Honestly. There were more people trying to shove their kids onto me than you could shake a stick at, and I was just the heir of a ducal house. I wondered how bad the royal munchkins had it.

Speaking of the royal spawn, the two princes along with Julius and Shinobu were at the funeral earlier. So much for a clean break from their company. It was refreshing though how, unlike the two-faced adults, those boys looked more genuinely upset by my leaving the study group rather than the death of the man whose funeral they were attending. I just narrowly avoided bursting out laughing.

As far as the public was concerned, I was going to be focusing on my studies while looking after my ailing mother in the fief. Now that I've truly settled down, I can start looking for a magic tutor. I didn't like the feeling of being weak at all. I was also going to have another talk with the head guard about why I need to train my body. I had a feeling that even in the end of my training the game's Kaoru would still be able to break me in half with his bare hands, but I at least needed to know basic self-defence. I didn't need to beat people up, I had people to do that for me... and a broken as hell aptitude for magic apparently.

This was where I really got started. It was a good day to lay to rest everything that was holding me back. I'd do something about Aphrodite's prerequisites later. I first needed to see if Ronnie's fever finally broke.

I walked into my room and heaved a sigh after the last of the nobles had been booted off the estate. It was finally over with.

The inside of Verne house was noticeably lacking the usual gaudy decorations supposedly as a sign of mourning, when in actuality I had the pointless and tasteless ones taken down and catalogued to be sold off or melted into ingots and added to the treasury.

I planned to clean up the Verne fief after all, and though Verne was definitely loaded, I still decided to make sure that I had all the capital I could scrounge together.

I went through the ledgers and immediately froze all detrimental ongoing transactions. The books weren't looking too hot. Guess who had to clean that mess up. I even found all the documents pertaining to that shady human trafficking ring and immediately withdrew Verne house from it. I now had proof of several other nobles' involvement that I doubt the parties involved even knew Verne had. I put those away carefully.

It's not that I didn't plan on exposing these people, but if I tried that now, I'd have to explain how I came by these documents. Verne house was now my burden to carry along with all its secrets so if it's found out that the household came anywhere near that illegal crap with a ten-foot pole the noble title and territory would still be stripped away. Onyx fief was absorbed by Verne fief, there would be nothing left. Nothing good ever Jalen to fallen noble families either, much less two kids, and with my "blessings"....... I didn't fancy going back to being powerless any time soon.

I couldn't avoid involvement in this judgement by saying I'm the one who offed Verne either. Scum though he may have been, murder was still murder in the eyes of the law. Even if this world's laws are biased towards nobility.

Taking off my waistcoat I tossed it onto a nearby chair and waved Tish away when she tried to help me undress. I always hated that. I wasn't an invalid; I could do this much.

I didn't really plan to undress anyway. I was going straight to Ronnie's room to check on her. I heard from Luke that she woke up while I was entertaining the guests and kicked up a fuss in her delirium.

I was far too worried to rest now.

"Ah! Young master, you're finally finished with the proceedings?"

Walking into Ronnie's room, I saw a harried looking Maddie tucking her in. Apparently, her fever broke already and she was due to make a full recovery.

I nodded in response to Maddie's question.

"Yes. You can leave now, Maddie; I know you're tired. I can take it from here."

She smiled gratefully albeit tiredly before excusing herself.

I slumped into the chair beside the bed and studied Ronnie's sleeping face. Her skin was still a bit flushed from her fever, but her breathing was even.

'She's getting better.'

After this analysis the last remaining bits of tension seeped from my shoulders. Reaching out, I brushed her dark silky hair

There are very few things I claimed to love in this lifetime and Veronica was most of them. I'm not sure why. Maybe it was the way she instinctively seemed to latch onto me ever since she was born or her blind faith in everything I said. Either way I came to care for her greatly and being unable to protect her and watch her get her was.... both painful and sobering at the same time.

"Mmm..."

"Hm?" I snapped out of my thoughts just as Ronnie stirred. I petted her hair soothingly as she blinked bleary red eyes at me. "How you feel?" She stared at me for a while and didn't answer right away, so I was a bit worried, but finally she opened her mouth.

"... Who?..." She looked closely at me. Still delirious? I couldn't help but to frown and check her temperature with the back of my hand. She was only a bit warm

"Sweet girl, it’s me, Kaoru," I supplied soothingly. "If you don't feel well you can go back to sleep.

Suddenly I felt her go stiff under my touch for a minute before her still-warm hands, even smaller and just a pale as mine, shot out and clasped the hand from her head. She sat bolt upright so fast it gave me a start, but when she swayed a little as a result of moving too fast, I was quick to reached out and steadied her. Confused, I tried to make her lie back down, but she was having none of it. She stared at me with such intense concentration that I really began to worry. Was her delirium that bad?

"Sweet girl?" I tried tentatively.

"Mama?!"

"!?"

Well... that caught me off guard. Did she mistake me for Claire? If so, that would be a pain in the ass to explain why she couldn't see her. But didn't she used call Claire by her name? Even when she was younger, she only called Claire "mother", and that was just for a short while, so what was this?

"No, sweet girl, it's me, Kaoru... your brother, remember?" I told her, but she shook her head furiously.

"I know that... but you're not really right? You're Mama!" She seemed to struggle with what to say. Is it me or did even her speech pattern kind of change from the regular soft-spoken, Ronnie? It seemed familiar.

I decided that it was a good idea to call Maddie and have her looked at again, just in case. I made to stand right when she seemed to have made up her mind on what to say.

"I'm not crazy!" She said never letting go of my hand. "Mama... it’s me, Aki!"

I froze solid.

I let what I just heard sink in... before turning to look back into her crimson eyes with my own mismatched pair.

"... What?"