꧁꧂

Nicole wiped her tears and came out of the room, and someone was standing on one side of the hallway waiting for her.

“Isabel?”

Nicole’s expression was slightly distorted. Isabel blinked innocently.

“Did you cry?”

“……it’s not a big deal. Why are you here?”

“It’s past Isabel’s snack time, but you’re not coming out of the room. Also, it seems like you’re talking about something, so Isabel doesn’t know what to do…….”

Isabel said sullenly.

“What about work?”

“What?”

“I told you to prepare dinner.”

“There were a lot of vegetables……. Are you really telling me to do everything?”

“If you and I don’t, who will do it? Jay is also very busy because Father is far away.”

“Sister, are you mad at Isabel?”

Isabel looked at her and said.

“Don’t be like that to Isabel. I’m hungry because I can’t even eat snacks. I want to drink the tea that Sister makes.”

Nicole even hated Isabel acting cute.

‘You, the devil, while you’re still young and careless, should be separated from this family.’

Nicole thought.

“If you want to eat snacks, you have to work by yourself. The rest of the family are busy all day and you play except for managing a little bit of medicine and trimming herbs.”

“But I’m hurt.”

Isabel reached out her hand. She wore a bandage around her thumb.

“I cut my hand while cutting……. So I couldn’t work.”

Nicole had a clear view of Isabel’s finger.

Naturally, she showed her finger to Nicole so that she would give her tea.

“That’s a big deal.”

Nicole then pretended to be worried.

“Come to the kitchen quickly. Let’s take a closer look. Did it hurt a lot?”

When Nicole seemed weak-hearted as usual, Isabel raised the corners of her mouth and headed to the kitchen.

Nicole busily opened the cupboard and looked for something.

“Did you say you wanted tea?”

“Yeah, I think I’ll feel better after a cup of hot tea.”

“All right.”

Nicole turned her back. Then, to Isabel’s surprise, her bandaged fingers were sprinkled with white powder.

“Oh, sister! What are you doing?”

cried Isabel in surprise.

“Look at the bandage, I think you bled a lot, so I sprayed hemostatic powder. The powder Mother made last year.”

“Well, that’s… It’s itchy

The herbal powder was an effective hemostatic agent.

The absorption is so good that even if you spray it on top of this bandage, it will reach the wound.

If there’s really a wound.

The problem is, it’s itchy.

If sprayed on uninjured areas, the skin would be itchy enough to make the person tremble.

“Isabel, don’t move your body. You have to put up with it.”

Nicole clenched Isabel’s wrist, which turned white and made only a squeaky sound.

It would be frighteningly itchy if there were no wounds. But if she really didn’t wound herself and made a fuss, she’ll find out it’s a fake wound, so Isabel won’t be able to tell.

“Our kitchen knife is old and heavy, so it’s easy to get hurt while using it, right?”

“………Y, yes.”

Nicole looked at Isabel calmly.

‘Now you pretend to have a wound on your finger, but in the future you will pretend to try to kill yourself in front of me.’

The fundamentals of a person do not change. Nicole saw the bandage without sign of blood and immediately noticed that Isabel had lied.

“Thank you, sister. Isabel is feeling much better.”

Isabel barely spoke with a pale face. Nicole wanted to applaud her acting.

“I’m glad you’re feeling better. Then, let’s take some painkillers. If you take it, your stomach will hurt a little, but it has a very definite effect.”

Isabel’s complexion has grown strangely pale. Nicole felt a slight triumph.

“Then sister, my kitchen work…….”

“You can do it tomorrow. I can’t do all the housework alone. Jay, our youngest, doesn’t have enough time to sleep either.”

“Then how about taking care of the herbs?”

“I’ll help you in making medicine and preparing the herbs.”

At this time, Isabel took charge of all the herbal management, and Nicole took charge of the housework.

In the long run, it was much more useful to learn more medicine.

A year later when she became the Grand Duchess, Nicole, who was so bored, so she studied medicine again at the insincere recommendation of her psychiatrist to look for a pastime.

When Nicole was brought to the Grand Duke’s mansion, the property of the Yveschapel family was also confiscated. As a result, books from the Yveschapel family were kept in the Grand Duke’s mansion.

Nicole resumed her studies with the help of those books.

Fortunately, Nicole has a good memory and vividly remembered what she had studied then.

“Isabel… kitchen work is a little…….”

In the end, Isabel hesitated and spoke as if she was troubled.

“Mother is very sick. Maybe she doesn’t have much time left. So now you have to be able to do anything for yourself. It’s for you, so don’t be too upset, okay?”

Isabel had nothing to say, so she just shut her mouth.

Nicole felt more at peace when she saw Isabel’s uncomfortable face.

꧁꧂

The house was quiet throughout the dinner.

Isabel glanced at Nicole who was eating and thought.

“What’s wrong with Nicole?”

Tilt. Isabel tilted her head slowly.

‘She’s not supposed to be like that. What’s wrong with this easy-to-use mammoth?

Something has changed. Isabel rolled her eyes.

‘I have a bad feeling about this. I need to put my plan into action quickly.’

꧁꧂

The night came. The night in the forest was very quiet, and there was not even a sound of birds.

That night, Nicole sat in her bed, awake.

‘Today… What date is it?’

But it wasn’t a dream. Her experience of becoming sick and slowly going mad due to the torment of being the Grand Duchess, being tortured and her standing at the execution ground…….

‘It’s all so vivid……. It’s as if it just happened yesterday.’

Nicole was sure. She must have come back in time.

She doesn’t know exactly what happened. But that’s what her gut told her.

‘Then if that’s really the case…… I don’t have time. Today is July 2nd. Soon Raul will find this house and take us.’

It was only two weeks before Raul arrived at this house.

‘At least Isabel doesn’t know yet who our family is, so she won’t report our existence to the imperial family.’

There was a report in the ring that Nicole took from Raul before she died in her last life.

‘The Imperial family decided to exterminate the Yveschapel survivors. However, the Grand Duke first found them and captured them to secure them.’

That was the content of the report.

‘Then at this point, the royal family wanted to kill all the people in our family and make the marriage invalid. But, how the hell did Raul know about coming here?’

Large cities in each province were lined with knights from the imperial family.

They can surround the cabin in a day or two.

‘That Raul came in person faster than they did…… It’s it because he was around here?’

So where is he now?

In addition, Isabel’s problem had to be dealt with quickly.

‘I’ll be treated like a madman if I tell my family to kick Isabel out right now.’

So Nicole had to move cleverly.

She had to figure out what Isabel was like and think about how to expose her and separate her from her family.

‘What would Raul have done?’

For Nicole, Raul was always a distant person, but he was the only one whom she poured out her emotions to aside from her family.

He taught her hatred, conspiracy, and more than that. And he was also a man of great ability.

⟨It’s better to keep your friends close and your enemies closer. Enough to be indistinguishable from love⟩

She overheard Raul talking once. Nicole decided to keep an eye on Isabel for now.

“Isabel, are you sleeping?”

Nicole prepared a quick cup of tea. And knocked on Isabel’s door.

It has been a long time since she visited her sister’s room at this time.

This is because she worked until late at night and fell asleep right away.

‘Is there no one in the room?’

Nicole carefully turned the doorknob.

Click

The door was locked. But Nicole knew how to open the door.

This house was almost deserted when they first arrived. So they were the ones who repaired it.

Father made a universal key that could open the lock for each room.

It was a spare key that looked like an iron skewer. And Father gave Nicole the key just in case before he left the house.

Nicole used the key to open the door. While she was at it, she hurriedly brought a lamp to the room.

The lamp was a very precious object in the house and there were only three of it there.

Squeak

Isabel was using the biggest and best room out of all her siblings.

‘This is a deep forest. It takes more than an hour to walk to the village and there is no light around. But she left at this hour?’

Nicole shuddered.

The former Nicole would have worried about Isabel.

But now she was more afraid. What the hell is she up to? Since when did she start to sneak away at night?

Her parents spent a long time educating her siblings not to go out without permission. For Nicole, sneaking out of the house at night was unimaginable.

“Isabel?”

Nicole whispered into the room. The old floor squeaked and pressed.

At that moment, Nicole recalled what Isabel said a long time ago.

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