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Episode 36: There’s No Smoke Without Fire (I)
At the moment when my heart was burning.
“I’m sorry, Prince. Annette must have been really nervous.”
Julius intervened sensibly.
“It looks like that.”
He wasn’t particularly conscious of my pockets, and fortunately, he immediately raised his gaze and looked at my face.
‘I have to come to my senses.’
This could be misunderstood as being suspicious.
He was the first prince who was perfect in many ways, and he was also called the ‘next emperor’ in this bloody imperial family.
A man in that position would be quick to sense and have excellent instincts, so he would feel suspicious.
I needed a proper excuse.
I lowered my eyes as if I was sorry.
“I’m sorry, Prince. The children in the Forest have a lot of wounds in their hearts… Sometimes I get scared like this by a sudden approach.”
“Oh, my.”
A slight look of disappointment crossed Gerard’s face.
He was reminded of the fact that ‘the children of the Forest are orphans, so there may be traumas of being bullied.’
‘Of course I never had that, but…’
It was an appropriate excuse to get out of the situation.
Gerard put his hand on my head slowly and said sweetly.
“Child, this hand will never hurt you. I swear.”
“…Thank you. Prince.”
‘Lies, I think you’ll hurt me.’
No matter the extent the old man knew about his secret, he still killed him. The old man who fell down and begged like an obedient dog that he would keep it a secret.
‘Perhaps the High Priest begged because he knew Gerard’s true nature.’
Therefore, in order not to die, he must have put a spell of oblivion on the priests who knew the secret and swore that he would also crack down on them.
‘Even so, he killed him with a single strike.’
In the end, the high priest could not even see his grandson’s wedding two days later and became a cold corpse.
…A man who was merciless to an old man would surely be merciless to a child.
I smiled like I wasn’t scared, and Gerard finally removed his hand.
“Will you accept my invitation again next time?”
“Anytime.”
‘Heuk-heuk, I will never come.’
I hid my feelings and answered appropriately. Gerard seemed satisfied, so he briefly greeted Julius and Heinrich and then left.
‘…I lived.’
Hwooh, it could have been a disaster.
I was so nervous in front of Gerard that when he left, my legs became like squid, totally limp. My body staggered like a flower sticking out from a chestnut.
“Sister, are you okay?”
Heinrich quickly supported me and shook his head.
“He’s so annoying… Rubbish, why was he touching Sister’s hair. I don’t like it!”
“……!”
‘Ah, our Heinrich is relentless!’
Unsurprisingly, Julius lowered his voice in a hurry with a plastered smile on his face.
“Heinrich! How many times have I told you to be careful with your words in the Imperial Palace? How dare you say such a thing about the prince.”
The boy’s eyes lit up coldly.
“What should I do when my opponent is a prince?”
“……”
“If he makes Sister uncomfortable, I won’t leave him alone.”
It was a face with 100% sincerity.
Julius touched his forehead as if it was throbbing and said;
“Anyway, today’s accident has made you a great notoriety to the El Dorado Imperial family, Heinrich.”
Heinrich looked at Julius with a face full of dissatisfaction while hugging me. But as usual, like a damn chihuahua, ‘Wa!’ He couldn’t refute it..
‘I guess I’m tied up.’
Because I was also involved in that, and so I would have to reflect on it.
Julius said, calmly pointing at Heinrich.
“I can’t stand your bad attitude any longer. I will report this to Madam Mimosa.”
Soon, with a sullen face, Heinrich said, “Sheesh,” and turned his head.
“Annette…”
Julius looked at me belatedly and relaxed his expression a little.
“You showed a great figure befitting a Tree.”
Julius, who never praised me, praised me for some reason. But I was too exhausted to be happy.
Soon he opened the carriage’s door with a polite and dignified gesture.
“Now, officially, the first socialization training is over. Well done everyone. Trees.”
…It was really a socialization training with a lot of things going on.
After all the twists and turns, this was the end.
I sat in the carriage and sighed.
‘Will Heinrich be scolded a lot?’
***
“Sislin’s getting scolded a lot!”
“What?!”
As soon as I returned to the Forest, I received unexpected news.
Unlike us, Sislin, who had been invited to a quiet salon gathering of nobles, had a major accident there.
‘That gentle and kind Sislin…?’
I was startled and asked Sasha.
“What happened to Sislin?”
Did he have an accident because he was nervous? Well, our cute, docile and naive baby (this was spoken with severe bean pods) was probably very nervous in an unfamiliar place and made a small mistake—
“Wow, they said he burned an entire table. Completely!”
…Arson!
‘No, doing such a thing like Heinrich?!’
My pupils shook.
Even that Heinrich had never committed arson before.
Sasha said with her pink hair puffed up like cotton candy.
“He even burned the hair of the nobles with candles!”
“Oh, really…?”
I covered my mouth in shock. It felt like Julius didn’t really care about us because he was absent in the middle of the banquet, but now I fully understand why.
He had been busy fixing the arson case in the salon.
He didn’t show it to us though; no matter how mean Julius was, his professionalism as a noble etiquette teacher was worth recognizing.
Heinrich’s ‘minor and common abusive language’ was not a big deal due to the great arsonist’s performance.
When Madam Mimosa’s harsh discipline was over, I went to the dormitory to meet Sislin.
“What about Sislin?”
Julien answered with twinkling big sky-blue eyes.
“Oh, Sislin didn’t come here. Sniff.”
So where did he go?
“Hmm,” I hummed alongside Julien’s runny nose. I thought hard about where Sislin could be.
‘If…’
Would he be there? I went up to the empty room we used as a ‘hideout’. It was as I expected.
The boy was sitting by the window where the moonlight was falling and looking out, holding his chin.
“Sislin!”
He, who was pensive, looked over at my call.
For a moment, a smile appeared on his face.
“Annette.”
‘Umm, he looks better than I thought?’
“What happened? I heard that Madam Mimosa scolded you a lot. If… Oh my goodness! Look at your legs!”
He looked fine, so I thought he was okay, but as I got closer, I noticed that his calves were a mess. It was all dark red.
As soon as I saw it, my heart ached.
“Have you been hit on the calf, Sislin?”
“It’s okay.”
Sislin answered calmly.
Last time, when Heinrich had been beaten, he was in so much pain that he cried all night in my arms.
So it couldn’t be okay?
“Wait a minute!”
I hurriedly went to the infirmary, borrowed a first aid kit, and returned.
Then, I began to disinfect the wounds on Sislin’s calves and gently apply the ointment.
Sislin removed his leg as if he was sorry.
“I’m really fine…”
“You look so injured, what are you talking about, Sisl!”
“……”
“I don’t mind at all.”
But I do. Because it felt like the scars that had been drawn on Sislin’s calves were also appearing on my chest.
I carefully applied the ointment to the wounds, blowing gently. Wouldn’t it be great if there was a potion that could heal everything all at once? But I couldn’t steal it this time.
If Madam Mimosa finds out that this scar is gone, Sislin would be punished more severely.
“……”
While applying the medicine, Sislin did not take his red eyes off me.
I pressed down on my upset heart, and after finished treatment, I looked straight at Sislin and asked:
“Sisl, you didn’t accidentally start the fire, did you?”
At first, I thought that Sislin’s mistake might have been inflated and delivered to the children.
But looking at the whip marks, it wasn’t.
Madam Mimosa never used a whip for ‘mistakes’.
Because children were people who made mistakes.
However, if you intentionally committed a nefarious act, and it didn’t go unnoticed…
In that case, you would be whipped or severely punished as he was now.
“Why is that…?”
I didn’t mean to rebuke him, but I asked with a really upset heart.
“You never intentionally caused trouble, huh? Sisl.”
“……”
Various emotions flashed across Sislin’s face in an instant.
Those emotions formed in the boy’s eyes, burning like a midsummer sunset.
Soon after, Sislin turned his head and answered calmly.
“Just because..”
Just because.
He implied many words that he could not say to the girl in just two letters.
When Sislin went to the salon this evening, his popularity among the nobles was great.
The new special level 1 boy was talented and, even though he was young, he created a unique atmosphere that was difficult to reach.
The nobles read the atmosphere with dignity.
Finally, a ‘finished product’ that completely compensated for Heinrich’s personality flaws was released.
“This Tree is really nice. If we adopt him, it is sure to brighten up the name of the family in the future… It’s worth the money.”
“Are you going to compete with us? We also want to adopt this boy.”
However, in proportion to the favor of the nobles, the anxiety of Sislin increased.
He told Heinrich, ‘I will ask them to adopt her as their daughter-in-law’, but this clever boy knew that such a request would not work.
The opponents were nobles who adopted orphan children for the sake of the family’s reputation.
Both of them would be thoroughly used for the family, down to their hair.
If they wanted to make money, they would try to connect him with a woman from a family where marriage was also profitable.
Like a pig trying to graft with a good seed.
Of course, even if he had to live like that, becoming a ‘noble’ from an ‘orphan’ was never a loss in life, but rather great luck…
“Sislin.”
But.
The boy’s life meant nothing if he parted with the owner of this friendly voice.
That’s why he deliberately caused an accident.
Thanks to that, no one wanted the boy now.
It was okay even if he became a child that no one wanted forever like this.
If only he could be with Annette.
“Annette.”
“Yes?”
Sislin carefully wrapped his hands around her little face and made her look up at him.
The clear moonlight fell on the girl’s dense eyelashes.
The boy couldn’t take his eyes off her pale green eyes, a tall nose like a small hill, and her pale lips.
The girl smelled fresh lilac.
It was just as good as death.
“We…”
The boy slowly took the little Annette into his arms.
Her warm body temperature in his arms felt delicate and precious, just like a young bird.
The boy closed his eyes and whispered earnestly.
“Let’s never part and live happily ever after.”