Chapter 98: Unraveling

My memories of my past life end with Erik's stabbing. My last memories of my first life consisted of me learning for the first time that I was pregnant through the Royal Doctor. I went to my appointment with Dolton Grass right afterwards. Instead of Dolton, I met with Kaya Ouchi who laid in wait with a dagger in her hands. To protect me, Erik had used his body and accidentally got hurt. What happened afterwards continues to be a blur.

I had been lacking memories of my past life as well. If I force myself to keep recounting the memories, a little more of the details become clearer each time. I procured a memory enhancing drug from the black market and took it in my room alone. I chose not to drink it before because it was incredibly unsafe to drink as it could possibly make the individual taking it very nauseous, experience excruciating pain, and even possibly having one's mind broken if the memories are too traumatic for the user to bear on their own.

All of this unease of not being able to remember anything properly will end today. I will drink the vial with the memory enhancing drug.

You have pushed me this far, Erik...

I felt excruciating headaches for awhile before some scenes started appearing more clearly in my memories. I dropped the vial in my hand when an image of my own death popped up into my mind.

It was then that I remembered Erik and I both died that day. I killed myself right after I assumed Erik died on my lap, which is unthinkable considering I was pregnant and that a doctor had not yet confirmed Erik's death since only a doctor could confirm someone's death.

The flow of memories stopped right after I killed myself. I only used a small amount of the memory enhancing drug because using too much could result in a higher risk of having mental degradation, but that was enough for now. I saved the rest for some other time if I possibly needed it.

The current headache was enough to make me nearly faint...Using drugs like that to make my memory return is not an option that I want to rely on. Also, the memory of my own death was excruciatingly painful. Digging up the memory made me recall the overwhelming sadness, hopelessness, and the despair I felt continued to make my heart suffer.

If Erik died, I would have tortured Kaya Ouchi by cutting off all of her fingers and then her limbs and then punished her collaborators in the same fashion. There is no way that I would have been as sweet as to let them all off while Erik and I would die by ourselves.

Something told me that Queen Gaelle had something to do with my suicide attempt as well.

Against Garett's wishes, I researched more information about the Gympie plant. I had learned about the plant from a botanical expert.

The preparations for it was to take the roots and boiling it in water to extract the poison from it. All they would have to do then is either drink the extracted poison or let it come in contact with an open wound. I was then told that it was a plant where people would take if they wanted to commit suicide.

Drinking the extracted liquid or having it come in contact with an open wound would cause excruciating pain, strong hallucinations, and elicited the feelings in the brain that told one to commit suicide. The affected individual would not experience such symptoms right away but shortly afterwards.

On that day, the Royal Doctor gave me a shot of vitamins before allowing me to go off to my appointment with Dolton. The color was an odd purple color much like that of the extracted poison from the Gympie roots.

It turns out that Queen Gaelle is such a despicable person...She could not kill my mother herself, so she sent her own son as a messenger of death.

The way that she was looking at me at the tea party probably made her look for a solution where she could kill me without getting her own hands dirty.

If she sent me a letter coated with a razor coated with the poison, she could easily poison me with a prick of my finger and kill me that way.

Thankfully, the roots are not so easily obtained on the market. I heard news of it appearing on the secret black market auctions from my information broker Sparrow. I sent one my retainers to bid on my behalf and won the Gympie roots easily with my vast wealth that surpasses that of the Royal Family. I obtained the roots after it was delivered to my house not much later.

I now had both the book and the roots Queen Gaelle desperately wanted.

...Now, what will you do, Mother-in-law?