I Transmigrated into the Nameverse, and My Name Came with a Time Limit - Chapter 24 - III.

III.

Summoned to the imperial palace with her family since the morning, Mina nervously chewed her lip again and again.

‘Why did the Emperor summon us…? Was that tea gathering really the problem…?’

Unlike the other family members standing in the audience chamber looking confused, she immediately guessed the reason. She had been trembling with anxiety ever since the tea gathering.

Just then, Karl, who had been quietly observing the situation, thundered in a loud voice that echoed through the chamber.

“Duke Wittgen! I hear that a Name has manifested on your daughter. And an outrageous Name at that, ‘Leo’! How long did you intend to hide such an important matter from me?”

“Pardon? What are you talking about?”

The Duke and Duchess of Wittgen looked utterly stunned, as if hearing it for the first time. A Name? Mina has a Name now? It was like a bolt from the blue.

Gisella in particular trembled all over in shock.

‘What? That ugly girl might have the Crown Prince’s name engraved on her?’

Gisella recalled the face of her daughter who had begged through tears to marry the Crown Prince because she loved him. This couldn’t happen. She had worked so hard to obtain the position of Crown Princess! She couldn’t lose the position of future Emperor’s mother in law so easily.

Gisella glared at Mina and snapped.

“You! What kind of trick have you pulled this time?”

“I-I didn’t do anything! When I woke up after falling into the lake, it was already there!”

Overwhelmed by Gisella’s ferocious presence, Mina stammered as she answered.

“Is that really true? Why didn’t you say anything earlier? Are you lying?”

Duke Wittgen demanded sharply, his eyes wide.

“I-It’s really true!”

Mina jumped and waved her hands frantically.

“Hm… is that so? Then we must first confirm whether it’s true or not. We cannot cause a commotion over something uncertain. Wouldn’t you agree?”

Karl glared sharply at Mina.

“Y-Yes…”

Under that terrifying gaze, Mina shrank and barely managed to murmur an answer.

In the end, the Duke and Duchess agreed without hesitation to confirm whether Mina truly had a Name and what name it was. The Emperor then gave a strict order that two court physicians should examine her together.

Once again, no one even asked for Mina’s opinion.

Like livestock being led to slaughter, Mina was dragged into the next room and examined under the supervision of the court physicians. Both of them were men. It was humiliating, but she couldn’t disobey an imperial command. They carefully and persistently examined her right b****t while discussing among themselves.

Mina endured it with her lips tightly bitten despite the humiliation. It was a different kind of shame from when Leonhardt had roughly pulled down her clothes in the maze garden.

‘Leonhardt didn’t touch me like this…!’

Did it really have to be court physicians? A lady-in-waiting or a maid could have checked instead. By the time tears finally began to well up in Mina’s eyes, the physicians seemed to have finished their discussion and returned to the audience chamber. Mina quietly wiped her tears, straightened her clothes, and followed them back.

“After careful examination by the two of us, the writing engraved on Lady Wittgen’s right b****t is indeed a Name.”

The older of the two physicians reported clearly.

“What? This cannot be!”

“How could such a thing happen?”

Duke Wittgen pressed a hand to his forehead, while Gisella cried out like a scream and clutched Rose’s shoulder.

With the secret now completely exposed before everyone present, Mina lowered her burning red face. Even though she had prepared herself for this, the humiliation was unbearable. And when she remembered Leopold persistently pestering her earlier, asking where it was, she wished she could simply vanish like smoke from this place.

If only she could, she wanted to return to her original world.

‘Why did I end up in a world like this and have to suffer through such miserable things? What did I ever do to deserve this…!’

While Mina stood there on the verge of tears from injustice and humiliation, Leopold, who had heard the physician’s report, was struggling to suppress the smile spreading across his face.

‘Ha! The chest? So that’s why she threw such a fit about not telling me.’

Leopold deliberately put on a serious expression and casually covered his mouth with one hand.

Now, Mina was nothing more than a mouse trapped in a jar. His mind busily began calculating when and how he should claim his rights under the pretense of treatment for his sly former fiancée.