“Oh, do you enjoy reading the newspaper?”
“Our Miss Baby is truly a genius, do you understand it?”
“It’s difficyult… and thwere isn’t much I know!”
Sephiel said confidently.
“Honestly, even for a ‘reaction person,’ you’re as smart as Young Master Erga.”
“Hehe.”
Sephiel grinned and folded the newspaper.
It turned out that ten different kinds of newspapers were delivered to the Grand Duke’s Castle daily.
Sephiel had asked Elton to start reading them.
‘Well, they say reaction people develop intelligence three times faster than ordinary people, right?’
Because of that, the somewhat careless members of the Grand Duke’s castle weren’t too surprised by Sephiel’s intelligence.
Instead, they even complimented her, saying, “You’re really smart. Like a dragon!” (this was considered the highest compliment here).
And today, the news in the newspaper truly delighted Sephiel.
‘Hmm, just as planned.’
Sephiel recalled what had happened a few days ago.
<I… Can I go see that lady? Still… She’s my mother, wight? I just want to twell her to be well. Please, Beyyi, please let me go.>
Sephiel insisted that she wanted to meet Erata just once.
<Ah, our Miss Baby is so kind-hearted! You may go, but just for a short while. Understood?>
Berry said so.
And so, when Sephiel met Erata…
<Ack, I’m scared! No more nightmares! Stop it! I was wrong! I won’t hit that possessed girl ever again!>
<Ah… I still have all ten fingers, right? Right? No! I don’t want to become a skeleton in my dreams. No… I don’t want to sleep anymore!>
In short, she was completely broken.
‘Wow, Berry and Marie are amazing.’
Sephiel thought.
‘No wonder they let me go so easily.’
Berry hadn’t just agreed without reason. She must have known that Erata, in that condition, wouldn’t be able to lash out at Sephiel.
<Lady. Ywou need to come to ywour senses. Ywou need to find a way to Survive, too!>
Sephiel waited for Erata to calm down and tapped her trembling hand with her tiny one. As if encouraging her.
Erata shook her head a few times, then slowly came to her senses.
<Survive….?>
Indeed, the words directly related to survival were effective. Errata raised her head.
<How can I survive?>
<Lady, it’s bad. A hyuge problem! The Allegro yoyal family is sending ywou divowce papers>
<What?>
<Do ywou tyust those people?>
Sephiel said with a big smile.
<I dwon’t think so.>
By then, Erata had caught on.
<So you’re saying they’re going to pin everything on me and cut ties?>
<Yep. If things keep gwoing like this, they’ll dump everyvthing on ywou. Here, I brought ywou a gift.>
Sephiel smiled brightly and handed over a restored copy of the ledger that she had personally written with colored pencils.
‘I’ve practically memorized over ten years of the ledgers.’
Sephiel had an incredible memory and was exceptionally good with numbers.
So, she tried to roughly restore the ledger.
It might not be 100% accurate, but that didn’t matter. In this world, even revealing 80% of the truth was enough to cause an explosion.
<How… how did you get this?>
<A ghwost told me. Why, don’t want it? Then foyget it.>
<No, give it to me! Give it!>
Erata’s eyes flashed.
<Hey, I have a request. I’ll write a letter—could you send it to this address for me? Please. I swear I won’t bother you ever again.>
Thinking back on it, Sephiel nodded in satisfaction.
‘Of course, Erata is smart enough for this.’
That’s why she managed to survive as queen for over ten years in the Allegro royal family.
All Sephiel had to do after that was deliver the letter.
‘The letter containing the ledger I gave her, was sent to Erata’s family.’
Things moved quickly after that.
Erata’s family published an article exposing the Allegro royal family’s mining of magic stones.
‘Yeah. Now even the royal family can’t escape!’
Sephiel smirked.
“Miss Baby, I’ll bring you some hot cocoa.”
Just then, Marie got up from her seat.
“Yes!”
Sephiel quickly took out the Death Note she had hidden under the bed.
‘Now that Erata returns to the royal family, the king’s revenge will await her.’
Sephiel drew a long line through Erata’s name on the Death Note’s list.
‘Out of the ten names on my Death Note, two have already been crossed out.’
Sephiel wanted to laugh.
Number two, Lotto, had been erased long ago.
‘My evil plan was a great success!
Sephiel was utterly satisfied that those wretched people wouldn’t receive an enormous dowry.
‘Now then, what will the Allegro royal family do?’
Erata has already publicly revealed the collusion between the royal family and the Marquis through the newspaper.…
‘What could it be?’
‘Now they’d have to grovel.’
‘Let them taste their own medicine.’
Sephiel smirked.
‘Besides, revenge isn’t my only reward.’
Sephiel wriggled under the bed and retrieved another hidden treasure—an ancient scripture.
‘Nobody knows what this is yet. But in reality, it’s a relic of the Elf Queen.’
The long-dead Elf Queen was a legendary figure, famous for creating exquisite handcrafted artifacts.
This relic had been safely kept as a wedding heirloom by Mitara’s family before being gifted to the Allegro royal family.
And now, it was in Sephiel’s hands.
The Elf Queen’s relic was an item that would have enormous value in the future.
‘If I just have this one thing, I’m rich!’
If she sells that, she will make a ton of money.
‘Even when I grow up, I won’t have to worry about starving!’
It was a treasure like a golden bowl that would keep her from starving even as an adult.
Sephiel kissed the scripture with a loud “Muaach.”
“Ywou are my number one tyeasure!”
Sephiel nodded in satisfaction at the utterly wicked way of thinking—secretly amassing slush funds.
‘I, who have become evil, will now carve out my own path!’
* * *
And sure enough, Sephiel’s intuition proved correct.
Now, the situation of the Allegro royal family has become, literally, very difficult.
It had been revealed that they had illegally mined magic stones in collusion with the Marquis of Haman, leaving them no choice but to take responsibility.
Having missed the opportunity to cut ties in time, they now had to retrieve Erata or bear the disgrace of abandoning a queen.
“The Allegro royal family sincerely apologizes for this incident.”
The Allegro royal family sent a formal apology along with envoys to plead for forgiveness.
“Please show mercy.”
“Mercy? Mercy, you say?”
Daihan scoffed.
“Did you lowly beings show any mercy to that little girl?”
Daihan picked up the letter and threw it away.
“Look.”
<The Grand Duke’s family has shown great generosity… We are grateful that our lacking daughter has been accepted.>
It was a letter from the Allegro royal family, reluctantly accepting the marriage proposal between Sephiel and Erga.
“It’s ridiculous that you still haven’t written the child’s name properly even at this point.”
Indeed, there wasn’t a single word of well-wishing for Sephiel’s happiness or health.
As if they were sending a mere ghost or a pet to the Grand Duke’s house.
“Write her a proper congratulatory letter.”
Daihan said in a cold voice.
“And I will only accept it if it is written by King Wittegar III himself.”
* * *
Sephiel lay on her stomach on a soft carpet, happily putting together a puzzle.
‘Games have been so much more fun lately!’
The reason Sephiel was so excited was none other than the realization of justice.
‘In the end, thanks to Erata confessing everything, I got the picture I wanted.’
Erata had not only confessed to the illegal mining of magic stones but had also detailed how, when, and on what scale it had been done over the past several years.
With such concrete information, Remdragon dispatched people to investigate the illegal mining sites.
Since Erata was held hostage, the Marquis of Haman, her family, couldn’t put up much resistance.
They readily admitted everything to the investigators sent by the Grand Duke.
In the end, the entire truth was exposed.
That incident was being reported in the newspapers one after another, so Sephiel found reading the news even more entertaining than fairy tales.
‘This is what makes the Kingdom Alliance interesting.’
Allegro, the only kingdom within the alliance, and there was no doubt that their influence was strong.
However, this was still a Kingdom Alliance. Even if they controlled their own press…
‘There are plenty of newspapers from other duchies willing to expose Allegro’s corruption! They’ve been illegally mining magic stones and selling them on the black market for seven whole years!’
In cases like that, trials often resulted in compensation orders up to ten times the damages.
‘Allegro will surely try to negotiate the amount down.’
But no matter how much they reduced it, there would be a limit.
‘And according to Elton, they’re planning to set the compensation at three times the estimated profits in damages!’
That ruling alone would require the Allegro royal family to pay an enormous amount of compensation.
“Yes, it’s an amount that would shake the couvntry. In other words, messing with wicked me was ywour woyst mistake!”
Sephiel hummed in delight.
* * *
The following week, a delegation from the Allegro royal family arrived to negotiate compensation.
Sephiel sat next to Daihan and welcomed the envoys.
<You’re involved in this matter, so you have the right to participate.>
It was thanks to Daihan who said that.
As soon as the vassals of the Allegro royal family met Daihan, the Allegro envoys bowed their heads and began pleading.
“Please show us your great generosity.”
“Please allow us to take Queen Erata back.”
Daihan sat on the throne of the King, three steps high, looking down at the group.
“Hmm…”
Resting his chin on his hand, he glanced at Sephiel.
At that time, Sephiel was sitting on a small chair beside him, nibbling on a cookie.
She was hugging a pink raccoon doll with one arm and holding a small bag of snacks in her hand.
‘Huh? These people…!’
Sephiel swallowed her bite of cookie in realization.
‘I know all of them!’
When Sephiel was born, her existence was top secret.
But later, when Sephiel grew up and came out into the world as an <adopted daughter sponsored by the royal family>.
At that time, rumors were secretly spreading among the high-ranking nobles that Sephiel was actually the king’s illegitimate child.
Royalty without protection is often the object of secret contempt and neglect.
Her siblings openly tormented her, so there was no reason for the nobles to treat her kindly either.
‘Yeah, you’re the one who talked to me in a sneaky way when no one was looking. You’re the one who blatantly ignored me. You’re the one who treated me like a maid.’
She had suffered so much mistreatment that she once thought it was normal. But seeing their faces now, all the little grudges came rushing back.
‘Looking down on them from here feels pretty nice!’
Sephiel thought calmly.
“Baby raccoon.”
“Huh….?”
‘Wait, am I just permanently a raccoon now?’
Sephiel thought.
“What should I do? Should I give them a grace period for repayment?”
“Yes… Duke, do whatever you want!”
Sephiel grinned. Daihan tapped her nose.
“You need etiquette lessons.”
Then, turning back to the envoys, Daihan asked:
“Well, then, where is King Witeger III’s personally written letter?”
“Here it is! His Majesty has written this letter himself. Please accept it.”
A bright color came over the face of one of the men. He brought the letter, bowing down.
‘That’s a letter my father wrote!’
But this time, the content was entirely different.
[This incident is regrettable. I bless Sephiel’s future and approve of her marriage.]
It was a letter with such content.
‘In a word, it’s completely insincere!’
Sephiel smiled with lips pursed, dimples forming in her chubby cheeks.
“Hmm. You said you can read, right?”
“Yep, and I’m even good at reavding ancyient languages.”
“Okay. How did you feel after reading the letter?”
Sephiel blinked.
‘How is it?’
‘Honestly, it felt both exhilarating and unsettling. ‘
If she had to sum up that feeling in one sentence…
“It’s too short….”
“Yeah.”
“It’s pathvetic.”
Sephiel cheerfully tossed the letter away like a clueless child.
“Really? If you say so, then it must be so. Insincere letters are no different from filth, right?”
“…..”
At Daihan’s words, the faces of the Allegro vassals turned red with anger.
However, as expected, Daihan didn’t even care to look at them properly and only glanced at Sephiel.
Roughly translated, their gaze seemed to say:
‘That arrogant seed of trouble… Traitor!’
* * *
