My Husband Hid His Regression, So I Hid Mine Too Chapter 62

A being that needed to be protected.
‘It has started.’

Pretending to worry, he was putting Odely down as a child who could do nothing on her own.

“The Cardel family has always protected you, and you grew up loved and cared for in that warm embrace. But this is the North. It is a cold, harsh, and frightening place. I cannot help but worry that this barren land might push you too hard…… I am afraid you might suddenly collapse like you did back home.”

On the outside, he was a blood relative who loved and worried about her more than anyone.
But in reality, he was planting doubts in the minds of many people here: ‘Does she really have what it takes to become the Grand Duchess?’

Gawin smiled as if nothing was wrong.
As though he were simply a kind older brother who worried about the safety of his one and only younger sister.

“Still, if this is the life you want…… Odely. Life as a Grand Duchess will not be easy, but if you ever need help, tell me. Your older brother will be by your side. We are…….”

He paused for a moment and gave her a warm look.

“……family, after all.”

Family.

‘I did not even know if Gawin knew my name in the first place.’

She had been called ‘the purifier’ so many times.

To him, Odely was a disposable tool that could be squeezed to produce the mysterious power of purification.

Now that her life was nearing its end and she was even threatening the safety of the family……

Was he testing her to decide whether to simply throw her away, or squeeze her again while she still seemed to have a little left to give?

That was probably all he was thinking.

And yet he called them family…….

It was so ridiculous that she could not even bring herself to be angry.

‘If I expose him here, I lose.’

Gawin’s words sounded like an attack, but they were presented as nothing more than ‘concern.’

If Odely argued against him, she would only end up looking strange.

The moment she brought up things like abuse or exploitation, people would whisper.

The Cardel family?

A woman who ran away from home because of love was suddenly accusing her own family?

And besides…….

‘Gawin knows better than anyone what happens when I use my purification ability.’

That power eats away at life.

The greater the ability, the more deadly the price.

Even if she drew out her purification power and proved that this ability was the ancient magic they all knew.

What if she vomited blood and collapsed the very next moment?

She would obviously look completely unstable.

To the people here, compared to the ‘ancient magic of Cardel,’ which had symbolized stability and peace for hundreds of years, Odely’s ‘new power’ was nothing more than an unusual variable.

No matter how much truth she showed them, the public, who believed only what they wanted to believe, would ultimately stand on the side of ‘familiar authority.’

In the first place, the more she used this power, the more her lifespan was shortened.

That was exactly the picture Cardel wanted.

Why would she willingly do something that would only bring her death closer?

Therefore…….

Odely quietly put down her glass.

She did not react emotionally to Gawin’s words.

“……Thank you.”

That was all she said.

But those words were not the end.

“So the family was protecting me.”

Odely continued calmly, as if she were looking back on a distant memory.

“I was always made to stay indoors, and I was not allowed to leave rooms where even the outside air could barely enter, all because you cared about me. I understand now.”

She turned her gaze toward the banquet hall.

“A cold, harsh, and frightening place…… Well, I suppose it depends on how you look at it. It was only after coming to the North that I learned for the first time that the outside world is much warmer than I imagined.”

The people gathered in the banquet hall stirred for a moment.

Anyone could tell that there was something serious behind Odely’s words.

“Of course, I appreciate my older brother’s concern. But now, instead of remaining someone who needs to be protected, I want to choose to be the one who protects someone else.”

Odely paused for a moment.

Then she continued in a low, clear voice.

“As a Grand Duchess.”

It was a hint that she had been confined under the excuse of protecting her.

Combined with the rumors that the third young lady of the Cardel family had never once left the family estate, her words sounded quite convincing.

The gazes toward Gawin began to change.

No matter what the excuse was, the idea of not even allowing her to leave her room was difficult to accept.

Gawin moved his lips, but seemed unable to find any words.

Odely’s unexpected counterattack had left him unable even to think about acting.

It was then that a heavy silence settled over the hall.

The sharp sound of heels broke through the silence.

“Brother, there you are.”

A quiet voice slipped into the gap.

A woman with neatly tied silver hair appeared, making her way through the crowd.

Just like Gawin and Odely, she had hair as white as snow.

A typical symbol of the Cardel family.

The moment Gawin saw her, he smiled brightly.

“Veloa.”

The tension left his shoulders, and he looked proud, as if he had gained an entire army.

To anyone else, he might have simply looked like an older brother happy to see his younger sister.

But Odely could see it.

She could see just how pathetically dependent Gawin was on his second younger sister.

“But Brother, saying something like that might cause a misunderstanding.”

She continued as she slowly walked toward them.

“It could sound as though we had locked our youngest sister up somewhere.”

What Odely had said indirectly through a metaphor, Veloa brought up directly without hesitation.

It was a careful move that gave Gawin the chance to make an excuse.

“Oh, dear.”

Gawin did not miss the opportunity.

“Lock her up? That was never our intention.”

Pretending to be flustered, Gawin let his snake-like tongue do the work.

“We only wanted to prevent danger as much as possible. But I had no idea you were suffering so much…… It breaks my heart.”

He placed a hand over his chest and sighed.

“Odely, you know how often you were sick. Watching you suffer like that truly felt like our hearts were being torn apart.”

Beside him, Veloa kept her eyes fixed on Odely.

Then her expression subtly changed.

She had clearly realized that Odely had changed.

She had guessed that Odely would be different based on everything that had happened, but apparently had not expected this much.

Still, Veloa soon kept her composure and spoke.

“We ended up hurting our youngest sister without meaning to. Perhaps things would have been different if we had been wiser. Then you would never have misunderstood us like this.”

Unlike Gawin, she did not act overly dramatic.

Perhaps because of that, she seemed even more like someone who truly cared about Odely.

She had always been like that.

Even while planning everything herself, she stayed one step behind, and even when making the cruelest decisions of all, she never dirtied her own hands.

Among the thousands of regressions, there were some that Odely could never forget.

The regression where she was branded insane for refusing to purify and locked away in the underground of the temple.

The regression where she was tied to a magic circle that forcibly extracted her purification power so it could be exploited more efficiently, making her vomit blood several times a day.

The regression where Ludville was branded a devil worshiper and tortured by the temple’s inquisitors.

And the regression where, after deciding that Odely was no longer needed, they branded her a witch and had her burned at the stake…….

Veloa was behind all of them.

She had planned every one of those situations.

“I do not mind if you hate me. I only hope that you will be happy through this marriage. They say he accepted you even after you went so far as to run away from home…….”

Veloa quietly trailed off.

“That is truly something to be grateful for, is it not?”

Something to be grateful for.

As if she were saying she was grateful that someone had taken away the trash they had thrown out, it was such a condescending thing to say.

“What nonsense.”

It was then.

A heavy voice openly condemning Veloa rang out.

It was Castia, the former Grand Duchess of Exception.