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Translator: penny
Chapter: 40
Chapter Title: Quite the Sleeping Habit
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Quite the sleeping habit, huh?
The office of the Rahel Tani family head.
Roselia's red eyes stared blankly into empty space. She looked quite shocked.
"...Why?"
Just a short while ago, Roselia had given Bella a choice.
A week of confinement. During that time, Bella had the right to decide which room she would stay in.
Her own room, or Camilla's room.
Roselia had been certain. Bella would naturally choose her own room.
She had already stayed there once before, and above all, Roselia knew better than anyone the relationship between Bella and Camilla.
The two fought every single day without fail. Power struggles, verbal spats, icy silences. Their bond was closer to that of enemies than family.
Sometimes it worried her that they went too far, but she'd heard that sisters naturally grew up through such fights, so she hadn't intervened much.
In contrast, Roselia and Bella had never once quarreled.
They bathed together, ate together, and shared the same spaces so naturally. Roselia had no doubt their bond was far closer than the one with Camilla.
[I'll stay in Camilla's room...]
But Bella had chosen Camilla's room. She hadn't even seemed to hesitate much.
"...Did I fail to take good care of her somehow?"
Roselia asked herself.
Maybe she'd scolded her too harshly that day. It nagged at her a bit, the way she'd lectured the child right after she regained consciousness.
But there was no helping it.
No one could possibly imagine what Roselia had felt upon finding Bella collapsed in a pool of her own blood on the floor.
If anything, Roselia thought she'd shown remarkable restraint by ending it with just a week of confinement.
Knock knock-
A small knock came from by the window. Roselia, who had already sensed the presence, simply nodded nonchalantly.
A faint shadow rippled across the floor, and a figure suddenly emerged from within it.
"I pay my respects to the Black Lord."
"Speak."
"We have discovered traces of the Black Altar."
Silence filled the office.
A cold smile soon spread across Roselia's lips, where moments before there had been blankness.
"After a whole year, huh?"
The Black Altar.
Tenacious like cockroaches, insidious, and rarely exposed.
"Tell Camilla too."
A chilling aura flickered in Roselia's red eyes, which had been vacant just moments ago.
※
Her mind gradually cleared. Her eyelids slowly lifted.
Perhaps because she'd slept so deeply for once. Her body felt much lighter than usual.
The first thing that entered her vision was none other than Camilla's face.
It usually irritated her just to look at it, but the sleeping face was surprisingly docile and pleasant to behold.
Long, extended lashes. Flawlessly smooth, pure white skin. Delicately refined features.
If she just grew up without any issues, it was certain she'd become a stunning beauty. Of course, that came with the premise of not falling into depravity and growing up brightly.
As she set aside her thoughts and tried to sit up, she felt an uncomfortable sensation somewhere.
"...Huh?"
Only after looking down did she grasp the situation.
Her body and Camilla's were tangled together. Her two arms were wrapped around Camilla's waist, and Camilla was tightly hugging her back in return.
It was bewildering.
Why on earth were they embracing each other like this? No wonder she'd felt so stuffy.
'Camilla must have some pretty bad sleeping habits...'
To cling to someone like this in the dead of night. For now, it was forgivable since she was a child, but later on, it could lead to real trouble.
Besides, Camilla was bound to grow up pretty, so it would be best to correct this habit beforehand.
That said, she herself must have been pretty exhausted not to wake up even when their bodies got this entangled.
That was her thought as she looked straight ahead. Her eyes met Camilla's vivid violet ones.
Camilla was gazing at her intently with clear, wide-open eyes. Bella flinched involuntarily at that look.
"Y-You're awake?"
"Yeah."
It was a short, flat reply.
A strange silence flowed between them for a moment.
"Hey, you... you've got quite the sleeping habit."
She cautiously broached the topic to break the silence. Camilla's eyebrow twitched slightly upward.
"...Sleeping habit?"
"I mean clinging like this. Better to fix it early."
"...Fix it?"
"Listen to your elder."
She scolded Camilla in a somewhat firm tone.
After all, wasn't she the older one here? This was something she needed to correct first.
"...."
Camilla looked at her with an expression like she couldn't believe it. A sliver of doubt bloomed in Bella's heart at that coldly chilled gaze.
Could it have been her own sleeping habit, maybe?
No, that couldn't be.
In her previous life, she'd always been a quiet sleeper.
She usually woke up in the same position she'd fallen asleep in, and she had no memory of any particular habits. It didn't make sense for her to be the one hugging someone else.
Yet an inexplicable anxiety began to tickle the depths of her heart. She glanced sideways at the still-silent Camilla and carefully opened her mouth.
"...Was it me, maybe?"
The silence that followed. But that quiet answered in place of Camilla.
Her face began to burn. An intolerable shame swelled in her chest.
She didn't want to believe it. No way, had she really done that?
If it was true, then until she fixed that habit, she absolutely couldn't sleep in the same space as anyone else.
"No. It was me."
It was just as the shame reached its peak. Camilla quietly spoke up.
"...You did it?"
"Yeah. Sorry."
The heat of shame gradually subsided at the sight of Camilla apologizing so readily. Only then could Bella manage a smile.
"What... why didn't you say so? You had me thinking it was me—do you know how embarrassing that was?"
She grumbled as she lightly smacked Camilla's shoulder. Peace spread through her heart before she knew it.
Of course it couldn't have been her.
There was no way she had such a nasty sleeping habit.
Her pounding heart began to settle back into place.
"Th-that habit! You should fix it."
"..."
After leaving that final admonishment, Bella and Camilla headed to the dining room side by side.
Roselia was seated at the table, looking somewhat more listless than usual.
Wondering if she'd had trouble sleeping, Bella asked, but she just shook her head.
The somewhat quiet breakfast came to an end.
Normally, it would be time to head out selling with the prepared ingredients, but instead, Bella lay blankly on the bed.
A week of confinement.
Because of it, she couldn't set even one foot outside the mansion. She'd tried sneaking out once as a joke, but Sierra had impossibly noticed and grabbed her right away.
The only books available were children's fairy tales. It was quite a trial for a reincarnator like her.
With nothing much to do, she'd thought about at least exercising meaningfully.
But the problem was this body. Even push-ups with bent knees were grueling. A short brisk walk left her breathless in under a minute.
No matter how she thought about it, it was a truly pathetic body.
If only there had been some parchment, she could have drawn circuits to pass the time.
Even that wasn't allowed.
In the end, with boredom at its peak, she grudgingly picked up a fairy tale from the study.
She rolled around on the bed, flipping through the pages one by one.
The protagonist was a prince named Eddy. It was a typical adventure tale of defeating monsters, making friends, and falling in love with a princess.
'Of all names, Eddy.'
Maybe because that damn brat from the orphanage came to mind, she just couldn't immerse herself.
But her concentration wasn't ordinary, was it? Reading along word by word, sentence by sentence, the story flowed better than expected.
Before she knew it, she'd reached the last page. Without much thought, she opened the next volume.
Days passed like that.
Reading books while rolling around on the bed, occasionally eating snacks handed over by Sierra, and drifting off to sleep with the window wide open when tired.
Faster than she'd anticipated, the week flew by.
On top of that, Camilla and Roselia were often away from the mansion on busy errands, making time pass even swifter.
When she came to, Sierra was looking down at her with narrowed eyes.
"...You've changed quite a bit during that time, Miss."
Unfortunately, her words didn't reach Bella's ears.
A week had passed. By now, her body had become one with the bed, and a deeper sleepiness than Sierra's voice permeated her mind.
"...Lemme sleep more... turn off the light..."
"From now on, I must make sure to tell the Countess that no more confinement orders are given to you, Miss."
The past week.
She had vividly realized just how lazy a person could become once they started slacking off.
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