IRMN | 003

Episode 003

How could things have spiraled into such a mess?

Back in her room, Eleanor swallowed a troubled sigh.

To escape the fate of the original story, she had enrolled in the academy and returned home after seven years.

The starting point of the original story had passed over a year ago.

She had assumed Charlotte would have settled things one way or another.

And, in a way, Charlotte had.

Though it wasn’t with the main male lead—she had ended up with the sub-male lead, Alexis, gotten pregnant, given birth, and then fled in the middle of the night.

‘Father, Mother, what in the world happened?’

Even worse, Charlotte had left the child she bore behind at the estate.

‘Charlotte’s child? You never mentioned anything about this to me.’

Whenever Eleanor asked about Charlotte, her parents had only said she was doing well.

That she missed her older sister dearly and that Eleanor should write to her often.

But Charlotte had never once replied to the letters Eleanor sent.

Eleanor had thought it was because Charlotte was busy with the original story’s romance with the male lead.

‘It’s a newborn. Since when was Charlotte so deeply involved with Alexis Oben? No, putting that aside, how could you keep something this important from me?’

And then, even more shocking events unfolded.

‘Who’s the one being humiliated here?!’

‘Father.’

‘She hid her pregnancy right up until she gave birth. Your mother knew all along and went along with it!’

‘Mother knew?’

‘I’m sorry, Ellie. But Charlotte begged me to keep it a secret… And she’s still an unmarried maiden. We have to protect her honor.’

‘Mother, how can she be a maiden when she’s had a child?’

‘She is a maiden! She has to be, to become a Saintess!’

Recalling the conversation with her parents, Eleanor clutched her throbbing forehead.

To sum it up, it was a complete disaster.

Fine, let’s say it’s acceptable that Charlotte fell for a man other than the main male lead.

After all, Eleanor herself had deviated from the original story, so there was no rule saying Charlotte had to follow her predestined path either.

But abandoning her own child and running off with a man was an entirely different matter.

‘What was Charlotte thinking?’

As a result, the Count was furious, calling Charlotte ungrateful and jumping with rage.

The Countess insisted that since a non-virgin couldn’t become a Saintess, they had to hide this fact and find Charlotte at all costs.

The reason no servants were around the estate was the Countess’s doing.

She had sent all but the closest aides on long vacations around Charlotte’s due date.

“Haa.”

A deep sigh escaped Eleanor’s lips.

The current situation felt more challenging than the first problem she had solved at the academy.

‘I was only going to stay long enough to say my goodbyes and leave.’

Things had gotten incredibly complicated.

Eleanor thought back to the newborn she had seen earlier that day.

Neither the Count nor the Countess had comforted the crying baby, startled by the Count’s shouting.

The couple seemed to despise the child.

It was as if they believed the baby was the root of all their problems.

‘Oh, little one, hush now.’

If the nanny hadn’t rushed in to soothe the child, they might have cried themselves breathless.

Eleanor slowly rose from her seat.

Click.

Late at night, she arrived at the room where the baby was.

The room was quiet.

The nanny seemed to have stepped out for a moment.

Eleanor, thinking it was just as well, approached the bed where the baby lay.

“…”

She had thought the baby was asleep due to the silence, but surprisingly, the child was awake.

In the empty room, not crying, just lying quietly.

When Eleanor appeared, the baby’s clear eyes moved toward her.

She hadn’t noticed earlier, but the baby had vivid red eyes.

The same color as Eleanor’s. Not like Charlotte’s green eyes.

The baby gave a bright, beaming smile.

Eleanor, standing still and gazing down at the child, asked softly, “Where did your mommy go, little one?”

Why didn’t she take you with her?

Her own child, no less.

“Did you hear where she said she was going?”

The baby opened their tiny mouth and let out an adorable yawn.

They looked like an angel descended from the heavens.

“I don’t think Charlotte abandoned you.”

At least, she hoped not.

Because that would be far too sad.

‘My brave girl, you’ll be okay on your own, right? Sleep for ten nights, and Mommy will come back for you. I promise.’

Eleanor realized why she had come to see the baby.

She was projecting her own past onto the child’s situation.

The life she had lived before transmigrating into Eleanor.

When she was six, her mother had left her at an orphanage and disappeared.

She had promised to return after ten nights, but she never did.

It took a long time for her to realize.

Mom abandoned me.

By the time she understood, her tears had long since dried.

Her mother only came back after twenty-five years.

‘I’m sick with cancer. Make me the beneficiary of your insurance. It’s useless to you once you’re gone, right? Think of it as your last act of filial piety for the mother who gave birth to you.’

That was when she had been diagnosed with a terminal illness and was facing her final days.

Eleanor gazed silently at the baby.

Suddenly, footsteps echoed from the hallway.

Who could it be?

Startled, Eleanor quickly hid behind a piece of furniture far from the bed.

Bang!

The door swung open, revealing the Count and Countess.

And in the Count’s hand was…

‘A leather pouch?’

“We need to kill it right now,” the Count muttered threateningly.

“She was supposed to enter the temple as a Saintess, and now she’s had a child. If this gets out, our family is finished.”

“But, darling, we might be able to use this to convince Charlotte to come back…”

“Come back? What come back?! She abandoned her own child and ran off! She was so smitten with that man she didn’t care about her family at all.”

Eleanor’s heart pounded as she overheard the Count’s words.

What are they talking about?

Kill the child?

“But Charlotte has to come back. What are we going to tell people?”

“We’ll say she’s sick. Just like we’ve been doing, we’ll delay sending her to the temple as long as possible. In the meantime, we’ll find Charlotte somehow.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea, darling.”

“Get a grip! Do you want everything to be exposed?”

The Count snapped angrily.

Glaring fiercely at the Countess, he opened the leather pouch.

“First, we get rid of this nuisance…”

Clatter.

A sudden noise made the Count and Countess turn their heads simultaneously.

A small case rolled across the floor under the half-open door.

The Countess gasped and peered into the hallway.

“Who’s there?”

“There’s no one.”

“No one? Then what’s that? We can’t let anyone overhear. Find out who it is, now.”

The couple hurriedly left the room.

The room fell silent again.

The empty case had been rolled by Eleanor.

Having successfully diverted their attention, she quietly stood up.

‘Kill the child?’

This baby didn’t exist in the original story.

Charlotte had secretly fled, leaving behind the child she bore.

But putting all that aside…

‘Is there any reason this child should die?’

The baby was simply born.

They didn’t choose to live.

Eleanor looked at the child.

In the short time since she last checked, the baby had fallen asleep, breathing softly, unaware of anything.

Moments later, Eleanor left the room.

And the baby who had been sleeping there vanished with her.

* * *

It was early dawn, the sky just beginning to lighten.

Eleanor groggily rose from her bed.

Had she slept for three hours?

She had woken multiple times during the night, so it hardly felt like she’d rested.

“Haa.”

Letting out a tired sigh, she checked the small crib beside her.

An adorable baby was sleeping soundly.

It had been two months since she secretly fled the Winston estate with her nephew.