Heyman pressed down with such force that his foot trembled, but the nib of the fountain pen did not touch the paper.
Veins stood out on his scarred white foot, over which the scent of flowers wafted faintly.
“Heyman! You can do it!”
“…Why isn’t it working?”
“Did your leg cramp up?”
Solea, now desperate, grabbed Heyman’s leg and massaged it for a while before letting go, but the result was the same.
“Solea! This can’t be happening! I can’t be like this!”
“That’s what I should be saying, you idiot! This can’t be happening! Try again! You can do it!”
She clasped her hands together and raised her voice to cheer for Heyman, but what didn’t work simply didn’t work.
In the end, Heyman moved his foot to another piece of paper nearby and tried to write.
No letters appeared, as if the pen had no ink.
“Solea! This pen doesn’t even write!”
“You were supposed to write with this pen! On this paper!”
“I told you, it doesn’t work!”
The old fountain pen, perhaps due to its poor durability, even made a cracking sound.
“Ahhh! No! Please!”
Watching Solea scream in despair, Heyman quietly removed the fountain pen from his foot.
“…Still, I wrote beautifully on other pieces of paper. I even lost some weight.”
But it seemed Solea couldn’t hear his words.
Holding a thick book in her hands, she let out a strange wail, lamenting, “Oh no, how will I go home?”
Heyman unconsciously patted Solea on the back.
“…This is your home.”
As soon as he said it, a familiar sense of déjà vu clouded his mind like a fog.
Where had he heard those words before?
Heyman searched his memory.
Someone had definitely said this to him before.
Ah, yes. The Duchess.
Eileen Ildon von Bergo.
It was during his younger days when he believed her kindness was merely a whim.
Even after coming to this vast mansion, Heyman couldn’t feel at ease and spent nearly a month unable to sleep properly.
He couldn’t eat the meals brought to him either.
What if they were drugged?
What if eating that soup brought back the excruciating pain of his body being torn apart?
What if they were experimenting on how magic worked within a ‘family’ unit?
With suspicious eyes, Heyman alternated between glaring at Diego and Eileen, constantly on edge.
As a result, it was only natural that his body didn’t gain any weight, and his limbs grew thinner and thinner, resembling the bare branches of a tree in winter.
Duchess Eileen and Duke Diego took turns visiting his room to check on him, but each time, Heyman would tremble and hide in a corner.
When a large adult entered the room, it meant painful experiments were about to begin.
He neither ate nor slept.
So, of course, his frail body eventually gave out.
Unable to endure his hunger any longer, Heyman secretly snuck into the food cart entering the mansion. He hastily brushed off the dirt from a potato in the cargo hold and shoved it into his mouth.
‘If it’s from here, it shouldn’t be drugged. There shouldn’t be any strange magic on it either. No one’s watching, and no one’s recording anything. It’s fine. This is safe to eat.’
Huddled in a corner of the cart, he grabbed food with both hands and stuffed it into his mouth.
But then, his hand accidentally touched a precious spice box enchanted with security magic.
Heyman couldn’t even scream as he was flung out of the cart by the explosion.
The potato and various other food items that had filled his mouth spilled out messily, and his entire body convulsed as if foaming at the mouth.
This was because his body, altered by excessive experiments, had become hypersensitive to others’ magic.
“Ugh, ugh…”
“Who’s this little thief?!”
The coachman, who had been driving the cart, angrily grabbed the trembling young Heyman by the scruff of his neck. But before he could, someone pulled Heyman’s small body into a tight embrace.
“Heyman! What happened to you? Oh my goodness! Marcilla! Call a healer, no, a doctor! A mage, anyone!”
The child’s body, startled by the magic, continued to convulse in the Duchess’s arms.
Everything he had hastily eaten spilled out of his mouth, along with tears, snot, and even urine.
Unable to regain his senses, his eyes kept rolling back, and Duchess Eileen eventually lifted him into her arms.
“My Lady, we’ll carry him.”
The workers nearby, noticing the Duchess’s dress getting dirty, tried to intervene, but Eileen responded firmly.
“He’s my child, so I’ll carry him!”
However, as Heyman’s body grew stiffer, Eileen couldn’t carry him far and had to lay him down on a flat area within the mansion.
“Heyman!”
As Heyman retched, vomiting undigested food and clumps of red magical residue, Eileen turned his head to the side and spoke in a tearful voice.
“Pull yourself together, Heyman. Can you hear my voice?”
It was only much later that Heyman finally regained consciousness.
Even now, he vividly remembered the tear-streaked face that had been watching him, backlit by the setting sun.
Her red hair, resembling the sun, was disheveled and messy, and her eyes were red and swollen.
In a dazed voice, Heyman asked.
“…Where should I go now?”
Whenever an experiment failed, he was immediately used for another one.
Because he had heard the phrase, ‘You were sold as a test subject, so you must earn your worth,’ so many times that he was sick of it.
He thought it was now time to be moved to another place.
But Eileen, forcing a smile while folding her rabbit-red eyes, gently stroked Heyman’s rough cheek.
“This is your home, Heyman.”
Home.
Only then did Heyman close his eyes and, for the first time, sleep a very long sleep.
When he woke up, he had been changed into clean pajamas.
Next to the bed, Duke Diego, who had been reading a book, smiled brightly when he saw Heyman open his eyes.
“Are you feeling okay, Heyman? To think you’d scare your dad like this. Next time, if you want to play hide-and-seek, call me.”
As Diego ruffled his hair with his rough hand, Heyman blinked his large eyes in confusion.
Why are you saying it like that?
Why are you pretending not to know?
You know, don’t you?
I didn’t trust you, so I crawled into the food cart like a rat and stole food.
Using the language he had learned from the adults he had met so far, Heyman tried to explain his actions, but no voice came out.
‘Rat.’
‘Test subject.’
‘A cripple without proper magic.’
‘A useless thing.’
Not those names. I don’t want those names either.
“Heyman? Are you okay?”
Heyman’s pink eyes shone transparently, as if they might fall out.
Clear tears fell down.
Heyman nodded in response.
“…Yes.”
His throat was choked, and his voice barely came out, but Heyman desperately nodded.
“Yes, I’m okay, h-h, I’m okay.”
“I see. I’m glad to hear that you’re okay. I’m worried, but since my son says so, I’ll believe you, okay?”
Speaking playfully on purpose, Diego closed the book he had been reading and ruffled Heyman’s hair once more.
Yes, it was then.
When I was covered in filth, Duchess Eileen had said to me, ‘This is your home.’
How strange.
Solea is clearly Eileen’s biological daughter.
She is the only legitimate heir of the Bergo family and the obvious successor.
Although Duke Diego had never mentioned the issue of succession, it would be natural for anyone to want to pass the family down to their biological child rather than an adopted one.
Solea has everything.
Then why?
Why do I keep feeling this way?
A few weeks ago, when Solea was frightened by Duke Diego’s shouting, I felt the same way.
Even until bedtime, I couldn’t stop thinking about Solea, so I gathered the little magic I had and sent it to her room.
Because I know how painful it is to endure a night trembling in fear.
Feeling as if he were looking at his past self, Heyman slowly patted Solea’s shoulder.
“…It’s okay, Solea. This is your home. I’m your… family. Everything will be okay.”
Solea, lying face down with the fountain pen in her hand, cried out in frustration, shouting ‘money.’
Although her outburst gradually subsided, she still seemed deeply upset.
Heyman wanted to find the money Solea was looking for.
‘If the person you want is someone with perfect feet, I’ll find them for you. I’ll find them and bring them to you, so stop crying.’
Making an embarrassing vow to himself, Heyman comforted Solea for a long time.
The next day, as soon as Solea got out of bed, she put on her workout clothes.
Damn, now I’m really just muscles.
Even as she got dressed and walked out of the mansion, she kept sighing.
“…Why is the world only cruel to me…”
After finishing some light stretching in the backyard where there were no knights, she began walking briskly through the garden.
“Why are you working out alone?”
“…Just. I woke up a bit early.”
Usually, she would have joked around with Gray, but after yesterday’s shattered expectations, she wasn’t in the mood.
Solea responded indifferently and continued walking through the backyard.
“Did you stretch properly?”
“Yeah. I did everything you taught me.”
“…Are you in a bad mood today?”
“I’m fine. Don’t worry about it.”
Gray, who had been walking beside Solea, paused briefly after hearing her response before quickly catching up again.
“Why are you talking like that… What’s wrong with me caring… You’re my sister.”
Although a mild spring breeze that was neither cold nor hot blew gently, Solea’s expression remained dark.
Gray pushed out his lips and tilted his head.
It seemed to be his habit when he was contemplating something.
After a moment, Gray left Solea alone in the backyard and ran away quickly.
“Stay here alone for a bit! Don’t eat anything strange! Don’t collapse!”
Watching Gray head toward the mansion before he even finished speaking, Solea muttered listlessly.
“Does he think I’m a five-year-old?”
While she was doing push-ups, bracing herself against a tree trunk with both hands and adjusting her wrist angle, suddenly multiple footsteps approached.
“What’s this?”
Gray returned to the backyard with several knights.
“Hey, Solea. When I’m feeling down, hanging out with people helps, you know.”
“Isn’t it training time for the knights?”
Although she had been staying at this mansion for over a month, this was her first time seeing the knights.
Feeling awkward, Solea gave them a brief nod as a greeting.
Since it was customary here for those of higher status to greet first, only then did the knights kneel on one knee and pay their respects to Solea.
“Pleased to meet you, my Lady!”
“How do you do!”
“Do you like ball games?”
A large knight with light brown hair smiled brightly and held out a ball.
“Ball games…?”
The rules they explained were similar to dodgeball.
Mark out zones, draw a line in the middle, and throw the ball at the opposing team.
If hit by the ball, you’re out and must leave the zone, but if you catch the ball, you can throw it back.
“That’s dodgeball, isn’t it?”
“Dodgeball? What’s that?”
Judging by Gray’s reaction, they didn’t use the term “dodgeball” here.
Solea added the rules she used during PE class dodgeball.
If you’re hit and out, you can stand outside the opposite team’s line and attack those inside.
“That sounds fun. You can still participate even after you’re out.”
After hearing the explanation, the knights began drawing lines on the ground with serious expressions but smiling faces.
“We won’t go easy on you just because you’re a lady.”
“If I get hit too hard, my bones might pop out, so be careful.”
“…Ah. Throwing the ball just hard enough not to break bones, that’s quite challenging.”
They started playing dodgeball while joking around.
“No, that was a ground ball!”
“If it hits the ground and then hits your body, it still counts as a hit!”
“Where did you learn dodgeball! Where are you from!”
“Oh, my lady! What should we do if you keep making new rules!”
“No, what Solea says sounds fun. Let’s do it that way.”
“Gray says so!”
These backward dodgeball third-world guys. In Korea, we play dodgeball as soon as we learn to walk.
“Sir Gray! Why do you only take the young lady’s side!”
“Because she’s my sister!”
“Then I’ll be your sister too. Big brother Gray. Let’s get rid of ground balls.”
“…You go stand facing the wall with your hands up.”
The laughter of Solea, Gray, and the knights filled the backyard.
Leave a Reply