The Resurrection Festival was one of the biggest holidays of the year, and the number of items entering and leaving the McKinnon mansion was countless. Not only food ingredients and gifts, but even the daily necessities provided to guests were jaw-droppingly abundant.

Given the circumstances, the back door of the mansion through which all those quantities passed was never empty. A considerable proportion of the boxes entering through the back door of the main building had the word ‘Railing’ elegantly written on them.

Joan Morie, who was checking the goods delivered from Railing, looked up with tired eyes.

Platinum blonde, bright like a candle lit in a dark hallway. Purple eyes revealing noble lineage were staring at her intently.

Among those who came and went to the mansion, everyone knew this ‘friend’ brought by the precious only daughter of Count McKinnon. Joan blinked and asked.

“Have you perhaps lost your way, young lady? This is the servants’ passage.”

“I know. I was passing by and noticed you working, so I just came to take a look.”

The girl explained her actions in a manner unbelievably mature for her age.

“Me, young lady?”

Could there have been something displeasing? Joan, well aware of Angelo’s sentiments towards Neris Trude, became slightly anxious.

She had heard the child was authoritative and ill-tempered, and if there was something displeasing, she didn’t know how to handle it.

Neris smiled softly and said.

“Yes, I clearly saw items that were accepted and received by the McKinnon household servants earlier being placed in boxes for waste disposal and taken out the back door, only to return in Railing’s boxes.”

The ledger in Joan’s hand dropped with a thud.

Neris’s eyes, which had casually thrown out words as if suggesting a walk, were indeed precocious beyond her years. Joan keenly felt this fact.

Though her attitude was as innocent as if she didn’t know the meaning of her own words, if she were truly that naive, she wouldn’t have been able to upset Heather so much in the first place.

Suddenly, there were no servants around. Joan trembled without even realizing how strange that fact was. After intense hesitation, she finally.

Heaved a deep sigh.

“Have you told the adults?”

“Not yet. Why, if I hadn’t spoken, would you try to silence me here?”

It would be a lie to say such an impulse hadn’t crossed her mind, even if only for a moment. However, that was nothing more than a daydream, even if viewed most charitably.

Setting aside the feasibility, Joan was not the type of person who would harm an innocent child to cover up her own wrongdoing.

Knowing this fact herself, she finally hung her head. So this is how it ends.

If it wasn’t at all refreshing, that too would be a lie.

“That’s an absurd thing to say. I don’t want to become such a terrible person.”

“Interesting.”

A wrinkle formed between the child’s fine brows. However, both of them knew that she wasn’t making that expression because Joan’s words were truly ‘interesting’.

“It’s fine to divert goods that have been paid for and deliver them twice, but taking measures to keep it secret is terrible?”

She was a clever child. The current situation couldn’t be expressed more accurately than that. Joan chose her words carefully for a long time before speaking again.

“…I committed a crime and it has been revealed, so I should rightfully face the consequences. That’s all there is to it.”

She had no intention of making excuses. It was an answer that clearly showed such resolve. Neris looked up at Joan’s gloomy face and smiled with her eyes.

Before returning, Neris had certainly brought down Joan along with Angelo as part of the conditions for drawing Angelo into the Elandria family.

At the time, she thought Joan had become a target simply because she was a rising merchant leader who irritated Angelo. But now it seemed Angelo had not only cut off the tail but burned it completely.

“Did Angelo order this? How can you alone bear the consequences?”

Joan suddenly raised her head. The intense whirlpool in her eyes slowly subsided as it took in Neris’s neat face. She couldn’t believe it.

Having seen relatively low-ranking noble ladies while working under Angelo, Joan had never seen a smile as dignified as the one on this young girl’s face.

Especially in front of someone of low status like Joan, it was common to see even a slight reveal of one’s own meanness, and yet.

Moreover, was this an ordinary situation?

“…Why do you think that?”

“Would someone who commits fraud for their own benefit have such a dying look on their face as you do?”

A dying look. Was it that obvious? Joan unknowingly touched her own cheek.

Until a few years ago, her face had been soft and cheerful, but working at Railing, she gradually forgot how to smile.

At first, Angelo, who only gave menial tasks to the uneducated and young Joan, soon realized that she was meticulous, clever, and talented at grasping the nuances of situations. Slowly, all the dirty work of Railing was handed over to Joan.

No matter how unfairly her hard-earned job treated her, she couldn’t quit when she thought of her five younger siblings back home.

Although her position within the company seemed to have risen outwardly and her salary increased, Joan felt she was no different from a slave. A slave bought with copper coins and worked to death.

Did a slave have the right to pursue happiness!

It was strange. The little lady before her eyes wouldn’t know Joan’s circumstances at all, yet she looked at her with eyes full of certainty that she couldn’t be wrong.

And the stranger thing was that Joan wanted to burst into tears at the simple observation of this child, as all her pent-up feelings rushed forth.

Having taken charge of dirty work and received hush money for each job, she didn’t even have the right to cry. Joan told herself this and struggled to pull herself together.

Neris watched Joan and inwardly smiled bitterly.

Those who do not keep faith cannot be trusted and used. Yet the reason the Elandria family chose Angelo in the previous life was because they had no intention of trusting and using anyone from the start.

Although Neris didn’t know the exact circumstances, Angelo must have also given the Elandria family a big weakness to hold over him.

The methods of such people were simple. Once they got what they needed, they tried to see who would stab the other in the back first.

The quicker hand wins, and the loser dies. It was a petty trick and couldn’t last long.

At least, Neris, who didn’t have any clear benefits to offer the other party now, couldn’t even attempt such means from the start.

So she had to gather trustworthy people. People who wouldn’t forget what they received and for whom betrayal simply didn’t exist in their nature.

In Neris’s view, Joan was worth bringing in. The test questions she had thrown were to determine her suitability.

“Angelo Railing is not a trustworthy person. That’s the most important thing for you to know.”

As Neris thought, Joan had the bewildered face of someone whose weakness had been directly hit.

Even while suffering under Angelo, Joan was a person building the capacity to run a fairly well-known emerging company in the future. In the previous life, Neris had become that tool, but if left alone in this life, Joan would somehow be ‘settled’ by Angelo.

Probably even she herself knew well that Angelo was not a person to build a trust relationship with.

Joan’s eyes trembled with conflict.

“Young lady… adults have places they cannot turn back from.”

“There’s truly nothing that cannot be reversed.”

Didn’t even the lives of dead people return like this? Joan didn’t seem to believe Neris’s words. However, her expression, brighter than before, was clearly ‘wanting to believe’.

Neris pulled her small lips into a smile.

Of course, it was because she was certain that Joan had not committed any irredeemable wrongs like killing someone in this life. If she had, Angelo would have dug up the past when ruining her in the previous life.

And having learned more about her character from the conversation just now, there was no need to hesitate.

Fortunately, she had enough experience drawing people in from her previous life. Although she had lost all the conditions she had then, the valuable asset of experience could still help Neris.

“What people always need is courage. The courage to cleanly let go of what troubles them. Until death, that is.”

“Young lady.”

Joan’s face became slightly anxious. Neris’s words had touched something important inside her.

“Why are you deliberately saying such things to me?”

“Because you can help me, and I can help you a little too.”

“About young lady Heather?”

“There must be something even bigger than that.”

Joan finally realized that no one had been passing by for a long time. It was strange for a place where things should be constantly coming and going.

…From the beginning, this young lady had come here to hear or say something. Dismissing the servants.

And in Joan’s thinking, what Neris needed to hear was clear. After hesitating, she bowed her waist. Her lips moved quickly near Neris’s ear, her eyes rolling as if searching the surroundings.

After hearing the story, Neris nodded without showing a surprised expression.

“I understand. Thank you for telling me. You should leave for now. If you go to the laundry room, my person will tell you what to do next.”

The person Neris had bribed in advance was a wise, elderly lady. So she would skillfully spirit Joan away.

Joan bowed her head deeply and quickly left the place. Neris remained alone, standing quietly in the dark corridor in front of the back door.

Not long after, the sound of pattering footsteps came from behind Neris. Not the feather-light steps of a very young child or the heavy steps of an adult, but footsteps that were full of presence yet graceful with anger.

“Is this what you wanted?”

When Neris turned around, Heather was glaring at her. It seemed she had been hiding behind the corner all along.

The expensive-looking pink taffeta dress accentuated Heather’s delicate beauty, but the vile smile on her face made it unnoticeable to the viewer.

Heather approached Neris with her chin up. It was an attitude so unrestrained that people who had only thought of her as gentle and docile would not believe it if they saw it.

“Do you think our father is a fool? No matter what that woman says, there’s no evidence. If you thought the count and countess would say even a word because some low-level employee babbles, it’s not even funny. What are you going to do, go tell that Diane girl? Ha, without her, you’re nothing in this house anyway, you know?”

Contrary to Heather’s expectation that she would be shocked and flustered, Neris replied with the same smile.

“You’re nothing even with Diane. Were you curious about what I was doing and followed me?”

Heather was momentarily speechless. She stared at the calm Neris with eyes that seemed ready to devour her, then declared through gritted teeth.

“You. Will. Never. Come. Here. Again.”

“You’re free to think that, and whether it comes true is up to me. Poor thing.”

Until just a moment ago, she had been thinking lightly of it, but by the time Neris finished speaking, Heather suddenly felt a chill.

What does she believe in to be so confident? Could she have something else she’s relying on? Moreover, that look in her eyes.

Truly indifferent eyes, as if saying you’re fundamentally different from me. As if this kind of thing couldn’t even touch the real sadness she held inside!

Anger, along with a strange fear, surged in Heather’s chest.

A child couldn’t have such eyes. When could a child that young have felt such desperate survival instinct, such devastating sadness?

Heather had seen many people her father had used and ultimately ruined, but none of them had such a face. Even though they had been betrayed and lost important things.