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Episode 2: Sislin and Heinrich
The main characters Sislin and Heinrich met for the first time at the mansion.
The mansion was called the ‘Forest’.
A kind of secret nurturing institution that collected orphans of unknown origin and worked to awaken their abilities.
The worldview was such that magic and abilities were very rare, and nobles were willing to donate huge amounts of money to adopt children with abilities.
For a child with abilities  would become a trophy that would make the name of the family shine.
In the novel, children raised in the ‘Forest’ were called ‘Trees’.
In this forest, an ancient shaman gave his life to cast a powerful spell, which unleashed the children’s potential, awakening them.
However, this powerful and useful witchcraft often had side effects.
After becoming an adult, the more ‘awakened’ and greater the ability, the more abruptly one would lose their intelligence and go astray.
It was okay when one was young, but it meant that it would be difficult as an adult.
‘That’s why Sislin and Heinrich suffered.’
In that novel, my favorite was the main character, Heinrich.
A boy who was born from the body of a lowly courtesan, but inherited the genius and magical talents of his noble father.
He was the best tree in the forest.
‘Even his face was pretty!’
However, this beautiful talent with purple eyes and silver hair was arrogant and engrained with a sense of entitlement from being abandoned.
In addition, the trauma of hearing his father say abusive words like ‘You were born from a dirty body’ made him pursue the extremes in cleanliness.
Heinrich’s father was the one who threw away the courtesan who was with his child like a used tissue.
To such a duke, Heinrich was just a foreign object in his life.
This boy, who had been abandoned even when the umbilical cord was still attached, drifted to and fro and flowed into the ‘Forest’ when his mother, who raised him alone, died.
In the process, Heinrich’s trauma got progressively worse, and his ‘pursuit of cleanliness’ became even greater.
‘By the way, Sislin was acting like a beggar
’
When he first met Heinrich, Sislin’s condition was truly miserable.
He had soot from living in a cave, and he looked like a black dusty ghost. Besides, his feet that were caught in the trap were rotting from an infection.
Heinrich felt physiological discomfort the moment he saw Sislin.
So the first thing he said was,
“Dirty.”
–It was this.
Since then, this savage Chihuahua had been terribly tormenting Sislin.
‘He earned his own keep.’
The readers accepted Heinrich’s pitiful narrative, saying that his personality could be crooked, but

In the eyes of the young obsessive maniac, he was just a cub who he needed to get revenge upon.
‘Heinrich was pretty bad.’
I was surprised by his personality of stepping on a crippled, sore foot, to the extent that I thought it was acceptable for him to be beaten a few times later with blurry eyes.
However, there was a secret , in which Sislin actually had the blood of the imperial family.
Sislin, who later became a member of the royal family, framed Heinrich for treason.
And he left him with nowhere to go and tormented him viciously almost to the point of deboning.
‘It was really miserable and pitiful
’
There was not a single peaceful scene, so when a peaceful moment between the two came out, readers had to juice it and read it as if licking a yogurt lid.
(T/N: meaning, to savor it/ enjoy it to the utmost/ make the moment last ^^)
‘I was also a giant Hurom.’
(T/N: 휮롬 is a Korean juicer brand. She’s saying she’s basically a juicer for such moments haha.)
However, no matter how much juice was squeezed, it was difficult to see the journey of Sislin, who gradually evolved into a crazy bastard.
‘Please stop. Stop
!’
It was the days when I fell asleep crying, wetting my pillowcase with tears, because my dearest character was pitiful.
Then all of a sudden I got into the novel!
“Isn’t it too rushed
”
I muttered to myself.
“Annette, do you have any questions?”
Then the teacher who was conducting the class in front of me asked with a smile. Oh, I forgot it was class time.
I could see the twinkling eyes of the children looking back at me. From 4 to 12 years old, the ages of the children participating in group classes varied, but they all had one thing in common.
All of them were so cute
! They were like blackened quail eggs.
I smiled and shook my head.
“No, Sir.”
“Then, shall we end the class here?”
“Yes!”
The children shouted as they raised their cute fists like small egg potatoes.
* * *
Lunch time after class.
Today’s menu was warm lamb stew, soft cream bread, and colorful strawberries and blueberries.
“Annette! After all, isn’t group class with kids fun?”
On the other side, Sasha, who was eating blueberries till her lips were stained purple, asked me.
‘You are a child too. Sasha.’
“Classes by age are difficult. They teach me difficult things every day
”
I replied heartily to the sullen Sasha.
“I didn’t find it difficult.”
“Oh! Because Annette is smart!”
The forest had a well-planned curriculum to nurture great trees.
Basic etiquette so as to be adopted by a noble family, as well as history, culture, geography, alchemy, magic formula, etcetera.
Fortunately, I was a model student and good at studying.
‘Although, I have no awakening ability.’
Of course, the most important thing in the forest was not studies, but abilites.
Like me, I couldn’t even be a ‘Tree’, I was just a ‘Weed’.
That’s how extras were.
“Instead, you have magic, Sasha. If you eat a lot of rice, your magic power will increase. So, let’s eat.”
“Oh, really? Yes!”
Persuaded by nonsense, Sasha began to eat bread.
In the meantime, I secretly wrapped the cream bread in a handkerchief and laughed slyly.
‘Hehe. I should bring this to the baby.’
By now, Sislin would be in the  cave without a single light.
When I thought of that scene, my heart ached.
In the novel, he was a terrible maniac, but in reality, he was just a lonely and sick boy.
‘Besides, he was much cuter than expected!’
Just like the first time I saw young Heinrich in the forest, I fell in love with young Sislin.
‘The future should be bright for both of them.’
So, my current goal could be summarized in two.
1. Make Sislin comfortable in the forest just like the other children.
2. Get Heinrich and Sislin to get along.
‘If they get to know each other when they were young, wouldn’t there be zero catastrophes in the future?’
Could this waste turn into sweet water?
I smiled and pleasantly imagined.
* * *
That night.
I sneaked into the kitchen and knocked on the counter.
Tok! Tdok-dok, tok!
This rhythmic knock was a secret hand signal that Sislin and I recently created.
We had become pretty friendly lately, to the extent we made this.
Of course, this was due to my constant effort. I brought Sislin food every day, and talked to him, who was blunt and gave short answers
 etcetera.
‘It was a time of hardship.’
But fortunately, he seemed to have opened up a little bit of his heart. Very little. Like an ant poop.
Shortly after the hand signal was heard, a young wolf-like boy cautiously emerged from the lower cabinet.
Through his thick black hair, his pretty eyes gleamed like rubies.
“Annette.”
“Sislin!”
My face suddenly brightened. I ran quickly and held out the cream bun in my hands.
“Do you like this? I brought it specially. I wanted to bring two, but there was no bread left today. I’ll definitely bring two next time. Come on, eat!”
I chattered out of joy, but somehow, Sislin was strange.
He did not even eat the bread he had received and he was sweating.
‘Why are you doing that?’
When I looked closely, his ankles were all red and the flesh was so torn that I could see the bones.
For a moment, my heart pounded.
“
Aren’t you hurt? How did you get hurt?”
“It’s okay. It’s nothing.”
Sislin tried to hide the wound by pulling down his short pants.
“It’s nothing? Doesn’t it hurt?”
“No. It doesn’t hurt.”
Lies.
Even with those legs, did he come crawling because I called him?
‘Definitely. He was caught in the trap set by Madam Mimosa.’
My heart ached at the thought that he must have suffered alone.
He didn’t want to get hurt, so he hid from the world
 But you got hurt again, Sislin.
‘It is a hellish fate
’
Sislin.
As with the main characters in novels, Sislin had a past that was as twisted as Heinrich’s.
His mother descended from the Mephisto family with ancient demonic powers.
The emperor, Sislin’s father, loved her deeply, and the two had a child.
Some of Mephisto’s children were born with a ‘dark ability’, and it was a rare and powerful ability that could only come out over several generations.
However, this ability was also a curse in itself.
It made daily life difficult by making the senses heightened, and instead of giving one a strong power, the devil played a prank and threw the child into a mountain prison.
It was not known whether that statement was true, but for one thing, Sislin’s childhood was unhappy.
His mother was murdered, and he himself was secretly abandoned.
After that, he came to the forest after undergoing numerous events such as a circus troupe, being abused, and a slave auction.
‘The child’s eyes are too deep and dark.’
He must have lived in an environment where it was impossible to say that he was sick.
As I thought about it again, my hands grew tense.
“Sorry. Annette.”
As if it was the boy’s own personal sunset, the red jewel-like eyes headed towards the floor.
“Angry. I make people angry.”
“
”
I couldn’t answer anything, so I held my breath for a moment.
‘It’s not that he was bad, it’s the adults who got angry enough to be disheartened by an 11-year-old that were bad.’
“Sislin, I’m not angry.”
“
Really?”
“Yes. I will only say nice things to you!”
I smiled brightly.
Sislin asked as if he could not understand.
“Why?”
“Because you’re pretty?”
Speaking slightly brazenly, Sislin looked at me with red eyes between strands of black hair.
Then, along with a faint smile, he let out a soft voice.
“You are the pretty one, Annette.”