Noble Lady Reformation Guide - Chapter 101: Power and Love (6)

“Did a letter arrive from Baron Ravenclaw?”

Early in the morning, Lady Trisha, who was being dressed with the help of the maid of the mansion, wore a perplexed expression.

Not even ten days had passed since she was rejected when she tried to assign Dereck a task.

Of course, the task itself was also a pretext to maintain contact with Dereck, the most renowned magic master in Ebelstein. However, it was hard to deny the importance of finding the necromancer on Rodentz Island.

It was a double-benefit strategy to earn the favor of Lady Renewel and maintain contact with Dereck. But the request was rejected for being too dangerous, and everything fell apart.

However, the letter from Dereck that arrived early in the morning rendered all of that irrelevant.

“It seems we have found a necromancer who would be a survivor of Rodentz Island.”

Upon reading the letter that began with that single line, Lady Trisha could not help but harden her expression.

*

Almost ten days had passed since Ellen’s house arrest began, and finally, unable to endure it any longer, Count Belmierd summoned his high vassals, immediate family members, and most trusted servants to the study of the count’s mansion.

No matter how much they examined the clues in Ellen’s room, the only conclusion they reached was that Ellen had been researching necromancy.

“Your Excellency…”

Briana looked worriedly at Count Belmierd’s expression.

The count’s face was as haggard as Ellen’s, as if he too were cornered.

As time passed, public opinion toward Ellen worsened.

Thinking about it, testimonies accumulated that Ellen had been seen wandering the mansion late at night, when no one was around.

In reality, all she had done was go out to gaze at the moon because she could not sleep.

There were also plenty of testimonies that she often looked tired, as if she had stayed up all night. People wondered if she had been researching necromancy during the night, when everyone else slept.

In truth, she was simply staying up all night studying, or she just wasn’t feeling well.

Many also claimed that she abruptly changed the subject whenever necromancy came up in conversation.

For her, speaking of necromancy was taboo.

Suspicions gave rise to more suspicions, and doubts to new doubts.

Leonard, who was watching the situation from a corner along with the vassals, quietly lowered his head. He had to suppress the urge to smile.

In reality, there were only two direct pieces of evidence of that conspiracy—the laboratory found beneath Ellen’s room and the letter that seemed to have been written by her.

The laboratory had been prepared by Leonard.

The secret room beneath the heir’s chambers was known to the head of family and some high-ranking vassals. It was a hidden space for emergency evacuations.

However, for decades the authority of the Belmierds had never been threatened, so that room had fallen into oblivion.

Leonard slowly transformed it into a necromancy laboratory and left incriminating traces against Ellen when she was not there.

The letter too had been cunningly fabricated by Leonard, mixing numerous truths and lies. He knew Ellen had visited the Duplain family, so he altered the facts in a way that made it difficult to discern where reality ended and invention began.

Once suspicion was planted in public opinion, all he had to do was wait. Circumstantial evidence had a tendency to multiply on its own.

He continued to spread filthy rumors about Ellen, who had once been the flower of the count’s family.

It did not matter if they were accepted as truth or denied as falsehood.

As long as doubts were sown, as long as people were made to question the facts and become confused about where the truth lay—surprisingly, that alone was enough to turn half of public opinion against her.

That is how the masses are controlled. Once that flow is created, everything becomes simple. Logic and reason no longer matter.

“Father.”

Leonard stepped forward from among the gathered vassals.

Count Belmierd still remembered him as the devout clergyman he had been.

He felt quite guilty for not having given him the proper welcome after his pilgrimage due to the rumors, but for now Ellen’s matter was the priority.

“Leonard. You…”

“You must be strong, Father.”

Leonard spoke with a pained expression.

Outwardly, he was nothing but a lamb pursuing faith, uninterested in the family’s succession rights.

It was something no vassal could say, but Leonard, as the only blood relative present, could.

“Ellen too is a lamb. Sometimes… she loses her way…”

“Leonard…!”

“It pains me to say this, but isn’t this the situation we are in…?”

Leonard spoke through clenched teeth, his chest trembling.

Seeing the emotions mixed in his face, Count Belmierd held his breath.

“Perhaps it is a blessing we discovered it early… Remember the tragedy of the Duplain family, don’t you, Father?”

“You want me to doubt Ellen?”

“Ellen was a noble person who spared no effort to obtain power. But, sometimes, while walking the straight path, one can be tempted by shortcuts and fall into traps.”

Learning necromancy is a taboo for a mage, but for one who craves power, it means having a secret weapon no one else knows.

Controlling corpses, overcoming death, and commanding the mind implies the ability to manipulate without anyone noticing.

On the path to power, the temptation to obtain such a secret power often arises.

“It was only a momentary mistake. Recognizing that fact and striving to correct it is all that is needed. Ignoring reality will only make things worse… Father…!”

“Leonard…!”

“Father. I beg you to hear my counsel…”

Leonard pushed his way further forward and bowed respectfully before the desk.

“The position of successor? I have no desire for it. Let anyone take it. You may even call my brother Linus back and make him the successor.”

Linus would never return to the Belmierd family.

Either way, once Ellen fell from power, no matter how much he pretended to worry and dither, Count Belmierd would have no choice but to designate Leonard as successor.

It was a bluff he could afford because he knew that fact well. Leonard was acting perfectly as a lamb without ambitions of succession.

“It must be corrected now. That is… the way to prevent further harm to the Belmierd family…”

Leonard twisted his expression as if giving sincere advice.

Count Belmierd, watching him, could not raise his voice. The majority of the mansion’s servants already harbored seeds of suspicion against Ellen.

At this point, if even the head of family turned his back on her, it was impossible to foresee how the situation would unfold.

The count, his face filled with anguish for a long while, finally ran a hand over his face and spoke.

“Even so, I must hear Ellen’s excuse.”

As a father, he could not turn his back completely.

“Briana. When the sun rises tomorrow, I will personally confront Ellen with the evidence. There I will decide her fate. Though until now we have kept the results of the investigation secret, from tomorrow she too will know.”

Seeing Count Belmierd, who remained cautious until the end, Leonard could not help but click his tongue silently.

But Leonard knew.

He had already been going in and out of the mansion, checking Ellen’s situation on several occasions.

She pretended otherwise, but she was already cornered.

*

“Huff, huff.”

She felt something like a sticky liquid sliding down the tip of her hair.

For the first time, she realized that this was the feeling of her mind growing hazy. Sitting in her private room, Ellen felt her throat tighten each time she breathed.

It would have been better to be locked away completely.

Being watched during meals, receiving suspicious looks from everyone, hearing whispers in the garden, and feeling the futility of the power that once pierced the sky.

And in the midst of that anxiety, having to endure day after day. One feels a strange sensation as if one’s vision begins to blur.

Late at night, when even the sound of insects had ceased.

A ringing in her ears, the flickering shadows of the candles, darkness and more darkness.

She was a young woman who stretched her hand toward the stars in the sky, and having raced upward her whole life, she did not know the pain of falling.

Even the close servants and attendants who had admired her all her life were, in the end, only a crowd swept along by power and public opinion.

She had never had the chance to learn to distinguish between those who would truly remain by her side and those who were nothing but byproducts drawn by fleeting power.

Those who have never hit bottom do not know how to distinguish who is truly by their side.

As you wander between the cracks of confusion and doubt, suddenly you feel as if the world around you is wrapped in fog.

At some point, you stop combing your hair. You don’t even rub your tired eyes.

Withering slowly, your self-assurance and confidence begin to fade.

An extraordinary mind, mental agility, exceptional magical skills, noble appearance—the only thing the young woman lacked was experience.

The experience of standing firm with both feet before the crowd staring at her.

“Ridiculous… Do they think I would be swayed by such deception…?”

She repeated the words with empty eyes, biting her nails. There was no life left in her, only a miserable pride barely holding on.

The young woman realized. The support of the crowd, like reeds, is as fleeting as a passing dream.

If she fell, that support would vanish like the wind, only a façade.

“Yes, it seems they are trying to sow seeds of doubt while buying time… If only I could reach Duplain… If only… ugh…”

A vomit devoid of dignity rose in her throat. Ellen collapsed.

Had she ever fallen like this before?

Neither the authority that once seemed to pierce the heavens, nor the magical skills that left all speechless when witnessed, nor the rivals who could not compare to her had ever dragged Ellen into such a pit of despair.

Even when countless noble ladies succumbed to the burden and pressure, Ellen never lost her will.

But now, it was only rumors, doubts, and time.

Not a great evil, not a great cause that engulfed the world, not a fatal nemesis. Only that.

It was only that which eroded the fragile trust of the crowd that followed power.

Even the servants who had built trust throughout a lifetime now cast her suspicious glances.

She could not even voice her discontent at that fact.

A play she had seen in her childhood at the Kalimford Theater came to mind.

It was the day Ellen left the theater with a scornful grimace.

The moving song of the protagonist on stage, who chose love over power, tickled her ears.

Had the playwright understood it subconsciously? No flower blooms forever, and in the end, the essence of that flower called power is to wither.

She had spent her entire life chasing that façade called power.

Those beings who walked calmly toward the throne seemed admirable, and she had wished to sit at their side.

Tap, tap.

The rain that had begun to fall struck the window.

At first intermittently, but soon the downpour began to mirror Ellen’s heart.

For what have I lived? Why did I cling so desperately to the sand that would slip through my fingers the harder I clenched my fist?

I don’t know. I know nothing. The young woman who had run unhesitatingly down a well-paved path for so long was, for the first time, experiencing the depths of being lost. It left such a void in her heart that she could not even think of the false accusation of necromancy weighing on her.

Swoosh.

The rain outside the window grew completely fierce, and even lightning began to strike intermittently.

Suddenly, the ceremonial dagger in the corner of the room caught the young woman’s attention.

If she yielded to her misery and pressed the blade to her neck here and now, would the servants understand her innocence?

If they found her cold and lifeless in the morning, with tears of anguish in her eyes, would the servants then understand Ellen’s injustice?

Such an impulse is irrational.

How could one end a noble life over a false accusation? It makes no sense.

Yet, that forbidden impulse always came regardless of reason or understanding.

Those who end their lives do not do so after calculating everything.

They simply fail to withstand the impact of the moment, the dark impulse that enters their heart right now, leading them to an irreversible end.

If they could endure that instant, there might be a way out, but countless people choose to end their immediate suffering.

Cornering one’s own heart was something like that.

When Ellen took up the dagger with clouded pupils and gazed at it, her once blazing red eyes had turned ashen, as if they no longer had the strength to burn.

Her fingers trembled as she held it.

Eventually, she shut her eyes tightly.

“Lady Ellen, as you clash with various enemies in noble society, surely a time will come when you stumble upon a stone or face everyone’s suspicion and ridicule. Even if it is not a crisis that shakes your life as mine did, it could still corner your heart and mind.”

These were the words of a certain lady, who had faced such great pain that such trials seemed trivial, spoken while seated in the corridor of Elfontaine Hall.

She smiled broadly and extended her fist toward Ellen.

“That is the moment to look around you.”

Crash!

Swoosh! Bang!

At once, the window shattered and rain poured into the room.

Ellen’s room was protected by numerous guards, making it difficult for anyone to enter easily.

However, the unwanted guest created the illusion of thunder with a confusion spell to mask the sound of breaking glass and then burst through the window from the outer wall as if it were nothing.

The man, seemingly accustomed to moving in such severe weather, dropped his soaked cloak as he straightened inside the room.

And without hesitation, he firmly grabbed the blade of the dagger in the young woman’s hand.

Drip, drip.

Red blood flowed down the blade.

Ellen was so shocked she could not even scream.

“…”

Clang! Clang!

The man wrenched the dagger away and flung it to the ground, then pushed Ellen back.

As her posture collapsed without strength, the man shook his hands and pulled a letter from his chest, setting it on Ellen’s table.

There were two letters. One bore the seal of the Duplain family, the other the seal of the Renuel family.

“Huh, ugh…”

As Ellen barely regained her breath, the white-haired man roughly wiped the blood from his hands and straightened his stance.

A lightning bolt flashed, and his red eyes shone with intensity.

If you can claim you have lived a life of worth.

Even if all turn their backs on you, there will always be someone who remains by your side.

As if to prove that fact, the man stood firm with the rain pouring down behind him.

Though no explanation had yet been given, the gaunt girl lying on the floor with wide eyes instinctively sensed it.

For some reason, she thought.

That man was Ellen’s ally.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelCet