The members of the family with creepy purple eyes.
The purple eyes of the people she saw in the dream were not creepy at all, rather they were a color that shone like jewels.
‘Real family….’
She wondered when she would be happy like others before going to sleep.
However, she had never doubted her family, so she wondered why she had such a dream. Her heart fluttered, and she felt a pleasant warmth.
Whenever she thought about her dream, it was like this.
The child shook her head and focused on laundry. There was no time to think about it.
After finishing the laundry, she had to quickly return home and prepare breakfast, as well as clean. If she was even a little late, not only her older brothers but also her parents would hit her.
“Hello, Mute.”
The child had no name, so everyone around her called her mute or creepy-eyes.
When the child raised her head at the familiar nickname, the man who lived in the neighboring house approached her as she was crouching and doing the laundry.
It was Bizan, the self-proclaimed most popular in the slums just outside the city limits.
She had heard that he was doing quite well in the back alleys of the capital, pretending to be the youngest member of a wealthy family, but what was he doing here?
Although he still doesn’t have enough money because he just entered the back alley, it was said that he would soon move from the poor neighborhood to the capital city.
“Hmm, you really have purple eyes….”
Bizan, scratching his chin as if lost in thought, came closer to the child who was scrubbing her laundry.
She couldn’t understand what he was thinking. Why was he suddenly interested in her eyes? Normally, everyone finds her eye color strange and it makes her feel uncomfortable.
“Shall I tell you something interesting?”
The child, unaware of what was happening, fidgeted with the laundry in her hands.
“There’s a story your dad told me the other day when he was drunk. He claimed that he used to kill nobles or something like that.”
Chuckling at what was supposed to be interesting, Bizan continued speaking.
“Have you ever seen a nobleman walk around without a bodyguard? He even said he had killed an adult nobleman. How could a beggar from the slums kill a nobleman who was taught to wield a sword from a young age? What’s this about a noble coming alone to the slums?”
The child didn’t fully understand what he meant. Bizan seemed to ramble without expecting the child to comprehend.
“So I heard it in one ear and out the other, thinking it was just bluster, but I heard something in the capital.”
Bizan took something out of his pocket.
It was a transparent bead stored in a cloth pouch. It was a low-grade magical tool that street gangsters like Bizan liked to carry around to find beggars with mana and sell them.
The clueless child stared blankly at the bead in her hand.
“The only noble with black hair and purple eyes is Duke Lucifaro.”
Bizan placed the bead into the child’s hand.
“Who else could it be? The Lucifaro family is a long line of mages.”
Wizards? Although the child had never heard of Lucifaro before, she knew about mages.
According to what others had mentioned, they could breathe fire and make water come out of their hands. It seemed like a useful ability for doing laundry.
But how could water come out of a person’s hands? Did they hide a water bottle somewhere? In the child’s imagination, the mages had become someone covered in all sorts of water bottles.
“Alright. Let’s see if you have mana, too. Hold the bead and concentrate strongly.”
Mana? What does that mean? Concentrate strongly on what? The child put a little pressure on her hand.
She was careful not to squeeze too hard, as she didn’t want it to break.
“I didn’t mean to squeeze it with force! Ugh. I should have learned some magic too.”
As Bizan shouted, the child flinched and shrank back. He knew the child’s family situation, so he understood why, but Bizan scratched his head in frustration.
“So, what was it again… Magic comes from strong desires, right? Yeah…! What color do you wish the bead would turn into?”
What color does she want it to be? Um… When she lowered her gaze to the transparent bead, she could see her palm through it. If she could change the color of the bead… it would be….
“Purple.”
She wished for a color that would shine like a gem, just like the people she saw in her dream.
“Strongly! Wish with all your might. Wish for the bead to turn purple.”
The child opened her eyes and looked at the bead for no particular reason. She wished for the bead to be purple. She hoped it would sparkle. And it did.
“Damn it! It worked!!!”
The bead emitted a blinding light from the child’s palm, and it turned purple.
“Hell yeah!!! I did it!!!”
The child’s eyes blinked in confusion, not understanding the meaning behind this.
She had simply tried sincerely. She didn’t know that magic was supposed to be difficult or that it was impossible for a person without mana.
Bizan leapt around like a wild animal, swinging his fists in the air. Then, while clumsily stepping back, he fell into the stream and laughed like a madman.
“I’ve been suffering all this time, not knowing that the treasure was right next to me!”
Bizan jumped out of the stream and grabbed the child. Without hesitation, he did something strange.
He pressed his lips against the child’s forehead
“Ew. You need a bath.”
The child rolled her eyes and quickly wiped her forehead with her sleeve. She knew she was dirty, but Bizan’s kiss didn’t make her feel any better.
“Anyway, you need to wash yourself today. I’ll be right back.”
He scurried away like a wet mouse, but he was back in no time. He was such a strange person to the child. Unlike her family, who were always angry, he had a variety of expressions.
“When you go back home, don’t say anything to your family. I’ll find your real family for you.”
Real family? After saying that, Bizan started running off like a madman.
However, the child couldn’t meet him for a whole week after that.
××××××××××××××××××××××
As the child fidgetted with her hands and looked at the dining table, an immediate expression of disapproval was made.
“Get your smelly body out of here right now!”
Without hesitation, the child fled at her father’s outburst.
If she lingered there, a hand would fly right away. Her mother and older brothers sitting at the table didn’t even give her a glance.
It had already been two days since she had eaten anything. Maybe she didn’t even realize she had starved for two days.
He went into the storage room and closed the door, just in case someone in the family had a change of heart and dragged her out.
She held her breath and listened outside, but heard nothing but the sound of food being eaten. It was better to be left alone and be hungry, than to be hit.
With a sigh of relief, the child crouched down and lay back down. The hard floor and the worn-out mat couldn’t keep the cold away, but as long as she curled up and didn’t move, it was bearable.
With a weary body and trying to forget her hunger, she closed her eyes for a moment. When she looked towards the gap under the door, there was no sign of anyone around.
She had to quickly go out again to clean the dining table and do the dishes.
As she went to the kitchen to tidy up the dishes, a person’s head suddenly popped up beyond the window. Startled, she lost her grip on the dish so it fell and shattered. It wasn’t just one or two broken dishes.
What should she do? Considering the poor condition of their dilapidated house in the slums, it was natural that they couldn’t afford to replace the dishes. She didn’t know how her father or mother would react if they saw this.
“Hey, mute.”
As Bizan called out to her by tapping on the window, the urgency of this problem outweighed his presence. What should she do with these broken dishes? If her family found out, it wouldn’t just end with a beating.
“Hey, mute. Can’t you hear me?”
What’s important about Bizan who showed up a week later after promising to find her real family? She could be beaten to death by her family members who would come home for dinner.
Tears streamed down her face as she hastily picked up the dishes. But Bizan kept calling her incessantly.
“Mute. Mute. Come out for a moment.”
Why was Bizan acting this way? Wiping away her tears, she looked up, and Bizan’s face was distorted.
“Do you know that your tears are flowing non-stop?”
What does he know? Being hit by her father or older brothers really hurt. Last time, she couldn’t even breathe and crawled into the storage room.
“Stop crying and come out here, okay? Because of you, I was dragged away by the guards and locked up for a week.”
Guards? Weren’t they scary soldiers?
Because she grew up in the slums, she had never even seen a guard. She heard that they guard the entrance to the capital and patrol the streets, but this was in the slums.
She didn’t know why he was taken away by the guards because of her, but for now, she stopped her tears.
“Come here when I tell you to, okay?”
The dishes, then Bizan. Alternating between looking at them, the child finally moved her feet.
××××××××××××××××××××××
“So, I went to see the guards, but they didn’t believe me. They said I dared to mention a high noble and tried to deceive them, so they threw me in prison.”
Sitting down and listening to the story, the only thing on the child’s mind was broken dishes.
“That’s why I think it would be better to take you to Lucifaro. Are you even listening, or are you deaf?”
Actually, the dishes were broken because of Bizan. When she lifted her head, Bizan smirked and teased her again.
“There, you’ll find your real family. They all have black hair and purple eyes, just like you.”
Black hair and purple eyes? The child’s curiosity was piqued.
Were they the same as the people in her dream?
After a moment’s hesitation, she drew a picture in the dirt. A middle-aged man, a middle-aged woman, a girl and a boy like the ones she had seen.
“What’s this? Did you draw your family? Those people aren’t your family, you know?”
The child shook her head.
It wasn’t drawn to represent her father, mother, and brothers. The child looked seriously at the picture where only faces were drawn, and then began to gesture with her hands.
She tapped the middle-aged woman’s hair with her hand, then touched Bizan’s hair. Next, she tapped the eyes and touched Bizan’s identical brown eyes. Then she tapped the heads of the remaining three people and touched her own head.
She repeated the same gesture with their eyes, and then with her own eyes.
“What’s going on here?”
They were both frustrated.
The child had to repeat these actions three times. There are three people who have the same hair and eye color as her, and a person who has the same hair and eye color as Bizan.
Bizan, who had been thinking for a long time, suddenly nodded his head frantically.
“How did you know? I also confirmed it while I was in prison. The Duke of Lucifaro has black hair and purple eyes, and the Duchess has brown hair and brown eyes. The twin siblings, the Young Lord and the Young Lady, have black hair and purple eyes.”
It’s just like a dream.
The child’s eyes began to tremble.
Could the dream be real? How could it be the same? Her heart started pounding like the day she had her dream.
“Anyway, you’re coming with me, right?”
When Bizan reached out his hand, the child looked beyond the broken dishes by the window. She thought of her father, her mother, and her brothers. The decision didn’t take long.
The child took Bizan’s hand.
