The Possessed Evil Woman Wreaks Havoc - Chapter 7

“Young Duke, there’s something strange about the lady.”

“Is it the first time she’s acted strange? She’s always like that.”

“No, I mean, this time it’s really different! The lady said she no longer cares if she becomes strangers with the two of you…”

“…She said that?”

“It seems like she’s had a change of heart.”

Gabriel Dunkeld had always hated his sister. That was a fact, an unchanging truth. He had long believed so.

At first, people around him used to ask how he could despise his sister to such an extent. But after just one conversation with Isabella, they began to understand his feelings. Isabella Dunkeld was, after all, a freak—a mutation that should never have existed in the Dunkeld family.

Gabriel hated his father, but he took great pride in the Dunkeld family, which he would one day inherit. The House of Dunkeld was one of only three ducal families in the Aizen Empire, and the only one without an ancestral hero.

Five hundred years ago, five heroes had sealed away the Demon God and were awarded high status for their deeds. One of these heroes was even crowned the king of Aizen, the kingdom that would eventually become the Aizen Empire. Five centuries later, the descendants of these heroes still lived, retaining their honor and titles under the glow of their ancestors.

Gabriel found it all pathetic.

‘After five hundred years, how much of that hero’s blood could even be left in them?’

Technically, Gabriel himself was also a descendant of a hero, given the many alliances forged through marriages among the ducal families over the centuries.

He knew well that the nobles regarded the Dunkelds as being a step below the other ducal families. But what was so special about their ancestors?

Gabriel was proud of the Dunkeld family for not being descended from a hero. They had achieved their status solely through ability, without the benefit of ancestral glory.

The people of Dunkeld were exceptional, whether in martial prowess or scholarly pursuits. Gabriel, like a true Dunkeld, had become a Swordmaster at a young age. But it seemed that when he was born, he had taken everything that was meant for Isabella as well.

Isabella was mean-spirited and had no sense of her own limitations. If she wasn’t kind, she should have at least been clever, but she was neither. Instead, she was foolish enough to lay her wickedness bare for all to see.

‘Although… I think she used to be cute when she was little.’

Little Isabella used to waddle after him on her short legs, calling him “brother.” For a moment, he had found her adorable.

But even monsters could be cute when they were young. Now, looking at the current Isabella, those memories were meaningless.

‘Not to mention, she’s so unattractive that we can’t even marry her off in a political match.’

That was purely Gabriel’s subjective opinion. He had plenty of friends who, despite knowing Isabella’s fierce personality, were still captivated by her beauty and occasionally asked him to set up meetings. But Gabriel always thought they were joking and never took their requests seriously.

To Gabriel, Isabella was the only blemish on his otherwise perfect existence as the Empire’s most eligible man. If it weren’t for her, he would have easily been ranked above even the crown prince, who was considered the second most perfect man in the Empire. But God had burdened him with Isabella, leaving him just shy of being the most perfect man.

This too, of course, was only Gabriel’s opinion.

All the same, Gabriel had watched Isabella’s misbehavior without intervening. His father tolerated her, so Gabriel saw no reason to get involved. He even thought that if his father ever tried to expel Isabella from the family, he might step in—just once—to stop it.

After all, she was still his sister, even if she was a burden.

But when Gabriel heard that Isabella had tried to poison the Marchioness Clement out of jealousy, he decided it was time to act. He went to his father’s office, intending to prevent Isabella’s expulsion. But when he opened the door, he found his father half-dazed.

“Isabella hit me.”

“…What? Have you finally lost it, Father?”

Gabriel’s heart raced for a moment, imagining himself taking his father’s place, but it turned out his father wasn’t losing his mind—Isabella really had struck him.

He had also heard that Isabella had coughed up blood, but the fact that she had slapped their father was what really stuck with him.

If there was one exception to Isabella’s unruly behavior, it was her family. And yet, she had hit their father? The same Isabella who used to desperately try to win his favor?

‘People change when they’re about to die… No way.’

That “no way” turned into an ominous feeling after Gabriel witnessed Isabella coughing up blood.

It couldn’t be true—that troublemaker couldn’t be sick. So when she suddenly showed up at dinner, demanding meat, he felt relieved.

‘It’s just that she’s grown weak from not eating meat. If she eats enough, she’ll be back to her usual self.’

She had said a few ominous things about dying that had made Gabriel’s heart drop, but he stubbornly ignored them.

Still, there was a lingering sense of worry. When Isabella had pointed a table knife at a servant, Gabriel felt an odd sense of relief.

She still had enough strength to cause trouble, so she must be fine. She had to be.

***

“Teaching them their place? Isabella, what are you talking about?” The Duke rubbed his forehead, as if he had a headache, as he questioned Isabella.

Gabriel felt uneasy watching Isabella still pointing the knife at the servant. The Duke had never been a kind father. The reason he had tolerated Isabella’s misdeeds until now was because she bore an uncanny resemblance to his late wife—not out of any affection for his daughter.

With Isabella’s behavior already crossing the line, pushing their father any further could truly get her expelled from the family. Gabriel quickly intervened, thinking that if he stepped in to scold her, the Duke might let it slide.

He had to straighten out this troublemaker. Right now.

“Isabella. Put down the knife and apologize to the servant.”

“Why should I?” Isabella asked, looking genuinely confused. “If I apologize now, that servant will never understand their mistake. And since the young duke sided with them in front of the other servants, they’ll look down on me even more.”

“That—!” Gabriel was at a loss for words. She wasn’t wrong. It was almost unheard of for a noble to apologize to a commoner. And it was true that the servant had mocked Isabella first.

Gabriel knew that the servants had been looking down on Isabella for some time. No one in the Empire was unaware of how Isabella was treated in society or her standing within the family. With their father constantly reprimanding her, it was only natural that the servants thought it was just a matter of time before she was cast out.

There was no way they had been truly serving her. Instead, they had crossed the line repeatedly, provoking her. Gabriel had let it happen. It was something he could have easily put a stop to, but he hadn’t.

After all, he also looked down on Isabella.

She was an embarrassment, even as a blood relative. She was bound to be an obstacle in his path.

But now—

“Gabriel Dunkeld, let me ask you: do I deserve to be treated with such disrespect?”

Isabella looked at him with blazing eyes as she asked the question. Gabriel found himself unable to answer immediately.

Come to think of it, he could understand Isabella’s point. No matter how poorly she had behaved, she was still a direct descendant of the Dunkeld family. She didn’t deserve to be disrespected by a mere servant.

‘Was I wrong?’

Should he have warned the servants at least once?

Various thoughts flashed through Gabriel’s mind. Seeing his hesitation, Isabella looked at him with wide eyes.

‘What’s with that reaction?’

Before he could dwell on it further, the Duke spoke.

He didn’t care if his daughter was disrespected by the servants; it was her own doing. Besides, Isabella had never once complained to him about their behavior. If his foolish daughter couldn’t even defend her own rights, he saw no reason to step in.

However, now that Isabella had brought it up, as the head of the family, he had to say something—not out of concern for his daughter, but to maintain the dignity of the Ducal House.

“Isabella, you’re right. You do not deserve to be disrespected by a servant. Not yet.”

The Duke deliberately added, “Not yet.” He had no intention of expelling Isabella from the family, but as his increasingly unruly daughter, she needed a warning.

The Duke was curious to see how Isabella would react. He expected her to be furious.

But contrary to his expectations, Isabella showed no reaction at all. The Duke studied her face for a moment before speaking again.

“Isabella, you decide the servant’s punishment.”

After a brief pause, Isabella smiled and said, “With this knife, I will separate his head from his body—”

Gabriel let out a hollow laugh as soon as Isabella began to speak. The fact that their father had given her the authority to decide the servant’s punishment meant he was siding with her. And yet she was suggesting an execution?

Gabriel quickly interrupted her before she could finish her sentence.

“Hey, you maniac! Do you really think that dull knife could even scratch him? And you want to behead him? Are you insane?”

“If I put in enough effort, it could work,” Isabella replied with a sullen expression.

Of course, Isabella never failed to meet Gabriel’s expectations.

“Don’t bother putting in that kind of effort!” Gabriel shouted. Why didn’t she put that effort into cultivating some manners instead?

But Isabella’s expression was so serious that, for a moment, Gabriel imagined his sister, like the Swordmaster, wielding nothing but a table knife.

Isabella, slicing through enemies with a single table knife…

‘I must be losing my mind.’

Gabriel shook his head vigorously, trying to dispel the strange image from his mind.