Haunted Duke's Daughter Chapter 14

The next day. Lilia opened her eyes after being awoken by Alisa. To Alisa who greeted her with a `good morning` while lowering her head, Lilia also plastered a smile on her face.

“Yeah. Morning, Alisa. What a nice day.”

“Yes. The weather is absolutely wonderful today. Will you be having breakfast in here?”

At Alisa’s prompt, Lilia thought for a bit. Perhaps her brain wasn’t spinning properly due to not having fully woken up yet, but for now, she felt that she wanted to avoid the dining hall.

“Very well. Can I leave it to you?”

“Understood.”

With a respectful bow, she departed from the bedroom, and seeing off Alisa’s back with her eyes, Lilia took a small sigh.

—Morning, Lilia. It’s the first day of school, huh! Looking forward to it aren’t ya!

—Morning. I’d appreciate it if you didn’t remind me, actually.

Honestly, even now, just thinking about school made her melancholic. However, this was the one thing she couldn’t run away from. All the more since she already spent the last day avoiding it. Letting out another small sigh, Lilia slipped out of bed.
She opened the closet in the corner of the room. Five sets of the school regulation uniform were prepared there, all perfectly in Lilia’s size. From those, Lilia grabbed a set and nimbly changed into it. Then, giving the appearance of being in thought, she promptly stood in front of a mirror.

—Really… Is it fine just like this? What about make-up?

—If it’s you, then there’s no need. You’re already super cute just like that, you know? If anything, the heavy cosmetics you’ve used up until now just made things feel worse.

—Is… Is that so…

Lilia staggered all the way to the bed, before sitting down, perplexed. To Sakura, who had asked what was wrong,

—It’s nothing… Just that I’m a little wounded from that.

Perhaps not understanding, Sakura gave off a puzzled impression, and without saying anything, Lilia let out a heavy sigh.
Sakura’s advice that her make-up was no good actually came right as she arrived. When heading to the school, just in case, she had put on her usual make-up before getting on the carriage. Thus, the words Sakura had told her right when she was preparing to retire for the night stung her heart even now.

—Lilia. That make-up is unpleasant. It’s gross. It’d be better if you stopped doing it from tomorrow onwards.

Nobody at all had let her know before. That was why she had thought that it was fine like that. At some point, she had started to imitate her mother and put on make-up by herself, but had the people around her been thinking the same thing this whole time?

There was a knock on the door. Following that, Alisa revealed her face.

“Mistress Lilia, I’ve come with your breakfast. Have you finished your preparations?”

“Yes… I’m going now.”

When Alisa saw Lilia, who had exited from the room, her eyes went wide. When she tilted her head to the side at Arisa, who was staring fixedly at Lilia, Alisa flusteredly lowered her head.

“Please excuse me. Because that was somewhat unexpected…”

“What was?”

“I see that today you will be going without make-up.”

Lilia’s face froze over. She asked Alisa, who was tilting her head to the side.

“Alisa. I’d like you to answer truthfully here, but.”

“Yes?”

“The make-up I’ve always done until now… how was it?”

This time it was Alisa who froze over. She seemed to be trying to say something, but kept shutting her mouth every time she opened it to speak. With just that, Lilia could already guess at Alisa’s feelings. Whether to answer truthfully and abide by Lilia’s command or to try and save face for her master, she was certainly lost for a decision. However, the fact that she was having trouble responding already made the answer here quite clear.

“It is fine. Thank you.”

“Ah… Um, my deepest apologies.”

“I said it’s fine. Alisa, I wish to change. If there is anything, please properly let me know.”

Alisa replied with a ‘certainly’ and bowed. Nodding in satisfaction, Lilia went to the seat where breakfast was prepared.
This was something that she only heard afterward, but Lilia’s back looked terribly small.

Having finished with breakfast, Lilia left her room to head towards the school building and descended down the stairs. Perhaps not aware of Lilia’s return, every single student passing by showed great surprise at seeing her. Lilia showed everyone who met her eyes a smile.
Before, she would only scowl at anyone she saw. She was actually intending the same as usual today as well, but she was stopped by Sakura.

—Lilia. Get Along.

Since it couldn’t be helped, she followed Sakura’s instructions and plastered the forced smile that she was confident had improved drastically over this week. According to Sakura, it was a smile that still had a ways to go, but everyone on the receiving end had their faces redden, looking away.

—We should hurry to class. We might end up running into that girl.

—I dunno, I think it’s pointless though. From what I know of that girl and her personality… Well whatever. We’ll see when we go.

Lilia frowned dubiously at Sakura’s words. Then, she quickly came to understand the meaning of what was said.

“Mistress Lilia. It’s Mistress Tina.”

As soon as she descended to the first floor, Alisa, who was walking in front, informed her of this arrival. She raised her face with a ‘huh?’ Perhaps due to the early hour, the entrance was still mostly devoid of people. And so, she quickly noticed.
At one of the tables arranged at the entrance was Tina. On the table, three cups were prepared. Perhaps she was talking to someone, or rather… Overcome with the feeling of a dreadful premonition, she was seriously wondering if she should go back or not. However, she definitely couldn’t ignore her here, either. After all, Alisa was continuously staring as if expecting something.

—Your friend’s here.

—Ugh…!

It was as if Sakura’s words were completely voicing Alisa’s thoughts on her behalf. With no other choice, Lilia approached Tina and placed a hand on her shoulder.

Author’s Notes:

The servants’ make-up -> Beautiful person

Her own make-up -> Who the hell are you!
After getting used to seeing “Her own make-up” the surrounding people have come to react to no make-up with ‘Who the hell are you’.

(TL note)
The author usually has some sort of note at the end of every chapter, but they’re usually just corrections or announcements. In fact this chapter had a correction note as well but I will only translate the interesting parts of these notes.

(TLCer note from the great Tokimaru)
Arisa is a cute name, would waifu, fuck da haters

Chapter end