She's Not Our Daughter! Ch 45

Time to Rescue Sister

[Abel] "Why do you look like that?"

Foreboding gripped him as he questioned Sierra cautiously.

Sierra closed her eyes tightly and opened them before facing him.

[Sierra] "The contents of the letter......."

[Abel] "The contents?"

She suppressed her rising panic and lowered her gaze back to the letter, murmuring.

[Sierra] "No, I will read further."

She had only read the very first line.

Sister is a complete eccentric, so this might be a prank. Surely nothing bad happened.

She comforted herself and hurriedly read the next passage.

[Amille] "I am currently running from the imperial palace bastards. I might die. Just in case, I am leaving this letter that only you can read."

She exhaled sharply and explained urgently, reading the lines to Abel one by one.

[Sierra] "She says she is running from the imperial palace bastards."

Frustration mounted because the text didn't name anyone specific from the palace. However, the word 'die' appeared clearly in this paragraph.

Sierra stammered, staring at Abel.

[Sierra] "S-She says she might die......."

[Abel] "Noona, Noona. Calm down first. You know how Lady Amille jokes about things like this."

His words made sense. Amille was such an eccentric that she used to play pranks involving her own life, even making Sierra cry.

Sierra tore her gaze away from Abel and fixed her eyes back on the letter.

[Sierra] "Right, I will read the rest quickly."

Cassius, who had stepped outside, could return at any moment. Furthermore, the mention of death could be a prank. It was better to read through it quickly right now rather than taking time to interpret it for Abel.

[Amille] "I think death is simply another journey."

Nonsense. What do you mean death is a journey?! Why are you doing this?! You need to live, you idiot! Is this really a joke?

Furrowing her brow and suppressing her frustration, she read further.

[Amille] "Ever since we were young, you probably thought I would die. I took on so many dangerous requests, after all. But this time, even I worry. I never imagined I would die at the hands of the imperial palace, but well, this must be my fate."

[Amille] "Anyway, stop crying. Understood? Come to think of it, I heard you face a misunderstanding right now—they mistake Hanael for your daughter. I wrote a letter to clear that up. But I don't know if the other party will believe it. I should go and prove it myself, but...... I can't do that. The letter proving Hanael's birth sits in the bottom drawer, so check it."

Sierra almost collapsed at this point. She forced strength into her legs.

Certainty settled in. Something terrible had definitely happened to her sister. She might die.

You never said you worried about anything before, Amille.

Sierra cast her gaze downward.

[Amille] "Anyway, Sierra, don't even set foot in the imperial palace. A demon lives there. If you don't want to get involved with me, just go your own way. You are now a person completely unrelated to me by any means. It is true on the official registers, and I even altered my mana signature. If you want to stay safe, bury everything and just live your life. Understood? Don't ever think of finding me, even if I don't die."

Piecing the facts together, her sister certainly took on some work related to the imperial palace. Perhaps she discovered a high-ranking person's dark secret. The mention of a living demon could mean a literal demon, or it could refer to a human performing demonic deeds.

This letter brings foreboding, but she is definitely not dead. Sister is the strongest mage I know.

Her sister Amille was a Great Archmage, but Sierra was also a genius at handling medicines. Looking down at her sister's words about cutting ties, a scoff escaped her lips.

[Sierra] "This makes absolutely no sense. Dying, cutting ties. How does any of this make sense?"

While she laughed hollowly and ruffled her hair, Abel spoke up.

[Abel] "Noona, there is a blood-stained handkerchief here, look!"

While Sierra read the letter, Abel, who was searching the cabin's interior, extended a blood-stained handkerchief toward her.

[Sierra] "Give it here."

Snatching the handkerchief roughly, she pulled the detection potion from her pocket and poured it over the cloth. Smoke hissed up from the blood-stained handkerchief before dying down.

Sierra turned pale. The blood belonged to her sister, not anyone else. It contained her sister's mana. Only then did the reality strike her clearly: her sister was either dead or facing mortal peril.

[Sierra] "It is my sister's blood-stained handkerchief."

She collapsed to the floor. Memories of her sister flooded her mind. When she was around six years old, having no parents, she couldn't even wash properly; her sister washed the dirt-stained Sierra. When the other children bullied her…….

[Sierra] "Sister, when I'm hungry, am I not supposed to eat azaleas?"

[Amille] "Why would you eat flowers? I made you plenty of delicious food."

[Sierra] "But the kids told me that orphans are supposed to eat things off the ground! So I ate them……."

Watching the young, innocent Sierra speak completely without guile, her sister slumped her shoulders and murmured.

[Amille] "Which bastard told my little sister that? Why are you an orphan? You have me."

[Sierra] "Mm……."

[Amille] "I will beat them all to death, so my sister doesn't need to think about anything. You have me."

[Sierra] "Yeah! I'm not an orphan! My sister is the best!"

Her sister was also the first to discover Sierra's talent, teaching her how to utilize pure mana and develop her pharmaceutical skills.

[Amille] "My little sister is incredibly smart. A genius."

[Sierra] "Mm, Sierra is a genius!"

[Amille] "But your ability carries danger. So let us learn how to control it."

[Sierra] "Sierra will do whatever Sister tells her to do!"

The warm and tender memories overlapped with her sister's letter, which calmly detailed her own death in code.

Sierra wiped her face harshly and forced her trembling legs to stand. Yet, memories of her sister kept filling her head.

[Child] "Your sister is weird."

[Sierra] "My sister is not weird at all!"

[Child] "You're an orphan. That woman isn't even your real sister, is she?"

When Sierra slumped her shoulders in dejection, her sister arrived like a comet to become her reliable shield.

[Amille] "These crazy bastards lost their minds. I will perform a sword dance tonight!"

That was why she took in Hanael. Just as her sister became a lighthouse for her, Sierra wanted to raise Hanael beautifully to prove everyone wrong. So she tightly embraced Hanael, who faced harassment from the villagers, and declared her as her own daughter.

[Sierra] "Hanael is my daughter! So don't touch her!"

[Villager] "No, young lady—"

[Sierra] "Hanael, you don't need to listen to those filthy words. Be my daughter from today on. I will protect you."

Sierra folded her sister's letter. She stared down at the caricature of herself drawn on the back of the page. It was neatly colored with blonde hair and green eyes. Gazing at her own face, her eyes welled with tears. Before long, tears dripped onto the paper.

Making her depend on Amille like this, only to say she would die—it was absurd.

You promised to live with me forever.

Sierra talked to herself in a raspy voice.

[Sierra] "Forever……."

The unfamiliar reality that she might never see her sister again overwhelmed her entire body.

[Sierra] "I never even considered the possibility of never seeing my sister again."

Abel, watching Sierra talk to herself, patted her shoulder and carefully broke the silence.

[Abel] "Noona, well, about that……."

[Sierra] "Yes?"

Gauging her reaction, Abel hesitated before speaking.

[Abel] "Actually, thinking about it now, I think the Great Archmage was running from somewhere for the past five years. You see, a request came from the imperial palace around the time Hanael arrived."

[Sierra] "From the imperial palace?"

The imperial palace appeared in her sister's letter too. She listened closely to his theory.

[Abel] "Yes. The imperial palace kept applying pressure. They demanded she send Hanael. Looking at those letters gave the Great Archmage a massive headache."

[Sierra] "Are you saying Hanael's father might belong to the imperial palace?"

[Abel] "Yes, to pressure a Great Archmage, he must hold quite a high position."

Nothing was certain. However, the detection potion Sierra created accurately tracked her sister's mana signature. And looking at her sister's coded letter…….

So she crossed paths with some imperial palace scumbag and faced death threats.

Sierra closed her eyes tightly and opened them again. She never expected her beloved sister to face such unforeseen danger. In that case, she had only one thing to do. Clenching her fists, she muttered in a low voice.

[Sierra] "Is that so? You are dead meat. I will not let this slide."

Her eyes rolled back as she crushed the letter in her grip.

[Abel] "N-Noona? Your eyes……."

Whenever her eyes rolled back, absolute chaos overturned the world. She had felt genuine fury only once in her life—when she caught a sexual predator in the village. That criminal barely survived.

[Sierra] "The bastard who harassed, hid, and seemingly kidnapped my sister……."

[Abel] "......N-Noona."

The tense Abel swallowed hard. Sierra whispered with absolute firmness, as if reciting a famous quote.

[Sierra] "I will castrate him."

[Abel] "Pardon?"

His face turned white at the sudden remark.

Sierra thought of Cassius outside the door. In a way, Cassius was a victim too. He misunderstood everything through no fault of his own, mistakenly believing Hanael was his daughter.

[Sierra] "Because of that scoundrel, there are so many victims right now."

She ground her teeth.

At that moment, the door rattled open from the outside. Sierra looked toward the entrance. Cassius, having finished using the magic tools, stepped inside. Sierra looked at him and spoke.

[Sierra] "The search is over, Cassius."

[Cassius] "Shall we head back now?"

Sierra nodded, staring at him as he looked weary.

Taking another letter her sister left inside the drawer was the right move before leaving.

Why is this letter so tiny?

It brought an unsettling feeling, but regardless, it was time to head back quickly.

---

Leaving Sebor Village in the black carriage, Sierra let out heavy sighs while staring out the window. She had to rescue her sister, who seemed caught by some lunatic, yet she couldn't even guess the identity of the palace 'demon.'

The carriage sped toward the outskirts of Sebor Village. Along the way, a familiar man caught her eye in the passing scenery. Staring out the window with a conflicted mind, she looked puzzled.

That face looks familiar.

She remembered meeting him at the pharmaceutical academic conference she attended alongside Hentel, a doctor of the Hippo Kingdom.

He approached me out of nowhere back then, and I remembered him because he was quite handsome.

Today, he wore a monocle as if searching for something.

Why is that man here?

Come to think of it, their meeting back then had suspicious elements. His sudden approach, his abrupt disappearance, and his failure to seek her out even after receiving her medicine.

Why is he on the Crown Prince's private estate? What on earth is he doing?

The carriage passed him quickly. Doubts lingered in her mind. With her sister's whereabouts currently unknown, Sierra had to question absolutely everything.

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