Only I Know the War Hero’s Secret Chapter 3

Whenever someone from the Veloz family came to visit, it was always as troublesome and exhausting as dealing with her senior, Jake.

‘…No, calling it merely troublesome isn’t enough.’

It made her so uncomfortable that her stomach practically twisted.

The moment she saw the butler, the cold treatment she had endured from her family over the years, along with the sense of alienation she had felt amidst it all, resurfaced like an old, lingering ache.

Despite being blood relatives, her parents and younger twin siblings had treated Mona like an ugly duckling and kept her at arm’s length.

When she was little, due to the family’s circumstances, her parents had left three-year-old Mona in her grandmother’s care before departing. That was when her separation from the family began.

“Mona, we’re not in a position to take care of you in a safe environment right now. I’m sorry.”

“Just wait a little while with your grandmother. We’ll earn lots of money and come back for you, Mona.”

Those were the words spoken by Count and Countess Veloz before boarding a merchant ship.

However, when her parents returned eight years later, they treated Mona with the awkwardness one would show a stranger’s child.

“About Mona… I don’t know why, but even though she’s my own child, she feels so unfamiliar to me.”

“Sigh. Leaving Mona with Mother, who spends her time doing strange research, was a mistake. I never expected her to turn out so strange…”

Her younger fraternal twin siblings, who were four years younger than her, went even further, avoiding and openly expressing their disgust toward Mona.

“Why is that thing our older sister? Olivia is the only older sister I have!”

“She suddenly shows up and expects us to call her our sister? Who decided that? I can’t stand even looking at her!”

Parents who treated Mona with distance.

Younger fraternal twin siblings who avoided her as though she were a plague.

Having joined a family that had already formed strong bonds over many years, Mona had never stood a chance of finding a place among them.

And so, she had left the family home just as they had wished…

“What brings you here?”

At Mona’s cold question, the butler took a large envelope out of his pocket.

“An invitation from the Imperial Family has arrived for you, Lady Mona.”

Mona carelessly tore open the seal bearing the Imperial crest and quickly skimmed through the letter.

It was an invitation to attend a victory banquet and memorial ceremony scheduled to take place in three days.

“Do I really have to attend this? If I show my face, my parents will probably just think I’m bringing shame to the family.”

As she spoke sarcastically, swinging the hem of her old, ocher-colored robe, the butler let out a brief sigh.

“Following your absence from the previous National Foundation Day celebration, you also missed the Imperial Ball held recently. If you continue to miss major events one after another, people in high society will start talking.”

“I couldn’t care less about what high society has to say about me.”

“Lord Veloz has instructed me to tell you that, as long as you bear the Veloz surname, you are expected to cooperate in maintaining the family’s reputation.”

“…”

Damn it.

How low of them, using the Veloz family name against her like that.

Ever since leaving home, she hadn’t received a single penny of support from her parents. Yet the one thing that continued to hold her back was that wretched Veloz surname.

Whenever the family used that surname as leverage to impose troublesome noble obligations on her, she was always left with no way to argue.

However, she couldn’t exactly ask to be disowned, either. Under Imperial law, anyone without a surname was classified as a commoner and faced numerous restrictions.

In particular, books related to monsters were classified as forbidden texts, meaning commoners couldn’t even access them.

‘…That’s absolutely out of the question.’

This was also why Mona was willing to sacrifice sleep to graduate early.

Upon obtaining a master’s degree from the Imperial Academy, she could receive the title of ‘Academic Knight’ along with a surname.

Of course, Academic Knights were low-ranking nobles, roughly equivalent to baronets, and their titles weren’t even hereditary. But who cared?

She would face no restrictions on her research, and she could finally say goodbye to the damn Veloz family forever. It was a win-win situation.

‘But to do that, I first need to get my first graduation thesis approved…’

As she repeated the same worries that had occupied her mind all day, unconsciously worrying at her lips, Mona suddenly realized that attending the banquet might not be entirely troublesome.

‘I’ll attend the banquet and ask around about the whereabouts of my supervising professor, Thomas.’

She couldn’t shake the ominous feeling that the damn professor hadn’t even bothered to look at her thesis and had simply left it unattended.

‘If I’m lucky, I might even run into him at the banquet.’

He was the sort of man who strutted around with a heavily waxed mustache.

Even though he rarely showed his face in his office, there was a good chance he’d make an appearance at an Imperial banquet.

Mona tucked the envelope containing the Imperial invitation into her robe and spoke.

“Tell Father that I’ll attend this Imperial banquet.”

-Grandmother. About this experiment in the old book… I want to try it!

This was… probably a dream.

A dream in which she appeared as her seven-year-old self.

-If this experiment succeeds, wouldn’t monsters be able to become friends with humans, too!?

When she was young, Mona had discovered an old book in the basement of the detached house, titled 《Synthesis of an Aromatic Substance to Promote Inter-species Empathy》. Excited, she spoke in an eager voice.

Although the title was unfamiliar and difficult, Mona had received an advanced education from her grandmother, who was a monster scholar, and had always been an avid reader. As a result, she could understand the general contents of the old book.

The core of the book was a method for creating a perfume that could elicit friendly reactions from monsters, which were normally hostile toward humans.

-Right, Grandmother?

However, her grandmother’s expression was dark.

Her grandmother had always encouraged Mona, no matter what she wanted to try. But this time, for some inexplicable reason, she gently touched the eyepatch over her left eye and spoke.

-Mona… You’re a child who resembles me so much.

-Yes!

-This old woman knows better than anyone how captivating the abyss born of chaos can be.

-…

-But don’t stare into the abyss for too long. There’s an old saying that the abyss swallows those who try to measure its depths…

Her grandmother’s warning went completely over her head.

The children in the neighborhood near the villa where she lived alone with her grandmother openly looked down on and bullied little, frail Mona.

But now that she had discovered the possibility of becoming friends with fascinating monsters, there was no way she could give up.

Grandmother. The darker the night, the brighter the light shines.

I can find that light within the abyss.

However, before she could say anything in response, the scenery in her dream gradually began to blur before transforming into a musty, cramped attic.

-Today’s looking promising… The mixture’s concentration is perfect, and somehow, I have a feeling it’ll work this time.

Time passed rapidly within the dream, and she saw her seventeen-year-old self completing the experiment described in the old book.

Overcome with excitement and exhilaration, her younger self took something out of her pocket.

-Now, all I have to do is add this…

But the moment she added the final ingredient, the substances inside the glass tubes suddenly began expanding all at once…

BOOOOOOM!

.

.

.

“Gasp!”

Mona awoke from her dream, drawing in a sharp breath as she instinctively grabbed her shoulder.

Was it because of the nightmare?

The burn scar she had sustained at the age of seventeen due to a failed experiment seemed to be stinging.

Her entire body was already drenched in cold sweat, and her heart was pounding like crazy.

As she roughly wiped the beads of sweat gathering on her forehead with the back of her hand, Mona suddenly froze.

Instead of transparent sweat, a murky gray liquid had stained the back of her hand.

“…Damn it.”

As expected, her reflection in the mirror was a complete disaster.

It hadn’t even been a month since she last dyed her hair, yet the alchemically formulated hair dye had crumbled into powder, disintegrating completely like dust.

Because of the gray dye powder dissolved in her sweat, her face looked as though she’d been splashed with dirty water.

Rubbing the dye off her face, Mona frowned.

‘The intervals between dye jobs are getting shorter and shorter.’

All she had ever wanted was to create a perfume that would allow humans to befriend monsters.

But the result had been completely different from what she’d intended.

As a side effect of her failed experiment, her very constitution had changed.

‘A body that attracts monsters…’

That wasn’t all. Her once-dark gray hair had turned completely white, like freshly fallen snow, and even the pigmentation of her ash-gray irises had faded.

Her irises had become pale silver, and whenever light passed through them, their subtle hues shifted, taking on a faint bluish tint.

If she had to describe it, they resembled mist hanging over the blue dawn.

Even her fingernails had turned a pale, whitish color, making her sigh.

‘And the one person I could consult about these bizarre symptoms, Grandmother, is nowhere to be found…’

With a groan, Mona picked up some cheap hair dye and dyed her hair dark gray again.

After finishing, she let her bangs fall messily over her forehead and put on her glasses.

Only after putting on the thick-rimmed glasses that concealed her face did she finally begin to feel a little at ease.

That was when it happened.

Knock, knock.

Someone knocked on her dormitory door.

The visitor who had arrived so early in the morning was the butler from her family.

“Lady Mona. The carriage is ready, so please come downstairs.”

Today was the day of the victory banquet hosted by the Imperial Family.

Which meant she would soon have to face the family she had been avoiding for so long.

Her heart began pounding again with that familiar sense of discomfort, but Mona kept her expression composed and took one deep breath.

“Let’s go.”