After death 3

Chapter 3

***

"Who's coming?"

"Master. So you'd better get up and get ready or I'll get in trouble again."

Riley grumbled and looked at Lynette.

Her freckled face, her habit of wrinkling her nose whenever she finished a sentence. Clearly, it was Riley.

Lynette stood up and took off like a bullet for the mirror.

"You don't have to get up that early."

Riley added in a flustered tone, but once she saw her reflection in the mirror, Lynette couldn't say anything.

"..."

In the mirror, she saw a girl with fair skin and a pale face.

But most surprising of all.

"She has eyes."

Her right eye, the one that her hair always covered, was intact.

"It's my face."

Lynette groped for her face with her hands.

Then she looked down at her tiny hands, and then all over her body.

Her burned and melted toes, her bound and broken wrists, all intact.

"....ah."

Lynette stroked her stomach with her vacant eyes.

Just as the pain was gone, so was her baby.

As if it had never existed.

Lynette curled her small fists and swallowed her tears.

"Miss, are you all right?"

Riley approached her cautiously, concern in her voice.

But Lynette couldn't give her any answers.

If it was a dream, she didn't want to wake up, and if it wasn't a dream.......

What if it wasn't a dream?

"Riley."

Still facing her in the mirror, Lynette called for the maid.

"Yes."

"My father is coming today?"

"Yes, it's his first visit in three months."

"Three months?"

Lynette's father, Hyperion, was often away from the mansion because of his mining business.

There were only a handful of days in the year when she saw him.

But one day, his trips to the mine became fewer and farther between, and her grandfather began to take over everything.

In hindsight, that point was right when…

‘Kanna.’

It was after Kanna came to the mansion.

Lynette pressed calmly against her throbbing chest and asked the maid.

"What about my mother?"

"Madame is downstairs."

Lynette turned around slowly.

Then she fell into Riley's arms.

"Thank you, Riley."

"Oh, lady."

Riley looked dumbfounded for a moment, then pulled Lynette into a hug.

"Miss, I appreciate that, but you still have to wash your face, and you can't just run off halfway through because it’s annoying, do you understand?"

"Yes, I will. I'll do it ten times and a hundred times."

"...... You don't have to do that."

Riley's warmth made everything clear.

No dream, no illusion. She was back to the way she was before she died, Lynette realized.

Back to when she was twelve, back to the day Kanna first came to the mansion.

Her father, Hyperion Diklahilt, was a man rarely moved by emotion.

He could listen to great music and look at beautiful artwork with no pleasure.

His wife, Lilyburn, in particular, failed to inspire him.

It wasn't that he wasn't interested in women, it was just that she wasn't the one. They had a loveless marriage, but they had two children. Lynette, now twelve, and Laten, seven.

They were good, loving children, but he didn't miss them much when he was away at the mine. He wasn't an affectionate father, but he still obligingly bought them gifts on his return to the manor. Except for the day he first brought Kanna to the mansion.

"Let's get her cleaned up."

It was the moment Hyperion handed the child he'd brought back from the mine to the butler like a piece of luggage. He heard the sound of footsteps, and his little girl came rushing down the stairs.

"Father!"

Lynette threw her arms around Hyperion.

He looked rather tired, but he held her tightly.

"Lily."

Lynette slowly turned her head away from her father's embrace. She hadn't had the best relationship with her father in life, but to be reunited with the man she'd lost was a thrill. But first, there was something that stirred her.

‘Kanna.’

It was Kanna, standing off to the side of the butler.

An old, dirty dress, hair tied up in a haphazard fashion. She looked just as Lynette remembered. Her large, beautiful eyes looked both curious and frightened at the prospect of a new environment.

She wondered when she'd had such frightening thoughts, now she just looked like a scared little girl, but she knew it didn't matter anymore. Lynette looked up at Hyperion, her large eyes closing and opening.

"Father, what gift have you brought me today?"

Hyperion paused for a moment, and Lynette smiled lovingly.

"Ah, I see."

Lynette stretched out her finger and pointed at Kanna.

"That's the one, isn't it? You bought me a maid."

***

On the way downstairs, Lynette had a million thoughts.

The first thing that came to mind was what it would have been like if Kanna had been a maid from the beginning.

Wouldn't it be easier to get rid of her if she was less than a daughter?

‘No, she'd find another way to use her status as a maid.’

Kanna was sixteen, the age of a flower bud.

Maybe.

In retrospect, Kanna had always been close to her father. Especially after Lynette’s mother's death.

There were several opportunities for her stepmother to move in, arranged by relatives, but Kanna thwarted them each time.

Amelda was especially kind and beautiful. In her young mind, Lynette wished she could be her mother.

In front of Amelda, Kanna would put on a gentle face and ask her to be her mother, but whenever she was alone with Lynette, she would.......

<If that woman joins the family, we'll be sent away to a boarding school in the middle of winter, where we'll wear nothing but rags>.

<No, Kanna. I don't want to go to boarding school.>

Young Lynette took Kanna's words to heart, and disrupted every time a new woman came into the house.

Increasingly, Kanna behaved like a hostess of the mansion. Until the Marquis Romie came to her with a proposal of marriage.

Again, Kanna stepped forward.

<Lily, I don't want you to be hurt by a man.>

<Do you know why the Marquis wants to marry into our family?

<...>

<Kanna, I am.......>

<...>

<Lily, I've always been indebted to your family, and I think it's time I repaid you?>

<Kanna, don't think like that.>

Lynette complied with Kanna's wishes.

But their father, Hyperion, was furious and objected.

It was only after his death and her resurrection that Lynette realized he was a speculative man.

For the second time in her life, the blurred past began to come into sharp focus.

‘My father and Kanna had an inappropriate relationship.’

In the end, Kanna killed Hyperion in a fake suicide, and then left a false will granting her permission to marry Marquis Romie.

After reliving the past, Lynette made up her mind.

‘It's more dangerous to keep her as a maid, and if she's carrying his child….’

Kanna was even bolder than she had been as a daughter.

But she didn't want to let her become one.

Taking the stairs one by one, Lynette calmed down a bit.

When she reached the first floor and faced Hyperion and Kanna, she realized what she had to do now.

The devil must be sent back to Hell.

By any means necessary.

"That's it, isn't it, you've bought my maid."

Kanna glanced up and looked at Lynette.

The moment their eyes met, Kanna flashed a light smile, but Lynette didn't smile back.

Hyperion stroked her younger daughter's hair and spoke.

"Is the maid not to your liking, by any chance?"

Lynette smiled brightly and shook her head.

"No."

"Then was there something you wanted?"

"I was just waiting for my father to come home."

Truth be told, Lynette was disgusted with Hyperion. But the more she hated him, the harder she hugged him.

"You're a good child."

"Father."

Lynette slightly pulled away from her father's embrace and made a sweet face.

"While you were away, something unfortunate happened in the village."

***

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