Hey guys,
I decided to pick this novel "Can We Become a Family?", translating it using ChatGPT and proofreading it myself. Until I catch up to the previous translator (Chapter 51), release schedule would be random. Once caught up, I'll announce a fix release schedule and also have advanced chapters on Ko-fi, so enjoy the new series!
If you notice any mistakes, have feedback, or just want to say hi, do drop a comment.
"But now, I'm done playing family."
In the office of the wealthiest family in the Eden Empire, the Duke of Agnes.
"This shameless wench!"
Smack!
Nikan Agnes, unable to contain his furious anger, slapped his adopted daughter Navia's cheek.
At the age of twenty-two, Navia was still petite and delicate, like a girl. Her slender body couldn't withstand Nikan's strength, causing her to sway heavily.
But she kept her lips sealed.
Normally, violence like this warranted screams and trembling in fear. Yet Navia remained unusually calm, as if nothing had happened.
She straightened herself with poise, her slender waist, slightly pointed chin, neatly folded hands, and crimson eyes staring into the void exuded an unmatched grace.
Her silver hair, tousled like mist, seemed to have never been touched.
Truly a demeanor more noble than nobility itself.
Everything about her was meticulously trained under the Agnes Duke.
Nikan was even more infuriated by Navia's elegant figure.
The money and time poured into creating such a splendid product were rendered insignificant; Navia had become a blade ready to strike his back.
"I provided you with the best tutors, dreams of wealth and prosperity, everything a destitute orphan could only dream of. Yet you dare to repay that kindness by harming my daughter?"
A cold sneer flashed in Navia's crimson eyes, like a deep swamp.
Ah, the top-notch tutors and a life of luxury…
Certainly, being brought from the squalid orphanage in the countryside to here was something she should be grateful for. But it was an action driven more by profit than goodwill.
"If Vivian weren't terminally ill, I wouldn't have taken in a rootless orphan like you… Tsk!"
Nikan needed another healthy and beautiful daughter to marry the prince, but he didn't want to acquire one from noble families. They would have to share rights and benefits once Navia became the empress.
So, he had killed an entire distant branch of his family and disguised Navia as their daughter.
Fake portraits, fake stories, fake family, fake relatives, everything that made up Navia was a lie.
That's why she strived to become real.
She endured harsh training, sacrificed sleep, ignored her health, and pushed herself to the limit, all to become the 'true Agnes'.
What Navia wished for was both simple and incredibly challenging at the same time.
To never go hungry.
To never be cold.
To lead a gentle life within the confines of a family.
In this opulent Agnes Duke's mansion, adorned with gold and jewels, it seemed like those wishes could come true.
Family.
She thought she could be included in that warm and beautiful word.
It seemed like she had almost succeeded.
Until the day Navia came of age, or until Vivian, Nikan's biological daughter, recovered from her incurable illness.
Nikan, using Vivian as leverage, forcibly broke off Navia's engagement.
Was it because he claimed she was unfit to inherit due to her humble origins? Nikan didn't care whether it shattered Navia's reputation or not; he acted cruelly.
Because of these circumstances, Nikan was convinced that Navia held a grudge and had tried to poison Vivian.
"Everything I give belongs to the family, not to you, a commoner who was never meant to become empress!"
Navia watched her father, who didn't hold back from blaming her, revealing her raw emotions.
She was fine with being cast aside, even becoming a laughingstock in society.
‘Good job, my daughter.’
She could easily humble herself at the sound of his pitifully warm words, like a reward bestowed now and then.
‘All I wished for was insignificant and trivial to you.’
Now she understood.
She realized too late that no matter how hard she tried, she was just a pawn in Vivian's place.
As a final act of defiance, Navia said, "I didn't try to poison Vivian, Father."
Smack!
Before she could finish her sentence, his hand struck her cheek frighteningly.
Navia couldn't withstand the force and fell to the ground in misery.
"Poison was found in the tea leaves you gave Vivian! Yet you still dare to deceive me to the end!"
One day, Vivian had asked Navia to fetch some rare tea leaves to serve an important guest. Navia, being the kind sister, had quickly complied. But poison was discovered in those tea leaves.
"The engagement was broken a long time ago, and I have no reason to do such a thing now."
"Is it not out of jealousy? Since Vivian has become Prince Ares's fiancée, aren't you trying to poison her out of spite?"
If the decision of the patriarch who had discarded her because he didn't want to place a stepdaughter on the empress's throne was not heart-wrenching, it was a lie. But she had never harbored any intention to harm Vivian for that reason.
After all, she neither loved Prince Ares nor coveted the empress's position.
This whole situation felt like it had been meticulously orchestrated by someone. It was so suspicious that even a little thought would reveal its strangeness.
In other words, Nikan didn't make the slightest effort to understand Navia, to the point where he didn't notice such strangeness at all.
"What you did went beyond just a family matter! Harming the prince's fiancée is as grave as nobility's execution!"
Nikan's anger even contained a hint of regret.
It stemmed from the regret of having to personally put down his most useful hunting dog. Navia knew that fact all too well.
"If I had really harbored a grudge and wanted to harm Vivian, I wouldn't have staged such an obvious ploy."
This was a foolish ploy she wouldn't even attempt when she was eight years old.
Nikan's anger surged, and he drew a sword from his waist in response to her audacious words.
"How dare you!"
Just before Navia's throat was to be slashed,
"Father."
A low voice pierced through the heavy air in the office.
Navia turned around.
The man with red hair, strikingly resembling Nikan, was entering the room.
He was the Duke's eldest son, Wood.
"His Highness Prince Ares has arrived."
Nikan frowned deeply.
"Tsk, what a disgrace to the royal family!"
"Go and see for yourself. I will take care of this child."
"Alright, understood."
The Duke left Wood in charge of the situation and left the office.
"Keek."
A sharply honed sneer cut through the air.
Wood approached Navia with a taunting posture and squatted in front of her.
"You look splendid, don’t you?"
He found Navia's plight genuinely amusing and satisfying.
A flash of anger flickered in Navia's dry well-like eyes.
"That's lower than an animal."
"What is?"
When Wood feigned ignorance, Navia retorted coldly.
"I know you poisoned the tea intended for our sister."
"Ah, got caught red-handed."
Wood shrugged nonchalantly.
"If Vivian had drunk that tea, she really would have died. Don’t you feel any guilt?"
"If Vivian was lucky enough not to die, what more is needed?"
Navia clenched the carpet.
She had seen the depths of Agnes but had closed her eyes.
Finding a non-cruel person in noble society was impossible, so she had rationalized it.
No, it was more accurate to say she ‘had to’ think that way.
It was vicious to be treated like this by a blood relative just because he was trying to fight for the right to inherit the dukedom.
Wood had always been like this.
Crude, brutal, and vulgar.
"You know, I’ve hated you from the beginning. Do you know why?"
Navia knew what was coming next.
"Filthier than a bug, a mere commoner."
Wood grimaced.
Navia silently mouthed the word 'commoner'.
When had she first learned she was not a daughter of a lower noble but a commoner orphan?
"You were a commoner?"
Ah, it was when Wood turned twenty.
His voice asking if she was a commoner still echoed clearly, as if it happened yesterday.
"I think people like you should not muddy the waters of noble society. But father is so stubborn..."
Wood grabbed Navia's chin, forcing her to meet his gaze, and then stroked her lips with his thumb.
Red blood smeared across her pale skin.
"Noble blood is blue, not vulgar red like yours."
He chuckled with satisfaction at his own words.
"And this act was executed by me, but someone else ordered it. Guess who?"
Navia calmly replied.
"Her Majesty the Empress, I suppose."
Wood looked at Navia, who acted as if she knew everything.
"Right. So why did you seduce Prince Ares and upset Her Majesty?"
He took a small vial of poison from from his pocket and threw it to Navia.
A poison that would dissolve organs instantly upon ingestion.
"Here, drink it. This might be your only chance to live as a noble lady. Why else would the prince come?"
"He's probably here to hold a slave trial over me."
Ares loved Navia for her beauty and mercilessness towards enemies.
'I'm loved as a tool, not as a person.'
No different from Agnes.
Wood was anxious that Prince Ares might appear and take Navia away, but he feigned calmness and arrogance.
"Isn't it better to die cleanly now than live as a slave?"
If Navia refused to drink the poison, he planned to force her.
The Empress promised Wood that in exchange for dealing with Navia, he could marry Lady Sara Lucia.
The Lucia Duchy was the Empress's maiden family, and Sara Lucia was her niece.
Navia stared down at the small vial of poison that had rolled to the floor.
'So, it has come to this again.'
Without hesitation, she swiftly drank the poison. Wood flinched at her resolve.
While Wood was relieved that Navia had ingested the poison, he was disgusted by her tenacity.
This was why he hated Navia.
"Still acting high and mighty to the end. Disgusting."
Even as Navia vomited blood due to the poison, she sneered softly.
"Cough! ...Ha, hahaha."
Whether she acted lowly or nobly, the outcome was the same.
Navia spoke grimly.
"How much more must I try?"
To be accepted by you, to be acknowledged as family, how much more effort is needed?
I did my best.
Yes, I really did my best.
Navia removed her blood-soaked gloves, revealing a number on her right wrist, invisible to others.
1
She looked at the number and confessed calmly.
"Brother, I have relived the same life seven times."
"What?"
"And now, only one more return remains."
Wood furrowed his brow at her incomprehensible words.
"Have you gone mad at the brink of death?"
Navia lost her sight due to erosion by poison. The number on her wrist was blurry.
She breathed heavily and spoke.
"I thought we could be a family if I made that much effort...."
A chilling coldness spread on her lips that were smiling sarcastically.
The voice that came out was even colder.
"But now, I'm done playing family."
Just before her vision faded, Navia fixed Wood with a chilling stare.
Caught in that eerie gaze, Wood froze like prey before a predator.
For a moment, his spine shivered, and he couldn't utter a word.
"Until the next life, Wood."
I won't go to such lengths for you again.
"You—!"
Wood belatedly tried to shout something, but his words fell on deaf ears to Navia. Her hearing had faded away.
And then, darkness.
The number on her wrist changed.
0
And just like that, she vanished without a trace.
