Don’t Ask, It’ll Hurt If You Know - Chapter 34

Thud.

“What’s going on.”

When the door wouldn’t open, Chloe panicked and pulled the doorknob with all her strength. But no matter how hard she pulled, the door wouldn’t open. It was the same no matter how many times she tried.

Don’t tell me someone locked it from the outside. She needed to go check on her body right away, and this interference made her irritation boil over. Chloe frowned and pounded on the door.

“Open the door, now!”

Bang, bang!

“I know you’re standing right in front of it, so open it, now!”

“No, I can’t!”

When she had pounded on it enough for her entire hand to turn red, someone outside urgently shouted. The young voice was familiar. It was the grateful young maid who had told her about the attic last time.

“M-my Lady told me not to open the door, no matter what! She said she has to fix My Lady’s bad habits…….”

The maid trembled but said everything she had to say. My Lady, she said. Chloe’s brow furrowed.

“The Viscountess is already back?”

“What? Oh, yes! She returned last night with Young Lady Maria.”

Last night. Chloe was flustered and checked the window. When she had fought with Maria Lloyd, it was dark outside, but now it was bright. The hands on the clock pointed to 11.

It couldn’t be this bright at 11 PM, so it meant it was in the morning.

What time was it when I returned to my original body?

Chloe, who had been leaning against the door and thinking, furiously ruffled her hair. She couldn’t remember. It was only natural, as she hadn’t even seen a clock, let alone the window.

She could, however, guess that it wasn’t late at night or midnight, as Ian MacMilden was at the Elena Grand Duchy.

So, at least 12 hours had passed between returning to her original body from Bianca Lloyd and now?

It didn’t seem to have taken long the other way around, so why did it take so long then? In the first place, how was I able to return to my original body? And why did I become Bianca again?

The unanswered questions followed one after another, and her frustration grew. Chloe let out a long sigh and hit her head on the door, making the maid outside yelp and cry out.

“E-even if you do that, I can’t open it for you!”

Chloe sat down, leaning her back against the door, and answered sullenly.

“I don’t expect you to.”

She had given up on the door opening the moment she heard that the Viscountess Lloyd had given the order. If she were in her original body, she would have thought of a way to break the doorknob with a sword or escape through the window, but this body was too weak for that.

And too skinny. Chloe clicked her tongue, looking at her scrawny arms, so thin she could feel the bones instead of muscles. The rest of her body was so emaciated that she probably wouldn’t need a corset to wear a dress.

“Hey, you outside, what’s your name?”

She asked just to know her name, since it seemed she would be seeing a lot of her in the future, but the maid was startled and asked her in return.

“W-what? Why do you need my name?”

“No reason. Can’t I just ask?”

“Oh, no. It’s not that you can’t, um, well……. My name is Emily.”

My goodness, it was hard to even get a name out of her. From the looks of it, she seemed timid and fearful, and Chloe found it strange that they entrusted the task of monitoring Bianca Lloyd to a child like her.

Maybe they thought she could handle it since it was just simple monitoring.

“Right, Emily. Is the reason I’m locked in here because I hit Maria Lloyd?”

Emily didn’t answer, but her silence was as good as an affirmation. It was also the reason she had expected.

What was unfair, however, was that Maria was the one who started the fight. She was also the first one to hit her. It would have been somewhat okay if she had given her more than what she got, but since she didn’t, her sense of injustice grew even more.

For better or for worse, the sense of injustice allowed Chloe to regain her composure, and she brushed her b******s off before standing up.

“First, I need to figure out the situation.”

She had to know what was going on to come up with a plan for what to do next.

Chloe sat on the sofa and took out a piece of paper and a pen. She wrote down everything that had happened since she found Bianca’s diary in chronological order.

The pen, which had been writing smoothly, stopped after writing the sentence, [I returned to my original body.] Chloe looked at the sentence as if to chew on it, then drew two lines through it and wrote, [How did I return to my original body?] beside it. She added a few more question marks.

“Did the dark magic temporarily break?”

If so, there must have been a reason. Chloe, who had been thinking hard, suddenly saw the box next to the sofa table. Inside was Bianca Lloyd’s diary.

Maybe…… it’s because of the bucket list.

At the thought that flashed through her mind, Chloe took all the diaries out of the box. She opened the most recent one and found the entry from the day Bianca was slapped by Maria Lloyd.

The reason Chloe slapped Maria was because of the bucket list. After she slapped Maria’s cheek as Bianca had wanted, the strength drained from her body and the world went black. When she regained consciousness, she had returned to her original body.

That’s why she thought it might be related to the bucket list, and it seemed her guess was correct.

[Slap Maria’s cheek.]

There was a black line drawn right through the red letters. She checked the others, but only this one had a black line drawn on it.

There was no way her stepmother or stepsister would have done this. No matter how she thought about it, there was only one culprit.

“Bianca Lloyd.”

Chloe recited the culprit’s name and looked at the mirror. The culprit, Bianca Lloyd, was looking back at her.

“Is this what you wanted? You didn’t have the confidence to fulfill the things on your bucket list yourself, so you called me? You wanted me to do it for you?”

The woman reflected in the mirror copied Chloe exactly, but to her eyes, she looked like she was smiling widely.

It was like she was begging her to hurry and fulfill her wishes, as if saying her guess was right.

“Ha, what kind of stupid thoughts am I having?”

Having gone to heaven and then fallen back to hell, she must have gone a little crazy. Chloe shook her head and looked down at the diary again. The red sentences stood out, piercing her eyes.

“I think I should check if the bucket list is really the cause.”

What would be the easiest and fastest way to check? Chloe checked Bianca’s bucket list, concentrating as much as she did when she was studying how to defeat Ian.

* * *

Fastening his waistcoat buttons completed Ian MacMilden’s preparations to go out. As the weather had gotten warmer, his clothing was lighter, but his expression was endlessly heavy.

The servants, who knew the reason well, were careful even when they breathed, lest they upset the young master.

“Is there any other schedule besides what was reported yesterday?”

The monotonic voice, without any inflection, broke the silence. It was a question he asked every day, but what surprised them every time was that voice. The servant closest to him bowed his head and answered.

“No, there are none.”

“Good.”

After confirming his schedule, Ian left his bedroom. As he walked down the long hallway and was about to go down the main staircase, someone called out to him.

“Ian, are you going out already?”

“……Mother.”

It was Ian’s mother and the lady of the MacMilden Grand Duchy, Isabella MacMilden. It was hard to believe that the Emperor’s half-sister and a Princess was over 40; she was still young and beautiful.

The Duchess of MacMilden walked lightly like a butterfly and approached her son.

“You’re going out earlier than usual today. Is something wrong?”

“Nothing is wrong. I’m just going out early because there’s something I want to confirm, so you don’t need to worry.”

“What do you want to confirm?”

She wished he would have let it go, but unfortunately, the Duchess was too curious about her son. She was also very worried. Knowing that all of it stemmed from “love,” Ian couldn’t ignore her, even if it was annoying.

“Chloe woke up last night.”

“Oh, my goodness! Is that true? I was so worried that she wouldn’t wake up at all, as she was in a coma for over ten days, but thank goodness.”

She was close friends with the Countess Elena, and she knew that Chloe Elena was close to her son, so the Duchess had been very sad about the news of her fall from the horse. But with such good news, she was as happy as she had been sad and asked.

“What did the doctor say? Did he say she wouldn’t have any problems living from now on?”

“I didn’t hear that far.”

He had visited so late at night that Ian had to leave the Countess Elena’s mansion quickly. If Chloe had remained conscious, he would have stubbornly stayed by her side, but since she didn’t, he had no choice but to back away.

The reason Ian was going out earlier than usual was because of that. He wanted to hear the results of Chloe’s examination. If she was awake, he also wanted to see her face, ask her various things, and say something he really wanted to say.

……Though he didn’t know if he would be able to do it today.

Ian was usually nonchalant, but he had never been called timid. Strangely, whenever he stood in front of her, he became a mute.

“I will go today, hear how she is, and let you know.”

“Let me know as soon as you can. That way, I can tell the Empress and His Highness the Crown Prince the good news.”

The Crown Prince. At the mention of a name he wasn’t fond of, Ian’s face noticeably hardened. The servant who was following him also noticed his young master’s change in mood and watched him carefully, but his mother, who cared for him terribly, did not notice.

“I happened to see His Highness the Crown Prince yesterday, and he was very worried about Young Lady Chloe Elena. He said it would be a big problem if the lady who was supposed to become the Crown Princess got hurt.”