love to see you get angry even just once!”

Their words reassured me that the original Elinea wasn’t actually a cruel mistress who abused her servants.

“That’s not true. I can get angry too. I’m really scary when I’m angry, you know?”

I said it playfully as I remembered the reputation I had once earned in my original world by terrifying the Empire with black magic.

Gemma and Davi—and even Relli, who had come running in with the medicine box—looked at me with incredibly affectionate expressions.

Gemma opened the medicine box and applied ointment to my injured finger, praising me and saying that she would never meet another person as lovable as her young lady for the rest of her life.

At that moment, I thought that the original Elinea must have lived a good life.

And then I had the silly thought that she must surely have gone to heaven.

“Isn’t that why you’ve received so many invitations, too?”

Davi chimed in with a smile.

She went on and on about how the nobles who had gotten to know me would never be able to escape my charm.

It was natural for servants to flatter their master, so I didn’t mind Gemma and Davi saying nice things about me.

But they were praising me so much that I began to feel embarrassed.

“You’re lovable too.”

Since we were all being lovable anyway, I said it with the intention that we should all be adorable together.

A happy smile spread across the faces of Gemma, Davi, and Relli.

“Anyway, if I have to reply to all those invitations one by one, even staying up all night won’t be enough.”

I muttered as I looked at the mountain of invitations piled on the table.

They were probably inviting me because they wanted to find out the truth behind the newspaper article.

And that made sense.

Even Sister Pere had been worried that people might misunderstand and think she was the one who had arranged for the article to be published, because the article portrayed her as such a kind and benevolent person.

Naturally, the people involved would have more than a few questions for me.

I decided to take this opportunity to attend every single tea party and tell everyone just how wonderfully Sister Pere treated me.

For that, I thought I needed to create a few more heartwarming stories about Sister Pere.

With that in mind, I took out my communication orb.

Knock, knock.

“Young Lady Elinea, a letter has arrived from Lady Caroline.”

Becky, my personal maid, handed me the letter.

She explained that she had brought it quickly because it had a green postal seal indicating that it was urgent.

Instead of contacting Sister Pere, I opened the letter.

For an urgent letter, it contained nothing more than a request for me to come to the baron’s estate as soon as possible.

There was no concern about whether I was doing well, nor a single warm word asking how I had been.

It was short, blunt, and strangely inconsistent with Caroline’s public image.

“I’ll have to visit the baron’s estate. Prepare the carriage, Becky.”

“Yes, my lady.”

There had to be a reason Caroline was summoning me with such an urgent letter, so I couldn’t simply ignore it.

Besides, this girl was the heroine of the original story—and the villain inside me who kept turning our Sister Pere into the villainess every single time.

First, I’d meet her and hear what she had to say.

And while I was at it, I would have to re-educate the heroine’s mind a little.

She had such a peculiar personality that she constantly made our Sister Pere foam at the mouth in frustration. So I would make sure to praise Sister Pere’s beauty, coolness, and superiority until I was practically out of breath, ensuring that nothing I said would ever offend her.

With that goal in mind, I put my plan to create more good stories about Sister Pere on hold for the moment and headed toward the baron’s estate.