Chapter 2: A Quiet Decision
The room in the ducal residence within the royal capital, now eerily silent as if the commotion of the previous night’s party had been a lie, was dominated by a heavy silence and the anger-filled voice of Duke Rodolphe.
Mireille simply stood before the cold, extinguished fireplace.
What lingered in the room was not the remnants of last night’s glamorous perfume, but the suffocating air woven from her father’s burning irritation and her mother’s cold gaze.
“Mireille! What in the world is the meaning of this!”
Duke Rodolphe’s face was dyed red with the humiliation from the party and intense anger.
Beside him, Duchess Arianne covered her mouth with a fan, sending Mireille a gaze filled with pity and deep disappointment.
“You have ruined a perfectly good engagement with the royal family!
In front of so many nobles, no less, you have crushed the honor of the House of Grasse!”
The duke’s voice was no longer just anger—it was closer to despair.
It carried a tone that denied her very existence.
“Do you not understand how much you are meant to devote yourself to this ducal house!”
Hearing the duke’s words, the emotions Arianne had been holding back overflowed.
She let out a scream-like cry, her voice trembling as sobs were forced from deep within her throat, consumed by grief.
“Do you have any idea how much effort we put in, how many arrangements we made to secure this engagement!
I had finally felt relieved, believing the House of Grasse would be secure, and yet you trample all over that feeling!”
From the very beginning, Rodolphe’s words did not reach Mireille at all.
Their faces were twisted with anger, sorrow, or humiliation.
But in Mireille’s view, those emotions were nothing more than meaningless symbols.
Their shouting sounded distant, like the ringing of a bell, strangely inorganic.
Mireille suddenly thought back.
It was exactly one year ago on this day that she regained the memories of her previous life.
At first, she had been confused, but gradually the memories of Habashita Kaori began to erode Mireille’s mind.
Now, the personality of Mireille no longer existed within her.
I am Habashita Kaori.
The man raging before me is not my father.
The woman crying is not my mother.
“By now, the other nobles must be laughing at our ducal house—at you!
Calling you a foolish woman!
The shame of this family!”
—The shouting voice of a father.
The dry sound of a slap striking young Kaori’s cheek.
“You really are incompetent!
Why can’t you even do something so simple!”
Rodolphe’s insults awakened the memories of her previous life.
Her own voice that never reached anyone, no matter how much she resisted.
And a father who never tried to understand, resorting only to violence.
‘Nothing has changed since then.’
—The face of a teacher who looked away in annoyance.
“Perhaps there were children around who misunderstood you, Habashita-san.”
Arianne’s scornful gaze overlapped with the mocking laughter of her middle school bullies and the indifferent words of the teacher she had turned to for help.
“Maybe you should have tried a little harder to fit in with those around you, Habashita-san.”
No one ever tried to understand my suffering.
No one ever tried to properly evaluate my abilities.
—In the end, a woman’s proposal is nothing more than theory on paper.
And the duke’s lament over the ruined engagement and family name revived the memory of that moment in her previous life when her superior rejected the proposal she had worked so hard to create.
“Habashita-san, your ideas are too idealistic.
The field is about human relationships—and well, it’s a man’s world.”
An innovative proposal that would reduce transportation costs by twenty percent.
All the data had supported it.
And yet, it was dismissed for incomprehensible reasons like “because you’re not a man” and “you don’t understand the field.”
The helplessness she felt then, and the anger that welled up within her.
They were incompetent people who lacked ability, clinging only to their own emotions and foolish common sense, refusing to see the essence of things.
That company, that world, and now the man and woman shouting before me—none of it has changed.
All of Mireille’s previous life flashed through her mind like a lantern procession.
A life where she had been oppressed, looked down upon, and had her abilities denied unjustly.
No matter how hard she tried, she was never rewarded.
‘Will you once again whip me mercilessly after casting me into the abyss?’
Her eyes shone with an endless coldness, as if all emotion had completely vanished.
“Are you even listening, Mireille!”
Rodolphe’s voice tore through her eardrums.
At that, she slowly lifted her gaze to the man standing before her.
This place, and these people, are nothing more than unnecessary obstacles in building the world Mireille desires.
Within her heart, a decision was made—quietly, yet with absolute clarity.
‘As I thought, these two are in the way.
I will eliminate them.’