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Episode 20: Heinrich’s World
Vivian’s expression became sharp. She was mercilessly threatening to reveal all of Heinrich’s secrets.
However, Heinrich was just watching her quietly with his beautiful eyes. Then he spoke with a soft voice.
“Vivian. There seems to be some misunderstanding…?”
“It’s not a misunderstanding!”
Vivian shouted as if it was unfair.
“You, that day, you obviously told me to go to the ‘left-most room on the third-floor’. You definitely knew.”
“……”
“That Sislin and Annette are hiding there… Did you deliberately let me report it?”
“Vivian. I can’t imagine.”
Heinrich quietly refuted.
“Even if you found the hideout, you didn’t have to report it, right?”
It wasn’t wrong. But Vivian wasn’t going to let it go easily either. The girl who studied hard and lived as a model student was not stupid.
“You knew it! That I’m sensitive to ‘school rules’!”
Vivian’s eyes turned red.
“Obviously, you, you knew I was going to report it. You were obviously inducing me.”
“……”
“Since the time I reported it, I haven’t been able to get to know Sislin. And I…! I!”
Vivian shook her head and lowered her gaze.
“I contacted a slave trader to help you, and I even stole.”
He never smiled at her at all.
Rather, he despised her.
Vivian’s fists were clenched tighter.
All of a sudden — sad tears fell to the floor.
“I’ll go to Annette and tell her everything. You told me to do it.”
“……”
“If you hadn’t taught me how to find the hideout as if you were asking me to report in the first place, I wouldn’t have done stupid things.”
Tak, tak.
The boy approached Vivian with a cold face. The beautiful and cruel face she liked was pushed right in front of her nose.
A mischievous smile curved the corners of his long eyes.
“Vivian.”
A cruelly sweet voice.
“My sister will never know.”
The brilliant purple eyes narrowed sharply.
“My sister hates children who do bad things…”
Hup. Vivian’s eyes trembled. Heinrich whispered a dangerous secret.
“So I have to do bad things secretly.”
“……!”
Heinrich, who had lost even his smile, endlessly emanated tension as sharp as needles.
“If you are going to tell…”
This image of him was clearly captured in her eyes.
“I’m really ready to do ‘anything’ to stop it.”
“……”
Ah, in an instant, Vivian realized.
Even though Heinrich was wearing a magic suppressor, his explosive magic was dangerous enough.
And that statement was by no means a lie.
For a moment, Vivian was so afraid of the boy’s ‘anything’.
In the end, Vivian bit her lips tearfully and vomited frustration.
“You’re crazy, Heinrich.”
The boy just smirked and laughed.
“Ah, I’m sorry you only know that now.”
Then he straightened his body and turned around.
“Anyway, I’ll trust you to keep quiet. Have a good visit to the Temple of the Forest, Vivian.”
Heinrich’s gesture, waving backwards, was light.
Tak tak, tak, tak.
The sound of him leaving the room echoed through the quiet hallway.
***
Heinrich’s expression darkened.
Like today, whenever his bad temperament was discovered, his mood would always go down.
“…Annette.”
The boy quietly called out the name of his precious one. Then his heart pounded.
In the end, he did bother his sister.
In fact, it was a deliberate act, teaching the hideout.
As Vivian had said, he clearly knew. That she would report right away.
‘But, I couldn’t stand not doing it.’
Back when Annette appeared while holding Sislin’s hand, Heinrich felt extreme fear and anxiety as if the world was collapsing.
He couldn’t accept the emergence of a new person that Annette cared for.
That was why.
He did it impulsively.
Of course, I didn’t know that Vivian was going contact the slave dealer and steal things, but somehow… Those things might be exactly what he wished for.
Heinrich felt a sense of shame and staggered into the dormitory.
“……”
The dormitory, with its lights turned off, lingered in silence.
Heinrich quietly went down on one knee in front of Annette’s bed.
Then he asked in a trembling voice.
“…Sister, are you awake?”
“My baby… You’re here?”
Annette, whose pale green eyes were full of sleep, patted Heinrich’s head.
“Heinri, go to sleep.”
“…Yes.”
Heinley managed to answer and wrapped her warm hand with his two small hands.
‘My kind sister.’
Annette, the most angelic being in the world.
But if the truth became known, she might hate him or leave him.
‘Because I am not a good child to be loved.’
‘Because this love is too much for me.’
Heinrich eagerly clung to the body temperature he touched, and thought back to his first meeting with Annette.
***
“Your father doesn’t want to see you.”
At the age of 5, Heinrich visited his father for the first time and heard such a thing.
And it was through his mother’s mouth.
Heinrich grew up hearing the story, ‘Actually, your father is a great wizard’, since childhood.
His father is a duke who is being talked about as the ‘next master of the Magic Tower’.
“Mom, but why can’t we see Daddy?”
“That’s… Heinrich… your father is busy doing great things.”
That’s right, his father was a great man.
Heinrich grew up with deep respect for his father.
However, at the age of 5, the moment when even the first meeting with his father was rejected, this clever child realized.
That his mother was a lowly courtesan, and that her son, which was himself, was not enough to reach a noble father.
His father had abandoned him even before his umbilical cord was cut.
“Let’s go home, Heinrich.”
His mother was looking for his father today to get enough food for just one week.
After having Heinrich, she quit her courtesan job, and was doing chores to raise her son.
However, she was so weak that it was difficult to earn money properly.
If there was anything to eat, even a little, she fed it to Heinrich. It was only natural that her stamina was getting weaker and weaker.
Tak, tak.
One snowy day, Heinrich returned home while holding his skinny mother’s hand.
He was so hungry because he couldn’t find anything to eat…
Snowflakes like flowers that flew that day and the footprints made alongside his mother still remained as beautiful memories.
So it was difficult to understand the cold body of his mother he discovered a few days later.
Heinrich was too young to understand the concept of taking one’s own life; and despite his mother loving him so much, she was exhausted from life and had no way out but to make such a choice.
He just thought he was abandoned. Even his mother abandoned him and left because he was not enough.
It was a difficult reality for young Heinrich to bear.
Afterwards, he went to visit his father alone, but all he heard was ‘You’re a seed born from a dirty body.’
Heinrich was utterly desperate.
After that, the broken boy flowed into the Forest.
***
“Let go of this! Don’t even think about touching it. You bastard.”
At the age of 10, Heinrich was an awl itself. He was pointed, angular and sharp to everyone.
Even after awakening his special level 1 ability, he was always a subject of trouble.
This arrogant and beautiful boy argued with the children every day.
Even so, the teachers could not be reckless with the precious level 1 child. Heinrich became more and more vicious, and the more he did, the more lonely he became.
Heinrich was the only one in the forest without a friend.
Annette’s appearance in Heinrich’s life was like a shock.
“Hello? You’re Heinrich. I’m Annette. I’m 11 years old.”
“I’m not interested.”
“Hmm, but I am interested in you? Can’t we just get along?”
“Don’t play tricks and get lost!”
Puck!
When Heinrich pushed hard and stood up, the little girl fell backwards.
It was obvious what would happen afterwards. She would either cry or express her hate for him.
But instead of crying, this child with green eyes as warm as the spring sun smiled brightly at him.
“…Heinrich, you are amazing! You’re also very strong!”
Heinrich stopped, bewildered.
“How unlucky!”
After that, the girl’s behavior was the same.
Even when he pushed, cursed, shoved, and annoyed, she was always by his side.
She always complimented himself with a smile.
How great Heinrich was, what a kind child Hein-Lee was.
‘She’s a strange kid.’
Just like that, Heinrich hated Annette.
That was natural. Because Heinrich didn’t like anyone.
He feared that if he liked someone, that person would surely abandon him and leave. Like his own mother…
It was best not to like anyone from the beginning.
So one day, Heinrich decided to play a little prank.
“Hey, Annette. The lake over there is all frozen, so let’s make a bet on walking across.”
The lake was only thinly covered with ice, it wasn’t frozen hard enough for children to walk on.
Heinrich, knowing everything, was skeptical.
But this stupid Annette smiled broadly and was happy.
“Yes! Okay!”
“……”
“It’s my first time playing with Heinrich!”
‘She’s really stupid. Isn’t she crazy?’
It was obvious to anyone who could see that the ice wasn’t really frozen yet!
Heinrich spoke to Annette, and was somehow more disturbed by her delighted face.
“You cross first, then come back.”
Then he turned his back and laughed.
‘She can’t even go near the lake anyway. It’s not frozen yet.’
Then he would use that as an excuse.
‘I said we should play together, but it’s you who didn’t play. Annette.’
It was when he looked at the lake shore with that thought.
“……!!!”
Annette was not on the lake shore.
Upon closer inspection, he saw the little girl drowning at the edge of the lake.
“Hey, crazy, hey!!! Are you crazy?”
Heinrich immediately took off his coat and jumped into the lake.
Then, as the thinly frozen ice cracked, he swam through the icy water and rescued Annette.
“Wake up! Annette!”
As soon as Heinrich came out of the lake, he wrapped the girl’s body with his dry coat.
Was she dead? What if she got hurt because of him?
‘I didn’t mean to…’
‘I’m sorry, I’m really sorry…’’
It was when Heinrich was helplessly touching Annette’s body, which had become as cold as a corpse, and was at a loss for what to do.
Annette smiled faintly, opening her eyes.
“…Wow, is Heinrich good at swimming? That’s amazing. How cool. Keuk, keuk!”
“…You’re so stupid!”
The next day, the two suffered from the flu, side by side.
And from then on, Heinrich’s world changed 180 degrees.
Heinrich went wherever Annette went.
Whenever he ate something delicious, he always saved Annette a share.
He laughed a lot, and he learned what warmth was.
Heinrich occasionally asked,
“Sister, why are you being so nice to me?”
Then Annette would reply with the warmest and prettiest smile in the world.
“That’s because I love you, Heinrich. I like you the most in the world!”
Heinrich’s heart was taken over by the girl who smiled without restraint.
From then on, Heinrich experienced his first crush.
It was so precious that he was afraid that it would break.
It was a young heart that became unbearably lonely whenever someone came in between them.
He knew it was an obsession, and he knew he wasn’t supposed to, but it was hard to control.
That was…
For Heinrich, it was Annette’s existence.
***
“Sister, the day you fell for the lake… did you purposely do it for me?”
Heinrich quietly knelt in front of the bed and whispered.
“…Why did you do that?”
What he wanted to say…
‘I was just being mean to you. Why have you been so nice to me?’
Annette didn’t seem to hear Heinrich’s whisper.
Having had a long day today, she was just sleeping soundly.
Heinrich swallowed his saliva— Gulp.
Confusion, guilt, and fear of being hated intertwined in the boy’s eyes.
With his lips slightly, the boy confessed.
“Sister, actually… I was the one who gave Vivian the location of the hideout.”
‘I’m really bad.’
‘That’s why, all this time, everyone left me.’
“I’m sorry that I’m a bad kid… I must have been born that way.”
‘Sister, please don’t hate me too much.’
‘Please forgive me… ‘
The night Annette slept peacefully, Heinrich confessed and cried sadly the whole time, like a child who had lost his mother’s hand.