novelI'm not Olivia anymore (4)
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Olivia, gazing at Juasonette's flushed face with suspicion, suddenly noticed that her index finger was shining white.
Now watching her in surprise, Olivia felt a burning pain in her index finger. She tried to flex it urgently with a shout, but she couldn't do it because she was worried that she would harm the little fairy if she did so. Fortunately, the pain quickly disappeared.
"I just gave you a fairy's gift. Now, you can grow any plant you want anywhere. All you have to do is just press your finger firmly!"
Olivia, sat on an old sofa with a blank look, raised her right hand and looked at it closely for a while. She could still smell the sweet scent of strawberries on her hands stained with red strawberry juice.
It was definitely not a dream.
After parting with the fairy, she walked out of the woods as she was guided. It was dark when she reached the lonely mansion. No one in the earl's house was concerned about her absence, so she was not stopped by anybody from going back to her room.
After she arrived in her lonely room, she felt a strong thirst and poured water in a cup and gulped it down. Suddenly, she recalled her encounter with the fairy. When she pressed her right index finger on the glass of water, a terrible thing happened. Olivia recalled the fresh strawberry trees she saw in the forest!
"Oh my god!"
The water spilled out in all directions, and a small sprout came out of it. That alone was enough to shock Olivia, but the fragile green mass grew quickly. It began to grow exactly as big as the size of the trees she thought about!
Olivia looked down at the tree as it reached her waist with trembling eyes then pushed it into the fireplace. She struck the flint impatiently. As it was a live tree, it didn't burn well. She coughed a lot because there was a lot of smoke while it was burning. Wiping the tears in her eyes with the back of her hand, she got scared because someone might see her in the middle of the flame.
'Oh my god! What the hell is this?' she murmured.
Thump!
Olivia, who was lost in thought at the moment, suddenly raised her head when someone opened the door of her room without knocking on it.
The countess, with her face distorted like an evil witch, walked toward her with a sharp look.
Olivia momentarily thought about pointing out her rudeness, but she shut her mouth because the countess, who frowned at her miserable appearance, stole the show by saying, "Did you dare to splash muddy water on Francis?"
As if she was determined to scold Olivia harshly, she had bloodshot eyes. Olivia responded quietly, trying to be indifferent to her harsh words.
"...Didn't you hear from her why I did so?"
"That's none of my business! You must be ready to pay the price as you of a lowly station insulted the precious daughter of the Hazlet family, right? Besides, you even insulted the precious son of the Lennox family that you said you loved!"
Shouting at her like hell, the countess grabbed Olivia's blond hair. Stunned, Olivia tried to pull her hand out of it, but she couldn't get out of the furious countess's strong grip. A bunch of her tangled hair was pulled out by her hands.
Embarrassed, Olivia tried to shake off her hands in vain, and eventually grabbed her by the hair, which was well rolled up. The countess flinched for a moment and shouted at her loudly to put down her hands right away. But Olivia also shouted at her to do the same.
The two faced each other, pulling each other's hair. But no matter how harsh the countess' words were, she was the master of the mansion. In the end, Olivia loosened her grip first quietly. At that moment, the countess, who noticed that her grip had loosened, quickly pushed aside Olivia's hands and slapped her in the face a couple of times. The sound of her slapping was heard loud.
"Yuck!"
Olivia, who almost fell on the floor, held her cheeks and looked up at the countess in a fit of anger. The countess fumed at her, using foul language, "I hear you slapped the son of the Lennox family in the face. How can a dirty mistress's daughter disgrace our family? You just stay put inside the house and repent. If I see you outside the house at all, I'll kick you out immediately."
The countess scolded her coldly and went out of the room. Olivia lowered her hands around her swollen cheeks and spit on the floor. There came out a lot of blood from her mouth as if its inside was torn.
"Ha...... Hahaha...... Hahahahahahaha."
Olivia laughed bitterly. The sound of her laughter began to become louder gradually, and in the end she started to grab her stomach and roll down on the floor. It looked like she was crazy.
"Ahahaha...How funny! Hahaha..."
Her facial expression at the moment was far from that of a pathetic woman. She was injured on one side of her cheeks after a fierce quarrel with the countess, but she didn't feel upset or resentful about her. Anyway, the wound inside her mouth was negligible.
"I just wish your bun hair exactly resembled that burgweed very well! Ha ha ha ha ha!"
Recalling the image of the burgweed that she had seen in the forest, she was imagining the countess's contorted face a moment ago.
***
The sound of water drops falling over the wooden tub rang in the bathroom. Soaking in the bathtub, Olivia fixed her eyes on the water drops on the ceiling. Her blurry green eyes seemed to be moist because of the blurry steam.
It would be a lie if she said she was not hurt. She comforted herself by saying she just returned to her former self before she had met Dylan, but she couldn't help but being heartbroken.
Rising from the bathtub with a long sigh, she put on the bathrobe on the shelf and walked toward one corner of the bathroom. Her shoulders trembled when she touched the cool floor with her bare feet, but she did not hate its coldness. That was the temperature she had to keep from now on.
She squatted, looking at the wall of the bathroom and knocked on the wooden board of the floor with her hands. At first it didn't move at all when she tapped it several times, but when she hit it hard a couple of more times, it tipped on its side stiffly. As if she had done it before, she lifted the wooden board from the gap and reached deep into the hole. Soon afterwards, she took out a tightly sealed box with her white hand.
Opening the box without hesitation, she lifted a small piece of bronze in it. It was engraved with the letters 'Wendy Waltz. ' It was a tag showing one's social status in the empire.
After sweeping the bronze tag with hand and putting it back in the box, Olivia took out a brown leather pouch this time. When she opened the leather pouch tied up with a strap, it was filled with jewelry that looked very expensive at a glance. She scrutinized it once again and tied it before putting it back.
"Haaa..."
She was now fully prepared.
In fact, she was done with all the preparations several months ago, but everything stopped since she met Dylan Lennox.
She began to prepare to leave the earl's house long ago when she came of age.
She earned her new social status with money made hard by selling her mother's keepsakes and tried to gain more physical strength. The purpose of her horseback riding across the road between the county field and the forest every day was to develop her physical strength for the departure. That's why she saved all the money bequeathed to her as well as the jewelry that her mother left behind.
At first she had a hard time buying a new status because she didn't know how to, but she could gain the status of a commoner that she wanted. All went well as she planned. Although she didn't like the girly name 'Wendy Waltz, ' she came to appreciate its value when she thought that's the new name for her new life as a commoner.
Of course, the fact was that she would have to be punished severely when she was caught buying the new status. How long was she searching the earl's study to find out in advance the most tragic consequences of her plan? When she was planning to leave the earl's house, she combed all the legal books in the library of the Hazlet family and checked out the penalties for buying and selling social status.
Although it was difficult for her to read and understand the jargon, she confirmed that if she were caught buying her status, she would have to spend all her young days in prison.
What was most shocking was the fact that buying and selling status was treason.
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