Chapter 166
Chapter 166. Revenge (III), Part III
Translator: Khan
Editor Group: Liber Reverie
“Oh, my God, you’re wearing a very unusual bracelet, aren’t you? Is it a popular bracelet among the common people?”
‘How faultless I am!’ A young lady went so far as to insult the bracelet she was wearing. ‘You don’t know who gave the bracelet to me.’
She seemed very curious, so Aria smiled softly, and answered, “Unusual, isn’t it? It’s a bracelet from the Crown Prince.”
“…!”
Although they were hostile to the Crown Prince, he was the Crown Prince.
She insulted the gift of the one who would become the Emperor. If Aria told him the truth, she would be punished for insulting the royal family.
But because she no longer felt the value of dealing with these stupid women, Aria looked around, ignoring her pale face. At the center of the crowd was a bright-faced Mielle.
‘What the hell are you going to do?’
Aria spoke to Annie to get Mielle’s routine today and went up to her room. She then ordered the cleaning again in case of any danger she didn’t know and opened the window wide to pay attention to the garden, and nothing happened, whether it was unfortunate or not.
“Miss, she has been enjoying the party, but she hasn’t taken any other action.”
So did Annie’s report. Aria was all the more subdued by the report that Mielle had not done anything unusual.
‘Isn’t that I’m so nervous for nothing?’
Nevertheless, she read a book in her hands, looking out the window, and she could see the Count coming home late at night.
It was also noticed that Mielle, who was enjoying the party, greeted the Count with a smile, and that Cain, who followed him, glanced up at her room. The real Count family went into the mansion with a smile.
As the usual scene of everyday life caught her eye, the tension gradually disappeared. So she was sighing for relief and trying to relax, but someone knocked on the door.
“Sister, I have something to say.”
It was Mielle. Once again her whole body was in a state of tension.
“What brings you here?”
“Come out and look.”
“I’m changing my clothes, so tell me there.”
“I’ll wait, then.”
Mielle’s reply was firm. If it was, as usual, she would have ordered a maid, but would she wait outside the door?
Aria picked up a box of the hourglass in doubt that something bad might happen. ‘Let’s turn the hourglass around as soon as something happens,’ she opened the door with such determination.
“… What do you want to say?”
Then she saw the Count behind Mielle. He also had a face that said he did not know the reason. Mielle, who was looking at the box Aria was holding for a moment, smiled awkwardly and called her out saying that she wanted to talk together. It was so strange.
So it was then that she slowly stepped out of the room and approached the Count’s side, giving strength to the box that carried the hourglass. Suddenly, Mielle pushed the Count down as hard as she could from the edge of the stairs. It happened very quickly.
“…?”
“…!”
The Count falling under the stairs tried to hold Aria’s wrist reflexively, but what he caught was not her wrist, but the end of the bracelet that was given by Asher. Only Aria’s bracelet fell to the ground with the Count, and Mielle screamed,
“Somebody! Somebody, help me! My sister pushed my father on the stairs!”
‘Are you really crazy?’ Aria didn’t know Mielle was going to push her father down the stairs, so Aria, whose legs were loosened, sank to the floor. Aria thought Mielle would kill her if she did, but she hurt her own father!
‘The, the hourglass…!’
The shock shook the hand that opened the box. It was a very short time, but it felt like a thousand years. Her heart was thumping enough to pop out. Fortunately, she soon opened the box and got her hand on the hourglass, and as she was trying to turn it around in a hurry, someone popped up in the middle of this misery like a vision.
“Lady Aria?”
It was Asher with a pale face. ‘Why did you show up so recklessly when you had someone else?’
The Count that fell down the stairs, Miele, whose eyes were round when she saw him, and Aria, who fell on the floor…
As soon as he saw through all this, he took Aria’s hand. Then he disappeared, leaving behind a screaming Mielle. Only the Count and Mielle were left in the crowd of those who came to ask what was going on.
* * *
The misery that Mielle pushed the Count down the stairs quickly turned into a forest. It was a bit of a familiar forest now. There was also a mansion in front of her, decorated a little more beautiful than last time with various flowers and ornaments.
“Lady, Lady Aria! Can you hear me? Where did you get hurt…?”
Next to her, Asher kept calling Aria’s name. She didn’t hurt at all, but he looked pale as if he was about to fall. It seemed as if it were a vision.
“Lady Aria?”
The anxious voice of Asher calling her name sounded clear in her ears, but she could not respond as if she could not hear it.
Mielle, who was pushing her father away without a moment of hesitation, and the Count, who reached out to her with wide-open eyes at the moment he fell, and Asher, who appeared at that incredible moment… The unthinkable happened one after another, and after many more calls from Asher, Aria came to her senses.
“Mr. Asher…”
As Aria, who tried to rise from her seat in haste, fell back to the ground because she didn’t have any strength on her body, so he hurriedly supported her.
“Are you all right?”
“What? Yeah… I’m fine.”
Aria, who blinked a few times to find herself, checked her hand. Fortunately, the hourglass was in her hand. She had to turn this hourglass around and go back to before Mielle had pushed the Count. So when she came to her room, she wouldn’t open the door, pretended she wasn’t there, and she would turn everything that had happened…!
“…”
Just as she was about to turn the hourglass around, Aria stiffened at the thought of it.
‘… How long has it been?’
She hadn’t had a clue of how long it had been since Mielle had pulled the Count.
The time to return with the hourglass was only five minutes. It was a very short time, so she always checked and calculated the pocket watch before using it, but she couldn’t check it because what had just happened was quite an instant.
Even at this moment when she was thinking about whether she could go back to the past, her hesitation grew bigger and bigger as time was running for one second, two seconds, and so on.
‘In addition, if I turn back the hourglass here… I’m going to stay here alone.’
As Aria had experienced, when she turned back the hourglass, everyone around her returned to the past five minutes ago, but she stayed the same. ‘What if she turned back the hourglass and she stayed in the woods, and after her bracelet was broken when Mielle pushed the Count from the stairs, time would turn back to when he appeared in the mansion?’
It would be the worst situation. With the hourglass, she couldn’t solve the current situation, so she had to stay calm and find another way.
“You’d better enter the mansion first.”
Asher’s worried voice rang from her head. He was supporting her, but she was still sitting on the dirt ground. She was about to get up with a nod of her head, and then she had a sense of deja vu.
‘… So how did Mr. Asher appear in the spot?’
How did he appear? It wasn’t the day he was supposed to visit, and it wasn’t her room. He had appeared right next to Aria as if he had known what had happened.
Maybe… if he hadn’t come, she could have turned the hourglass around and escaped the situation. When she thought that way, her voice popped out with a little bit of resentment and anger. It was because she thought that he had interfered.
“… How did you get there? It wasn’t the day you promised.”
Then Asher took a little time and answered, “… It was because the bracelet was broken.”
“The bracelet?”
“… Actually, I enchanted the bracelet that I gave to you. So I’ll know if anything goes wrong. But then it suddenly went off… knowing that the bracelet is broken… I was surprised if something went wrong with you.”