The Villain’S Daughter-In-Law Is Inherently Powerful [EN]: Chapter 29

“Listen, everyone.”

Lady Inanna’s calm voice drew everyone’s attention.

“Since the Heir Palace is damaged, everyone will temporarily reside in the main building until it is restored. The head butler will assign rooms, and I expect no complaints.”

Her tone was firm, brooking no argument.

“If anyone is too shaken and wishes to return to their family home, you may do so. This will not affect your evaluation.”

Then came the gentle reassurance.

I placed my hands over my heart, watching Lady Inanna’s display of both strength and compassion. It was the image of what I aspired to become.

‘Ah, but……’

Was it because the tension had finally broken? I felt the tightly wound spring of my nerves snap.

‘My vision is blurring.’

Ian dusted off his rear, ready to move with the other heirs. Even if I approached him now, he might just give me a disgusted look. Still, I took a step toward him.

“With me……”

“……Florin?”

Thud. The strength seemed to drain from my body, and then everything went black.

I thought Ian had said my name correctly, without anger. But perhaps it was just a dream.

‘Stay with me.’

Muttering the unfinished words, I fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.

* * *

That night.

Whether it was because a small hand clutched tightly to Ian’s shirt, refusing to let go, or whether he simply used that as an excuse—

Ian found himself asleep in the same bed as Florin. Of course, Florin was the only one truly sleeping, snoring softly.

Ian closed his eyes, feigning sleep until the rustling sounds outside faded away. Then, he opened them again. It wasn’t intentional; insomnia plagued him.

If you asked why he couldn’t sleep despite his youth, he had no answer. He had never sought a doctor’s help for it.

“Flower affinity. It’s a very you ability.”

Small and delicate, yet vibrant and lovely.

He recalled a passage from a novel. He hadn’t understood it then, but now he did. The words were written for Florin.

A small stature that barely seemed taller even after transforming from a sable. Short, plump arms and legs. Adorable ankles. Silvery hair that cascaded like waves, the ends tinged with strawberry syrup, a delicate red.

‘They say that albino beast-people humanize when they feel their lives are threatened.’

So you were that scared back then.

I wasn’t. I didn’t care if I was trapped in the fire because I wasn’t afraid.

‘You were so scared, yet you ran straight to me.’

Hanging on, covered in tears and snot, soaking her fur. Telling me to get out. To escape together.

The sincerity that reached him, the genuine words, were so bright and dazzling that he couldn’t bear to look directly at them. So, he kept saying he didn’t want to. He thought that if he rejected it, the light wouldn’t consume him.

‘But you dragged me, come what may, out of the shadows.’

Ian looked down at his arm, clutched by a chestnut-sized paw. It was strange that a part of his body he had considered useless suddenly held such significance.

The tips of Ian’s ears flushed red as he gazed at his arm anew.

“Shall I tell you a secret?”

Ian had noticed the faint smell of gunpowder lingering on the floor long ago.

He also knew that the man from the Lichenbaum Kingdom, a subordinate of Gerd, was acting suspiciously. In the confined space of the Heir Palace, almost nothing escaped his keen senses of smell and hearing.

But Ian ignored it. He didn’t want to get involved. He didn’t care if someone died or got hurt. Even if that death were to come for him.

Those were the mouths that whispered that his father was a lowly mercenary. The hands and feet that bumped into him, started fights, and put caterpillars in his food, calling him a bastard.

If he retaliated against the bullying, the number of people who came to beat him up the next day would only increase.

It was annoying. Those who were weak yet kept coming at him, believing they could overwhelm him.

So he just…….

“I was originally going to die there.”

I didn’t want to live, and there was no reason to.

“No one told me to live.”

Whisper, whisper. The voice telling the secret was soft and gentle.

It was a stark contrast to the cold tone he usually used to push people away, so Florin might have gotten goosebumps if she had been awake to hear it.

“You saved me, baby.”

Ian, lying on his side with one hand propping up his chin, gently touched the nose of the girl who was still sound asleep.

“What to do? Tomorrow, everyone will want to marry you.”

Who knew that the humanized form would be this adorable?

Ian let out a soft sigh.

The oasis that the child, who had lived as a barren desert, had stumbled into for the first time was overwhelmingly sweet.

Ian, full of caution and suspicion, had rejected Florin repeatedly. But Florin came to him as if she didn’t know how to give up. Reaching out her hand, telling him to live.

Shouting at him to become her husband.

‘You’ll probably forget what happened today when you grow up, but I……’

A smile, or something like it, flickered across Ian’s lips as he imagined Florin as an adult, then quickly vanished.

It was because he remembered a very unpleasant fact that he had momentarily forgotten.

‘But why didn’t she kiss me?’

* * *

A transparent and deep blue space.

The sunlight streamed through the glass ceiling, illuminating the interior of the deep tank.

Normally, moss would grow where sunlight penetrated, but this tank, magically maintained, remained pristine.

To be honest, it was excessively clean. Perhaps that was because only one life resided within this giant glass tank.

Inside, a small, artistically crafted temple stood. A space devoid of any sign of life, like a dollhouse. It resembled a resting place for a legendary mermaid.

Pillars erected to correspond with the seven numbers that God deemed sacred, and a stone roof constructed in a powerful and bold style. Beneath it, a chair also made of stone.

Soft and fluffy materials would quickly corrode in the highly saline water, making the choice unavoidable.

It was too hard for a prince to use, but it wasn’t easy to lie down completely in the water anyway. You would always be floating to some extent.

That place was the resting place, home, and prison of Prince Yuri Yerevan Helicoprion Driblianne.

Swish.

The sunlight filtering through the water landed on a face of dazzling beauty, like the devil’s finest creation.

A bewitching beauty that would captivate anyone who gazed upon it for more than three seconds.

Expressions like pretty or handsome fell short of capturing it.

Yuri possessed absolute beauty, despite his young age.

Yuri was currently furrowing his brow while holding a translucent book in one hand, but even that couldn’t diminish his fierce beauty.

‘Annoying.’

Yuri muttered inwardly, grinding his teeth.

His mood plummeted as if weighed down by an anchor. He had expected to be the one to witness and congratulate ‘her’ on her first humanization.

Knowing how much ‘she’ had longed to become human, Yuri’s heart was filled with a sense of desperation.

The desire to be with ‘her’ at the beginning. But since that had gone awry, it was no wonder his already foul mood had soured further.

[“You’re my husband, you hear? Don’t die, live and be my husband!”

The small sable simultaneously displayed the art of frowning with a tearful face.

To be precise, he was one of the husband candidates, but she had no mind to consider such things at the moment. She was simply stamping her feet, hoping that [……] would not die.

Finally, [……] raised his head, which had been drooping. But the will to live was only for a moment.

“Dangerous!!!”

The sable screamed. A burning beam collapsed from above……]

The shark beast-person’s cold gaze fixed on the empty name within the parentheses.

Most of the names related to ‘her’ were recorded in this . However, some names occasionally remained invisible, even within the , and only reappeared upon revisiting the covered entries.

‘The one that was covered up before was Gerd. It was definitely Gerd.’

But now Gerd is visible, and a new invisible name has emerged…….

Yuri couldn’t comprehend the difference.

‘I need to know who it is so I can go and resolve this sulky feeling.’

He wouldn’t resolve it in a particularly gentle manner.

Yuri desired to monopolize everything about ‘her’. He didn’t want to share even a single piece.

‘If I could, I would make it all mine.’

If I didn’t live in the water, I would have gone to see her.

Yuri sighed softly and closed the book.