Chapter 1

Now, I want to end the family game.

# 1

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In the office of the Agnus Duke, the wealthiest family in the Eden Empire.

"That ungrateful wench!"

Slap!

Duke Nikan Agnus, unable to contain his fierce anger, slapped his foster daughter, Nabiya.

At twenty-two, Nabiya was still as small and delicate as a girl.

There was no way her frail body could withstand Nikan's strength, and she staggered badly.

But her lips were tightly pressed together.

This was a violent act that would normally make one scream and tremble in fear, but Nabiya was overly composed.

She straightened her posture as if nothing had happened.

Her straight back, slightly raised chin, neatly clasped hands, and red eyes gazing into the void exuded an extraordinary dignity.

Her silver hair, disheveled like mist, looked as if it had been embroidered.

She was more aristocratic than any aristocrat.

Everything about her was a perfect result of the training she received in the Agnus household.

Nikan was even more enraged by Nabiya's elegant demeanor.

After all the money and time he had invested to create such an excellent product, Nabiya had turned into a knife that stabbed him in the back.

"I gave you a first-class governess and let you enjoy the wealth and glory that you, an orphan, could never even dream of. And you repay me by trying to harm my daughter?"

A cold sneer passed through Nabiya's red eyes, which had sunk deep like a swamp.

Ah, a first-class governess and wealth and glory...

Indeed, it was a favor to take her from a rural orphanage that was no different from a beggar's den.

But that act was more a matter of thorough self-interest than kindness.

"If Vivian hadn't been terminally ill, I wouldn't have set up a rootless orphan as a substitute... Tsk!"

Nikan needed another healthy and beautiful daughter to marry the prince, but he didn't want to bring one from another noble family.

He didn't want to share power and benefits with her when his foster daughter became queen.

Nikan killed all the distant relatives of a certain family and made Nabiya pass as their daughter.

Fake portraits, fake stories, fake family, fake relatives, fake, fake...

Everything about Nabiya was fake.

So she wanted to become real.

She endured harsh training, reduced her sleep, and even when her nose bled, she collapsed from malnutrition or overwork, she did not take care of herself, striving to become a 'real Agnus.'

Nabiya's wish was very simple but also very difficult.

Not to go hungry.

Not to be cold.

To live a gentle life within the fence of a family.

In this ducal mansion, shining brilliantly with gold and jewels like a fairy tale world, it seemed that these wishes could come true.

Family.

She thought she could be included in that warm and beautiful word.

It seemed almost successful.

Until the day she turned of age, and before Vivian, Nikan's biological daughter, was cured of her incurable disease.

Nikan, putting his biological daughter Vivian forward, forced Nabiya to break her engagement.

The reason for the break was that her body was unsuitable for bearing an heir. Nikan cruelly did this, regardless of how it would destroy Nabiya's reputation.

Because of this, Nikan believed without a doubt that Nabiya, harboring resentment, had tried to poison Vivian.

"Everything I give is for the family, not for you. How could a commoner like you ever become a queen!"

Nabiya looked at her adoptive father, who mercilessly poured out his raw emotions and unbridled criticism.

She was fine with the broken engagement and being a laughingstock in society.

"Well done, my daughter."

For that one, warm word, given as a reward from time to time, she could act like a fool.

‘All I wanted were trivial things to you.’

Now she knew.

She realized too late that no matter how hard she tried, she was just a substitute for Vivian.

Nabiya said, in a final act of defiance,

"I didn't try to poison Vivian, Father."

Slap!

Before her words were even finished, a palm flew to her cheek.

Nabiya, unable to withstand the force, fell pitifully to the ground.

"Poison was detected in the tea leaves you gave to Vivian! And yet you still try to deceive me to the end!"

Vivian once asked Nabiya to get rare tea leaves to serve guests.

Nabiya, being a good sister, quickly obtained them.

But poison was detected in those tea leaves.

"The engagement was broken long ago. I have no reason to do it now."

"Out of resentment! Since Vivian became the prince's fiancée, you must have envied her and tried to poison her!"

It would be a lie to say that she wasn't sad about her adoptive father's decision to cast her aside, not wanting to put a foster daughter on the throne.

But she had no intention of harming Vivian for such a reason.

She didn't love Prince Ares, nor did she covet the position of queen.

This whole situation seemed like it was set up by someone.

It was so obvious that anyone could notice the strangeness with just a little thought.

In other words, it meant that Nikan didn't even make the slightest effort to understand Nabiya.

"Your actions have gone beyond the bounds of the family! Causing harm to the prince's fiancée is as serious as an attempt on the royal family..."

There was a hint of regret in Nikan's angry voice.

It was the regret of having to get rid of the most useful hunting dog with his own hands. Nabiya knew this fact in detail.

"If I really wanted to harm Vivian out of resentment, I wouldn't have used such an obvious trick."

This was a stupid trick she wouldn't have done even when she was eight.

Nikan, his eyes rolling at her bold words, drew a sword from his waist.

"How dare you!"

Just before Nabiya's neck was cut,

"Father."

A low voice cut through the sharp tension that filled the office.

Nabiya turned around.

A man with red hair, a perfect copy of Nikan, was entering.

The duke's eldest son, Wood.

"His Highness Prince Ares has arrived."

Nikan's brows furrowed.

"Tsk, what a disgrace to the royal family!"

"Go quickly. I'll take care of this child."

"Alright, I understand."

The duke handed the situation over to Wood and left the office.

"Click."

A sharp, mocking laugh flew through the air.

Wood approached Nabiya in a playful manner and crouched down.

"Isn't this a fine sight?"

He was genuinely amused and satisfied by Nabiya's state.

A flash of anger flickered in Nabiya's dry eyes.

"You're worse than an animal."

"What?"

Wood feigned ignorance, and Nabiya coldly retorted.

"I know you put poison in the tea."

"Ah, caught."

Wood shrugged nonchalantly.

"If Vivian had drunk that tea, she would have really died. Don't you feel any guilt at all?"

"If Vivian was lucky enough not to die, that's all that matters. What more do you need?"

Nabiya clenched the carpet.

She had seen many of the Agnus family's underbellies but turned a blind eye.

In the noble society, it was natural to find no one who was not ruthless.

Or rather, she 'had no choice but to think' that way.

But to treat even blood relatives, who were not fighting for succession, in such a way was despicable.

Wood was always like this.

Vulgar, violent, and crude.

"Listen, I've never liked you from the start. Do you know why?"

Nabiya knew exactly what he was going to say next.

"You're dirtier than a bug, a commoner."

Wood made a face as if he was shivering.

Nabiya silently rolled the word 'commoner' around in her mouth.

When did she realize she was a commoner orphan, not the daughter of a minor noble as she had thought?

"Were you a commoner?"

Ah. When Wood was twenty, right?

The sound of his voice asking if she was a commoner still rang clearly in her ears as if it were yesterday.

"I think it's wrong for bugs like you to come into the noble society and muddy the waters. But Father is so stubborn..."

Wood reached out and grabbed Nabiya's chin, forcing her to meet his gaze. Then he ran his thumb over her lips.

Red blood spread over her white skin.

"Noble blood is blue, not the vulgar red like yours."

He chuckled, satisfied with his own words, and continued.

"And I did carry out this plan, but someone else commissioned it. Do you know who?"

Nabiya calmly answered.

"Her Majesty the Queen, I presume."

Wood glared at Nabiya, who acted as if she knew everything.

"...Right. Why did you seduce Prince Ares and upset Her Majesty?"

He took a small vial from his pocket and threw it to Nabiya.

It was a poison that would melt her organs upon ingestion.

"Drink it. This is the only time you can live as a noble. Why do you think the prince came here?"

"To hold a slave trial for me."

Ares loved Nabiya's beauty and ruthlessness towards her enemies.

‘He loves me not as a person but as a tool.’

No different from the Agnus.

Wood was anxious that Prince Ares might take Nabiya away but pretended to be calm.

"Isn't it better to die cleanly now than to live as a slave?"

If Nabiya refused to drink the poison, he would force it down her throat.

The queen promised to let Wood marry Lady Sara Lucia in exchange for dealing with Nabiya.

The Lucia family was the queen's family, and Sara Lucia was her niece.

Nabiya stared at the small vial of poison that had rolled to the floor.

‘In the end, it comes to this again.’

Without hesitation, she drank the poison in one gulp, making Wood shudder.

Wood thought it was fortunate that Nabiya drank the poison but was disgusted by her stubbornness.

This was why he hated Nabiya.

"Still putting on airs until the end. Disgusting woman."

Nabiya, despite the blood she was coughing up from the poison, sneered softly.

"Choke! ...Ha, ha."

Whether she acted lowly or nobly, the conclusion was the same.

Nabiya muttered gloomily.

"How much more effort do I need to make?"

How much more effort do I need to make to please you, to be accepted as family?

I did my best.

Yes, I really did my best.

Nabiya took off her blood-soaked glove, revealing a number on her right wrist that was invisible to others.

1

She looked at the number and calmly confessed.

"Brother, I have regressed through the same life seven times."

"What?"

"And now, there is one last regression left."

Wood, puzzled by her incomprehensible words, frowned.

"Are you going mad now that it's time to die?"

Nabiya, her vision blurring from the poison, continued to speak.

"I thought we could become a family and worked so hard for it..."

A coldness she had never felt before settled on her lips.

Her voice grew even colder.

"But now I want to end the family game."

Just before her vision went dark, Nabiya fixed her gaze on Wood.

The chilling look made Wood freeze like prey in front of a predator.

He was so chilled to the bone that he couldn't speak.

"See you in the next life, Wood."

I won't live for you anymore.

"Y-You-!"

Wood opened his mouth to say something, but Nabiya couldn't hear it. Her hearing was gone.

And then, darkness.

The number on her wrist changed.

0

It vanished without a trace.

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The final curtain rises.