Turning-Chapter 822

"Do you work at the temple? Or are you a servant of someone inside?"

"I, I..."

The man faltered, bowing his head to avoid Mayra’s gaze. Looking again, she noticed his entire body was drenched in cold sweat. She didn’t know where he’d come from, but he looked as if he were about to collapse at any moment. Mayra furrowed her brows at his haggard appearance.

"If you're a servant, name your master. If you work at the temple, then—"

"N-no. I don’t. I’m...!"

The man shook his head and stumbled backward.

"I, I..."

In the brief moment their eyes met, Mayra caught a flash of fear and terror. She was struck by a strange sense of unease.

'What is this? He’s not just exhausted... he’s afraid of me?'

Mayra was perceptive. Even in urgent situations, she could distinguish whether someone was afraid of a stranger’s noble status or if they were afraid of her specifically.

It was common for ordinary people or hired help to cower before any noble. But fear directed at Mayra personally—now that felt odd.

'Have I seen him somewhere before?'

Narrowing her eyes, Mayra stared intently at the unfamiliar Southern youth’s face.

'He looks like someone I’m seeing for the first time...'

Come to think of it, it didn’t seem likely that any noble would bring a Southern servant dressed that plainly to Ashlav’s funeral. If so... could he be the Southern servant who murdered Ashlav? The one said to be linked to the merchant guild behind the scenes?

If that were the case, it would explain why he became frightened the moment he saw her.

Just as Mayra’s gaze grew sharper before the frozen young man—

"Damn it! Of all days, the Duke’s carriage wheels had to break today!"

"Go fetch a new one! Or at least get someone who can fix it!"

"Lady Yellen got into another fight with the other young ladies over the Second Prince again...!"

'What? My father's carriage broke down?'

As Mayra’s focus was interrupted by the nearby shouting, something ignited inside her, like a spark catching fire from a match. A strange sense of intuition struck her.

Her father, the Duke of Hern. Lady Yellen, Ashlav’s mother. The young noblewomen.

And this Southern youth, hunched over like he’d committed some kind of sin, standing right before her.

Sometimes, a person connects dots between things that seem unrelated. For Mayra, this was one of those moments.

'Yes... That expression. That kind of gaze... I’ve seen it before. Because of my father.'

From the day Mayra was born, the Duke of Hern had always been surrounded by women.

It was an improper image for the head of such a prestigious ducal house, but people excused it, saying it was due to the family’s tendency for short lifespans—he had no choice but to produce many heirs while he could.

But to Mayra, that was just an excuse. If the goal was to ensure heirs, he could’ve done so with his official wife. But her father had touched not only his wife, but also women of all ages and statuses.

The young women he had brought today weren’t only daughters of nobles, but also daughters of merchants, mages, knights—and even commoners. Ashlav’s mother, Lady Yellen, was from a fallen baron family in the southern region. She bore Ashlav before marriage, wed the Duke afterward, and divorced before her son turned one.

Still, Ashlav, at least, was lucky enough to be acknowledged as a legitimate heir. The Duke had countless other illegitimate children who weren’t even recognized as his blood. One had to wonder whether the Duke himself even knew the total number.

Some of those illegitimate children were at least acknowledged enough to be provided for. But those who didn’t inherit any of the House of Hern’s traits lived in obscurity, unaware of who their father even was.

Whenever problems involving those illegitimate children threatened to affect the family, it was the legitimate heirs—including Mayra—who were sent to clean up. They couldn’t trust outsiders with such delicate issues when the half-siblings could become either competitors or stains on the family’s reputation.

Unlike her elder brothers, who were still alive at the time and never once expressed sympathy for the illegitimate children, Mayra always felt a chill deep in her heart whenever she saw one. Their circumstances didn’t seem so different from her own.

When Emperor Keillusa had still been the Crown Prince, the Duke of Hern had no eligible daughters of appropriate age and appearance to be presented as candidates for Crown Princess. So he temporarily adopted a distant relative’s daughter. Mayra, despite being born a legitimate daughter, was made to feel unwelcome because she didn’t benefit the family.

She couldn’t control when she was born—yet she was treated that way.

That was when she understood: to the Duke of Hern, legitimate children, illegitimate ones, even a rare-born legitimate daughter like her—they were all no different from objects.

To see a person’s entire life upended and reshaped on a whim, based solely on whether or not he acknowledged them—that was terrifying. That was why Mayra had quietly tried to watch over the illegitimate children she encountered, to ensure they didn’t suffer unfair treatment.

But among all those children, there was one exception—an illegitimate child who, despite lacking any /N_o_v_e_l_i_g_h_t/ of the House of Hern’s trademark traits, was still provided with a servant and means to live.

Because the Duke had hidden this child through another noble house, Mayra only found out about him much later.

She hadn’t uncovered much about the child. Only that he was a boy—likely older than her.

He had been raised somewhere out of sight, never allowed to go out, but there were traces of tutors and even a servant arranged for him.

Mayra thought it strange that this illegitimate child was treated so differently and investigated. Eventually, she found a clue.

The child was of mixed blood—with someone from the Southern Nation.

This translation is the intellectual property of Novelight.

Back in his younger days, the Duke had briefly been involved in trade with the Southern Nation. During that time, he often traveled with a Southern woman who, by all accounts, held a high status there.

Though information was hard to come by after so many years, rumors had certainly circulated that she was pregnant with the Duke’s child. Not long after, the Duke abruptly ended all trade with the Southern Nation.

For a noble house like the Herns—esteemed, powerful, and the protectors of the southern regions of the Empire—having a child with a Southern woman would be a scandal that could shake the entire Empire. The fact that the child wasn’t killed at birth was a miracle.

Mayra decided she had to confirm the child’s whereabouts and visited the noble who was believed to have taken him in. The man had been flustered by her visit, but once he heard what she had learned, he let out a weary sigh.

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'Little Princess... what does it matter now?'

'What did you say?'

'That boy doesn’t even know who he is. Officially, he was raised at my estate. If anything were to be discovered, people would assume he’s my illegitimate son. He probably thinks so too. And just in case, we’ve made it so that he literally cannot say anything about the House of Hern. No one will ever suspect the truth.'

'But wouldn’t it be better to send him back to the Southern Nation instead of locking him away like this? What is Father even thinking?'

'Who knows? How could I presume to understand his intentions? Maybe, once the boy’s grown, he’ll try to use him as a bridge to the Southern Nation again. And if not... then that’s that.'

What kind of reasoning was that? Hiding a child away and raising him like a secret pet, just because he might be useful someday? Even if the goal was to hide a scandal, it was too cruel. Mayra already knew her father treated people like objects—but this suffocated her all over again.

'This isn’t right. Just send him back to the Southern Nation. If he doesn’t even know he’s of our blood, that would be better for him.'

She had insisted, but the noble dismissed her, saying it would only bring trouble for everyone and sent her away.

As she was being turned out, she saw a thin Southern boy entering through the gate.

At first, she was startled by his reddish skin, thinking he might be the child. But no—he was clearly a servant.

‘Could he be the illegitimate son’s servant?’

If they went so far as to assign a Southern servant, maybe so.

‘You.’

She called out to him, but the boy jumped as if startled out of his skin the moment their eyes met. Muttering something in an unintelligible Southern tongue, he turned and ran.

‘Hrk!’

Mayra returned home, deeply shaken by the way the boy had looked at her—as if she were a monster. She intended to follow up another time, but never got the chance.

A few days later, that noble’s entire family vanished without a trace.

After that, Mayra never found a clue about the child again—nor anything more about her father’s past.

The Duke went on living as he always had. One by one, Mayra’s few legitimate brothers died young without clear cause. And as their numbers dwindled, the weight on Mayra’s shoulders only grew. There was too much to be done. Gradually, she forgot that day.

But the moment she saw the Southern youth now standing in front of her, those buried memories and emotions surged back.

The thin, timid Southern servant from her memories overlapped slowly with the young man before her.

"You..."

Just as Mayra opened her mouth with a hardened expression—

A loud explosion erupted behind her. It was as loud as when the entire stained glass of the sanctuary had shattered, and people screamed again.

"Ah!"

Startled, Mayra staggered, and the Southern youth also snapped back to awareness, recoiling. A moment later, he began stumbling toward the inner part of the temple.

No—he looked like he was running, but then he vanished before her eyes.

"Wait...! Stop right there!"

"First Princess! Are you alright?"

The one who caught her and supported her was General Gino.