Since Ariadne officially grew up in the countryside until she was 15, the Latin and arithmetic she was to be taught were very basic.

She sat in the middle of a boring lesson, pondering what to do next.

‘How can I avoid my engagement to Cesare and survive?’

The first thing she considered was marriage to another man. But Ariadne soon shook her head.

‘They wouldn’t let me marry someone else so easily.’

Ariadne was the child brought up from the farm to save Isabella from Cesare’s marriage proposal. If they weren’t going to marry her to Cesare, there was no use in raising her at the main house.

‘Should I try to earn money and run away? I heard that in the northern Porto Republic, gold is king regardless of title.’

However, money came from farmland, and as a girl without a title, Ariadne could neither create initial funds nor grow them. It was an era where only noble men with land and serfs could have money and power, as commerce was not sufficiently developed.

‘…A happy ending where he falls in love with me won’t happen.’

A sweet kind of life where she gets engaged to Cesare, he cherishes her, they marry, and she is crowned queen.

Ariadne shook her head. She wasn’t that naive. And above all,

‘I’ll make them pay for their sins.’

Once betrayed, it cannot be forgiven without blood.

Cesare de Como, who had built up sweet promises for 14 years and then ruthlessly discarded Ariadne for her beautiful older sister at the end.

Isabella de Mare, who treated Ariadne as nothing more than her personal accessory from beginning to end, without any sense of family or human conscience, and even took her life when she became a threat.

And Cardinal de Mare, who should have protected and cared for his child as a father, but treated Ariadne as nothing more than a chess piece for the sake of his children with Lucrezia.

“I won’t let them get away with it.”

“Ariadne, focus.”

At the determination that inadvertently escaped her lips, strawberry-nosed Giovanni quickly struck the desk with his wooden stick and scolded her.

“If you’re stupid, you should at least work hard.”

This was a very unfair thing to say. In her previous life, Ariadne had written various official documents in Latin as the de facto wife of the regent, and the study materials Giovanni brought were very basic.

− auctor

“What does this word mean?”

“It means founder, author.”

Giovanni’s brow furrowed.

− officium

“And this word?”

“It means duty, obligation.”

As Ariadne answered correctly without hesitation, Giovanni seemed to be in a bad mood. Ariadne glanced at Giovanni and asked plainly.

“Teacher. Must ‘divitiae’ always be used as a feminine noun? Is there no way to refer to it neutrally?”

“Don’t talk nonsense and just memorize the words. ‘Wealth, property, treasure’ is always feminine, when would you ever use it in the ablative! Stupid girl.”

The ablative of divitiae was divitiis. Teacher Giovanni was clearly someone who had only roughly memorized Latin words and became illiterate when it came to sentence structure.

Ariadne decided to test him.

“Teacher, will you continue to teach us when my sisters return in a month?”

Teacher Giovanni flinched.

“I’ll teach for a month. After that period ends, I’ll take the money I’ve earned and go play in San Carlo for a while before returning home.”

‘He’s not from around here.’

His accent had a faint trace of the southern dialect.

“You must be earning a lot. To teach the Cardinal’s daughters, your reputation must be high and the tutor’s salary must be quite substantial.”

It was a simple compliment, but Teacher Giovanni immediately began boasting excitedly. He was clearly not someone used to receiving respect elsewhere.

“When I return home, this will become part of my resume and I’ll get some work. I’ll receive some respect when I go out. You wouldn’t know, being a sheltered lady. It’s even worth going to the courtesans in Karampan.”

Ariadne frowned at Giovanni’s boasting. As expected, he wasn’t a person living a righteous life. Karampan was the name of an entertainment district, and courtesan was a respectful term for high-class prostitutes.

To spend a night with a Karampan courtesan, 10 ducats (about 10 million won) would be spent without much thought. No matter how much the Cardinal’s daughters were worth, it wasn’t an amount to be paid to a basic Latin teacher.

“Teacher, you’re amazing. How cool.”

Ariadne suppressed her disgust and looked up at Teacher Giovanni with feigned innocent admiration, pretending not to understand.

The young shell was quite useful. If an adult had made such an expression, they would have been criticized for being fake.

* * *

The dinner at Cardinal de Mare’s residence was unlike any other.

Isabella, whose ankle had not yet healed, ate separately in her room, Arabella was under house arrest, and Ippolito, the eldest son of this house, was studying abroad. There were no children left at the table.

Lucrezia usually kept her seat, but today she ate separately, saying she was unwell.

In other words, it was a perfect opportunity for a private audience.

− Clatter clatter.

Only the sound of tableware echoed, and the dinner table was quiet. Cardinal de Mare showed little interest in Ariadne.

Ariadne spoke first.

“Your Eminence, thank you for providing me with an excellent teacher.”

Cardinal de Mare replied indifferently.

“Well, are you studying well?”

“Ego habeo, per pax universalis.”*

Ariadne, who suddenly recited this, smiled proudly.

“It’s a Latin sentence the teacher taught me. I memorized it. Isn’t that good?”

Cardinal de Mare’s expression immediately soured.

“Who taught you such nonsense Latin? Are you sure you memorized it correctly?”

“No, I really memorized it correctly. E−g−o, h−a−b−e−o…”

“Then the teacher must be strange.”

“No! Teacher Giovanni is a famous person. Mother said she spent 10 ducats to bring Teacher Giovanni here.”

“What? For a year?”

“He said he’ll only teach for a month. He said he’s going back south next month.”

“What? What’s that fellow’s name?”

“His name is Giovanni. He didn’t tell me his surname.”

Cardinal de Mare was a clever man. The excessive tutoring fee allocated to an illegitimate daughter that the usual Lucrezia would have been reluctant to spend on, the teacher’s terrible skills, and the teacher’s origin as someone from Lucrezia’s hometown.

As Cardinal de Mare roughly grasped the situation, his face turned red and blue.

“Lu−cre−zi−a!!!!”

* * *

Tattling like this so openly would lose its effect if done too often, but once or twice should be possible.

Thinking that if she had regressed to about a five-year-old child, she could have milked this for a whole year, Ariadne grinned.

The household was properly turned upside down. The miserly Cardinal de Mare rushed to Lucrezia and demanded to see the household accounts, and sure enough, Lucrezia’s ledger had ‘Education Expenses—10 ducats’ written in it.

‘I just guessed the amount, but it turned out to be correct.’

“How can it make sense to spend 10 ducats (about 10 million won) a month on education expenses for a daughter, not even a son, and not even Isabella but Ariadne!”

“To bring in a good teacher…”

“Does a good teacher not even know how to properly use Latin prepositions! Where did he study and who is he!”

Lucrezia stammered and couldn’t answer.

“He’s not even from San Carlo, who brings a Latin teacher from the countryside instead of the capital! Who on earth is that person! He’s from the south, isn’t he?”

Giovanni’s hometown was the southern Taranto domain, the same as Lucrezia’s, and his surname was Rossi, Lucrezia’s maiden name.

In other words, he was Lucrezia’s relative.

Lucrezia wanted to send money to her family, but with Cardinal de Mare keeping a sharp eye on her, she hired an unqualified person as a tutor and set an abnormally high salary.

“Are you out of your mind? Have you lost it!”

“Your Eminence… Your Eminence… I was wrong, I’ll make sure this never happens again.”

“I won’t let this slide!”

‘Lucrezia’s family must have been dirt-poor fallen nobility.’

She remembered that all of Lucrezia’s family members had entered the service of clergymen as mistresses, clinging to Lucrezia as their only hope.

‘If you dig through that ledger well, you’ll find a lot of outrageous things.’

Lucrezia’s situation was not one where she could stop sending money to her family just because she got caught once. All her family members were hanging onto her like a bunch of grapes. Incidents like this were bound to continue happening.

Giovanni had his salary confiscated, was beaten with a stick, and was kicked out. Lucrezia was put in a position where she had to get Cardinal de Mare’s permission for every item in the ledger for a month.

‘I hope they’d leave me alone after doing this much.’

Ariadne felt like having a heart-to-heart talk and negotiating with Lucrezia.

But unfortunately, the family members and servants of the de Mare household were not the kind of people with whom such pleasant dealings were possible.

* * *

“I’ve put the washed clothes in the wardrobe. Change and go to dinner.”

The red-haired maid Maletta had been wary of Ariadne for about three days after the incident with Arabella’s house arrest, but then she went back to her original attitude.

When she first saw her, she didn’t recognize her, but Ariadne and Maletta were old acquaintances.

Maletta, the red-haired maid close to Isabella, had followed Isabella into the royal palace in her previous life, where she had an affair with a married palace official and ended up becoming his mistress.

“Are you busy?”

“Yes.”

The maid’s voice was curt.

Ariadne, thinking to give her one more chance, innocently asked Maletta:

“Aren’t you going to help me change?”

It was something she should naturally do as a lady’s maid. But Maletta, failing to catch the opportunity thrown at her, instead turned around with obvious irritation.

“Miss, you’re not a child, can’t you do something like that on your own? You must have done it by yourself all the time on the farm!”

‘Farm?’

Ariadne’s patience snapped.

‘This one really looks down on me.’

She was just like her original mistress. Once you appear weak, it becomes uncontrollable. This was the lesson that her previous life had taught Ariadne.

Something flew at the back of Maletta’s head as she grumbled out loud, “You’re already putting on airs like a lady, you ill-bred thing.”

− Thwack!

“Ow!”

What stuck to the back of Maletta’s head with a dull sound was the book of saints that Ariadne always carried around.

When Maletta turned her head, clutching the back of it, she saw Ariadne with a cold expression.

“You should know your place, who do you think you are to be so impudent?”

Ariadne, tall for a fifteen-year-old with coldly imposing eyes unlike a child, was intimidating.

But Maletta had something to say and something to rely on.

“Look here, if you were born from a maid, aren’t you in the same position as us?”

“Huh?”

“Honestly, your father is also a self-made clergyman. Strictly speaking, since clergymen aren’t nobility, you’re not even an illegitimate child of nobility.”

Ariadne stared steadily at Maletta, whose true feelings had burst out. She wanted to see how far she would go.

“Go on, continue.”

Maletta, thrusting out her plump and sensual chest, continued:

“To put it bluntly, if I caught His Eminence the Cardinal’s eye tomorrow, wouldn’t my child be the same as you?”

Maletta raised her voice:

“I can understand it for Miss Isabella or Miss Arabella because Lady Lucrezia is a noble, but for Miss Ariadne to try to be on par with them is truly lacking in respect for hierarchy!”

− Slap!

Stars flew before Maletta’s eyes. Ariadne had slapped Maletta’s cheek. There was no need to listen any further.

“Then do you mean to say that my father is not noble because of his lowly bloodline?”

Ariadne coldly rebuked.

“This is punishment for insulting my father.”

Before Maletta could come to her senses, Ariadne slapped Maletta’s other cheek again.

− Slap!

To Maletta, who was clutching her right cheek while being severely slapped on her left, Ariadne sternly said:

“This is punishment for your jealousy.”

Ariadne picked up the fallen book of saints and used it to slap Maletta’s cheek one last time.

− Thwack!

“Aagh!”

When hit with the thick book, it wasn’t a high-pitched sound from her cheek but a dull sound of her skull resonating. Maletta staggered a step back and ended up sitting down.

“Moreover, are you now dreaming of stealing the husband of the mistress you serve and taking her place? This is punishment for a household servant lacking discretion and daring to comment on the private lives of her betters.”

Maletta glared at Ariadne, clenching her teeth and holding her swollen cheeks.

Looking down at Maletta collapsed on the floor, Ariadne kindly added a word:

“The words you uttered today would have caused an uproar if others had heard them. Watch your tongue.”

To the trembling Maletta, Ariadne issued an order of expulsion.

“Get out.”

As she pointed to the door, Maletta hurriedly ran out of Ariadne’s attic room.

Left alone, Ariadne finally gritted her teeth.

‘The fundamental difference between you and me is not bloodline.’

Maletta’s words had some truth to them. Ariadne could only enjoy her current status thanks to her father’s power in the capital, but if one strictly followed the class system, she was no different from a commoner.

But it wasn’t just a matter of who was pretty enough to seduce which man, as Maletta had said. Life wasn’t that simple. Ariadne had already learned firsthand in her previous life what a miserable end a life of luckily attaching oneself to a fine man could meet.

‘The real difference between you and me is a matter of setting goals and how much one can endure.’

Ariadne’s jaw muscles tensed greatly.

She didn’t want to live like Maletta.

She wanted to protect her dignity with her own hands. A life where she wasn’t violated, wasn’t attacked, was respected and respected others. A life where her lifeline wasn’t hanging on a single man.

‘This time, I’ll stand at the top to avoid being trampled. Damn maid, damn household, I’ll get rid of them all.’