Ch.23023. A Twisted Tale of Jealousy

It was a story from her childhood.

A strict father who was nonetheless affectionate to his daughters, a mother who would scold that father, and an older sister who was already making a name for herself in social circles at a young age.

Born as a late child, she had lived as the youngest daughter of the Nobilitas Count family, monopolizing love in an environment that lacked nothing. Her gentle personality had formed due to the influence of such a family.

Perhaps because of this, she was popular among noble children her age. Because of her background as the precious youngest daughter of the influential Nobilitas family, there weren’t many who could treat her carelessly, but many children who encountered her kind personality were often moved by it. Even though they were noble children, they were just little ones around ten years old.

She blossomed beautifully, raised with the love of her family and the attention of those around her.

Until that incident happened.

That day, as always, she visited the Lithuania estate with her father, wearing her lovely smile. In his younger days, her father had been a comrade who fought alongside the Count of Lithuania on battlefields, and they were close friends. On this journey that was half official business and half visiting an old friend, he brought his daughter along.

The reason was simple. Count Nobilitas wanted to show off his precious youngest daughter to his friend. It happened that the Count of Lithuania had a boy around her age, so he brought her along to introduce them.

Always preferring to meet new friends, she held her father’s hand tightly and headed to the estate with an excited heart. Even now, she could remember those feelings as if they were from yesterday.

How foolish she had been.

She truly thought so.

Following her father, she met the Count of Lithuania, greeted him, and was then guided to the reception room. She remembered it as a consideration for adults to socialize with adults and children with children.

How much time had passed?

As she waited anxiously, fidgeting with her fingers, she met a boy with striking blonde hair and red eyes.

Eyes red like rubies and golden hair that sparkled in the sunlight. Despite being a young child, he had delicate features.

With her heart pounding from a different emotion than the excitement of meeting a new friend, she greeted him with a bright smile. At that time, she didn’t understand the feeling because she was young, but as an adult now, she could recognize it clearly, unpleasantly so.

But it was already in the past, a day that had become an indelible wound.

If she had noticed that the smile hanging from his lips was twisted, would the outcome have been different?

That’s how she met what she could call the worst connection in her not-so-short life.

***

Lily Roseus Nobilitas’s morning was among the earliest in the academy. She always woke up before sunrise, finished a light face wash, and headed straight to the training room. Upon arrival, she began her training routine. Starting with physical conditioning, she would work up a good sweat and finish with magical power training.

After completing her morning training, she would hurry back to her room before people arrived to wash up. It wasn’t that she avoided people, but she didn’t appreciate the sidelong glances she received when she was sweaty like this.

Her chest, much larger than others’, always caused her considerable stress in this way. Her childhood trauma was also the worst result of her unusual development, so it was perhaps natural for Lily to resent her large chest.

As Lily dried her hair with a magical tool that blew hot air, she suddenly recalled the dream she had this morning and gritted her teeth in frustration. Of all things, she had remembered her first meeting with Gilbert Lyon Hart, whom she hated with a passion.

It was Gilbert who had shamelessly touched Lily’s chest, which had begun to develop since childhood, and uttered vulgar words.

Even after more than ten years, she couldn’t forget his behavior that crossed all boundaries.

During that young day, Lily was tormented by Gilbert throughout her stay at the Lithuania estate, and eventually burst into tears and fell into her father’s arms.

Upon hearing about the verbal abuse, almost harassment, inflicted on Lily, the Count of Lithuania became furious and slapped his son Gilbert’s cheek, then repeatedly apologized to her father and her, as she remembered.

But her heart was already wounded, and even on the few occasions they met afterward, Gilbert hadn’t changed. Rather, harboring resentment for being slapped by the Count of Lithuania, he tormented her even more.

Eventually, having nightmares about Gilbert every time she slept, she became afraid to leave her room for a while. It was because Gilbert’s sneers and the knife-like words that poured from his mouth echoed in her ears whenever she closed her eyes.

If her sister hadn’t actively reached out to her, the current Lily might not have existed. Perhaps she would still be confining herself to her room.

In any case, there was one thing Lily vowed on the day she took her sister’s hand and overcame her trauma. It was to exact revenge on Gilbert, who had inflicted such deep wounds on her heart.

She engraved in her heart that she would make him suffer and be wounded just the same.

Since Gilbert was also a noble, he would come to Demeia Academy to prove his blue blood, and her plan was to make him pay the price there.

Perhaps it was from that moment that she began her bone-grinding training with her sister as her goal. With the sole desire for revenge to reduce him to a state of no return, Lily willingly accepted the arduous training.

As time passed, she finally met Gilbert, whom she couldn’t forget even in her dreams, at the Demeia Academy entrance ceremony.

His golden hair and ruby-red eyes remained unchanged. Seeing his slightly tanned skin and his now tall stature, she involuntarily shuddered as if the fearful emotions from back then were reviving.

She vowed to break him completely. Her trauma could not be escaped unless she personally cast Gilbert into the abyss with her own hands.

When she saw Gilbert applying as a commander for the entrance mock battle, she also applied as a commander and gave her all to crush Gilbert, gritting her teeth in determination.

With all the effort she had put in, she was confident she could easily handle Gilbert, who was rumored to be a scoundrel.

However, contrary to her expectations, Lily was defeated by Gilbert without even being able to exert much strength. She lost in strategy and was even more miserably defeated in tactics. Literally, it was not Gilbert but herself who was crushed.

Lily found it extremely frustrating and resentful. For her, who had never once neglected her training, it was a tremendous shock. Gilbert, as known in social circles, was truly a garbage-like scoundrel.

He was arrogant and a complete slacker who never trained at all. Dirty scandals followed him as a matter of course, and rumors that spread discreetly even suggested he meddled with women who were already taken.

Yet Lily, who had trained diligently for ten years, couldn’t defeat such a Gilbert. Just like in her childhood days, she was helplessly overpowered and couldn’t do anything. Naturally, Lily couldn’t help but fall into despair. It felt as if all her efforts had been denied, and she couldn’t focus on her daily life.

However, Lily was no longer the fragile youngest daughter of the Count family from ten years ago. She had a purpose to destroy Gilbert, and that purpose became her motivation to rise again.

About a week after the entrance mock battle ended, Lily, having collected herself, approached her training with an even more determined mindset than before.

She had talent, and she had effort to match it.

She whipped her complacent heart that had slackened over the ten years.

But where on earth had that bastard disappeared to?

Having finished drying her hair, Lily organized her magical tools and thought about Gilbert, who had been missing for the past week. At some point, he had stopped attending classes altogether and hadn’t shown himself even now, a week later.

Among the students, the story that he had been expelled for mistreating an academy servant had begun to spread almost as established fact. Once, she asked Professor Briana, the faculty advisor, about Gilbert’s whereabouts, but received only the answer that she didn’t need to know.

For Lily, Gilbert being expelled and falling into the abyss of life was something to welcome, but she couldn’t be satisfied with just that. Her trauma was the kind that could only disappear if she broke it with her own hands. Him being expelled after only giving her a taste of defeat would only plant another trauma.

Calming her boiling insides somehow, Lily left the dormitory and headed for the academy’s main building. With Gilbert’s current whereabouts unknown, all she could do was attend lectures.

Today, as always, ignoring the gazes of men pouring down on her, she arrived at the main building. Today’s lecture was on the operation of giant god-soldiers, which she was particularly interested in. Professor Alexander’s lectures, based on rich experience, left no room for boredom and had much to learn from.

As Lily was thinking about the lecture, she suddenly realized that the gazes of the cadets gathered in the main hall were directed toward the door. Wondering if something had happened to draw everyone’s attention at once, she also cast her gaze in the direction the cadets were looking.

And there he was, the one she had been looking for so desperately.

Eyes red like rubies and golden hair that sparkled in the morning sunlight.

Attire dirtied with dust as if he had just fought a battle, and sleeves stained red like blood.

With a stride neither fast nor slow, he was walking in, overwhelming the crowd.

Gilbert Lyon Hart, who had been the subject of rumors for a week.

It was his appearance.

Lily silently clenched her fists.