Chapter 96
Chapter
[Mother, I really really like you.]
A bright smile blooms toward me.
[Uh, are you sick? No… Mother can’t be sick…]
The two most lovely blue jewels in the world look up at me, filled with worry.
[I’ll take care of you…! Don’t worry, Mother!]
Her small hands tremble with anxiety, but the earnestness in those adorable gestures melts my heart.
I gently placed my hand on her beautiful cheek. The most beloved girl in the world tightly grasped my hand and opened her cherry-like lips.
[Disgusting bitch.]
Huh?
[You knew I wasn’t your daughter. Just like you abandoned Father, you turn away from me too. Just die. I’ve never once thought of you as my mother.]
Her blue eyes turned icy in an instant.
And at the same time, the world began to flip upside down.
[You are the murderer who killed my father.]
“Cough…!”
Upon waking from the dream, I was met with the grim, gray air and the unbearably familiar ceiling of my bedroom.
“Cough…! Cough…!”
The cough erupted from my insides, burning my throat like it was on fire. Covering my mouth with trembling hands, I looked down to find crimson blood staining my fingertips.
“Baron, here it is.”
Beside me, Princess Viviana, who had been restless, cautiously offered me a handkerchief.
I clearly said I’d rather not have a nurse, yet I felt compelled to accept her stubbornness for not leaving this mansion.
“Thank you, Your Highness.”
“Feel free to speak, Baron.”
“…How could I ever do that to you, Your Highness?”
I carefully wiped the blood from my mouth with the handkerchief she offered. The dark red stains on the pure white cloth starkly revealed how bad my condition was.
A whole week had already passed.
Since that day when Tina, no, that girl, spat out the cruel truth at me, my world had thoroughly crumbled.
I had known all along.
That she possessed a nature completely different from Tina’s.
Ever since the former head of the Bland family and my father, Bonny Bland, passed away, Tina had never called me mother even once.
She consistently treated me with cold disdain, and her gaze always resembled that of someone looking at a murderer.
At some point, I began to realize.
No matter how hard I tried, the resentment buried deeply in her heart would never fade.
Even if I paid off the family debts and revived our house, I well knew that Tina would still loathe me.
How desperate I felt when I came to know that fact.
That’s why.
Even though I sensed something was off with my daughter’s sudden change, I averted my eyes from the truth.
The affection of my transformed daughter was as addictive as a drug, and I didn’t want to let go of that sweetness.
My true desire—to never return to that empty and bleak gray life—forced me to run away from the truth I could not face.
“I… am a sinner too.”
I struggled to lift my heavy body and stepped out of bed. My legs almost gave way, but Princess Viviana quickly supported me, allowing me to avoid falling.
“What happened to that girl?”
She hesitated for a moment but soon replied earnestly.
“She is still at the Saint’s mansion. We decided to keep her there until the demon is purified.”
“…I see.”
Now that I realized that girl was not my daughter, there was no need to invest my feelings in her anymore.
That girl was the one who had taken my real daughter away and had committed countless evil deeds.
The Saint would surely handle it well.
Now, there was only one thing left for me to do.
After the Saint defeats that demon, I would ask where my real daughter is. It was about finding my daughter’s whereabouts.
If, in the worst-case scenario, my daughter would never be able to return here…
What would I do then?
“Cough….”
Again, a wave of nausea surged, and thick blood spat out from my mouth. I sipped the water that the princess hurriedly offered, but the burning pain in my throat and the heaviness on my chest remained.
My heart felt heavy.
Inside me, endlessly tormenting me was the resentment and sorrow of losing my daughter, all mixed together.
But why? It felt like there was more than just that—some other indescribable emotion tangled in my chest.
Clutching my trembling heart, I looked up to see a radiant floral crown hanging in the center of the desk.
As if possessed by something, I slowly approached that crown.
[Mother! I made this from the garden, hehe, how do you like it…?]
That was the gift the girl had given me.
Back then, I joyfully placed it at the center of the desk and cherished that feeling.
[Is it… not too good? Oh, my hand got hurt…? It’s okay! If Mother is happy…!]
That small, delicate hand, which had become covered in wounds from the thorns, painstakingly plucked flower after flower to create the crown.
‘Really… was it all just an act…?’
Artaasha carefully grasped the crown with trembling hands. Looking at the carefully gathered flowers, the emotions that had been suppressed in my heart began to crumble.
“Oh, my child…”
I mumbled softly while gazing at the crown in my hand.
“Did you really think so little of me?”
The remnants of memories I wanted to forget began to dig into my heart again.
*
Clank—clank—
The chains tightly binding my arms and legs clanked and echoed around me.
“Hrk…!”
My hot breath filled the dark and cold space.
“Hrk, yii…? Haah… don’t…”
“Just a little more, Tina. We’re almost done.”
Squeeze—
“Haaang…?! Hrk…! Th-this is strange…!”
Squeeze—squeeze—
“Ahh… yii… hulk…”
This prison-like space created by Lilian. My arms were bound in chains fixed to the ceiling, and my legs were tightly bound to the floor.
In a position where my arms and legs were spread out wide, I couldn’t move my body at all. My shirt even rolled up, exposing my shameful belly.
The one who had tied me in such an odd and humiliating posture was none other than that damned Saint right in front of me.
And Lilian was doing something completely incomprehensible while keeping me bound like this.
Squeeze- Squeeze-!
“Huhhh?!?”
Lilian spread her palms wide, grabbed my waist, and pressed her thumbs firmly on my lower abdomen.
As if molding clay, every time Lilian’s mischievous fingers pressed deep into my lower belly, strange currents surged through my entire body.
Squeeze- Squeeze-!
“Yii!?! S-stop that…!”
“Just a little more, you’re almost engraved.”
My body trembled as if it were having a seizure, but I could only quiver helplessly thanks to the iron chains binding my arms and legs.
How did it come to this?
I simply woke up to find my body tied like this.
When I asked Lilian what this was about, she replied with unnecessarily cheerful eyes, saying, [Today, we’re doing potty training, remember? I prepared something special for that.]
With those words, Lilian began to play around with my lower belly as she pleased.
Pushing, touching, pinching, tickling—she tormented me with all sorts of perverse hand movements.
With my limbs unable to move, all I could do was squeeze my eyes shut and bite my lips to suppress my shame.
How long had it been since Lilian started to knead my lower belly?
Finally, she withdrew her hands from my waist, wiping a bead of sweat from her forehead.
“Ugh… Hah… Haah…”
“Well, that’s done.”
“You perverted bastard… pervert… perverted bastard…”
I panted as I cursed at Lilian, but she was utterly unfazed and held a hand mirror in front of me.
“Want to take a look, Tina? It came out quite prettily.”
Lilian brought the mirror to my belly and tilted it at an angle where I could see.
I gazed at my reflection in the small mirror. Red marks in the shape of Lilian’s fingers were engraved all over my white skin.
In between was my tiny belly button.
And just below it, there was a pattern I had never seen before engraved on my belly.
“…Huh?”
Dazed, I muttered in confusion.
The strange pattern engraved just below my belly button.
Drawn with a soft platinum hue, it depicted a small cross flanked by angelic wings on either side.
“What… is this…?”
“Hehe, pretty, right? It’s a mark engraved just for you, Tina.”
“A mark…?”
“It goes well with Tina’s beautiful white skin. You look like an angel.”
I knew a few things about marks.
A mark of obedience that explodes the heart if the owner’s command is refused. Usually, marks like this were illegally engraved in slave markets.
Or there was the mark that amplifies a person’s lust and senses several times, preventing conception no matter how much sexual activity is performed. Marks like this were primarily inscribed at brothels.
I knew one or two more kinds, but I had never seen a mark of this shape anywhere.
Because of that, an unknown fear enveloped me even more.
“What… what have you done to my body…”
