[ You can’t gamble the family’s property as you please. This is the third time already…! ]

Slap!

With an unpleasant sound, Florentia’s head sharply turned to the left.

[ You good for nothing, how dare you admonish me! ]

The smell of alcohol was strong on the body of the man who had just pushed her shoulders away.

[ Let’s go to sleep. Calm down, Astall. Go over there. And you… ]

Belsach tried to softly appease his drunken cousin and then turned towards Florentia.

And.

Slap-!

With a louder sound than the one before, five fingers were imprinted on the other side of her face.

[ After four years of squandering on our family’s money, do you think it suddenly belongs to you? ]

Belsach berated Florentia as she held her face which had just been slapped twice.

[ Don’t be mistaken. Although you and us share the same last name, but with the blood flowing in your veins, you will never be a part of our family. All you have to do is to live as our servant. ]

No matter how many times she heard it, those cruel words felt like a dagger that had just pierced her heart.

[ If you tell grandfather anything that happened today, I won’t leave you alone. ]

With a warning, Belsach spit on the ground and turned around.

Soon, the sound of the carriage grew more and more distant.

Left alone in the dark alley, Florentia clenched her fists.

A drop of red blood dripped down her injured lips.

Ttripp, ttripp. “Hiyah-. Hiyah”

The small sway of the carriage and sound of the coachman awoke Florentia from the thoughts of the distant past.

As she slightly lifted the curtains draped over the window and looked outside, she could see the soldiers of the Imperial palace.

“So, we’re here.”

Florentia lowered the curtains again and looked straight ahead, sitting more upright.

After straightening her hair and dress which had become untidy for a while, she looked like a neat portrait.

In the meantime, her carriage passed through the main gate and reached Lamburgh Palace.

Riding in the carriage that was beautifully decorated, the gold it was made out of showed off it’s dazzling brilliance under the glorious sunlight of the afternoon.

“We’ve arrived.”

The carriage stopped and the coachman politely spoke.

“Florentia.”

At that time, the carriage door opened and a handsome man greeted her.

“Pherez.”

He kissed the back of her hand, after escorting her out of the carriage.

It was a kiss with a deep meaning that didn’t hide the desire in his heart.

“Pherez!”

Florentia called him out, but Pherez just smiled with his long eyelashes blinking.

“Let’s go, everyone’s waiting for you.”

She pulled her hand out of his and moved away from the carriage.

Pherez, who laughed after seeing the tip of her ears blushing slightly, soon followed her back.

“There’s no one in this Lamburgh Empire who can complain against you for making them wait, my Tia. You can go a little slower.”

The two have come a long way today.

“As hard as it has been for you to come here, enjoy the moment.”

After much perseverance and efforts, it was time to eat the sweet fruit of her hard work today.

“Yes. I’ve had a lot of trouble.”

Florentia admitted plainly.

She had come a long way back. It’s probably even hard to imagine.

She added in a small voice which no one could hear.

“But that doesn’t mean I should be disrespectful.”

It was a firm answer.

The woman who had made him fall in love with her from the moment he had laid his eyes on her was such a wonderful woman.

Pherez laughed with joy again.

Soon after, the two stood at the door of the closed banquet hall.

“Are you ready?”

At Pherez’s question, Florentia nodded briefly.

“Then, shall we go in, Lord Lombardi.”

He held his hand out to her.

“Let’s go, Your Highness, the Crown Prince.”

A fine, pale hand held his hand together.

“Open the door.”

Pherez briefly commanded the servant in front of him.

“His Highness, the Crown Prince and the Overlord, Florentia Lombardi have entered!” (1)

A voice came from behind the door, announcing the arrival and the status of the two people.

Florentia laughed since the voice sounded like music to her ears.

The door slowly opened, and the bright light of the banquet hall poured out through the gap.

Skreeekkk.

With an unpleasant sound, the iron gates of the great mansion were closed by the imperial knights.

It was the end of the Lombardis, which had reigned as the greatest family on the continent for 250 years, on par with the imperial family of Lamburgh.

Like an ever-expanding world, the family’s symbol, the clan, which had always been strong, ended in vain with the capture of Vieze Lombardi, the patriarch of the household, as well as other figures under the name of tax evasion and treason.

Hundreds of citizens of Lombardi, a city named after the family, had gathered in front of the mansion.

There were those who constantly shed tears into their handkerchiefs, and those who turned away without even looking once.

And in the front row stood me, Florentia.

“Morons.”

I said sharply while gritting my teeth, but it didn’t matter now.

I glared at the heavily guarded front door of the family and uttered a few more words.

“Freaks, dimwits, lazy people who will remain stubborn even when stuck in a fire.”

I could feel the people standing around me looking back at me in surpise, but what do you think?

The Lombardi family is already ruined.

However, no matter how much I cursed, the rage inside my heart did not subside.

“I had already told you that it’s not going to be the First Prince. I told you several times that he is just a spoiled brat and he’s never going to be the Crown Prince!”

But despite my advice, the Lombardi idiots supported the First Prince.

The First Prince, Astana Nerempe Durelli.

They said it was because he was related to the empress, but as far as I could tell, they only picked the same kind of person as themselves.

He belonged to a ‘royal bloodline’ but had a fat body, while drowning in luxuries and pleasure and laziness that filled up his stomach.

It was no exaggeration to say that Lombardi’s brilliant history was the history of the Lamburgh empire.

It was the Lombardi family that made Durelli the first Emperor of the kingdom and brought the empire where it is today.

Is that all?

Reaching the top, the family accumulated enormous wealth, participated in every war, achieved bloodless victories with excellent diplomacy, and supported great artists from all over the empire. There was no place in the world where Lombardi’s name could not be reached.

And it was Lulak Lombardi, the Overlord of the previous generation, who is said to have raised the Lombardi family to a high level.

When the young Lulak had just taken over as an overlord, the imperial family issued a royal edict to keep him in check.

And that’s when Lulak came up with the scholarship system.

The government had raised the number of talented people in various fields by providing generous support to both nobles and commoners.

It was no wonder where the loyalty of those who had studied under the support of the Lombardi family would lie.

They were not Lombardi, but they were the Lombardi’s people.

So Lulak, the Overlord, had succeeded in planting his people all over the place without even taking a single step out of Lombardi’s territory.

Eventually, the emperor, who had no choice but to recognize the Lombardi family’s influence, had to take back the royal edict after twenty years.

However.

“No matter how ignorant you are. How can you ruin such a family in just two years!”

Two years ago, after the death of Lulak Lombardi, the first son, Vieze Lombardi, was appointed to the post of the next overlord.

And that was the beginning.

Vieze was a sleazy, passive man who only liked to say a few words, so he couldn’t lead the kingdom or his family, and so, the Lombardi’s bloodline, a bunch of squanderers, became selfish causing the family to lose their strict ancestry.

It’s so obvious, I don’t even have to look at it.

The reason I knew so much about them was very simple.

I used to be a Lombardi.

To be more specific, I lived in a country called South Korea, died in a traffic accident and reincarnated into this world.

That too, in the Lombardi family.

When I had first opened my eyes in the body of a newborn baby, I screamed instead of crying while looking at my luxurious surroundings that seemed like a hallucination.

I was finally born with a golden spoon!

There was definitely a period of time where I had woken up in that mansion, greeted everyone in the mornings and gone to sleep at night while looking at the patterns carved on the ceiling.

But sadly, I was just a half. (2)

My father was the third son of my grandfather, the Overlord of Lombardi but my mother, who had passed away while giving birth to me, was a commoner and could not officially get married due to the strict laws of the family.

Born between them, I was technically illegitimate, but with my grandfather’s permission, I was lucky to be able to use the Lombardi family’s surname.

But that didn’t mean that I was recognized as a part of the Lombardis.

All the time, I was just a vaguely positioned child using the Lombardi family’s last name and not actually a complete member of the family.

It was all superficial but even then, I was happy only for a short while.

A few days before my eleventh birthday.

After my father passed away due to an incurable disease, I was forgotten in the family.

I was no longer a Lombardi without the father who had linked me to the family.

Soon after, I was no more invited to any family events and I lost my place.

However, I couldn’t just leave myself like that, so I started working at the age of 15.

In the beginning, I began to take care of the library in the mansion.

When my father was alive, it was the place we had spent most of our time together, and it was almost like my second home.

But when the librarian suddenly resigned due to an illness, there was a vacancy and I took over the position with much difficulty.

It was ridiculous to entrust the whole library to a fifteen year old child but the surname Lombardi attached to my name had proven to be very useful at that time.

Ordering and organizing books as people requested was something I loved and it wasn’t that difficult for me.

As a result of working hard while enjoying my duties, the library became more and more pleasant and I started to be recognized for the first time.

So, one by one, one at a time. Slowly, I started to touch on the affairs of the mansion.

By the end of my eighteenth birthday, I began to be in charge of the affairs inside and outside the Lombardi mansion.

It was quite an extreme job.

My father’s brothers were all snobbish nobles living in their own little bubble, and my Lombardi cousins were rogues who got involved in some or the other accident every day.

And the year I was 19, my grandfather fell ill and I was assigned the duty to assist him by his side.

It was only natural that no-one knew the family affairs as well as I did.

Unlike my other cousins, who were born with blank heads, my grandfather was quite shocked at my ability to learn anything quickly and fulfill my responsibilities accurately.

“If only I had known a few years earlier that you were such a child!”

As my grandfather, Lulak Lombardi’s illness worsened, sighing became a habit for him as he constantly thought about the future of the family.

“I would have passed down this family to you….”

Every time, he would sigh and laugh.

“Nothing would have changed, grandpa.”

“Why do you think so?”

“I’m illegitimate. How can I become the overlord with a commoner’s blood in me?”

“No, Florentia.”

The voice of my grandfather who was shaking his head was very firm.

“You are a Lombardi. As long as you have the blood of the family, you’re well qualified.”

However, it was only a late regret, and Vieze, my grandfather’s first son, was counting the days when he would become the overlord.

But the last three years that I had spent with my grandfather were not meaningless.

During that time, I was able to feel some affection for the first time after my father had passed away.

“I’m sorry, Florentia. I should have taken better care of you. And all of that even though you’re my granddaughter…I’m really sorry.”

It might have been regretful for him, but it was enough for me.

The resentment I had felt towards my grandfather since he hadn’t paid much attention towards me since I was a child had dissappeared after that heartfelt apology.

He had done his best for the Lombardi family.

With affection, he did everything he could to make the family reach greater heights.

I stayed up all night working, and I didn’t mind taking care of the dirty work and mistakes of my cousins.

I really loved being a part of the Lombardi family.

However.

“Get out. You know what you have to do without me telling you any further, Florentia.”

After my grandfather’s funeral, Vieze said those words while throwing a bag in front of me.

“I had been patient because of your father for a while, but I can’t just wait and watch any more. I can’t believe I let you stay in my place for so long.”

I’ve been too patient.

Were you completely blind to all the work that I had done for the family?

For all the effort I’ve been putting, it seems I wasn’t a Lombardi after all.

“You can strip me off of my last name of Lomabardi. Let me work for the family. I need to be here.”

I spoke some funny words.

However, Vieze only laughed.

“You still don’t know anything till the end. Don’t ever come near this place again!”

I was kicked out just like that.

Without receiving any rightful inheritance of property despite being a Lombardi.

And exactly two years later, that idiot completely ruined the Lombardis!

That great family!

The beautiful Lombardi family that I had dedicated my youth to!

Bang!

The glass I put down roughly made a loud noise.

The owner of the bar glared at me, but my anger had exploded and I couldn’t care less about it.

“So the Second Prince became the one to reach the top!”

It was the Second Prince that no-one cared about because he was the child of a maid.

The Second Prince, Pherez Brivachau Durelli.

No-one had ever thought that that prince, who had been rumoured to have died in the small palace, had actually grown up so brilliantly.

And with a tremendous amount of talent, he was the first to graduate from the Imperial Academy as both a civil servant and a military officer at the same time due to which he ended up grabbing the attention of his father, the Emperor!

Not only that.

The second prince even ate up the entire parliament at once by grabbing the nobles carefully recruited by the First Prince and his mother, the Empress, due to his tremendous charms.

Sigh. The Lombardis wouldn’t have gone bankrupt if only they had hung on to the right rope.

“One more drink here!”

No matter how much I drink, the rage burning inside me doesn’t seem to fade at all.

“If you have two eyes, you should have seen it coming already! No matter who looks at it, it’s obvious that the Second Prince is more likely to be the emperor than the one who has nothing better to do than get involved in debauchery and gambling!”

But those Lombardi fools didn’t know that.

Probably because they were laughing along with the First Prince on the gambling table.

Eventually, the second prince became the crown prince and soon after, the emperor passed away.

The Lombardis, who had done all sort of vicious things to make the first prince the crown prince were hit by extreme backlash.

“Hah…I need to go home.”

I felt dizzy because I had drunk too much alcohol.

Fortunately, the house where I lived on a monthly rent was only two blocks away from here.

As I placed the money on the counter, I staggered and walked out of the bar.

“Bastards. Brainless fools. Worthless scoundrels.”

It was when I vividly recalled the faces of my uncles and cousins that I began to curse.

Slip.

One foot of mine slipped in vain, my body tilted to one side and I staggered, struggling not to fall.

And the place where I finally stood straight was right in front of a moving carriage.

Kwang!

Something hit me hard at the back and I could feel my body floating in the air.

I could also hear the hooves of a horse in the distance.

It’s kind of stupid that I had died in a car accident in my previous life, and this time it’s a carriage accident.

When I glanced down, my body that had been floating in the air steadily fell to the floor, unable to defy gravity.

“….Father?”

I could see a brown-haired man in his late twenties reading a book.

“…Fathe-, no… Dad?”

The green eyes that resembled mine looked at me.

“What’s wrong, Tia?”

As I heard the voice that I had remembered distinctly, I got goosebumps on my arms.

What, is this for real?

The smell of books and the ambience of the library were way too clear to be considered a mere memory before dying.

I tried to figure out the situation by blinking several times.

Why am I suddenly standing in the library of the mansion, when I had instead been waiting for my death due to being hit by a carriage?

Why is the bookshelf so big and why is the desk so high?

“Tia?”

When was the last time someone had called me so affectionately?

I felt like I was about to cry as I looked at the familiar green eyes.

My father was the young man that I had remembered in my memories.

“Tia, are you alright?”

I don’t know what the hell was going on, but first I need to get out of this place.

“Wait a minute. The thing is, can I go to my room?”

My father, who had tilted his head, gave me a nod while closing his eyes in relief.

“Yeah, you can. Do you want me to come with you?”

“N-no! I can go alone!”

“Haha. You’re more energetic today. Then, please go carefully.”

“Yep. Well, I’ll be right back. Stay here for a moment!”

Saying that, I started running.

As I looked around at the library while running, it seemed to have retained its old look.

It was the appearance which had been there before I became the librarian and changed it efficiently.

It’s strange! Really strange!

As I ran out of the library, a familiar yet unfamiliar hallway greeted me.

My room was too far, so I entered a random room as its door was open.

The room with a single bed and simple furniture looked like it didn’t belong to anyone.

I thought it was the guest room, but that wasn’t important right now.

It was impossible to count the number of vacant rooms in the mansion, to the point it almost seemed like a village.

“Mirror! Yes, mirror!”

Fortunately, I was able to find a full-length mirror placed in the corner of the room.

It didn’t seem that far enough. But strangely enough, I had to take several steps to reach it.

And the moment I stood in front of the mirror, I could see why.

“Why am I so small?!”

My body was ridiculously small, and couldn’t even fill a third of the full-length mirror which was made to fit the height of an adult.

Looking down, I could see two small hands that looked like maple leaves, a baby belly and a tiny pair of feet.

“How old am I now?”

I can’t ask anyone. After thinking for a moment, I hurriedly lifted the hem of the skirt that I was wearing.

“It was my eighth birthday when I had fallen and injured myself!”

There was a time when I was playing in the garden and I ended up scratching my knees severely on the rocks. The scar was so large that it was still present even when I had been 25 years old.

“No. No scar.”

The knee looked smooth without any sign of an injury.

“Then I’m not eight years old yet….”

I looked in tbe mirror once again, but my appearance of a child remained unchanged.

Even though I had just suffered an accident and opened my eyes, I was surprised to see no wounds on my body– but if I’m to really talk about what’s more surprising, then it’s the fact that I came back to the past.

Even if I had experienced reincarnation after dying, it wasn’t that easy to accept.

This is the first time I’ve ever experienced a regression.

My legs were shaking, so I sat on the bed next to me.

But being so short wasn’t that easy either.

The Lombardi mansion’s landscape was barely visible from the window due to my small height.

“I’m really back in the past.”

I murmured as I watched the large evergreen trees soaring deep in the garden.

These were the trees that had been chopped off when my first uncle, Vieze had become the overlord.

He had said that it was for the purpose of landscaping but it was quite obvious that he just didn’t want to see the trees that my grandfather had cherished.

However, it was later found that the trees were the ones the first emperor had offered to celebrate the completion of the mansion.

He was named as the eldest, but that man who was the so-called overlord didn’t even know about the importance of those trees to the family.

“Foolish Vieze.”

I don’t know what the hell grandfather was thinking but Vieze was never suited to be an overlord.

But in that sense, even my younger uncle, Laurel was not qualified.

If Vieze was a man with a narrow and intolerant view, his younger brother, Laurel, was just like a loyal hound who was always moving as his brother ordered.

If anyone was capable, it was my father, Gallahan.

Although he was overly thoughtful and somewhat fragile, he was a well educated person who wanted to go to the academy for higher education.

But my father had passed away early, so there weren’t many options left….

Wait a minute.

“My father….can he be saved?”

My father had passed away due to an illness shortly before my eleventh birthday.

At that time, there was no cure, so I couldn’t do anything about it, but just a few years later, I clearly remember the news that a doctor had discovered the medicine.

“I can save my father!”

My whole body trembled with joy.

My eyes seemed to be hot, and tears dripped down my face.

You don’t have to lose your father.

He can be saved.

You don’t have to watch your father die a painful death at such a young age.

It was ridiculous, but I was somehow able to return to the past.

And right away, another realisation came along.

“Then, wouldn’t I be able to protect the Lombardi family?”

I jumped up from my seat and walked towards the window.

From the library, the view of Lombardi’s huge four-story main building and several buildings built around it could be seen at a glance.

I could also see the guests, servants and other men working in the mansion.

All of this had ceased to exist.

In my memories, I could see the imperial knights closing the doors of the empty mansion in front of my eyes.

“First of all, I have to stop Vieze from becoming the overlord.”

As the next overlord, it had been his judgement to support the first prince at that time.

Rabini Angenas, the mother of the first prince and the current empress of the Lamburgh Empire is also the cousin of Vieze’s wife, Seral.

With such a relationship, it’s inevitable that they would be inclined to support her son for the position of the next crown prince.

The first prince was the first person who couldn’t afford to deal with such immense power and responsibility and moreover, Emperor Jovanes had never been a foolish monarch himself.

It was Vieze who didn’t understand his own mind and ended up supporting the first prince.

If only you hadn’t declared your support so publicly.

No, you had even tried to blackmail and harm the second prince!

Otherwise, Lombardi would have remained safe.

Then, I’d thought I would try and persuade Vieze, but very soon, I realised it wouldn’t work.

Had he been a man who could be persuaded easily, he wouldn’t have ruined the family like that within such a short time.

If so, it means that someone else should be the overlord instead.

[ I would have passed down this this family to you….. ]

I remembered how my grandfather would always say that while sighing out of habit.

“Me….shall I try?”

I chuckled because it sounded like I was out to catch clouds.(1)

While I had been helping my grandfather and practically taking charge of the family affairs, it wasn’t just once or twice that I would have the thought that I’d rather become the overlord instead of Vieze since he kept ruining all my hard-earned efforts.

Actually, no matter what I do, I’m sure I’ll be better than my uncle anyway.

“At least I wouldn’t make that mistake against the second prince. Then our family will be safe. I know for sure that the second prince will end up becoming the emperor anyway…..”

If so, how about I place the second prince in the line in advance?

Wouldn’t it benefit the Lombardis if we got close?

Not only that. I had a memory of what would happen at least for the next 20 years.

If I could make good use of the knowledge I had, I could make the Lombardi family stronger.

I can protect my dear family with my own hands.

Clearly.

“Let’s do it.”

It was a family that would be ruined if left unchecked.

Hundreds of years of reign would tragically be destroyed just like that.

I couldn’t let that happen to the Lombardis.

“I’m going to be the overlord.”

Or I could have my father succeed my grandfather.

It just couldn’t be first uncle Vieze or second uncle Laurel.

“Then, for now.…”

I leaned back on the bed and organized my thoughts a little bit more.

“Master Gallahan has received a call from the Lord, so he’s gone to the office, my lady.”

When I returned to the library, the place where my father had been sitting was neatly arranged and this is what the librarian told me.

The old librarian whose hair had already turned grey, Brochle.

It wasn’t until Brochle had resigned from his job due to an illness that I started working in the library.

He was originally a famous professor at the academy, but later started working for the Lombardis.

“Library grandpa.”

If it were my original age, it would have sounded very idiotic to say that to Brochle, who was once a professor, but what do you think? I am a child now.

“Please lend me one book.”

“What kind of book would you like?”

When I said the title of the book, Brochle looked dumbstruck.

“By any chance, is this something Master Gallahan has asked for?”

“No. I want to see it.”

I understand why Brochle looked surprised. But I waited confidently, not avoiding his eyes that were practically staring at me.

This was the book that I had wanted to read the most before I was hit by a carriage.

However, it was so precious and expensive that in the end, I was never able to read it.

After a while, I left the library with a pretty heavy book in my arms.

“I’ll go near the office and wait while reading a book.”

I had asked someone a little while ago and found out that today was the third day of the week.

It was grandfather’s old habit to have a brief meeting with his 3 sons and 1 daughter on the third day.

But the time would be different every time, so my father and his siblings would have to stay in the mansion all day and wait for grandfather’s call.

Nevertheless, no-one could express their dissatisfaction against it.

Because in this Lombardi mansion, grandfather’s power was absolute.

When I was walking by myself, I found the main building and was able to stand in the hallway in front of the office.

It was a place I had visited often when I had helped assist grandfather in his work.

From a child’s point of view, it looked somewhat different.

I wanted to take a closer look around the inside of the main building but I had to rest by the window.

The distance from the library to this place is too much considering my short stature.

Moreover, I could feel that my child body was weak and gets tired easily.

Only

And then, when I was thinking of taking a nap soon,

“Hey, half-blood.”

I heard the voice of some cheeky kid calling me.