Chapter 44
I prayed with all my heart.
“you’ve made a rumor about crossbow chimpanzee, and you’ve brought in a slave boy who don’t know his origin of, and you’ve already lost your reputation...”
It was always the back of prudence and disregard.
“I don’t know how long you’re going to make a chisel in this mansion.”
Someone’s face overlapped with Leonard’s face, which he scoffed at by twisting the corners of his mouth.
-Why do I have to come all the way here and see the beggar walking around?
An auditory voice rang out in my ears. I’ve never said I didn’t want to see anything like that. I’m afraid I’ll be kicked out.
“...a substitute?”
But why did it make me think of what happened earlier that I managed to calm down?
“Have you ever treated me as a substitute?”
My mouth chattered on its own, as if “The Crossbow Shooting Chimpanzee” had become my switch. Leonard, who didn’t even listen, growled straight at my question.
“Then you don’t even know the root of it. I picked you up and made you a princess. How much better do I have to treat you? Or should I treat you like a queen?”
“Yes. Be nice to me at least once.”
“......what?”
“You know what? If I feel good, I’ll give you a copy of your missing sister.”
I clenched my teeth, sarcastic, and laughed with a messy face. On the other hand, the sarcastic corners of Leonard’s mouth slowly went down.
I felt the temperature in the room getting colder every minute. If it was just such a quarrel a little while ago, the present-day Leonard was ferocious enough to tear me apart and kill me right away.
“Hey...”
He called me in a subdued voice. And...
‘Favorability -2%’
Something that I was worried about happened.
“Be careful of what you say, don’t be so rude. How dare you.”
“Why? Because we’re on this on topic, just better to speak up.”
“You.”
“You think you’re the only one who hates me, right?”
Twelve-year-old Penelope was pictured in front of my eyes. I knew I couldn’t do this anymore, but I couldn’t stop myself.
“So am I. If I had known I’d starve with a great Duke, I should never have come no matter how much you asked me to come with you.”
“Penelope Eckart,”
“How did I seduce him? It’s nothing, just like you said to me, it’s just a bunch of crap.”
“Stop right there”
Leonard warned grimly.
‘Favorability-1%’
The favorability has fallen again.
He looked angry but inwardly embarrassed. It’s always been their privilege to look scornfully at and sarcasm.
Penelope would be surprised to see him like this, because when he got angry, he rushed in with a groan. Perhaps I was surprised by the sudden change in my apology for not going against my feelings as much as I could.
Either way, I felt sick and tired of it.
“I’ve been starving for days and days without my mother’s funeral because I don’t have any money, and one day your father called me a daughter and said to go with him.”
“.........”
“Have you ever tried the rainwater falling next to a decaying corpse?”
The 12-year-old Penelope, painted before my eyes, gradually turned into a 14-year-old myself.
“What about the leftovers of someone’s? Have you ever mixed up what you put together to buy food that tastes like trash? You’ve never had one, have you?”
“............you”
“Why did I wish your sister would never come back?”
‘Favorability-1%’
[Favorite 4%]
Leonard’s favorability dropped in an instantaneously. If I didn’t want to die, I had to shut up immediately and at least boil his knees.
“I’m afraid I’ll go back to that time.”
But instead of praying that I was wrong, I chose to reveal the fear and desperation that I hid desperately.
Because Penelope would have done that at that time, and I would have prayed to God that the real princess wouldn’t come back.
“I’m afraid I’m going to go back to my life, looking on the streets all day, begging someone to drop some food.”
“...Penelope.”
“Say it, I’m listening.”
Leonard called me in a stifling voice. My still cry is over. I faced him, breathing heavily.
The fear that favorability would fall and die has disappeared.
Even if I die right away, I won’t regret it. For Penelope, who grew up in lost anger and disgust. And...
“I’m.....”
It was just a moment of silence and quietly waiting for the end to come. His head flashed like a flash.
[7% likability]
“I, uh, thought you were–‘
Leonard was speechless with a stiff, frozen face. He deserved it. It’s a story of those low-down lives that he’s never heard of before.
After a long pause, he managed to broach a word.
“... ...I didn’t know you had such a hard time.”
In an instant, things turned around. I felt indescribable when I saw Leonard puzzled, who had no idea what to do, just like me who was sweating and choosing what to say.
“You must haven’t know”
“...... Penelope.”
“You think that I, you’ve always thought I was, in fact, so clever that I twisted the Duke of Eckart and took your sister’s place.”
“That’s...”
“If so, I hope you know now.”
I stared at him with cold eyes and I felt a prick of my brain
“When you accused me of being a necklace thief, I was a 12-year-old commoner who couldn’t even write properly.”
Leonard’s mouth, which was opened to answer something, was as sweet as a lie. I could see the blue pupil slowly being colored by shock, but none of it was refreshing.
It was then.
Piyu Woo Yong-Pyong!
Beyond Leonard’s back, a loud roar rang through the sky out of the open window. During the meaningless war of attrition with him, dark darkness lay outside, even with the sunset.
Piyu Wu, Phuong-Pyong!
Fireworks have begun. Leaving behind the beautiful sight of colorful fireworks embroidered in the black sky, we both looked at each other silently.
Every time the firecracker exploded, the colorful shadow of light shone on Leonard’s face and repeated that it would disappear.
Maybe that’s why. His expression staring at me, I thought, seemed a little bit nervous. At that moment, the top of the pink hair glistened once again.
[14% likability]
The favorability has risen sharply. It was almost at the same time that a white window appeared before my eyes.
<SYSTEM> [Festival View] Quest success with [Leonard]!
<SYSTEM> Would you like to receive a reward for quest?
[Yes. / No.]
‘...ha.’
I smiled disheartened at the quest window, which suddenly appeared in a situation that should not have appeared.
‘Whether or not the favorability is broken, will you succeed if you meet the requirements of the quest?’
But in the end, [Yes] .This situation, which had to press ‘Yes’ , made me shudder.
<SYSTEM> reward [Favorite +3%] and [Crosboww] of [Leonard] for has received
Looking at the sensitivity of rising straight away, I felt the steam ahead just subsided like a dying embers.
Poof! Piyu, Phuong-!
Unlike me, a brilliant fireworks display was still in full swing outside the window.
” Even if I get kicked out of this house, I’m just going back to being a poor commoner. It’s weird.”
I muttered to myself through the loud firecrackers.
“You always make me miserable, like a beggar worse than a slave.”
Leonard’s wobbly face was completely distorted by my voice. Perhaps, it was from this point on. What I began to imagine after I left the Dukedom.
I looked at him for a moment with my burning eyes like ashes and turned around.
“Penelope!”
Leonard called me and tried to catch me with an urgent gesture. But I left the attic without even pretending to look back.
Coming down the dark stone steps alone, I alternated with Leonard’s likes and impulsively non-talking conversation.
[Favorite 17%]
It was a really generous result for a person determined to die. Of course, the past of Penelope I poured out was all a great lie.
‘I don’t know her past that didn’t even come out of the game.”
He said he ate rainwater next to the dead body, and that he ate leftovers and leftovers. All those nasty, nasty stories, ‘He must have been like this. It’s just an assumption I want to make.’
......not my story.
******
Other rewards earned by completing the “Leonard and the Festival” quest were paid shortly after that.