Chapter 101
What tormented her more than the guilt of ruining a scholar’s household, or the burden of being a genius, was the loneliness of no longer having family by her side.
No siblings, no parents.
Her relatives only cared about the family fortune, so the only people Miliona could trust were the servants.
And a man named Rotos preyed on that loneliness.
They say every person has at least one talent.
Rotos’s talent was dealing with women like Miliona.
He whispered the words Miliona longed to hear.
“Don’t listen to them, they’re all just jealous of you.”
“I’m the only one who understands you. That invention you mentioned the other day—show it to me.”
“What if we had a child? A child who looks like you would be adorable. You need family, don’t you?”
When he was beside her, all the noise seemed to vanish.
Rotos, disregarding propriety, always took her side.
It didn’t take long for Miliona to fall for him.
She brushed aside rumors of his womanizing or talk of other women jealous of her.
Love could fix everything.
It was a line straight out of some cheap romance novel, and yet the genius inventor believed it.
She thought: If it’s Rotos, who understands my pain, who eases my loneliness, then he will surely make me happy…
That baseless conviction was shattered the moment she gave birth to Mabel.
“His true colors were revealed.”
Rotos never wanted Miliona as a wife.
What he wanted was to marry into the wealthy Metokan family.
A bottomless wallet to spend from, no elders to interfere—Metokan was the perfect place for him.
And Mabel, in his eyes, was a convenient prop.
Proof that he was a family man, and someone who could divert Miliona’s obsessive attention away from him.
“Rotos, I heard rumors… tell me it isn’t true, that you’re seeing Lady Tenens—”
“How could you believe that? Nonsense. I only have you and Mabel.”
His words sounded slick, but the rumors snowballed.
By the time high society had branded Rotos a wastrel and Miliona an incompetent wife who couldn’t control her husband, Miliona made her decision.
From her perspective, it was rational—indeed, the best choice she could make as head of house.
“I stripped him of his rights. I barred him from accessing the family wealth, and forbade him from attending social gatherings. In his words, I… imprisoned him.”
It was the only natural course. Love could no longer excuse Rotos’s excesses.
And so Rotos began showing his true face.
“Why are you so selfish? I’m part of the Metokan family too!”
“You won’t give me financial rights? Do you see me as some puppet?”
“Forgive me, your uneducated husband who can’t keep up with your lofty conversations.”
At first it was mockery and insults. But day by day, their conflict grew worse.
His rage spilled onto Mabel, and he even began invading the workshop, disrupting her work, raising his hand against her.
Servants, unable to endure his violent outbursts, resigned one after another.
She had to end it. But by the time she resolved to separate, things had already spiraled out of control.
Divorce meant erasing his name from the nobility registry. Miliona knew how difficult and painful that was.
She could neither return to the past nor dream of the future. In that hopeless daily life… Mabel brought her first invention.
“She had a wound on her cheek.”
“…”
“She must have seen the fight between me and that man the night before. I’d drunk too much and gone to bed early, and she showed him her invention first, asking, ‘Can I be an inventor like Mother?’ And that man… he struck her.”
Rotos had slapped Mabel. The ring on his finger cut her cheek.
The reason was simple.
“You too? You’re going to look down on me, like your mother?”
Kalsemos applied ointment, but even the next morning, blood still welled from the small wound on her delicate skin.
Yet despite being rejected by her father, Mabel proudly presented the invention to Miliona.
“Mother, I can make things too.”
It was a mechanical device so well made that even Miliona was astonished.
Seeing it, Miliona felt darkness close in around her.
“Ah… this child is like me.”
Mabel was a genius. Sharp, inventive—worthy of becoming an heir.
And Miliona instinctively knew: fate would repeat itself.
Her daughter too would be exploited.
Predators would surely come to seize this talent. Why—why had this gift been passed down to her daughter?
In the end, Miliona could not praise Mabel’s first invention.
Once Rotos realized Mabel had talent, he openly mocked mother and daughter.
He sneered that she didn’t resemble him at all, even accusing Miliona of bearing another man’s child.
“Mabel? What’s wrong?”
It was then Miliona noticed: Mabel trembled every time she stood before Rotos.
His violence had left a lasting trauma.
At that moment, whatever feelings she had left for Rotos evaporated.
“From now on, our family is just the two of us. Forget that man.”
She told Mabel to erase her father, then expelled Rotos.
Somehow, she managed to process the divorce papers.
The newly crowned emperor, intrigued by her inventions, accepted her secret weapons designs in exchange for authorizing the registry change.
The evidence Miliona had carefully gathered over time also helped.
To the world it seemed Rotos had simply left the family, but in truth, it was an exile.
“It doesn’t matter anymore. Mabel is my only family.”
So she had to protect Mabel.
With that conviction, Miliona took away Mabel’s inventions.
“I can’t let you understand.”
She tore down everything her daughter created, mocked the knowledge she sought.
“Make friends instead.”
She pretended to be a warm mother.
“Half-hearted failures are worthless.”
She sharpened the words “Don’t fail like I did” into harsh admonitions.
“I had no choice. That child is like me.”
Seated, Miliona clutched her head, hair tumbling loose.
“No matter how hard you try to put the lid on, talent always bursts forth and shines. That’s the nature of it. Just as I once defied my brother and father, staying up nights to craft those detestable weapon parts.”
And that talent would only rob her of happiness.
“Hmm… divorce, is it? Unless Baroness herself has committed some offense…”
“Do you know? When I brought the divorce papers, it was me who had to provide more proof. He was the adulterer, I was the head of house, yet I was the one who had to prove my innocence. It didn’t matter how wealthy I was, how much knowledge I possessed—none of it mattered.”
“…”
“After that, the rumors spread. The wife abandoned by her husband. The witch blinded by gold. And other scandals too vile to repeat.”
That was when Miliona began drinking.
Whenever she sat still, memories of Rotos resurfaced.
She regretted her foolishness, bled from his insults, and day by day, her spirit rotted.
“But I couldn’t help it. Without drinking, the voices wouldn’t stop. And I couldn’t just leave Mabel be. If her talent came to light, she would inevitably be made the heir.”
No—that had to end with her. The empty obsession of House Metokan would stop with her.
“A woman’s joy is to become a mother. So what if you became some scholar—”
“They were right. It’s better to live an ordinary, happy life. Then you don’t have to worry, don’t have to fear being used. You can trust friends and lovers as they are. You don’t need to be clever. In fact, you mustn’t be. That way, living in this world is just a little more…”
Bearable.
That was what Miliona believed.
Sometimes being duller, weaker, was the easier path.
“So, Mabel—just Mabel—”
“…na.”
“I don’t care if she resents me. I just can’t let her get hurt again. That’s not what I want to leave her with.”
“Miliona.”
“Someone better than me, better than this crushing responsibility, someone who can truly make her happy—”
“Miliona!”
Through her blurred vision, Miliona saw Wilhelmina burst in.
Lowering her head, muttering, Miliona realized she had been speaking aloud.
At some point, she had stopped hearing Wilhelmina’s voice.
Before her now was Wilhelmina, kneeling and looking up at her, gripping her shoulders, calling her name.
“Look at me, Miliona.”
“L-Lady…”
“It’s alright. No one is blaming you. It’s just the two of us here.”
So close she could feel her breath, Wilhelmina spoke gently.
“Those voices are hallucinations. Focus on me.”
There was something strange, powerful, in her words.
The haziness in her mind, the tormenting echoes of the past—vanished all at once.
It was as if someone had opened a window in a dusty room, and a refreshing breeze swept through.
Wilhelmina lowered her hands from Miliona’s shoulders and clasped her thin, frail hands tightly.
“I didn’t come to accuse you. You don’t need to confess to me.”
“But…”
“Because you are not a sinner.”
“…”
“Baroness, Mabel still loves you. She’s trying harder than anyone—even me, an outsider—to understand you. So… don’t blame yourself. That man who tormented you and Mabel is gone.”
Tears, dried up by years of drink, welled and streamed down her cheeks.
Her head drooped, but Wilhelmina caught it against her own shoulder.
“You protected your family.”
“Ugh…”
Wilhelmina embraced her.
Unlike Rotos, there was no calculation in this tender hug.
And in that warmth, Miliona sobbed, choking with grief.
