Chapter 4
Were You This Cute?
“Y-Your Highness?”
Anna’s astonished voice. Agnes closed her lips, which she hadn’t properly parted.
“When did you arrive?”
Agnes, who had brought some snacks, nearly dropped them when she saw her childhood friend, Deon, standing in front of the child.
“Y-You were trying to use your abilities… right…?”
Anna’s eyes flickered as she glanced between Deon and Agnes.
Only after the mention of abilities did Deon speak to her.
“Are you trying to teach me, Anna? Since when did you become my tutor?”
His tone was a warning not to cross the line.
Despite being just nine years old, he exuded an overwhelming pressure.
Anna lowered her head.
“I’m sorry, Your Highness.”
“That’s enough.”
Deon’s gaze was still fixed on Agnes.
Agnes, hidden within her hair, silently observed Deon.
‘…Suffering?’
Then she realized something strange.
Among the emotions embedded in his crimson eyes, there was one she recognized well.
The boy is suffering right now.
She couldn’t ignore the constant, familiar agony he had endured for over a dozen years.
‘Is it because of side effects?’
The Duke Gerwer said that using abilities causes side effects, slowly consuming the user’s life.
“I feel the side effects eating away at my life every time I use my abilities. My Lethium. If I hadn’t found you, I would have already…”
Agnes shuddered as she recalled past events. It felt like the Duke Gerwer was whispering right next to her.
Meanwhile, Deon, seeing Agnes intimidated, turned away, avoiding eye contact.
“Um, th-there…”
Ah, I have to leave a good first impression.
Agnes called out to Deon hesitantly, but Deon didn’t turn back. Instead, before leaving the parlor, he said something to Anna.
* * *
“Give that kid a bath. He stinks.”
With Deon’s words, Agnes’s next destination was determined.
Agnes felt no awe for the soft bread she hadn’t eaten in years. Instead, she was dragged to the bathroom.
In the bathtub filled with warm water, Anna bathed Agnes.
It was more like scrubbing than washing.
Her hair had to be shampooed and rinsed five times, and they had to change the bathwater twice because it turned into murky broth.
Agnes couldn’t resist and wobbled under Anna’s touch.
“Uh, ah…”
“It’s not over yet.”
Afterward, Anna applied moisturizer to Agnes’s body and glossy oil to her hair.
Once her hair was dried and she was dressed in fresh pajamas, Agnes’s body felt as smooth as if she had been reborn.
Stunned by the transformation, Agnes’s face was blank from the whirlwind of events.
“My goodness. Were you this cute all along?! You?”
Anna, deeply moved by the result of her efforts, pressed her cheek against Agnes’s warm one.
It was understandable.
Although her hair was chopped off haphazardly and tangled, Agnes’s cleaned-up appearance was almost fairy-like, something out of a myth.
Her silver hair shimmered like moonlight, her skin was snow-white and smooth, and her round silver eyes peeked out from under her bangs.
“Have you been hiding this appearance all this time? You. You’re really pretty.”
Agnes didn’t understand Anna’s repeated admiration.
‘Why is she acting like this?’
Dirty, smelly, pitiful.
Throughout her entire life, the words that always stuck to Agnes were like this.
Even in the relatively cleaner days at the Gerwehr mansion in the past, she never heard positive comments about her appearance.
“Miss, be thankful to Lord Gerwehr for picking up dirty commoners like you.”
She often heard such remarks.
“He’s saying these things to me because he’s kind.”
Even though it wouldn’t be pleasant to look at.
Agnes lowered her head deeply.
“….”
“Oh, did I talk too much by myself? This isn’t the time for that. Let’s go back to the parlor. The butler was looking for you.”
Anna took Agnes’s hand and walked.
When they arrived at the parlor, it wasn’t just the butler waiting for her.
“Oh, you’re here?”
Zed, whom she had seen during the day, waved his hand.
Still, she instinctively greeted him with pleasure, thinking she knew him.
“Ah, hi…”
“Anna, is this the little one Lady Ga-”
She quickly realized the greeting wasn’t for her.
Agnes’s cheeks flushed with embarrassment.
“He’s not talking to me…”
“Ah, didn’t you come together?”
Zed looked around with Agnes right in front of him.
Seeing the playfulness in his eyes, it was clear he was joking.
But it seemed unlikely that Agnes, who couldn’t even reach his waist, could see that.
“Hey, Anna. What if she hides the baby?”
“She’s right here.”
Anna placed her hand on Agnes’s shoulder and looked at Zed.
With a warning look mixed with telling him not to do anything strange to the child, Zed gave up teasing Agnes with a sheepish smile.
Instead, he chuckled and waved his hand over Agnes’s head.
“You know! She’s right here. Wow, can you believe it? The noble lady who used to roll in the dust is now walking around as a proper noble lady!”
“Uh, uh…”
“Hey, Zed Tréan! You crazy bastard!”
Anna panicked at Agnes’s disheveled hair.
She had put so much effort into styling it!
When Anna grabbed Zed’s wrist, it was the moment when the quiet butler behind Zed revealed his presence with a fake cough.
The butler in his late 40s spoke politely to young Agnes.
“I am the butler of the Lordwick estate. Miss, Lady Ga-”
“Ah…”
Agnes nodded.
The only name she had, “Agnes,” was given by Lord Gerwehr.
At her uncle’s house, she was often referred to as “hey,” “you,” or “brat.”
“I don’t have a name.”
So, on the way to Lordwick’s estate, Agnes said that to Duke Blake in the carriage. There was no name for the ‘current’ her.
The butler smiled kindly at his granddaughter-like Agnes and said, “If you wish, my lord will give you a name.”
Agnes looked at the butler with a puzzled expression.
Even though she didn’t understand why he said, “if you wish,” as if she had a choice.
If the master gave her a name, she would accept it.
“Yes. A slave is owned-”
“You’re right! It’s a good idea! It’s better to have a new name when starting a new life!”
Zed, who had been listening, cut off Agnes’s words again and joined the conversation.
Then, without asking, he continued talking as if to himself.
“Most people in the Duke of Lordwick’s estate were given names by the duke. Why? Because they wanted to forget about their past.”
“….”
“A new name means… yes, it’s the expectation of starting a new life by discarding your past self.”
“A new life…?”
Agnes murmured unconsciously as she listened to Zed’s words.
Zed observed Agnes carefully.
There was a subtle change in the child’s eyes. The silver eyes sparkled.
“What do you think? Are you excited too?”
The child brought by the duke.
She had been mistreated by her family, and even the basic care was neglected. She was almost sold as a slave to that family.
The children who had come as playmates for the young master had somewhere to return, but this child had nowhere to go, so she would stay here.
Zed sat down at Agnes’s eye level and looked into her eyes with conviction.
“I guarantee you, from today onwards, your life will change as long as you stay in this mansion.”
* * *
“They said she’s getting a name?”
“Yes. She answered that she would. It seems to be because of what you mentioned, about being a slave and all.”
In the lord’s study.
Blake, seated at his desk, was in the midst of a conversation with Jed, who stood before him.
He clicked his tongue disapprovingly at the word “slave” that came out of Jed’s mouth.
“Did I ever say I was going to treat that child as a slave?”
“Not to my recollection.”
“Nor mine.”
On the desk lay a paper with a few nameless options written on it.
From the moment Agnes mentioned she didn’t have a name, these were the name candidates that floated around in Blake’s mind.
“Please give her a beautiful name. She looks so lovely now that she’s been cleaned up.”
At that, Blake chuckled.
Even without Jed saying it, he roughly guessed. The appearance beyond the tangled hair was not ordinary.
“So, the report?”
“It’s horrendous.”
Jed shrugged his shoulders.
The child’s upbringing, as investigated today, was even more horrific than Jed had anticipated.
The child’s mother gave birth to her alone on the streets after being abandoned by the child’s father.
With nowhere to go, she carried the filthy and blood-stained child to her brother-in-law’s house.
“The mother was half out of her mind at the time and treated the child like a monster. So, Tambour took care of the child. Ah, Tambour is the child’s uncle. He’s a human scum who sells children during the day.”
“I see. Continue.”
“Would such a person properly raise a child? The child’s mother took her younger sister with her for begging, only fed the child enough to keep her alive, and left her neglected. Starting when the child turned one, she was put to work.”
“At one? That’s not an age for working.”
Blake doubted what he heard, but it was true.
“Apparently, they rented out the child to beggars for money. If there was a child while begging, it could evoke sympathy. They even made her do household chores once she could talk. Oh, they haven’t raised chickens around the house for years.”
“What are you talking about?”
Jed flicked his nails. Like when he first heard the story from the child’s neighbor, a sense of disgust seemed to emanate from his forearm.
“Tambour’s beating of the child from dawn served as the alarm bell for the neighbors. It seems the sound of beatings stopped the day after the child’s mother died. Perhaps because they were planning to sell the child. If they were starting to see her as merchandise, they probably wanted to avoid causing more damage.”
Even as Jed reported, he couldn’t contain his curse inside.
There were no orders to kill, so he couldn’t suffocate her, but at least he should have made sure she couldn’t leave her bed for the rest of her life.
While Jed was going on, Blake silently pondered while looking at the paper.
‘Was a pessimistic mindset formed due to a harsh upbringing? Moreover, not even receiving basic education but living the life of the lowest class.’
But the child’s level in the conversation they had in the carriage today was higher than that.
‘Leaving that aside, there’s something strange.’
The puzzling part wasn’t just that.
The moment he saw the child, he felt it. There was a slight change in the breath that entered, a subtle shift in the energy that suppressed the lungs.
But he couldn’t discern what it was. Like a dream just waking up, the flickering feeling faded more and more with time. Even if he were to feel that sensation again, he wouldn’t know if it was the same as before.
“How could family do such a thing? Growing up without knowing love, the child speaks of being a slave, etc. It’s all harsh nonsense.”
Unable to hold back his anger any longer, Jed spat out his words.
Blake mulled over one part of it.
‘A child who doesn’t know love.’
There’s another child in the mansion who fits that description.
