Apparently, I’m a Poisonous Woman Who Sells One-Night Dreams, but I Ended Up Awakening a Hero’s Devoted Love - Chapter 1.10

The Zealand family was a baronial house passed down through the matrilineal line for generations.

And the women born into this family possessed a strange power.

They could enter the dreams of specific individuals and show them the dreams they desired.

At first glance, this power seemed neither particularly harmful nor beneficial, yet there was never a shortage of people wishing to be shown such dreams.

The “specific conditions” varied from person to person.

For Mariadoll’s grandmother, it was “those who had lost someone before they could confess their feelings.”

For her mother, it was “parents who had lost a child.”

And for Mariadoll, it was “husbands who had lost their wives.”

What they had in common was that they had all lost someone precious to them.

In her grandmother’s time, marriages were even more arranged by parents than they are today. Young people, even if they had someone they loved, would keep those feelings hidden in their hearts and marry the partner chosen by their parents.

It was also an era when many people died in wars, and not a few quietly shed tears upon hearing news of their beloved’s death.

In her mother’s time, an epidemic claimed many lives. Particularly among weaker children, one in four would perish, and numerous small gravestones were erected.

The method of showing dreams wasn’t particularly difficult for them.

First, they would hand a secret sleep-inducing agent to the nervous client to help them fall asleep.

Unlike some sleeping pills with side effects or addictive properties, this one simply encouraged sleep and was, of course, harmless to the body.

Once they confirmed the client was soundly asleep, they would hold their hand and enter their dreams. Then, they would control the dream to recreate a specific scene from the memories requested beforehand.

Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say they summoned that scene from the vast store of memories and showed it.

Once a memory was summoned, it would proceed on its own.

However, sometimes the direction it took would be wrong or distorted, differing from the original memory. To prevent this, they had to hold the client’s hand all night and provide minimal guidance.

Therefore, they needed to hold hands by the bedside all night and remain constantly vigilant.

Showing dreams was easy, but the physical, and especially mental, burden was immense.

Because of this, after using this power, they would be bedridden for three full days.

It took another month for their abilities to fully recover, so they could only accept one client per month.

In her grandmother’s time, it was still manageable. After all, these were “hidden feelings,” and some clients were already married.

There weren’t that many requests.

However, in her mother’s time, the number of clients increased dramatically.

Requests came incessantly from parents who had lost children, and most of them were from nobles of higher rank than the Zealand baronial family. It became a continuous, stomach-churning situation where they had to refuse or prioritize requests.

It was during this time that a request came from the Marquis of Steima, who had lost two children.

The first was his daughter, and two years later, his son passed away.

When the Marquis of Steima met the mother for the second time, he was shocked by her haggard appearance.

When he asked what was wrong, she explained that she couldn’t bring herself to refuse requests from nobles of higher rank and was now showing dreams twice a month. Not only that, but she feared she would soon have to increase it to three times. Performing the ability without full recovery placed a severe strain on her body.

So, the Marquis of Steima proposed to act as the intermediary for clients.

Even as a marquis, his family had the longest history and the most influence in the country. He could fend off the unreasonable demands of other nobles.

He understood the feelings of parents who had lost children, but if things continued this way, Mariadoll’s mother would collapse.

Out of such concern, he kindly stepped forward to shield her.

Mariadoll’s father’s family ran a shipping business and had professional connections with the chamber of commerce owned by the Zealand baronial family. Her father only learned of his wife’s ability after marriage and supported her through it.

Her father’s hobby was painting.

He called it a hobby, but the works he submitted under a pseudonym had won multiple awards in competitions.

However, in the Kingdom of Dunbargas, the status of painters was low.

In a climate where nobles were discouraged from painting and selling their work, her father secretly sold his paintings under a pseudonym to support the Zealand baronial family. In the financially struggling baronial house, her father’s highly valuable paintings were a significant source of income.

Three years ago, her parents, introduced by the Marquis of Steima, set out for a count’s family near the western border.

Normally, clients would visit the Zealand baronial house in the royal capital and sleep in the guest room, but since this client had difficulty traveling due to poor health, her parents went to them.

Although rare, it wasn’t unheard of.

Mariadoll, as usual, asked for souvenirs and saw them off.

But her parents never returned.

On the very night they arrived at the count’s estate, a surprise attack from a neighboring country sparked a war.

The entire county became a battlefield, and fierce fighting raged for six months.

The fate of her parents became known shortly after the war ended.

A knight who was confirming survivors delivered her parents’ matching wedding rings.

The engraving and design confirmed they were undoubtedly her parents’, and thus, at fifteen, Mariadoll became the lady of the baronial house.