How Can You Pay Back The Kindness I Raised With Obsession?

“Lulu.”

It was a brown rabbit doll that was about to be skewered.

“Where’s your owner?”

The other party, understandably, had no answer.

‘He’d have a nightmare without Lulu.’

Luka, who never takes this doll off his body, ran away from home leaving the bunny behind. Elliot couldn’t believe it. Did it make sense for five and seven year olds to leave the house on their own? Even the well trained guards were avoided… But there was no sign of kidnapping, no ransom demand. So where the hell were they?

Leaflets were scattered all over the empire with large bounties, but there were no reports of seeing a girl with black hair and a boy with silver hair. It’s a rare appearance, but why? Besides, there was no way that Luna, who knew how to read and knews the Archduke’s coat of arms, wasn’t aware that he was looking for them.

‘Could it be…’

There was no limit to terrible imagination.

‘Probably not.’

Every day was like hell. Soft food felt as rough as grains of sand, and even closing his eyes for a moment in exhaustion felt like a sin. Will hell continue for another day? He pledged for that hell to not end as an eternal hell.

It was a moment of rough sweeping across his face when someone outside knocked on the door in a hurry and shouted:

“Your Highness!”

“What’s going on?”

“We just received a pretty credible tip.”

“Report immediately.”

“A girl with black hair and eyes like Your Highness the Grand Duke was seen…

The more he heard about the woman’s eyewitness account of a dressing shop in a village at the foot of the Black Forest, the clearer Elliot’s eyes became.

“They say the witch called the girl Luna and the boy Luca.”

There was nothing more to hear.

“Summon the Templars at once.”

Elliot gave instructions to his subordinate and jumped to his feet.

* * *

‘Oh… It was a great day.”

After they got home, she fed the kids dinner, and sorted out the groceries, it was already time to go to bed.

‘The day used to be so long…’

As she lay on the couch and closed her heavy eyelids, she heard a squeak. She looked up and saw Luca standing in the crack in the bedroom door, rubbing his eyes.

“I’m afraid you need to rest.”

He said he didn’t want to do it when she put him in the bed. She took him to the bathroom, washed his hands, and put him back to bed. But somehow, as soon as he closed his eyes, she heard another squeak.

“Why? Are you thirsty this time?”

“Uhh.”

Luca shook his head and walked over to her and climbed onto the couch. She buried herself deep inside the couch and made room for Luka to sit. He tried to sit down, but Luca slit her arm and lay down.

“Why? Are you scared?”

Instead of answering, Luca crouched down and buried his face in her shoulder.

“You have a sister.”

“My sister is sleeping.”

“I’m not sleeping.”

There was a muffled voice behind the door, and Luna walked over in their direction.

“What are you doing here? I left you my bed to sleep.”

Luna, who had been giving her a pint like a princess for being undignified, also tried to climb onto the couch. Was she scared too? No matter how adult she acted, a child was a child. It was too much for the three of them to sleep on that cramped sofa. So eventually, Hazel moved to the bed with them, but since it was for one person, the three of them had to sleep tightly. Still, it was really warm.

Even if they were sleepy, the little ones kept chatting like children on a picnic without sleeping.

“Do it!”

Luca held out his index finger to her. On the way back, he accidentally caught a chestnut and was stabbed. Thanks to the pain potion and ointment, it wouldn’t hurt anymore, but Luca begged all this evening to cure his little cut.

He just wanted to be silly. ‘Oh, well’, he is in the age to act cute and silly. She did as Luca asked, blowing his finger and patting his head. Soon the stumbling movements stopped and I could hear my breathing from a deep sleep. She looked to the other side and saw purple eyes staring at her. She stretched out her arms, and after a moment’s hesitation, Luna slowly leaned her head against Hazel.

She asked, patting the child’s little body.

“Luna must have had a lot of trouble with her brother, right?”

She’s only seven years old, she acts like an adult, but like her brother she was just a child.

“Not quite…”

Did she still feel the necessity of acting like an adult?

“If it were me, I would have cried really hard because I had no shelter, no food to eat, no adults to protect me.”

Luna, pursing her lips as she wondered what to answer, finally whispered to Hazel’s ear.

“… It was scarier outside than I thought.”

Now she was revealing her childlike insides. Her eyes furrowed.

“Still, it’s amazing that you and your brother have come this far while protecting yourselves.”

“… Thank you.”

“Instead, from now on leave the adult work to me and make sure to act as a seven-year-old girl.”

Hazel patted her on the head and Luna, who had been quiet enough to sleep, spoke cautiously again.

“Hazel.”

“Huh?”

“… Can we live with Hazel all the time?”

“Yes.”

Her eyes furrowed once more. There were people who wanted to stay with her. It had become her habit to feel lonely, but  since the two children arrived there was no time to feel lonely anymore.

“I want to live with you two like this forever.”

She kissed the foreheads of the children in my arms and begged the moon outside the window.

‘Let the three of you live happily ever after.’

She wished the fathers of the children would never come looking for them. But that wish may have been too much, because the next day, he came in.

* * *

“Are you the father of the kids?”

As soon as she asked, his purple eyes faltered. Gritted his teeth, his sleek jaw vaguely flared up.

‘There was a reason why the little ones looked like dolls.’

Even a country that didn’t care much about a man’s appearance couldn’t help but admire his handsomeness on the face in front of her. It was definitely inside the cabin, but the man’s silver hair sparkled as if it had been received by brilliant sunlight. His face looked as if the best craftsman of his time had carved a smooth cut of immaculate white marble. If it weren’t for her trembling silver eyelashes and thick bloody lips, she would have thought it was really a piece of art.

“What?”

His brow furrowed, but even his distorted face was handsome.

“Oops!”

The tip of the longsword the man was holding came close to her neck.

“Hazel the witch will be executed for kidnapping.” 

Kidnapping! It was a misunderstanding, but shouldn’t hee at least give her a chance to explain it after a fair trial? The man gave summary judgment and jerked his sword up. In the sunlight pouring in through the window, the silver blade flashed etherely.

 ‘Dangerous, really. Is that guy insane for doing something bad in education in front of the kids?’

She flicked up her fingers. She was about to throw the sword in the man’s hand outside using the kitchen’s window.

“Brother, no!”

Luna, who had been held by a soldier standing behind the man, jumped out and stood in his way with open arms.

“Was it your brother, not your dad?” Well, indeed, he was too young to be a dad.

“Luna, get out of the way right now.”

“Grand Princess! Come here.” 

“Grand Princess? Whoops!”

Only then did she realize. Beautiful silver hair, sculptural appearance… At a glance, he was dressed in expensive clothes and even the eagle crest carved into the man’s swordtail was well known.

‘Is that man the Grand Duke?’

She immediately cast a puzzled look at Luna and Luca, who were crying at the soldier who stood in their way.

“No, why are the missing Grand Duchess’ children here?”

She couldn’t easily believe that the little ones who spent a week with her were the prince and princess of the Grand Duchy. But on the other hand, the layered questions melted away like snow in the sun with that one fact. They didn’t know where the mushrooms come from, they’ve never worked in the fields, and they’ve never baked a cake. They were the children of an aristocratic family among the nobles.

“Oh, I was completely mistaken.”

Dazed by that vain realization, Luna was led away by her brother’s hands.

“Let me go!”

“Luna, listen to me.”

But Luna could not give up and clinged to the hands of the Grand Duke that was using the sword.

“If you execute Hazel, I’ll starve! I will starve to death!”

The man’s eyes flickered at Luna’s threat.

“Then exile…”

“Then I won’t eat carrots!”

“You don’t eat it originally.”

Luca finally defeated the soldier and ran over and clinged to the man’s leg.

“Now stop!”

“With Hazel we eat them.”

“What?”

The man’s eyes shook harder than they had been a moment before. He looked at Hazel and the children alternately in disbelief, narrowing his eyes when he saw a carrot lying on a cutting board.

“What have you done to my siblings?” 

The tip of his sword went to her neck.

“What are you doing? I fixed their pickiness, but the Grand Duke says thank you in this way?”

She kept her pointed gaze fixed on the man and slipped back so as not to be stabbed by the sword. But the man, knowing she was about to run away, immediately tilted his sharp blade and pressed it close to her neck. 

‘Um… Is it fast for me to turn this man into a chicken or to poke him?’

She got goosebumps at the thought that she might really die.

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