The Villainess Reverses the Hourglass

Editor Group: Liber Reverie

As it was so beautiful, Asher was almost speechless. In fact, he had visited for another reason, but he also smiled thinking that it had been good to come.

"Well, this is a pretty wild question. How would you feel if your biological father suddenly appeared to you and wanted to take you?"

Asher's voice flowed over the wall of the wagon and into the driver's seat. It was because they picked a wagon with a thin wall. The Marquis swallowed his saliva and waited for Aria's answer, and Aria cocked her head, and asked back, "I don't know why you're asking such a question without saying anything."

"It wasn't long before you would become an adult, and I suddenly thought about it. What if your biological father appears and you disappear after a while? What if you run away saying you don't like me? Should I block the border?"

As if acting, he put his hand on his chin and replied with a worried face, and Aria burst into small laughs.

"It's that kind of anxiety. I have dreamed of you running away many times."

Aria, who had achieved many things by herself, was able to live proudly without marrying the Crown Prince. He might be comfortable if she had no abilities and had to lean on him. But that wouldn't happen, and Asher did not want it, so he gave up a long time ago.

"I do not know. If he shows up now, I will doubt his true intentions."

"What do you mean?"

"When I was in a difficult time, he didn't even cast a shadow, but does it mean that he appears as I am self-reliant enough to live alone? It doesn't look good."

And in the past, her biological father, who hadn't appeared in the middle of the twenty and died, suddenly appeared now. She really had to doubt his true heart.

"I see. What if he didn't show up for some reason and didn't mind if there was nothing in you?"

Suddenly, his explanation changed quite a bit, and Aria, who rolled her eyes for a while, shook her head again.

"It depends, but… Well, I will refuse."

"… why?"

"Because you'd hate it."

'How can I be positive if you tell me that you've been thinking about it first?'

In addition, it was Asher who would live with her in the future, not her biological father who had no contact at all. And it was also Asher who had always comforted her. Now when he said that he was her father and would take her, she would not be impressed.

The carriage was once rattled by her answer, which gave no room. It wasn't too much, but it was clearly a shake that obviously represented the Marquis's mind.

* * *

"Unfortunately, she did not take the wishes of the Marquis."

Asher's expression was so bright as he said so. Even though it was not the face of the one who argued the misfortune of others, the Marquis of Piast agreed with it.

"… yes. Thank you for your help."

After hearing Aria's intentions, the Marquis of Piast would no longer say he would take her. In a satisfactory result, Asher asked him what he would do in the future,

"What are you going to do in the future? You missed both the Countess and Aria."

"For now… I'll talk to the Countess. No matter how much Lady Aria hates us, the blood relation is a different matter."

"That's a good idea, and it's better than suddenly confusing Lady Aria."

"Yes, I think it would be better to hear it from the Countess than from me."

He could not take her to the Kingdom of Croa anyway, so it was better to take time to reveal it slowly than to confess that she was the descendant of the Marquis family. Either way, she would be shocked, but it would be better to hear from her mother who had been with her than her strange grandfather.

"I'm sorry, but can you help me one more time?"

"If it's simple… What's it for?"

"Could you make a seat with the Countess for me? It's hard to visit her again because I visited the mansion of the Count family as a different person…"

"It's not that hard. OK."

Asher gave consent to the request of the Marquis. He got to know what he had hoped for, and there was nothing he couldn't help. Besides, there was another reason why Asher accepted the request of the Marquis. He intended to be present at the conversation between the Countess and the Marquis.

The meeting with the Countess was done without delay; when he wrote a letter to her that there was a problem to the villa she had purchased, she appeared at the appointed place with a desperate expression.

"… Your Highness!"

"I haven't seen you in a long time, madam, please sit down."

Apparently, it was a letter from the government office, and why was the Crown Prince here?

Come to think of it for a while, and it was strange that the meeting place was a cafe in the first place. If there was a problem, they would have told her to come to the office.

It was a room that was independent of other places, but it was not a suitable place to deal with public affairs. The Countess, who had confirmed that the man who had visited the house the previous time with the Crown Prince, sat on the other side of them, her eyes shaking.

"I ordered tea at my will, but I don't know if you'll like it."

"It's, it's OK. Thank you."

The Countess took a sip of the fragrant jasmine tea with her trembling hands and calmed down her heart. She wondered what he was going to say, and why he had been fooling the letter. As she waited for Asher to speak, worried, and it was the Marquis of Piast who unexpectedly spoke,

"I actually called you."

"… why?"

"I want to ask you something."

'Why did he call her in, who had been in a small grace by the Count?' She couldn't form any idea of what it was, and she swallowed her saliva and waited for an answer. However, the words from his mouth were unexpected.

"Do you know Chloe?"

"… who?"

"Chloe. He said he saw you only once, seventeen years ago; I'm talking about my son, who looks like Lady Aria."

At his words, the Countess frowned and rolled her eyes, and she seemed to be worried because she could not think of who it was. How could she think of a man who she had met only once more than ten years ago?

And seventeen years ago… it was the time when she had been working as a prostitute. A man she'd met when she didn't want to think about…

"… Don't tell me, are you talking about the man?"

Nevertheless, he had an unforgettable appearance, and she opened her eyes wide as if she had come to think of his face, and asked back. She had forgotten him, but she could remember that he looked like Aria.

"… why do you ask that? I just met him a long time ago once."

She had met him as a guest. She would not even remember him if he was not like Aria. Her heart had been moved by his sweet talk and he had said that he was attracted to her at first sight with his beautiful appearance that she could not believe he was a man.

He had never given her his name or his status, but she had thought that such a sweet man could make her happy. But Chloe had not come since his single visit, and it had frozen the heart of the Countess, who had expected for a moment.

'Why did he ask about such a man now?' She thought of it and looked displeased again, and suddenly she had a strange feeling. She had thought of the man she had met more than a decade ago through her daughter, and she was also suspicious of the timing. She had had Aria shortly after she'd met Chloe.

The Countess, embarrassed, trembled her hands, unable to hide her face, and the tea-water, which had spilled over her mouth before she could bring it to her mouth, soaked her beautiful dress a little.

She needed time to think and organize, and the Marquis of Piast and Asher watched her and waited quietly. And the Countess, who had been in a long-suffering mood, looked at the Marquis with a sharp, thoughtful expression as if she had sorted out.

"So, do you come to threaten me with a pretext of my daughter? Do you need money?"

Otherwise, the man who had visited to ask after his health with the slight grace of the Count would not come to her like this.