Page 184 of The Villainess Whom I Had Served for 13 Years Has Fallen

The sunny Desmunt mansion.

Darbave planted colorful flowers in the yard and smiled with satisfaction.

Darbave held a hoe in his hand and wiped away the sweat dripping down his forehead.

It wasn’t something the head of a prestigious family should be holding, but Darbave felt good being able to decorate the mansion with his own hands.

Was it because he was getting old?

These days, Darbave appreciated beautiful things.

“Wonderful.”

“...”

“It’s best to do it yourself.”

“...”

“I planted it with my own hands, but the color combination is quite nice.”

The yard, planted with {Novelight} various flowers such as roses, lilies, and forget-me-nots, was to Darbave’s liking. Darbave smiled and asked Olivia, who was sitting on the floor of the yard,

“What do you think? Do you like it?”

Olivia, who was holding a hoe with a sullen expression, looked at Darbave and said,

“No.”

“...!?”

The ground where Olivia was sitting was full of traces of her digging.

Darbave smiled with satisfaction as he watched Olivia, who was told to plant flowers but instead became a plow and dug up the ground.

‘She didn’t pick the flowers.... Good.’

Olivia nervously threw the hoe on the floor and wiped away the sweat dripping down her forehead.

“It’s not fun.”

Darbave asked Olivia, who was throwing a tantrum and declaring a strike.

“Why not?”

“It’s hard and hot working under the sun.”

“Didn’t you ask for an allowance?”

“Isn’t an allowance something you get for free?”

“No.”

“Father, please.”

“It can’t be helped.”

Olivia’s face grew long as she expressed her sullen mood to Darbab, who had gotten close enough to her face that she could smell his breath.

“uuugh...”

Olivia was bored.

Playing with Father was fun, but she had been bored lately because the butler hadn’t been playing with her.

Olivia complained to Darbab, telling him her true feelings. She said that the butler seemed to be shirking his duties these days.

“Father.”

“What is it?”

“Ricardo won’t play with me anymore.”

“I see.”

“He says he’s too busy to play with me these days.”

“Isn’t that unrelated to flowers?”

“It’s more important than flowers.”

Darbab nodded sullenly at Olivia’s words.

“It’s more important to Father, too.”

Olivia shook her head and said,

“It’s more important to me.”

Knowing full well that he could not break his daughter’s stubbornness, Darbab crouched down next to Olivia and listened to her troubles.

As the head of the Desmunt family, it was unthinkable to sit on the dirt floor, but what could he do? He wanted to.

Darbab waved his hand at the flustered servants to tell them it was okay, and he listened to Olivia’s words.

“It can’t be helped. He’s a busy man, after all. I can understand that.”

“What good does it do if Father understands? I’m the one who needs to understand.”

“Don’t you understand either?”

Olivia nodded at Darbab’s question and buried her face in Darbab’s shoulder.

“Yes. I was just throwing a tantrum.”

Darbab was moved by Olivia’s mature appearance.

In the past, she would have gotten angry and said, “I’m bored!” But Darbab, as a father, felt proud of his daughter who understood Ricardo’s circumstances.

It seemed that he had raised his daughter well.

Olivia muttered in a sullen voice,

“Ricardo must be very busy. I just asked him to help me with a little bit of work, but he wouldn’t listen.”

“Isn’t Father worried about you? Father also works a lot.”

“Father only works a little bit. Health comes before money.”

“...”

Darbab’s eyes gradually turned red.

Perhaps it was because he was getting older, but Darbab, who was becoming more and more sensitive, was so proud of having raised such a filial daughter that he felt he had nothing to envy in the world.

According to the rumors he had heard, the Histania family had raised rather unfortunate children.

Darbab shook his head, recalling the face of a pedantic fellow student from the academy.

-I exist for my family.

When the fellow announced his marriage, Darbab had thought that his rival’s procreation plans had come to ruin. Yet, as strange rumors reached him, he couldn’t help but nod in agreement.

Look at me.

Sure, his daughter was a bit ill-tempered, but wasn’t she a devoted daughter who worried about her father? Darbab, who considered his daughter worthy of being called a filial daughter, smiled inwardly as he scored a point against his rival family, the Histanias, in their ongoing duel.

Procreation.

Status.

His wife’s appearance.

He was still winning.

“Heh heh.”

“Father seems victorious.”

“No.”

“Then why are you smiling?”

“I’m just happy that you’re worried about your old man.”

“Am I good?”

“...”

Darbab couldn’t answer.

Because he had a conscience.

“Why aren’t you answering?”

“Well, our daughter is the prettiest in the world.”

“I know.”

“She has such a good heart, I wonder who she takes after. She’s so clever, too.”

“She takes after Mother.”

Darbab let out a sigh of relief.

“And after Father, too.”

Darbab sucked in the breath he had just let out.

“Isn’t her personality more like Mother’s?”

“No, she’s like Father, too.”

“Think about it again.”

“Why?”

“...”

Darbab had a conscience.

Time passed like that, and as the afternoon sun began to fade into darkness.

“Hmm?”

In the distance, a familiar man’s face came into view, wearing a pleasant smile as he walked towards them.

The man carried shopping bags in both hands.

Olivia reacted faster than Darbab. Like a dog that had caught a whiff of something tasty, Olivia, who had been dozing on Darbab’s back, quickly lifted her head and shouted when she saw the red-haired young man approaching from afar.

“Father, Ricardo’s coming.”

“I see.”

“Let’s go, Father.”

“...”

Darbab was upset.

From Noble mtl dot com

“Let’s go!”

Still, it was fine.

“eeek! Let’s go!”

Because her daughter was alive.

And Darbab was reassured because a reliable ally was by her daughter’s side.

*

Even today, the Desmund family’s mansion was peaceful.

For the first time in a long while, I was sitting on the bed with the young lady and chatting, and I was wearing a satisfied smile as I listened to the young lady tell me about what had happened to her today.

“So I asked my father for some free money, but he said he couldn’t give me much.”

“I see.”

“Yeah. He said he had to pay Ricardo his salary. He told me to just put up with it a little longer since I’m already so shameless.”

“Oh... He’s definitely the young lady’s father.”

“Right? I think so too.”

“That’s not a compliment.”

“It’s not?”

“No.”

The young lady was talking to me with a bashful smile.

Today, she had planted flowers in the mansion’s yard. She said it had been hard, but she felt good because it was pretty after she was done planting them. The young lady kept on talking about what had happened today, and I couldn’t help but laugh as I listened to her.

The young lady spoke to me honestly.

-I was upset because Ricardo hasn’t been playing with me lately.

-But I understand Ricardo. Ricardo is busy too. I can understand because I’m busy too, just like Ricardo. I’ll earn a lot of money later and feed Ricardo. Just bear with it a little longer.

-I didn’t go there to earn money.

-Then why?

-I went there because of a friend.

-Ricardo has a friend?

-That hurts my feelings.

I was taken aback by the young lady’s innocent expression, but I was still touched by her broad-mindedness.

She even knew how to be understanding... She had grown a lot since her villainess days. As a butler who had served the young lady since long ago, it was good to see her grow.

I liked that the young lady spoke her mind without hiding anything.

She didn’t just keep her frustrations bottled up inside. I liked how straightforward the young lady was when she said that she was upset.

I liked how jealous the young lady was that she had less time to play, and I also liked that I could talk to the young lady while looking at her face.

I looked at the young lady and smiled.

I focused on her story as I looked into the young lady’s round eyes as she lay on the bed.

“Ricardo.”

“Yes.”

“Are you not busy anymore?”

“Hmm... I think so. I’ve already received the money I was owed from the academy, and I’ve also solved my friend’s problem.”

“Then...”

The lady carefully asked, sneaking a glance at me.

“What are you doing tomorrow?”

I smiled in response to the lady’s shy question as she pulled the blanket up to her lips.

“I’m thinking of going downtown tomorrow.”

“Downtown?”

“Yes.”

“Who are you going with?”

The lady avoided my gaze, clutching the blanket tightly. I held back my laughter at the lady’s honest expression, which clearly showed that she would be disappointed if the person she was going with wasn’t her, and decided to tease her.

“I’ll be going with someone incredibly beautiful.”

“...Someone beautiful?”

“Yes.”

“More beautiful than me?”

“Oh, come on, where in the world could you find someone more beautiful than you?”

“hehehe... That’s true.”

The lady looked at me intently, a pleasant smile on her face.

“So who is it?”

I looked at the lady and said,

“I can’t tell you yet. I haven’t gotten permission.”

“Hmm...”

“So what are you going to do tomorrow, Miss?”

“I was going to eat chocolate with Ricardo.”

“I see.”

I said to the lady,

“Will you be free tomorrow?”

“Hm?”

“I was thinking of going shopping with you tomorrow, buying pajamas and chocolate...”

“That incredibly beautiful person... is me?”

“Yes.”

The lady pulled the blanket up to her head and punched it with her fist.

-Thud.

After punching the blanket with her fist for a while, the lady revealed her face with a pleasant smile.

“Okay.”

I looked at the lady and asked,

“So what’s your answer?”

“Hmm...”

The lady pursed her lips and fell into deep thought. She made a humming sound for a while, contemplating the idea that she was an expensive person and needed to consider her schedule, before nodding her head with difficulty and spitting out her answer.

“Okay.”

“I’m honored.”

“I’ll make you something special.”

I smiled slightly and thanked the lady.

“Thank you. Miss.”

*

The next day after she came.

The Miss caught a cold.

“Hick... Hiccup! Achoo!”

It was a terrible flu.