The Damn Family Is Back Again

195 – 195. A Step Away (11)

Unable to grasp the situation, Karsein began to search the room with a bewildered expression.

Flora, peeking out just her head, chuckled mischievously and murmured,

“Collecting coins suits a beggar like you just fine. But, hiding such things in the duke’s house? I couldn’t stand to see it.”

One day.

Flora had witnessed Karsein sneakily hiding something from outside.

She thought he must want to possess something, being a beggar, but when she saw it wasn’t just a one-time behavior, she immediately grew suspicious.

Initially, she wondered what a commoner receiving the duke’s charity would bring in, but she was sure there had to be a reason for collecting these items.

And soon, she found it.

Underneath Karsein’s bed, two boxes.

One was a collection of coins worth next to nothing.

The other held items that seemed to have been secretly brought in from outside.

Such hidden items must be important, right?

So, why not destroy them?

From that moment, Flora wore a devilish grin.

Selling all sorts of trinkets one by one, she made a small amount of money, but the money didn’t matter.

She was simply delighted to have teased Karsein.

She wanted to see the day he’d realize this and panic.

“Ah. What a relief.”

Karsein was sweating profusely, not just flustered. Inside the room, there were thudding noises, and something fell.

So they were items of such importance?

I don’t know why they were collected, but something was clearly twisted.

“Uhm~ Refreshing.”

Flora stretched refreshingly and walked to the opposite side of the corridor with a satisfied expression.

***

No matter how much I searched. Even after scouring the room.

They do not appear.

The items that were in Karsein’s second box were nowhere to be found, despite turning the whole room upside down.

Without them, Miel’s magic doll cannot be purchased.

Because there is no way for Karsein to make up for the shortage of money.

He thought about using the family name to get credit but…

“I’m sorry, but you came too late, and the doll has been sold.”

With the last doll sold, there was no longer anything he could do.

In the end, Karsein had to give up and let go of the doll he had earmarked as Flora’s birthday present.

Still, he didn’t return empty-handed.

He was able to buy something with the money he had.

But the real trouble was just beginning.

“Ugh…!”

“Hey, that’s enough. Run away!”

“Puhahaha!”

Because he sneaked out, the way back without any escort was not smooth. On the way back, he was thoroughly beaten up by other nobles who had been waiting in secret.

“Hey. You sure wander around a lot on Flora’s birthday, don’t you?”

The time Karsein went out to buy a present was also the time spent with the family of the Duke.

That’s why, as soon as he returned, he was sharply criticized by Clare.

“Karsein. Do you even think? To mess up your room like this. The maids worked hard to clean it, and you’ve made a mess. Don’t you know that if the workforce is exhausted, it will affect Flora’s birthday party? And why do you look like a beggar? Right now, you’re doing nothing but causing trouble from start to finish!”

Arina had to face sharp criticism for everything from messing up the room to going outside. And for returning in rags after being dressed in clean clothes.

He could have shouted himself hoarse in explanation.

He wanted to buy a present for Flora.

That’s why he deliberately used the money he had saved up without relying on the Duke’s family to go out and buy a present.

But he couldn’t do that.

“Pffft.”

As Flora stood behind them, giggling at the sight of her own scolding, there was no way to bring up the matter of the box.

How could she speak of explanations when the very person she wanted to surprise with a birthday gift was listening in? The words of clarification that should have come out were swallowed back down.

“I’m sorry…”

Instead, she bowed her head in apology.

As always, she had to pass it off as her own fault.

Karsein’s two sisters fumed behind her, but as busy as they were, they declared they had no time to spare for her and left the scene.

Yet, one person picked up a stinging rod.

“What… did you say? That sounds like you’re telling me not to do anything at the birthday party…”

Surely not.

On such a fine day, to be the only one sitting still?

That couldn’t be.

Karsein asked again with a hollow laugh.

But a cold voice deeply gouged Karsein’s ears.

“It seems you understand well.”

The body was not in pain. Claire’s hand that shoved her shoulder to snap out of it, or Arina’s hand that slapped her cheek, neither touched her this time.

Instead, her mind grew numb, and her chest tightened with suffocation.

Isabella. Not Arina or Claire, but the person in this house who should have been the most favorable to Karsein was holding the heaviest rod.

“It’s Flora’s birthday, isn’t it? I wish you would at least stay still on such a day.”

With those words, a command was given, perhaps isolating her at the birthday party, asking her to sit only at the main seat of the Bagrande ducal family.

A decree was issued along with the criticism that she should not cause any more trouble at the birthday party.

There was no room for explanation.

Karsein bit her lip, holding back a heart full of regret.

She wanted to say it was all for Flora’s birthday gift, but she couldn’t. Emma was listening right behind her.

But then.

“Ah- what a pity. Why is she so persistent?”

As she turned away with a sense of defeat, she stumbled upon a familiar voice in the place she wandered to.

It was unmistakably Flora’s voice.

The conversation seemed to be with other nobles.

It was a birthday party, after all. She could have conversations with friends her age. She tried to let it go but…

An unmistakable conversation reaches my ears.

“Karsein has been secretly collecting something?”

“Of course! That box was filled with all sorts of things, you know?”

…What? What did I just hear?

Karsein pricked up his ears and focused on the conversation.

“Since some time ago, he’s been carrying something in his arms, not just once or twice. He’s been gathering it day by day.”

“Oh my. And then?”

“I watched closely, but it didn’t seem like he carried it every day, so I wondered if there might be a place to hide it…”

“And then…?!”

“Under Karsein’s bed, a meaningful box was found, can you believe it?”

Suddenly, something that was blocked burst open, and I began to feel filled with something else.

“Can’t he shake off that beggar’s persistence?”

“Picking up such things from the streets.”

“What happened to that box then?”

“Hehe. What happened, you ask?”

A vile feeling arose as the corners of her lips curled up like a little devil.

“Karsein hid it under his bed. Not even our sisters or mother, let alone the other maids, had any clue. So, they must be incredibly important items, right?”

It can’t be.

Flora found the box in my room, and that’s all there is to it, right?

There’s no way she would have touched that box…

“It looked like important items, so I sold them all to an antique dealer!”

Flora said, spreading her arms wide as if boasting.

Not long after, she blabbered about how my expression looked when I checked the box, with a grin almost reaching her ears.

Happily. With a truly satisfied face.

My sister was smiling so brightly.

The nobles’ praises followed.

They even praised her for secretly selling important items, saying she must be in trouble.

And Flora…

“I think so too. And to think I saw it today, on my birthday? It must be the best birthday present ever!”

A birthday present, indeed.

He expressed it that way.

Karsein’s eyes went dead as if his soul had left him.

Caught between the anticipation of surprising all his family, including his younger sibling, and the frustration of not being able to clarify the truth, his eyes wandered, eventually filling with emptiness and despair.

He had denied it to the end, refusing to believe it until he heard the whole story.

“Is that… what you did?”

The undeniable reality swept over him like a typhoon, sweeping through his entire body.

Even amidst this, the nobles’ conversation could be heard.

Hoping against hope for a different story to emerge. That this was all just an absurd prank, and a clue would appear to prove it.

But…

With that, Karsein’s hopes were completely shattered.

“Was he carrying something like a gift box?”

“Yes. Karsein bumped into us today.”

“A gift for me…? Ew, that’s creepy. What makes him think he can give me a birthday present? The only present he gives at my birthday party is disappearing!”

His expectations turned into a knot of emptiness and despair. The emptiness and despair soon flowed into a stream of sorrow.

The backstory emerged that the box was crushed, that it would be difficult to deliver as a birthday present, that it wasn’t a proper gift but an excuse to get scolded by the family.

For Flora, who even joined in the mockery, that was what a true birthday present was.

He had endured and held back.

It was a birthday party, after all. He had held back because he wanted to surprise his sibling.

He had gone out, confident that bringing the gift would surely make them happy.

Even if he had to endure harsh words, physical attacks, and being trampled in the mud by scheming nobles while protecting the gift box.

Still, he did it out of a desire to give Flora a birthday.

But he couldn’t bear such a lonely betrayal.

Bang!

Karsein returned to his room.

The door closed with a loud noise.

Betrayal oozed from the box that came into view once again.

“I… I tried so hard to get your birthday present…!”

Flora’s voice was unforgettable, drilling into his mind. The incessant laughter and voices of contempt followed one after another.

Tears streaming down his face, Karsein eventually tore up the new gift box he had brought and wrapped himself.

“Ugh, ughhh!!”

The wrapping ribbon was savagely torn off.

The wrapping paper seemed to have been ripped into pieces by a ravenous beast, scattering about.

When finally, a white-furred teddy bear emerged…

“Damn it… This… This…!”

In his hands, drowned in sorrow, it was trampled upon so fiercely that footprints could have been imprinted.

“I’ll never… never give you a gift again, Flora!”

-Bang!

The trampled teddy bear was thus shoved into the dark closet, never to see the light again.