20 years had passed when I woke up! ~ The villain's daughter’s thereafter and after that ~ - Chapter 0

Fioria de Florence, the daughter of the Duke, was physically strong, but she was never a meathead.

While she travelled alone around the domain, she became keen to know how the human society worked.

She was accurately aware of it much more than other aristocratic daughters who were only interested in tea parties and ballroom parties.

“Since trading with the East has begun, the merchants have quickly grown wealthy. They are targeting rich aristocrats and always seeking a chance for more gain like vultures. They may prey on our family and suck all dimes out of it in no time. ”

Fioria blatantly told her father … the man who was feared as the “Ice Minister” in imperial court.

“Economic power is everything nowadays and it will be so even more. One year is enough, please give me permission to defer the aristocratic school, and appoint me as the acting Load as your proxy.”

“My daughter’s demands are unreasonable.”

Fioria’s father, Graham de Florence, whispered with no facial expression, just like a mask.

“What if I say no?”

“I will put a period to the history of the Duke of Florence by my own hands. Let’s kill it at once, rather than let it slowly die away.”

Fioria raised a thing on her left hand.

It was a red ripen apple rich in flavour.

Apples were the iconic product of the Duke of Florence.

Her left hand crushed it at once.

Squashed and fell apart.

The pieces of apple dropped onto a glass fruit plate that Fioria was holding with her right hand.

“It’s a gift for my always busy father. Here you go.”

“Use a knife. Have some manners.  ……um, yummy.”

“You like it even you whinge about me.”

“It’s a gift from my daughter. There is no reason to refuse.”

Graham’s serious face contained slight smile.

“You look a lot like Flora.”

Flora de Florence.

Graham’s ex-wife, Fioria’s mother who passed away.

Flora was born in a rural poor family, but as she was drafted, she performed great deeds in the military. She then climbed up to General.

“Flora too crushed an apple in front of me. She said ‘Pick whether you marry me or die right here.’ Such a passionate propose was my very first experience.”

“My mother and my father were both insane, right?”

“And our daughter is you, Fioria”

“I think, unlikely my mother, I’m an educated lady. I’m not a soldier after all.”

“It recalls me the proverb – that’s six of one and half a dozen of the other. Anyways, I allow you to defer your school and appoint you as the acting Load, but only for one year.”

“One year is long enough. I’ll make our domain that can be an independent kingdom, if necessary, as the Kingdom of Florence.”

She was not lying.

Since Fioria was appointed to the acting Lord, the Duke of Florence had developed exponentially.

She achieved numerous reformations and developments. Just explaining these will make a book.

Tax reform, improvement of transportation network, technical exchanges with the East, education system for commoners, innovation of new products, establishment of business associations, etc.

Of course, there were many obstacles, but she did not give up fulfilling her goals.

A year later, Fioria turned 17 years old.

She returned her position as the acting Load as promised, and got back to her aristocratic school in the royal capital.

Fioria felt that there were many things she couldn’t do for her domain yet, but she was not frustrated.

She showed a surprising side of her personality, patience.

By the way, at the aristocratic school, other students adored her like a prince, because of her boyish characteristics.

The school turned into a big fuss as she returned after her one-year deferral.

“Welcome back! Sister (many of her friends call her sister)!”

“I’ve heard about your success in the domain! Please tell me more about it!”

“I baked some cookies to celebrate my return! I really wish Fioria like them.”

Cookies were overcooked and tasted a little bitter, but Fioria ate all with her smile.

Her friend made them for her.

She wanted to show her gratitude.

Even though she deferred a whole year, there was no system for repeating years in aristocratic school.

Everyone enrolled at the age of 15 and graduated at the age of 18.

Fioria was in the third grade this year, and it was the final grade.

Her classmates welcomed her with unchanged friendliness, but one change was happening at the aristocratic school.

“Last year Prince Oswald enrolled.”

“Sister, I can’t say speak ill of your fiancé, but…”

“He is so repulsive. He doesn’t deserve you, Fioria!”

Fioria had a fiancé.

He was the First Prince of this kingdom, and perhaps the successor to the throne, Oswald De Tristan.

He was 16 years old at that time.

One year younger than Fioria.

In the aristocratic society of the Tristan Kingdom, it was rare to have older women as wives.

However, the mother of the current king, Empress Anabella, was very fond of Fioria, and also to strengthen the alliance between the Monarch and the Duke of Florence, this exceptional engagement had been arranged.

Fioria didn’t mind her politically motivated marriage.

She took it for granted because she was born into an aristocratic family.

However, Prince Oswald seemed to be hesitant, and he stopped speaking and started avoiding her ever since their engagement was announced.

He used to be very sweet to Fioria. He called her ‘sis Fio’ and always hanging around Fioria.

Fioria was a little sad.

“Listen sister, Ozwald was doing whatever he wanted while you were away.”

“He was seduced by Annerose, the daughter of Baron Isolute, who used to be just a commoner.”

“Honestly, I’m likely to become disloyal to the royal family.”

According to what her friends were telling her, Prince Oswald was obsessed with a girl.

Annerose de Isolute.

Although she was born and grew up as a commoner, she was reclaimed as a member of the fallen Baron Isolute clan. So, she was a restored noble.

It all happened during Fioria’s deferral from school.

Annerose seemed to have a simplistic and innocent personality, probably because she was raised as a commoner, and was different from other students.

It made her appealing to male students. In fact, many boys liked her.

There were a dozen of boys, including Prince Oswald, always following and surrounding her. Oswald seemed to the leader of her companions.

“Right.”

Fioria was totally calm when she heard all.

“Don’t you get upset, sister?”

“Prince Oswald is a boy, and I think he is just curious about other girls, right? I’ll forgive him.”

Fioria just felt Prince Oswald to be her brother rather than her fiancé.

“We are going to get married even though we don’t like it. It would be alright for him to have a crush or two on some other girl before we marry. Reforming the domain was just like my lover for a year anyways.

“How kind you are.”

“Person who is going to be Crown Princes is big-hearted.”

“On the contrary, that thief, Annerose …”

Apparently, female students really hated Annerose.

As for Fioria, she didn’t have any hatred towards Annerose.

Rather, Fioria was impressed by Annerose to assimilate into aristocratic school, even though she was raised by her commoner family.

Moreover, Annerose was born in the same countryside as Fioria’s mother, Flora, was from. Fioria even felt a little affinity with her.

However, Fioria did not just let it everything be.

She thought she should have a word with Prince Oswald.

It seemed pitiful that a royal man was one of the companions always following a girl wherever she went.

“I’d prefer to see his guts warding off other boys.”

As she muttered quietly, her friends looked up to her with admiration, and said, “Surely sister, you are big and open minded”.

Some classes went by, and then after school.

“Fioría…., I mean Fioria de Florence! Let me break my engagement with you!”

While chatting with friends on the courtyard terrace, Prince Oswald came up and suddenly said so.

“Wah”

Seeing her younger brother’s growth, Fioria couldn’t stop grinning.

It was becoming quite interesting.

She thought ‘love changes a man’ was true.

Oswald used to be just a crybaby, but he appeared to be pulling himself up as much as he could.

“You are rude to the Prince!”

A boy next to Oswald screamed at her.

He was Kenneth, a son of the Commander of Imperial Guards.

Kenneth grabbed Fioria’s shoulder while he was breathing heavily.

He tried to twist her arm up and pull her down to the ground, but Fioria wouldn’t budge.

She was still sitting on a chair calmly and gracefully tasting tea.

“Would you massage my shoulder?”

Kenneth was a big boy considering his age, 16, but she wasn’t his match.

Fioria had a slender body, yet her mother trained her since she was a little kid. Once she was big enough, she started going around to buster monsters in her domain.  Kenneth had no chance to put her down to the ground.

Her strength was overwhelming Kenneth.  He was like a villager challenging the Demon King with his empty fists.

By the way, Oswald was accompanied by a dozen male students on top of Kenneth.

They were all Annerose’s companions.

There were other bystander students on the backyard terrace, and they painfully looked at Oswald. They all felt like they were watching a death row prisoner thrown in front of a dragon.

After all, he was confronting Fioria de Florence.

A rumor said, one week after entering the school, she uncovered a misconduct of the principal, tied him up as a punishment.

A rumor said, she beat and castrated the eldest son of the Marquis who tried to rape a daughter of the Viscount.

A rumor said, she burnt the headquarters of a drug syndicate to the ground, which infested the royal capital.

She crushed any evil-beings. People called this storm-like daughter of the Duke as the Empress of Blizzard.

That was the stereotype image of Fioria people had.

Oswald was having an affair with Annerose. He might be hung naked from the rooftop in the tomorrow morning.

Everyone thought so.

“Do you mind if I ask the reason why you want to call off our engagement?”

Against all odds, Fioria calmly asked Oswald.

Fioria had one major weakness.

She couldn’t be hash to her family members, and Oswald had been like her little brother. If Oswald truly loved Annerose, she did not mind to withdraw, and of course, willingly help to cancel the engagement. The King and her father would be mad at her, but what if she squashed an apple or two in front of them? Bargaining power is proportional to offensive power after all.

“Don’t play dumb! you are harassing Annerose, I know you are plotting all behind!”

“What? I was away from school for a year.”

“You are taking advantage of your duke family status and letting your puppets do so!”

“Is there any evidence?”

“Now you are trying to distract me. This is the best proof! Annerose also says you are the real culprit!”

“You mean, the Prince breaks the engagement because I’m bullying Annerose.”

“Yeah! If you let Annerose and me go out, I wouldn’t mind to give you the crown of Princess. You are shooting in your own foot. Regret it!”

“How disappointing…”

She did not hide her disappointment and sighed.

If Oswald was speaking up how much he loved Annerose, she would bless them with her open arms.

They were trying to make their way by fabricating a baseless criticism and making her look bad.

So pitiful.

So pathetic.

She felt depressed.

“Is that all you want to say, Prince Oswald?”

Her voice lacked any intonation.

She stared Oswald, her supposed-to-be fiancé, with her fearsome gaze just like her father.

Her gaze scared Oswald off. He withered and stepped back.

“Ugh ………”

Being intimidated and overwhelmed by Fioria, everyone could see that he was frightened.

Oswald might have collapsed to the ground and apologized her at once.

However, an unexpected ally appeared then.

“Fioria, please admit your sin obediently!”

A girl with fluffy brown-colored hair stepped out of the crowd.

With her slightly drooping eyes, she had an ambience that boys willingly felt to defend her at any cost.

It was Annerose de Isolute herself.

“If you apologize with your heart, I’ll forget about your harassment. I’ll even beg the King so that he would reduce your punishment.”

“I haven’t done anything to you. There is no way to admit it.”

“What? I’m compromising for you, Fioria ………”

Annerose dropped to the ground and burst into tears.

Her boys supported and comforted Annerose, and taunted Fioria.

“You made our Anne cry!”

“Don’t bluff just because you’re a daughter of the Duke!”

“I can’t believe such a spoiled woman is the fiancée of our First Prince!”

“Contrary, Anne is so sweet!”

Ridiculous.

Fioria looked at these boys with apathetic glance.

As a woman, she intuitively knew that it was obviously Annerose’s pretentious cry. It was an appeal to attract compassion of these boys.

Was Annerose as pure and naive just as these boys believed so in the first place?

As Annerose spoke, a sense of her arrogance or egotism seeped out of her mouth.

Oswald was tricked and caught up by such an obnoxious girl.

“I had enough.”

The engagement should be broken.

Oswald was like her younger brother, but there was a boundary that no one could step over even he was like her own family member.

He crossed it.

He became a stranger to her from that moment on.

She decided and had no longer mercy on him.

If Oswald would succeed to the throne, the Kingdom of Tristan would be in a huge mess.

She thought ‘Who cares? Let it rot and die out.’

“Should I consider the independence of Duke Florence?”

With her quick remark, Fioria stood up.

Her view was all of sudden distorted as she tried to stand.

“Eh…………?”

Her legs got numb and her knees hit the ground.

“Sister!?”

Classmates (she didn’t know why her friends called her ‘sister’ even though they were the same age as Fioria) screamed around her.

“The drug seems to be kicking in, Fioria.”

Oswald shamelessly talked to her.

“One of your friends gave you some cookies this morning. These cookies had a drug that Annerose brought back from her home village. It’s a slow-acting confession drug. Now, tell us everything what you’ve done.”

“………. uh………… ah…………..”

Fioria couldn’t say anything.

Her whole body was paralyzed and gradually stiffened.

Her heart beat was about to stop.

It wasn’t a confession drug.

It was a poison to kill her.

She could see Annerose’s face in her narrowing and fading view.

Annerose was slightly looking down so that her boys wouldn’t notice it, but she was wickedly smirking.

“….. not….. yet…..”

Fioria used her magical power.

She couldn’t chant, but her willpower was still there.

She desperately tried to neutralize the poison while reactivating all her magic left in her entire body.

She refused to die of merely a poison.

She determined that she would repay this, even if it would take decades.

Until then, be proud of defeating me, Annerose de Isolute.

She felt like a devil lost to a hero. Fioria fell into a deep sleep.

******

It was a lethal poison that Fioria had.

There was no remedy. Whether she would live through or not depended on her own willpower.

She miraculously survived, but fell into a long coma.

This incident rocked the Kingdom of Tristan.

After all, the First Prince was about to kill the daughter of the Duke of Florence.

He claimed that, he didn’t think it was a poison, he was told that it was just a confession drug, and Annerose deceived him.

Oswald was stripped of the right to inherit the throne and imprisoned into the clock tower of imperial court.

The other boys tried to take advantage of this opportunity.

They swore to be continuously loyal and admire Annerose in order to get rid of their rivals.

All these boys thought that way, and gave her a nice word such as “I am your only ally” and “I will prove your innocence with the political power of my clan”.

But then, some unexpected outgrowth followed.

Annerose ran way and went missing. Furthermore, it was revealed that she was a spy from another kingdom.

Faces of her companion boys turned pale.

In order to buy attention of Annerose, all these boys competed and willingly talked to her about sensitive information in regards to the kingdom and their domains.

They were severely punished. Some of them were even forced into exile.

Then, 20 years went on.