Chapter 21
Over some time, Karpel recovered to some extent, but the still child couldn’t feel anything. It felt as if he was being suffocated by darkness.
So he didn’t do anything.
He didn’t go out for walks, even if the weather was good.
Even if it was well past meal time, nobody came after a while.
It was almost like he couldn’t feel anything, but he still felt hunger pangs.
As he waited absentmindedly all day, he eventually stood up and left the detached building where he resided.
As soon as he stepped out to the garden, he saw that the main building was surrounded by white chrysanthemums.
The Krenberian mansion had a blanket of silence over it, as if there was something suppressing it.
The Duchess of Krenberia, Citrine Roselle, had passed away.
Only then did Karpel realize that he hadn’t seen her since he came to.
She was the one who told him to be strong.
To Karpel, Citrine was like his own mother.
With his father dying at the hands of his own uncle, with those knights laughing at him, with his nanny who he never saw again, now . . . even the person he saw as his second mother had left him.
There really was no one left at his side anymore.
The Duke of Krenberia, on the other hand, was overcome by grief.
After losing his beloved wife, he lost all sense and let go of everything.
The number of days when no one came to visit him started to increase.
It was rare to see employees coming and going to the main building, let alone the detached mansion, considering the lacking manpower of the estate.
There were days when he starved.
He didn’t have the power to appease his hunger. Karpel was only a child who didn’t know what to do to remedy this.
He left the detached building without any thought and wandered through the garden.
The garden had already become a jungle where weeds grew taller than humans.
There amidst the unruly foliage was a pond.
The first thing that Karpel thought about when he saw that pond was his father’s head, deformed and shrivelled brown, the image overlapping more than half the water.
The wound he received that day stung.
If he hadn’t avoided it, Karpel would have died on the spot.
He didn’t know why he was still alive now. He would die eventually anyway.
Wouldn’t it be better to just drown here?
As he was lost in thought, a yellow flower suddenly hit him in the face.
Surprised, he turned his head and saw a child younger than him covered in dirt and leaves, swinging dandelion flowers at him.
“Snack!”
Her hair was a mess and her nightgown was ruined. And it didn’t look like she was wearing any shoes.
This child, who looked a little over a year old, still couldn’t walk straight, so her knees were dirtier than her feet.
Karpel knew who this child was.
She was Citrine’s daughter, Inaila Krenberia.
He couldn’t understand why Citrine’s treasure was out here rolling around in the mud.
The estate was quiet. There weren’t any signs of people looking for the child at all.
And she was right beside a pond. It was dangerous to leave a child unattended like this.
“Young Lady Krenberia…”
The child was too young to even be called a lady.
Back then, his peers that came to celebrate his birthday were all children over ten years old.
These young nobles had learned some manners and were cultured enough to know not to make any mistakes in front of the Imperial family.
Inaila pushed the dandelion flowers to Karpel, trying to feed it to him. Since he avoided her, in the end, she sat down. Then she put the flowers into her own mouth.
“Snack!”
“You can’t eat this.”
Instead of answering, Inaila leaned forward and hugged him, reaching for the flower that sprang up from the ground next to him. She bit it with her only four teeth, two on the top and two on the bottom.
Karpel panicked and made her spit out the flowers, stealing them away from her so she wouldn’t eat them.
Still, the child’s mouth was full of flower petals.
Then she proceeded to blow them straight to his face.
She giggled loudly, never seeming to stop. He joined her eventually, laughing as well.
“Yeah, you did great.”
As he calmed down, Karpel removed the cravat he was wearing and wiped Inaila’s face and her clothes with it.
It wasn’t clear if she liked his touch, but Inaila beamed regardless.
“Mama!”
This was a bit different from what she said before.
{ TL/N: Snack is ‘mamma’, which sounds very close to ‘mama’. }
The child who called out like this suddenly seemed very small.
As soon as Karpel realized what Inaila was trying to say, it felt like his insides were being squeezed.
The child hugged Karpel’s neck tightly.
“Mama…”
Tears fell like two rivers down from Karpel’s eyes as Karpel hugged her back.
Gone.
This mother’s child was gone.
Just like his father.
Karpel’s heart shattered.
It was incredibly painful and scary.
They were gone and had left them behind. Karpel’s father must have thought that Karpel wouldn’t have been able to survive either.
The eyes of a father filled with sorrow expressed his regret for dying together with his son.
But Karpel didn’t die with him, so his father might be resenting him from his grave.
Karpel didn’t think he should continue living. But he was too afraid to die.
With her short arm and little hand, Inaila patted him on the shoulder to comfort him.
The four-year-old hugged her in return, at which Inaila squealed in surprise, but she also hugged him back tightly and buried her face in his arms.
Karpel cried for a long time, with a small source of warmth wrapped in his embrace.
A small hand patted him until his sobs became quieter.
The warm embrace that he received, the scent of wild grass, and the fresh air that he breathed. These all made him feel alive again.
Karpel didn’t want to die. He wanted to live more. He wanted to feel more of this warmth.
* * *
When the Duchess passed away, it was like the Duke of Krenberia became crippled.
Since there were a few people who were still managing the Duchy, it managed to survive, but without the Duke’s supervision, the mansion was in a state of disarray.
The butler maintained it somehow, but he wasn’t enough to control all the employees that changed all the time because the owner wasn’t present.
Inaila’s nanny ran away with some of the Duke’s money amidst the mansion’s crisis.
Fortunately, Inaila was a gentle baby who was doted on by the employees of the estate who gave her food from time to time.
When the butler found Inaila playing alone in the kitchen one day, he punished all the maids at once.
He tried to get a nanny for her right away, but it wasn’t easy.
Competent people shied away from the Ducal estate where the former emperor’s son stayed.
And even if people were hired, they would immediately quit because the mansion’s atmosphere was terrible.
The day Karpel met Inaila was the same day Inaila’s new nanny had just quit.
Nobody even realized that there was no one watching the child.
At a curious age, Inaila woke up and wandered out of her room. She escaped the mansion through a window that had been opened to let fresh air in.
From then on, Karpel stayed in the main building and took care of Inaila.
Truthfully, outsiders needed to get permission from the Duke before they’re allowed to stay at the main building, but the Duke was in no condition to handle such matters.
And the butler had no authority to stop the prince.
Fortunately, the two children weren’t completely left unattended.
The former emperor’s supporters sent spies to the Krenberia estate throughout the chaos of the manpower shortage.
They were the ones who started taking care of Karpel.
It would have been obvious if these people went all the way to the annex, but since Karpel moved to the main building, they could take care of him more easily.
Karpel didn’t starve anymore, and he was taught various types of disciplines and swordsmanship. He gradually developed his strength.
However, it wasn’t easy.
Since the staff changed so frequently, it was difficult to adjust to the ever changing attitudes and styles of the different people.
When he asked if he could learn from one teacher only, everyone looked at him with cold eyes.
He couldn’t even ask why they reacted that way because he felt that they were condemning him for his stupidity.
Even so, Karpel held on because of the child who smiled at him like the sun.
Inaila was the light that always reminded him that he was not alone.
* * *
On the day Karpel turned ten, the Emperor, his uncle, came to the Krenberian mansion.
It just so happened that Karpel had been pampering Inaila that time, cutting her bread for her.
The Emperor burst into laughter when he saw this, saying that Karpel was no better than a servant.
He presented a bloody box, saying that he came to celebrate the birth of an Imperial family member.
Karpel hurried to cover Inaila’s eyes when the Emperor opened the lid.
Inside was the Krenberian knight who taught him how to wield a sword.