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Chapter 8 – I Became Friends With The Young Male Lead (1)
“You are a Demon’s Child!”
I dreamt of it again.
Having gotten used to hearing those abusive words, I blinked and adjusted myself to the darkness.
“Why are you crawling like a rat burying itself from misfortune!”
“Ah, I-I’m not… I am just hungry…”
“Just because you have the blood of a Demon, you’re being greedy? The meal is not enough for someone like you, huh?”
“I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry…”
If they provide you meals as if they’re throwing away some leftover bread, will you accept it..?
I watched the scene in the dark with a miserable heart.
The man started tossing whatever he held.
There was nothing in the room but dried rye bread, rotten apples, pillows that no one knew when they were last washed, and scattered old books.
“How did I let someone as filthy as you into my house!”
Out of all the things the man uttered to him, that phrase was the one that struck most painfully.
The child who never once cried since he was a baby was left crouching and trembling.
The man was throwing everything he could get his hands on to express his frustration and took a deep breath.
Hearing him, he must be in his 30’s. His face was not clearly visible as there was not even one decent lightstick to properly light the room.
‘Well, he was lucky, if there was one, I would have the urge to throw it at him.’
“I am s-sorry, my Lord…”
The child didn’t seem to be a servant.
It was as if the child was using the room alone.
However, the issue was that the room was very narrow and shabby with a miniscule window, with only the dim moonlight illuminating it.
It was similar to the semi-basement where I had lived in my past life…
“Know that if you go out again recklessly, it won’t end just like this.”
“I am so sorry, I am so sorry…”
Still crouching, the child continued to apologize over and over again.
I stared blankly at the child’s silhouette in the dim moonlight.
Thump, thump. The man left the room angrily.
“Ugly blockhead. Did you really believe that Father would introduce you to the public?”
As the man left the room, a laughing boy entered it. I couldn’t see his face as his back was turned against the light coming from the hallway.
From the look of it, he was… about twelve, thirteen…?
He seemed to be near the age of someone who will soon enter the academy.
“Your dreams are in vain. And put away those ominous eyes.”
Ptui, the young boy spit and kicked the wooden door.
Squeak…
When the boy left, the sound of the wooden door’s hinge seemed to weep on behalf of the child.
‘How many times has this happened already?’
When I met the child in my dream, I was left with no choice but to witness and bear the verbal abuse of the rich man.
‘Couldn’t talk and walk around, I was left with the choice to let it be.’
Shortly after Sir Erina’s death, the baby was taken in by this mansion.
The child’s days continuously go on in isolation, and for the past year, the treatment has been like this.
I stared at the child blankly, again unable to do anything.
The child lifted his head at the sound of the wooden door’s closing. Tears welled in his red eyes.
Tears streamed down his cheeks, but the child did not make any sound.
“Viscountess, there is something I am curious about.”
“What could it be, Your Highness?”
Viscountess Lentil has been teaching me for over three years now.
The Viscountess noticed that I was not concentrating well in our class, and the hardbound textbook clacked loudly.
A good teacher, she looked like she was anticipating my question.
“Are red eyes unique?”
“Red eyes… Is that what you’re talking about?”
“Yes.”
“Have you encountered someone with red eyes?”
“…No, that’s not it.”
It wasn’t exactly a lie; we haven’t actually met.
I tilted my head responding to Viscountess’ tense reaction. My short hair was tied in pigtails that dangled about my shoulders.
“Have you read it in a book?”
“No, it was just… I think I heard it once.”
My voice slowly dwindled in response.
‘I didn’t hear it, but I saw it. In the dream.’
I couldn’t make a proper excuse because I couldn’t leave the Imperial Palace, but I had never seen anyone with red eyes like the child.
Mary has blue eyes, Patricia has black eyes, and Nanny has brown eyes.
When I saw the guests who would sometimes come by, I could see there were purple eyes, but no one with red eyes.
“Is there someone in the Imperial Palace who voiced such remarks aloud…”
Sighing, the Viscountess put down the textbook she was holding and removed her spectacles.
Her amber-eyes lit up.
“Shall I tell you something interesting today? It is not in the lesson plan I prepared for Your Highness, so I hope you can keep it a secret between us.”
“That goes without saying!”
I closed my book with a bright laugh.
Viscountess Lentil, who had been in charge of the education of the Imperial Family since Rebecca’s childhood, was a lifelong scholar of the Tower of Scholars.
She was well informed of high-ranking nobles, the ladder of high society, as well as etiquette.
It was not something I could learn from texts, so I collected all the information of this world that the Viscountess said as if I were just a passerby.
“There are some old prejudices in Asuramasura. It is a shame that a country that reigns with such supremacy can stoop to that level.”
But then… These unconventional remarks were something I enjoyed as someone who once lived in a democratic society.
Asuramasura, the Empire and this world the Viscountess was referring to.
Seeing the Viscountess not holding back her criticisms even in front of the Imperial family, I could feel her deep affection for the people.
“The feud between the faction of Imperialists and Aristocrat has long been on-going. It has already been five hundred years since the Empire’s foundation, yet isn’t it funny that factions from that time have continued until to this day, still rejecting each other?”
“…That’s right.”
I shook my head as I recalled the friction between the Imperial and Aristocratic factions, which was the main axis of conflict in the ‘Deductible Eye’.
While the male lead, Leopold, was the heir to a family of the Imperial faction, Lucifeus, the second male lead obsessed with the female lead, was the representative from the Aristocratic faction.
And so, most of Lucifeus’ misdeeds are mainly the reason for the frustrating slow burn romance in the original work.
Additionally, Scarlet, the villainess, was also a member of the Aristocratic faction, who instead of openly approaching Leopold whom she loved chose to bother Amelie, the female lead.
And thanks to the Leopold’s family’s deep loyalty to the Imperial family for generations…
‘Come to think, when was it again when Leopold and I became friends?’
Thankfully, I got the chance to welcome him as a friend.
‘If it weren’t for them, my overprotective family wouldn’t allow him to be my friend.’
The male lead and I are friends…! I soon controlled my excitement and listened to the Viscountess’ next words.
“Discrimination between the provincial aristocrats and the central aristocrats exists, and no matter how strong your Divine Power may be, there are also diseases that are difficult to cure even for a high priest, unless you are from a high-ranking noble family.”
Right. Amelie came from a remote area, so she was bullied even though she came from the same lineage of nobles.
“There have been only three women who became Emperors, although social mores have changed since Her Majesty Grace was proclaimed as the Crown Princess. However, there are still many families where women are not even candidates to succeed the Household… One of these sorts of prejudices is about red eyes.”
“The red eyes?”
“In the past, it was referred to as the Devil’s Eye, or the Cursed Eyes. Even when you celebrate your tenth year and are finally allowed to go outside of the palace… You will never see someone who possesses such eyes.”
“Was it that bad?”
“You might recall what I told you about the Sea of No Return.”
I nodded silently.
The Sea of No Return.
The very battlefield where Grace had to lead and support the Church’s priests and the rest of the Holy Knights, after the devastation of the rebellion years ago.
The exact place where the child who lost his knightly mother was born.
It was not an exact sea, but the entrance to the Demon Realm.
It was said that the first Emperor chosen by the god won the battle against the Realm, however the boundary was not sealed completely.
So there were times where the entryway would open every century.
The phenomenon occured when the two moons aligned with the Earth and the Sun, creating a double solar eclipse, and that confluence was called the ‘ripple’ of the Sea of No Return.
During turbulent times, demonic beasts would pour into the Sea of No Return, and so it was the battlefield a few years ago.
“People believe that demons come and go through it. That’s why the red eyes are said to be the offspring who made contact with the demons.”
Ah, so… I remembered the child in my dream who was referred to as the Demon’s Child by the rich man.
“There is no evidence that demons mated with humans, and the Tower of Scholars judges the red eyes as a kind of mutation… Because rare things are considered sacred or contemptuous. Whatever the cause may be, it was far from human.”
Since the child was born from a garrison in the Sea of No Return, people would assume it that way.
I continuously nodded as I ingrained in my head the Viscountess’ story, which was difficult to follow even as an adult.
‘As expected, Cecilia’s brain worked hard with the genes of the Imperial family.’
Thanks to this, a 6-year-old brain wouldn’t ache from digesting a heavy topic.
‘I didn’t know about the story of the red eyes because there was no mention of it in the original.’
I felt better as if I had learned the original ‘TMI’.
‘By the way, I wonder if Viscountess Lentil went to the Tower of Scholars after being pushed out of the competition for succession?’
Viscountess Lentil said that she received the title by becoming the tutor of the direct lineage of the Imperial family.
Viscountess Lentil, observing my expression become more serious, smiled delightfully through her glasses.
She, who occasionally lets out her radical thoughts, had no choice but to cherish me as a disciple.
“Cecil, you have a guest for tomorrow.”
One day, I became a lovely 7-year-old, rather than an ugly 7-year-old.
Finally, the news I had been waiting for.
“A guest?”
“That’s right. This mother of yours has finally decided that it’s time for Cecil to have a friend of her age.”
“I am going to make friends?”
If it’s about the friend, has that day finally come…!
The guests I had met so far were my Mother’s, and so I waited for the next words with excitement.
If a friend of Cecil’s, then!
“He is the grandson of Duke of Aulenbach, who has a territory just North from the Imperial Castle, and he is the same age as Cecil.”
Yes, this is it!
Finally the day when I will meet the male lead, Leopold!
‘Finally, the world of the original is slowly coming to start’.
How long have I waited for the day I will meet the male lead in my favorite novel?
Of course, my family, and even my second sister, Roselia, who often appeared as Leopold’s superior, and myself, were all characters in the original.
But meeting the protagonist was a different story.
‘Really, how many years have I been waiting, believing that someday we will become friends.’
After seven years living as Cecilia, my true feelings threatened to burst.
“I am looking forward to it!”
At long last, tomorrow, I will meet my idol.
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