I look out the window and look below to see the servants moving some bags into a carriage. I race downstairs and arrive there.
I'm always surprised how I'm not out of breath from running so much. Maybe I was just old in my past life, but I'm a lot more limber than I was in my past life.
I look around and see the duchess, chatting with her close maid servant, so I walk up to her all proper-like.
"Duchess, where could you be going?"
Surprised at first, her eyes soon turned gentle and she kindly answered.
"Every 3 months, I go back to visit my family for a few days. My father, your grandfather, is getting more sickly these days, you see."
She pats my head like you would with any kid. It honestly makes me feel warm inside, I swear the duchess is like a small sun that warms everyone around her. Too bad my face is permanently emotionless, so I kind of stay silent as I'm patted on the head...
"Oh yes. Virgil, shouldn't you be in a lesson right now? You shouldn't skip classes even if they're hard. They're for your future!"
She chastised me as you would with any child. Not too strict that you would scare a kid, more like she was trying to teach me what was right and what was wrong and guide me along. I can see why she's beloved by almost everybody she meets.
"Teacher left early to do something..."
"Oh my. It isn't like Valencia to do this. I wonder what happened. I'm sorry for jumping to conclusions, Virgil."
She actually looked conflicted and slightly embarrassed about what she said before. I'm starting to feel guilty myself even though I did nothing wrong. Uwah. Let's just get to the point before I feel bad, I say to myself in my head, almost half-jokingly.
"Actually, could I accompany you on your visit?"
Again, surprised, the duchess was taken aback at first, but then went back to her usual gentle demeanor and expression.
"Of course."
MISSION SUCCESS! I REPEAT! MISSION SUCCESS!
I'm celebrating in my head despite keeping a straight face. The duchess goes over to talk to some servants about arranging me to go on the outing too. I don't really have anything to do, so I just look around and observe the people around me.
The servants are packing some luggage on to the carriage. The duchess is only staying for a few days, so they don't have to pack much. However, it's customary to usually bring presents when you visit someone. That's the majority of what's being packed. The duchess must really love her family.
As I was observing everything around me, I happen to see a little girl stare out the window of the second floor. It's Violet. She seems to be glaring at me... Uwah. If looks could kill. As you would expect from a future villainess.
In the original story, the villainess hated her older stepbrother Virgil. When he was brought into the household, she felt as if he was stealing her parent's attention. When her mother died, she thought it was his fault because her mother died shortly after the appearance of him, like he was a bad luck charm. She grew to hate him and as there was nobody to teach her from right or wrong, with her father drowning himself in work after her mother's death, she started to become more unruly. She became more bratty and spoiled and bullied the servants and her brother.
She was also mad at the heroine in Virgil's route because she didn't want Virgil to be happy and didn't want the heroine to marry into the Deianira family, thinking her "commoner blood" would "taint" the Deianira family's prestige.
Although I could say that she's a b— actually lets not say that about a girl who's a little kid right now. I have some standards here. Although I think her behavior and thought process is stupid, what would you expect from a child. This time is important for the development of a child's personality, and that level of stress that was put on her as a child, with no support from an adult figure, would probably affect a child negatively. I can't really blame her if I think about it. Not to mention, she was always spoiled as a child because of her loving parents, nobody was there to be strict with her about proper behavior.
Anyway, if we follow with how the story is playing out, she must be at the stage where she believes I'm taking her parent's attention.
Although that's impossible, kids often forget the fact about how sharing works. It's something you learn by the time you grow older, and she should've probably learned about it by now, the fact that she's the spoiled duke's daughter probably robbed her the knowledge of that concept. I guess my mission this time around is to not only prevent the duchess's death, but also to teach our fledgling villainess something she should've been taught ages ago.
As I'm thinking about how to go about doing these two goals, Violet had already walked downstairs and approached me. She looked at me for a second, with her villainess eyes that looked naturally mischievous. She then ran up to her mother and talked to her about something that I couldn't really hear from where I was standing. She looked angry for second and threw a tantrum for a few seconds before what looks like the duchess conceding to her demands.
I've got a bad feeling about this...
She comes back to face me with a triumphant look.
Thank god I can't move my face, cause I probably would've burst out laughing right now. What's up with this kid! She's like a toddler! Pfft. I roll around laughing in my head. Even if my face muscles are dead, I can still laugh kind of, just not smiling while doing it, and I want to avoid doing that, so I shut my mouth, but you can still kind of see me trembling to stop myself from laughing out loud.
I can kind of guess what happened. She probably saw me talk to the duchess and got jealous, so she went to talk to her too. She learned I was going with her on the trip so she threw a tantrum until the duchess let her come too. Thinking she's won, she came to rub it in my face. I can't. This is too funny and childish. Is this seriously the villainess from Rose's Court? The one that made convoluted plans just to see the heroine in harm's way, embarrassed, or persecuted?
My suspicions of what happened are confirmed when the duchess walks over to explain what was happening.
After we finish packing, we all get into the carriage, and thus begins the carriage ride to the duchess's family home.
I sat next to violet and we sat parallel to the duchess, who looked at us with a happy expression. I have an idea of what she's thinking. Any mother would be happy to see her kids sitting next to each other, almost picture perfect in a way.
Violet and me are technically cousins, but we have many similar traits. We have the same hair color and our eyes shine like jewels, something that's actually hereditary to the Deianira family. I have two moles under my left eye in a vertical fashion. Similarly, violet has one slightly right and below her lips. Dressed in black and purple clothes that match well with our hair and eyes, we look like picture perfect siblings.
The journey is honestly kind of awkward because I don't talk much and violet refuses to acknowledge my existence, while the duchess is trying to mediate everything. I'm honestly starting to feel bad for the duchess, she brings up conversation topics, but nobody picks it up. She's throwing high speed fast balls but the batter is just taking a break by the water cooler. It's amazing she's still sitting upright when she's practically carrying this conversation by herself.
Before I could help her relieve the awkward tension in the air, our carriage came to a sudden stop—WHAT THE!!
I hear some light yelps of surprise from the two others in the carriage as the shaking settled down.
It was a really abrupt stop, it's no wonder they, and even I, was surprised.
As the two settled themselves, I got up to get off the carriage to see what happened. There's no way this was just a coincidence when this trip was most likely how the duchess was killed.
As I stepped off the carriage, I looked around. One of the wheels was broken, causing the ride to tilt. There was also another wagon that was tipped over on the road. The servants seemed be alarmed as well and they hurried to see if anyone was hurt in what seemingly looked like a collision.
The road was pretty narrow so only one carriage or cart could fit on it at a time, but it's not a road used often so they've never had this type of problem before, is what I overheard from some servants talking to another about the situation. Luckily, the other person was safe despite their own cart being tipped over.
They seemed pretty panicked and apologized for the the broken wheel profusely. Maybe it's the pressure that it was a noble's carriage and they're a commoner, but he was extremely nervous and looked scared.
The head servant assured them it was alright and that they would pay for compensation of his cart, as it had taken the most damage. The man was super thankful and ran off without even taking the compensation. Either he's just that scared of nobles, or he's just a strange guy.
There's still this feeling that something doesn't seem right about this encounter, but I can't really think of how this could affect the duchess. It's not like he's just gonna come back and stab her or something.
The servants start on fixing the wheel as they take a small break. The duchess and Violet got off so they could fix it. I shouldn't have to worry too much as the servants are with them right now. I wander around randomly, looking at my surroundings and checking things out, but not wandering too far where nobody can see me or I can't see them.
As I'm resting, I heard some mumbling coming from the servant fixing the wheel. I decided this would be a good time to practice some magic I was taught, since I had nothing better to do anyways.
The Deianera family is a ducal family that's heritage roots back to the founding of the empire. Not only was there a deep foundation behind the family, the family had a power that other noble families didn't have.
Shadow magic.
Many noble families are known for some type of specialty magic. Often, the heir to a family possessed the family's specialty magic, even if they were younger than the eldest son.
The Deianera's family magic is known to be extremely powerful and versatile. Virgil has a setting where he was a genius at magic from a young age, and extremely skilled at magic control. He was first found because they found him in possession with shadow magic and showed talent as soon as he started taking lessons.
Luckily, his talent from the game transferred over, even if I was the one in his body.
I don't know why, but when I was taught the basics of how to use magic, it came naturally for me. It was strange because I had lived my 20 years of life with complete absence of anything magical near me. Even so, I could feel the mana in the air just from breathing, and I could feel my own mana in my body and move it around like it was a third arm.
The feeling of mana is warm and comfortable and I enjoy being comforted by it.
I decide to try out real world application of magic, I shouldn't get in trouble, if was caught, if I just say it's just extra studying, right?
I feel the mana in my body, that's constantly in movement inside, circulating to every joint inside me, and I direct it to the tips of my fingers. I'm sitting down and I imbue my own mana to my own shadow. Soon, my shadow was in my own control, despite me not moving an inch.
I shoot my own shadow into a thin thread to a random servant's shadow.
As I let my shadow reside in his, I can hear what's he's talking about and somewhat of what he's feeling. It's strange.
My teacher said that this technique is used mostly to gather information, and I see how it would be used this way.
Anyways, I move the shadow around, getting the thin thread, connected to my own shadow, even thinner and more precise in moving around. Most of the servants are being idle and some are gossiping about nothing really important.
I decide to see what the servant fixing the wheel is up to and direct my shadow towards him. He's been mumbling something under his breath for awhile, so why not.
As I inhabited his shadow, to my surprise, he was mumbling the "strangest" things.
"Wheel... break... turn the... break... crack it crack. Ditch ahead.... heh heh. 7 silver... heheh..."
Well then, fuck me gently with a chainsaw. What in the fuck.
How could I be this dumb, when it was so obvious.
Actually...
More like, who decided to hire this idiot, who's just announcing his plans under his breath.
Well, at least I know how the "accident" happened, and the duke was right about the fact someone planned to kill the duchess.
Seriously though, messing with a carriages wheel? That guy with the wagon must've been apart of it then, and our coachman must also be apart of it, since they'll have to drive into said ditch, so the wheel will give way and probably topple the carriage over to who knows where. There's at least 3 people involved in this, maybe more.
This just got a lot more troublesome...
But first, I gotta solve the problem with the wheel, huh.
I don't know jackshit about fixing wheels, so I honestly don't know how I'm gonna do this. I can't just magically fix things up when I don't even know how to in the first place.
Anyways, I first have to stop him from messing with the wheel.
I retract my mana extending my shadow and stand up from where I was sitting. I pat myself off and decide to just go head on for now and figure it out as I go.
I walk over to the servant fixing the wheel, catching his attention as I stopped behind him.
He knows what's up.
I can see it in his eyes.
I look down at him and mutter in a whisper, my expression unchanging(wow my facial expression is lucky for once).
"Behave."
He suddenly broke out into a cold sweat and fixed everything in a less than 5 minutes.
Dude. I you could do that in the first place, why did we have to wait for so long. So dumb. I had a feeling he was a dumb person, so I didn't expect my intimidation to actually work when I'm technically literally a child(I was gonna threaten him with magic but I didn't even need to), but dumb people will always be dumb. Just in case, I kick the wheel a little while nobody is looking, and it took it like a champ.(unless my kicks are that weak...)
Either way, our journey continued. We fell into a ditch midway, but luckily the wheel didn't break and we were able to recover from that hiccup.(wow. Who would've known)
Who knew this all stemmed from 7 silver, literally only 3 months salary of a regular commoners family. This is why you don't hire dumb people. This is directed to my family and to whoever hired these people to carry out this "accident."
Either way, I'll have to question that guy later when I have the chance, and probably the coachman too.
While I'm thinking of my next plan, we arrive at the duchess's family home.
Little did I know, I was actually entering the lion's den, and this would be one of the longest 2 days of my life.