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The Villain’s Merit, Chapter 4
‘Is the main character buff already in use?’
As a test, I opened my eyes threateningly to him. I wanted to see how effective the main character buff was.
‘Are you still in love with me? Will you still fall in love with me?’
But when he saw my opened eyes, his eyes widened and he suddenly burst into laughter.
An ordinary orphan opened her eyes to the prince, which made him laugh⋯⋯.
‘The buff effect is huge!’
In this kind of social status system, wouldn’t my head be cut off if I talked back to the Imperial family?
At this rate, I could expect the male protagonist to fall in love at a glance, saying, ‘You’re the first person to be this funny,’ even though the female protagonist didn’t do much.
A by-product could be him saying, ‘You’re the first one to slap me in the face.’ and he’ll still like me.
It’s gotten a little fun.
‘Are you going to fall for me even if I act strangely?’
I got curious.
At that moment, he escaped from the midst of adults, who were talking with each other, and approached me.
He apologized for bursting into laughter at me a while ago.
“Haha. Excuse me, it wasn’t an intentional laugh just now.”
What?
I opened my eyes and saw him looking at me.
“It’s okay, Your Highness.”
“Are you Freddia? I saw you in the newspaper. You said it’s your dream to become an artist.”
“It is an honor for Your Highness to recognize me.”
Herace’s eyes stared at me with sparkling curiosity. I quickly intercepted the topic of conversation because if I didn’t, I think he would continue asking more and more.
“Your Highness, there’s something I really want to tell you, if it’s not rude.”
“What is it?”
I was nervous because I wondered how he would react to my strange question.
Thump, thump.
“I looked in the mirror today and my hair was yellow. Can you see the color? Do you know why?”
Herace’s face was filled with a puzzled look. I said in a calm voice without changing my expression.
“I have blonde hair.”
“⋯⋯?”
“I am blonde.”
“⋯⋯.”
Herace’s expression became even more serious. He looked worried about whether there was any hidden meaning in my words.
I bit my upper and lower lips. I looked like I was going to burst into laughter.
‘Dia, you have to be patient! I could be decapitated for teasing the Imperial family!’
I thought, but honestly, I believed I would lose my head because of a little pun.
‘I’m only 14 years old now, and the first prince is a nice boy in the novel, so it’ll be fine.’
After barely holding back my laughter, I looked at him, who was still struggling and said.
“Your highness, did you have breakfast? I had bread and soup this morning⋯⋯.”
When I spoke with a proud face, he seemed to be wondering what kind of connection there was between what I said before and what I just said.
“It was delicious.”
Yea, sorry. There’s no connection between the two.
“⋯⋯.”
“It was really good.”
His forehead is knitted.
I bit my lips.
‘How strange am I? This is fun.’
I tried to hold back my laughter and close my eyes and thought of something sad.
‘A part-time job I quit, moldy wallpaper that I paid monthly rent for⋯⋯.’
But suddenly, a really sad thought ran through my head.
‘If this goes wrong and Herace says, ‘I’m not interested in such a strange kid!’, then I’m going to be a maid in Mr. Hamel’s farm, who is a pedophile.’
Goosebumps.
‘No. Let’s not act like I don’t have tomorrow.’
I looked into Herace’s eyes, his forehead still frowned.
‘The effect of the main character’s buff must’ve only affected our first sight with each other⋯⋯. Oh my God, I went too far.’
I was joking because I wanted to make him laugh, but it didn’t go my way, so I tried to apologize, in a hurry to change my situation, so I can see his highness in the future.
But when he glanced at me, who didn’t know how to fix the situation, he burst into laughter again.
“Haha, you really are a funny kid.”
He smiled, his shoulders shaking from laughter, then looked at me and said,
“Sorry. I wasn’t going to laugh, but you were so funny.”
⋯⋯What, he’s weirder than me⋯⋯.
***
It was a piece of cake to be liked by a person who was destined to fall in love with me.
Herace enjoyed everything I said and acted as if it were just the two of us. Just like when Herace and the heroine first met in the original novel.
The heroine, who came into an unfamiliar world and was an outcast and struggled in the orphanage, fell in love with his kindness immediately. But I was different.
“He was really weird⋯⋯.”
I tried to be the weird kid, but on the contrary, I realized that Herace was the weird kid.
Anyway, thanks to his enthusiastic interest in me, my adoption seemed to proceed smoothly.
This was because the photo of Herace and I smiling broadly together was in the 〈Imperial Newsletter〉, which contained the news of the Imperial Family, just like in the original novel.
Seeing this, my future adoptive father, the Duke of Weiss, would soon come to visit me.
***
A few days later, a carriage finally appeared at the entrance of the orphanage.
The director welcomed the person who got off the carriage, talked for a while in his office, and saw him off with a complex and subtle expression.
‘You’re here!’
Intuitively, I noticed that the Duke came.
He must have come to ask for personal information about me and about my parents, in case I was already a spare child that a noble family will use when in need of an extra child for political reasons.
Soon after seeing off the carriage, the director called me and came up the stairs to where I was sweeping.
“Freddia! Where’s Freddia?”
His voice was softer than usual.
“Yes, Director! I am here!”
I wasn’t very tired, but my voice sounded exhausted from work.
Then the director ran up to me, took the broom from me, and smiled warmly.
“You worked hard. You must be tired, right? Stop working now and go up and pack up right away. I had no choice but to have you use the attic because I didn’t have any beds left, but thanks to Marianne and Jane’s desire to use the same bed, I got you a room.”
Poor Marianne and Jane.
I trembled with anxiety, knowing that the director wanted to look good to the Duke.
“Didn’t the director say that the most worn out and coldest room suits me well? How dare I use the downstairs room?”
“Oh my, when did I say that? If someone hears that they will think that’s true.”
The director smiled awkwardly and laughed. I tilted my head with an innocent face.
“But don’t the other children know that you said that? You always spoke like that to me in front of everyone.”
The director, who heard me insult him by saying that he usually rudely treats her, took a deep breath and smiled.
“Ho-ho, Fredia, go up and pack your bags.”
Contrary to his wishes, I didn’t stop and said in a lamentable tone, because his reaction by changing the subject was funny.
“My luggage is all the trash of other children, so it’ll look messy if I move it to a new room.”
When I spoke sullenly, the director made a prickly face.
“Is that so? I didn’t pay too much attention. I’m sorry, Freddia. If you ever need anything, just tell me. I’ll get you some new things.”
“Really? Then, I’ll need pretty new clothes.”
“What ⋯⋯? Sorry?”
The director seemed embarrassed by my bold behavior of asking for pretty clothes in a way like I had been waiting for this opportunity.
I said without hesitation,
“Pretty clothes! With lots of laces, please! I want some pretty buttons too!”
The veins on the director’s forehead slightly popped out. However, the director smiled with patience.
As expected, he doesn’t break easily because he was someone who always manipulated children.
“But don’t you already have a dress that other kids envy?”
Oh, the outfit that I wore when I had to smile brightly in front of aristocratic people?
Do you mean the dress I wore for 5 years, by constantly sewing the sleeves with many fabrics to fix it? The same dress where I sewed more fabrics to the ends of the skirt to lengthen it? Are you talking about the outfit that I had to carefully wear to make sure it didn’t get worn out? The outfit I had to return to you right after the meetings were over?
Really, that dress?
I smiled brightly at the director and said with a face that he didn’t expect,
“Well, as I said before, there’s no way you’re going to be that nice to me.”
“Oh, Freddia! What is wrong with you today? Don’t say nonsense, hurry up, get your stuff, and come down, can’t you?”
The director clenched his teeth. If it were usual, I would have been beaten by him with a whip, but he was patient today.
Just before he exploded with anger, my shoulders drooped and I started pretending to cry.
“Hmph! I hate you, director! I’m the only one who doesn’t have pretty new clothes!”
Then I ran up the stairs and slipped into the attic. The director probably thought I was crazy.
But my craziness was only just beginning.
***
The closer the time to when the Duke will come to the orphanage to take me, the more the director tried to be nice to me, and the more arrogant I became.
“The room is too cold.”
“It’s too hot right now.”
“The blanket is damp.”
“The meat is overcooked, could you cook it again to medium-rare?”
At my request to scratch my stomach, the director seemed to be furious at every moment, but he seemed to endure it.
It was bound to be like this. As long as the Duke said he was adopting me, I was already considered a member of the duke’s family.
I was as cheeky as I could be to the director.
‘It was said that if a caregiver changes his or her attitude completely, a child will be confused. That is abuse. Child abuse.’
I’m just a poor child, who was always verbally and physically abused, but my caregiver suddenly became generous and soft one day, causing me to have a mental breakdown and be in confusion, making me be mentally abused without knowing. There’s nothing wrong with the kid, but the caregiver’s actions!
‘Sue me, director.’
Considering the way you angered me, caused me to be attacked for no reason, and insulted me as a game in front of other kids, the satisfactory revenge was still far away.
The director seemed to soon notice that I became arrogant after noticing my adoption, but what can he do? Even though it’s true I’ve become arrogant! Hahahaha!
In the end, I succeeded in bugging the director to get me a dress with pretty buttons and lace.
And around that time, the Duke of Weiss finally visited the orphanage.