A Secretly Capable Child Is Seeking For Her Dad (Novel) - Chapter 98

Chapter 98

===================

Translated by Sylph

Read it only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net

===================

“The lord’s castle of Caldenvine Ridge has a different structure from ordinary castles. There are two prisons installed there.”

Tie stared at Adeline, who was speaking rapidly, with her eyes rounded.

“I don’t know where your companion has been locked up, but if it is at the very top of the north castle tower, it won’t be easy to approach. The only access route is the stairs of the tower.”

The other members were equally shocked and at a loss for words.

Raul and Enzo in particular looked as though they could not understand the situation.

However, Adeline kept speaking.

“The underground prison is better than the top of the castle tower. There is also a hidden back route, and I’ve never seen more than four guards stationed there. Maybe they think escape is impossible because the structure is so complicated….”

“Wait.”

At that moment, Basto cut Adeline off.

He walked over to Adeline with a serious face.

“What are you? And how do you know the structure of the lord’s castle?”

Thinking about it, Adeline had been a strangely suspicious person from the start.

Noble etiquette ingrained into her body while claiming to run a pub.

And personal wealth that seemed suspiciously abundant.

Enzo, who had been watching her with a confused face, opened his mouth too.

“My lady, perhaps… did you work under Reginald’s wife?”

This was the one explanation for all the suspicious points.

That Adeline had been the maid of the lady of the lord’s castle.

“I’ve noticed it since the first day we visited the pub. Noble etiquette was ingrained in your body. And the fact that you’re using your personal wealth to fill up the tribute amounts for the villagers as well….”

Raul, nodding, took up Enzo’s words and continued.

“Please tell us the truth. Were you the lord’s wife’s maid? And you hid that fact, taking into account that once it came to light there would be conflict with the villagers?”

If she had been the lord’s wife’s maid, then it was not impossible that Adeline’s personal wealth was ample.

Maidservants were basically provided room and board by their mistress.

So if they lived frugally, they could save their wages intact.

But Adeline gave no answer for a long while.

She only kept her lips tightly closed and looked down at the ground.

“Come now. We need to know who you are too, so that we can accept the information you’ve given us with ease, wouldn’t we?”

When even Nordix, unable to bear it any longer, spoke to her,

“…Yes. I worked as a maid for four years. Though not as the maid of that woman you mean, Lecia.”

Adeline, who had been silent, finally opened her mouth in a small voice.

He raised her head and looked directly at Raul and Enzo.

“I know who you are. At first I wasn’t sure, but when I looked more closely, you really were the gentlemen I knew. You are the sons of Marquis Waveril, aren’t you? The ones who served in the Imperial Holy Knights.”

Raul and Enzo stiffened, furrowing their brows.

They had never imagined that Adeline would know them from when they had served as imperial holy knights.

But Adeline’s words did not end there.

“Don’t you remember? At the consecration ceremony.”

“What….”

“Do not lower your heads carelessly. Your father was honorable. Therefore, you too must carry on your father’s legacy.”

Enzo drew in a small breath.

That was because it suddenly came back to him only then.

The consecration ceremony held not long after the twins’ father died while conquering a magic stone.

And there, the one who had come to them and quietly offered comfort….

‘I, Ardiana Lacrisia, swear upon the name of an honorable member of the imperial family. The Empire will pray blessings upon your path ahead.’

Those were the words of Ardiana, the Empire’s Crimson Princess.

“…No way.”

Enzo muttered.

Raul too looked straight at Adeline with a confused expression.

“Are you saying, my lady, that you were Her Highness the Princess’s maid?”

Not exactly, but he too vaguely remembered it.

The young maid standing quietly behind the princess.

That youthful face, and the calm yet capable way she attended the princess, had left a strong impression.

“Yes. I attended Her Highness the Princess at that time.”

“No, but how could someone like you….”

At this moment the twins’ heads were on the verge of bursting from the complexity of it all.

‘Not just the maid of an ordinary noblewoman, but a woman who was once the princess’s maid, why?’

Why she was in a quiet countryside place like this, away from the central imperial capital.

For what reason she was running a pub.

And how in the world she knew the structure of the lord’s castle in Caldenvine Ridge.

It was when they were struggling over which of the many questions to ask first.

“…There were circumstances.”

Adeline said in a voice mixed with a sigh.

Then she added evenly,

“Her Highness the Princess was considerate toward someone like me. They say those who serve royalty can never leave the palace for life… but she was such a kind person. And I absolutely had to return to my hometown.”

Tie pressed her lips together and tried hard to organize in her head what she had heard from Adeline.

So.

‘Big sister Adeline was originally the one who took care of the princess of this world….’

Did that mean that one day she suddenly had to return to her hometown, so she handed in a resignation letter?

‘Difficult….’

Already his head was starting to spin.

But as if that were irrelevant, Adeline’s words continued.

“To tell this story, I have to explain how I became Her Highness the Princess’s maid in the first place….”

Adeline, brushing back her hair as if the matter were complicated, closed the door.

Then she calmly uttered her next words.

“To state only the conclusion, it is because originally it should have been me.”

“…What should have been?”

“The lord of this place, Caldenvine Ridge.”

Her eyes quickly sank, holding a faint resignation.

* * *

“What do you mean, I’m sick?”

Adeline’s father was a foolish man.

Adeline had always thought that such a father seemed somehow precarious.

“Th, that can’t be. Examine me again. Hurry-!”

But in the year Adeline turned fifteen.

Her premonition became reality, as if to prove her right.

“That I’m going to die. That I have only a few months left….”

Her father, a useless and incompetent lord, received a terminal diagnosis before even reaching the age of forty.

At first he denied reality.

He poured strong liquor into his empty stomach, though the physician had said it absolutely must not be done, and stayed shut up in his office smoking harsh tobacco all day long.

To Adeline, it looked as though he were venting his anger on a body already broken.

‘Even if he does that, nothing will change.’

But on the other hand, she could also understand his feelings.

Because if one dies, one can no longer do forever the things one enjoyed while alive.

Her father was, in effect, making one final struggle against the fate trying to take him.

But no matter how much one struggles, one cannot twist fate.

He lived exactly one more week beyond the period the physician had spoken of, and then died.

One will was discovered in the lord’s bedchamber.

[I, Roman, master of Caldenvine and lord of Caldenvine Ridge, leave this will as I feel death drawing near.]

The will was long enough to fill three full sheets of paper.

But if one summarized it, it was simple.

[Thinking of my daughter, wife, and territory’s residents whom I leave behind, my heart is heavy. Yet after I depart, the glory of Caldenvine must continue.

Until my heir, Adeline Caldenvine, reaches the age of maturity, I wish for my younger brother and the sturdy pillar of my house, Reginald Caldenvine, to take charge of protecting the family and managing the territory.]

Its content was that he would delegate the authority of lordship to his younger brother, Reginald Caldenvine.

Until young Adeline grew up and became able to fulfill the responsibilities of a lord.

[According to my will, I hope Reginald will protect Adeline and my wife, and safeguard the legitimacy of the family and the peace of the territory’s residents.]

But the will could not be kept.

Or rather, to be exact, only half of it was kept.

“You’ve grown a lot while I wasn’t looking, Adeline. Greet her. From today onward, this is Aunt Lecia, who will be living together with us in this castle.”

Reginald began exercising authority as the acting lord.

He filled the castle with his own hands and feet, and dismissed almost all of the existing servants, hiring new ones.

But he did not protect Adeline’s mother and Adeline.

If anything, it would be more accurate to say that he began threatening them.

“…Adeline. Leave for the central imperial capital. This place is too dangerous.”