Wrong Genre! - Chapter 34.1
When Rueg looked utterly clueless, Maria stared at him with a shocked expression. But only for a moment. She soon gave a bitter smile, lowered her voice, and continued.
“I occasionally heard news about you through the head butler, Young Master. I heard you were involved in an accident not long after leaving this place.”
“An accident…?”
What did that mean now?
When Rueg subtly furrowed his brow, Maria rose from her seat. Then she took a box from deep inside a shelf and held it out to him.
When Rueg accepted the small box and opened it, he found letters that appeared to have been exchanged between her and Schumann. There was even a brooch proving that she was a servant of House Verdic.
As Rueg fiddled with the brooch, Maria slowly continued.
“If only I had been by your side when the accident happened… No, if only I had held on to you a little longer when Miss Versha came to find you…”
As though regretting the decision she had made that day, Maria looked at Rueg with lament in her voice.
Unlike her gray hair, which had faded with age, her brown eyes held deep affection as she gazed at Rueg.
‘She doesn’t seem to be lying…’
The problem was that he truly remembered nothing.
‘Wait. …Ah, could it be?’
Earlier, the moment he saw Maria, a memory had briefly passed before his eyes.
It was an image of the real ‘Rueg’ as a child, so vivid that it felt as though he had experienced it himself.
“There’s something I’d like to ask.”
“Please ask me anything, Young Master.”
“Did I ever live here?”
Maria would be able to answer that question.
Unable to hide his tension as he asked, Rueg saw Maria let out a sigh filled with sorrow.
“…Yes, you did. This orphanage was built for you, Young Master.”
“For me…?”
“Don’t you remember?”
At Maria’s question, Rueg was about to nod, but then stopped himself.
‘She clearly said Versha came to find me.’
However, Versha had never told him anything. She had never mentioned that he had once lived outside the estate. The same was true of Schumann.
‘If she realizes that I don’t remember anything…’
Then Maria would surely choose her answers carefully as well.
After thinking for a moment, Rueg shook his head with a composed expression.
“I’m merely asking.”
“……”
“I don’t remember you very well, Director, but you speak as though you know me quite well.”
It was possible to forget someone’s face after ten years. Especially if it was someone he had met as a child.
So Rueg decided to pretend that he did know Maria. As though so much time had passed that he simply could not recognize who she was.
“Please tell me everything you know. I believe I should compare it with what I remember.”
When Rueg looked straight into her eyes and asked, Maria smiled warmly and nodded.
“Twelve years ago, you lived here for a time, Young Master.”
“……”
“The reason was the murder of Count and Countess Verdic twelve years ago.”
Rueg’s fingertips twitched sharply. However, Maria seemed not to notice and continued speaking.
“Do you know when this orphanage was established? It was exactly fifteen years ago.”
“……”
“At the time, I was the Madam’s personal maid, and fifteen years ago, I was ordered to manage this place.”
Back then, Maria had not understood Countess Verdic’s decision.
She had assumed that she was merely being demoted under the pretext that House Verdic was arranging a new business because she had failed to perform her duties properly.
But that was not the case.
“It seems the Madam sensed some kind of danger that a lowly person like me could not understand.”
“……”
“Before the two of them departed as envoys to another country, they sent Miss Versha and you to take refuge in separate places. The place where they sent you was this orphanage.”
The murder of Count and Countess Verdic.
Even Rueg, who knew nothing about the past before entering this body, knew about that incident.
The members of House Verdic called it a ‘murder,’ while everyone else called it an ‘accident.’
When the Count and Countess left the capital under the Emperor’s orders as envoys to another country, the carriage carrying them rolled off a cliff.
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