“Chloe, you don’t need to apologize. Don’t say that.”

Charlotte finally let go of her and said those words. She wiped away her tears in an instant, but Chloe thought it was the first time she had seen her mother cry.

“It’s absolutely not your fault. Never say you’re sorry, okay? If you had tried to protect your elder brother, I would have lost you too. You have no idea how lucky and grateful I am that you’re alive like this. If something had happened to you too, I wouldn’t be able to live.”

“…Sob.”

However, even at her mother’s words, Chloe’s tears poured out. It was because the image of her elder brother that day came back to her mind. It was too cruel a memory.

“Chloe, stop crying. Let’s go inside now. Tell me everything that happened while I was lying down.”

Charlotte wiped Chloe’s tears and pulled her by the hand.

“Yes.”

Chloe went inside the house, wiping her tears with the opposite hand that her mother was holding.

It seemed that Charlotte had already heard about Chloe’s rough circumstances from Calcus, but Chloe still recounted this and that. How she ended up disguising as a man, and what kind of work she did.

“You must have gone through so much hardship, right? From now on, absolutely, nothing like that will ever happen again. I’ll pay back the money owed to the duke’s family tomorrow right away. You won’t need to go to the duke’s estate ever again. I can’t believe you did that kind of work. Do you know how devastated I was when I first heard about it?”

“Ah…”

Chloe awkwardly evaded the question. She couldn’t bring herself to say that she had fallen in love with the duke, or that she actually wanted to return to the duke someday.

“Chloe, do you have something to say?”

But as expected, her mother noticed something was off just by looking at her expression.

“Mother, actually, I came from the duke’s residence in this state. In fact, I’m no longer disguising as a man.”

“…What?”

“The duke found out that I’m a woman.”

“…What? You’re saying the duke knows you’re not Clyne? How? No, that’s not it. You were at the duke’s residence as a woman?”

Her mother’s face turned pale. She was so white that it was worrying.

“Mother, it’s okay. It’s fine even if he found out. The duke and I, each other, no, the duke is, no.”

Chloe didn’t know how to explain it.

“The Duke of Ulpaz is okay with knowing you’re a woman? Why? Why is it okay? How can that duke keep you in his house even though you’re a woman? That duke didn’t employ women.”

Her mother’s voice suddenly became cold and calm, and her tone was close to an interrogation.

Why did she seem so angry? She only made that expression when Chloe and Clyne fought badly. In other words, it meant she was really angry from head to toe.

“Mother, why are you doing this? What on earth…”

For a moment, Chloe felt like her mother knew something.

“You, don’t tell me, don’t tell me you and the Duke of Ulpaz… No? Tell me it’s not true.”

As expected, her mother knew! But how?

“Chloe Liden, hurry up and say there’s nothing between you two.”

Charlotte’s expression as she pressed Chloe was now even a little scary.

“You know, Mother?”

“What are you talking about! Say it yourself.”

It was certain.

“You know that the duke is not an ordinary person, right?”

Charlotte finally shut her mouth.

“You know everything. Is that right? You know it all too… But how, how can you know?”

“Chloe.”

Charlotte held Chloe’s hand as she rambled on.

“Yes?”

Chloe answered her mother like when she was a child. She was too dazed.

“You know everything too, right? About what kind of… person the duke is?”

As expected… There was no doubt that her mother knew the duke was a werewolf too.

“I know. I know everything.”

A look of dismay crossed her mother’s face. It was strange that her mother knew about the duke, but it was unsettling to see such a disappointed face.

“How do you know, Mother?”

Now it was Chloe’s turn to question her mother.

“The Ulpaz ducal family is a werewolf family. Moreover, I know the current Duke of Ulpaz is an alpha.”

“Alpha…”

Now that she confirmed Charlotte knew everything, Chloe’s attention was caught by the word “alpha”.

“I guess you didn’t know that the duke is an alpha.”

“What is that? I’ve heard it before too.”

“The duke didn’t tell you?”

“No, not the duke. The woman who came to the duke’s estate, the Tigrium woman, her name was…”

“What?”

Her mother’s eyes widened. Her complexion until now could be said to be peaceful compared to how pale she turned.

“What did you just say? Tigrium? A Tigrium woman?”

Charlotte trembled and tightened her grip on Chloe’s hand. It felt like her hand would fall off from the force.

“Who from Tigrium did you say it was!”

Charlotte finally shouted. Chloe had never seen her so agitated.

She didn’t seem like her mother.

There was only one time when she used such a scary tone. That day when Chloe first fainted, at the vegetable store.

Suddenly, a lightning-like realization struck Chloe’s mind. The words her mother used that day were in Tigre. Chloe, who had been using both Tigre and Elaion simultaneously, didn’t feel the difference at the time, and it was a memory she had suppressed until it recently reappeared in her dreams. But thinking back on it, it was definitely Tigre. And now, the moment Chloe said she met a Tigrium woman, her mother changed completely.

It was clear that everything that made her mother sensitive was related to Tigrium.

“Reina Tilbeth. Mother, that person’s name was Reina Tilbeth.”

Chloe deliberately spoke in Tigre. In fact, since becoming an adult, her mother tended not to converse in Tigre. Charlotte seemed to notice Chloe’s intention to deliberately speak in Tigre, and she closed her mouth, avoiding eye contact with her.

“Mother, please tell me. What’s the reason you react so sensitively to Tigrium, and why were you so surprised that I met a Tigrium person? You have to tell me now.”

Her mother met Chloe’s eyes again and remained silent for a long time, but finally seeming to have made up her mind, she bit her lower lip slightly and opened her mouth.

“Chloe, your original name is Chloe Lionel. Your father’s surname is not Liden, but Lionel. He was from a noble family in Tigrium. He was the eldest son of an eagle beastman family, but he wasn’t a beastman himself.”

“What… An eagle?”

It was incomprehensible. Why was she suddenly talking about beastmen again?

“And I was Princess Charlotte Staxton of the Tigrium Kingdom.”

“Mother? What are you saying…”

“Shh… Just listen. It’s a long story. You have to hear that your mother is a tiger beastman, and that you too have inherited my blood and are a tiger beastman, so don’t be surprised already. Right?”

Chloe just blinked without saying a word. She was more shocked than when the duke said he was a werewolf.

It seemed unreal that the duke was a werewolf, but what did her mother just say? Ti… what?

“Yes, you are a princess with the blood of the Tigrium royal family. You are the most legitimate heir. Not your cousin, Tuscan Staxton, who is now sitting on the throne and is worse than a beast, but you.”

“A princess? I’m a princess of Tigrium?”

The memory of the vegetable store in her childhood flashed by.

“Yes, the father of Tuscan Staxton, who was my elder brother, lost his right to the throne a long time ago. Now he wants to forcibly reattach it and somehow continue that position with his own blood, but it doesn’t change the fact that you are the only heir.”

Charlotte’s voice was now filled with resentment. But Chloe could barely keep up with half of what her mother was saying.

Holding the dazed Chloe, Charlotte told her the story of herself and Chloe until late into the night. A story that was unbelievable, but seemed to be the truth in the end.

Chloe lay in bed with the blanket over her head and continued to cry until the next morning. She felt like her body was full of tears. No matter how much she cried, it seemed like she would never run out of tears, as the story she heard from her mother was so sad and shocking.

She said that a significant portion of the ruling class on this continent are beastmen, and they maintain their bloodline superiority while hiding their beastman identities to preserve their vested interests. The Elaion imperial family are lion beastmen, the Tigrium royal family are tiger beastmen, the Ulpaz ducal family are werewolves, the Falcon ducal family are hawk beastmen, the Schneider ducal family are snake beastmen, and so on.

However, since the probability of a beastman being born is low even through the union of beastmen, beastmen are gradually disappearing. Nevertheless, the problem was that only beastmen could inherit the imperial or royal thrones. She said that lion beastmen have the habit of having many wives, so they choose the heir from among their many children who has beastman blood. Because they have many children as a result of having many wives, it’s not difficult for them to continue the lineage, which Chloe found a bit disgusting.

In contrast, tiger beastmen only have one spouse at a time, but they keep changing spouses. Until a tiger beastman heir is born.

The former king of Tigrium was unable to have beastman children with his first two queens. In a situation where he was agonizing over the heir issue, his grandson born to his first son, who was not a beastman, turned out to be a beastman, so the throne was set to be passed directly to the grandson.

However, something happened that shattered everyone’s expectations. The young wife that the former king obtained in his later years gave birth to a daughter who was a tiger beastman. That daughter was none other than Chloe’s mother, Charlotte.