Rosie's Games

Chapter 69: Start of a Tragedy 1

"Young Lady, why would they suddenly tell everyone that you have gotten ill?" Milith grumbled. "Clearly you are not sick so why would they suddenly spread those rumors?" She placed the teacup in front of Rosalind.

"Let them be, Milith." All she wanted was to leave this place. The Lux Family was now trying to lessen her presence before she left, they wanted everyone to forget about her existence. If that happened, they would not ask questions if Rosalind would suddenly turn up dead.

The Journey to the North was long and hard, she needed to be as prepared as possible. To do this, she needed to visit the black market but she could not do it when Milith was with her all the time.

"I want to rest."

"Young Lady, you just woke up," Milith said worriedly. "Do you want me to get a physician and"

Rosalind frowned. "Whatever it is that you are thinking, you're wrong."

"But Young Lady, you are going to marry the Duke. You need to be healthy to prepare yourself for"

"Enough."

Milith bit her lower lip before she lowered her head. "My apologies Young Lady."

"It's alright." In this Empire, it was expected for women to give birth immediately after marriage so they are tasked to maintain a healthy body just before they marry into a family. Some families would even perform some physical examinations on a woman's body to make sure she was fertile and ready to bear a child.

However, this wasn't going to happen to her.

In her past life, Rosalind was not able to get pregnant. At first, she thought it might be because of the two Blessings in her body, one light and one dark, one made of healing, the other for destruction. They were polar opposites and she was certain that her body would suffer from it, but she did not know that it would affect her capability to give birth.

However, Jeames never took any concubine. No. The man stayed faithful to his wife. Everyone envied Rosalind for having such a good husband.

Now that she thought about it, she realized that Jeames must have done it because he already had Dorothy as his lover. Rosalind started thinking about Dorothy's two children. If she had been in a relationship with Jeames then was it possible that those two were not the Emperor's children?

The possibility was high but she could no longer confirm this.

"Young Lady I"

"What is it?"

"Are you not worried that the Duke will not treat you well in the North?" Milith asked. "Please do not misunderstand, it's just that usually wives who cannot give birth are treated less than others. I don't want to see the Young Lady suffer on her own."

"Am I on my own?" Rosalind asked. "You will come with me, so you are going to be there for me."

"Young Lady"

"I am not worried about that Milith." In fact, she did not talk about these things to the Duke. Should she tell him about the fact that she could not give birth because of her Blessings? She needed to tell him the truth so he would be able to find someone that would birth his heir.

Now that she thought about it more, the Duke really should find someone that would be able to give him a son to inherit. Their relationship was only transactional and once she repaid the Duke, she was planning to leave the North and survive on her own. Rosalind had already made up her mind to tell the Duke the truth the next time she saw him.

But for now, she needed to prepare for the upcoming tragedy that will strike this place in the near future.

"I am going to sleep, please do not let others disturb me. Do not let anyone inside my room."

Milith nodded in response. Getting her reassurance, Rosalind walked back to her room, closed her door, and changed her clothes. Then she thought about teleporting to the merchant building.

She immediately started to feel dizzy. When she opened her eyes she was already transported to the room. The ring was very convenient.

Just as she walked out of the room, an overwhelmed-looking Pratt welcomed her.

"Miss Lin! I did not know that you were going to visit the market today. Do you want anything specific for today's visit?"

"The black relic stones? Were you able to get some?" she asked.

"Yes. Those stones were not considered rare so I was able to collect two chests of the black ones and one chest of the white ones. "

"You looked like you were running. Was it because of my sudden visit?" The man was trying to catch his breath when he arrived so Rosalind was immediately curious if she needed to send some sort of announcement or a message before arriving. Lucilla did not really tell her anything about needing permission.

"No. It's just that there have been some problems in the market lately."

"Problems?" she lifted an eyebrow.

"I am not supposed to tell you since we are trying to keep it a secret, but I guess it cannot be helped. Moreover, you are someone who knows about dark curses. I can show you something but only if you wanted to. I am not going to force you to do anything."

Hearing his words, Rosalind could not help but frown. She could only hope that it wasn't what she was expecting. Still, she nodded, she was quite curious about it. So, Pratt took her to a different building.

"As you know, the market sells slaves. These are people who lost the war or had so much debt that they could no longer pay it. Just last night, we had some new people coming from the islands. In the south."

"And?" her heart skipped a beat. She wanted to know more.

"Well today, one of them died. We do not understand how she died, but her body seemed to rot from the inside out. Everything was pointing to the woman having a dark curse but her body looked normal on the outside. No bruises, no bleeding, not even a cut. She was one of the first-class slaves that we receive. There has been an argument about this and I am quite worried that whatever she had will infect the others."

Rosalind said nothing. So everything started in the black market, she thought inwardly. The upcoming tragedy that she was thinking about was supposed to be the time when Dorothy would show off 'her' Blessing. Unfortunately for Dorothy, the only one that could save all these people was Rosalind and her dark Blessing.

Without Rosalind's help, the Lux Family would end up losing the confidence of many people. Rosalind lowered her head. This was an unfortunate event, but she could not really stop herself from smiling.

She thought this plague would not happen for another month or two. At that time, she hoped to no longer be in the Empire and on her way to the North. However, it seemed that she did not know the real timeline.

The sickness must have started in this place and slowly spread into the Capital. That made sense! Someone must have tried to hide it from the Emperor and his people. She could only think of one person that would do that.

Federico Lux.

....

There is another mass release on the 31st. Happy New Year everyone! I am so excited for 2023!