Chapter 23 His World
The merchant who had bought him for a penny had him cleaned and clothed and stood before him again.
“Hoo… My eyes weren’t wrong after all, I got a good deal.”
In that room, Ioannes faced a mirror for the first time in his life.
Staring at his strange reflection in the round frame, the boy thought to himself.
‘Blond… We have similar hair colors.’
It was the hair color the woman in the wig had wished for.
He’d probably inherited it from his father, whose name he didn’t know.
But apart from the color of his hair, he looked a lot like her.
White skin that never burned from hard labor, lips with a reddish tinge.
The contrast was strangely colorful, he thought, recalling the comments made by the ‘customers’ as they clutched and shook the woman’s cheap wig.
“Good, good, the nobility like this look…”
The merchant muttered to himself with satisfaction.
He didn’t quite understand what was going on, but he probably saw some benefit to his female appearance.
The merchant fed him to his fill, fattened him up, and then sold him back for gold coins.
What he gave the woman was a few silver coins.
Even the illiterate man could quickly deduce that the merchant was making a profit.
“This is where you will live from now on. It’s where the important people stay, so behave yourself.”
As he stood at the door of the huge mansion, he had only one thought.
Surely he wouldn’t starve now?
Inside the iron gates, the mansion was clean and beautiful, a world unlike any he had ever known.
For a few days, he stayed in that safe world, and a hope he had long since forgotten inflated like a balloon in his heart.
Just like when he was a child, when he expected to be hugged by his mother if he collected enough copper coins.
Maybe, just maybe, he could be happy here.
The sensations and emotions he had been forcibly erasing one by one began to come back to life.
Like tiny seeds that had been lying dormant in the barren soil.
But sometimes hope is just a light that shines cruelly on despair.
“Go to the stables. Don’t you dare stray without permission.”
One day the sun was unusually warm.
At the command of a senior servant, he went to the stables, where he found a man with an empty mouth and red hair.
From a distance, he had heard him referred to as ‘the master, old man’.
Ioannes stood there, not daring to greet him, and thought to himself, “I’ll never know.”
‘He has red hair…’
The woman complained about her hair being auburn, while the man had flaming red hair.
He wonder if hair color doesn’t matter in this peaceful world.
As he idly pondered this, the ‘master’, who was looking down at him in disgust, suddenly spoke up.
“Take off your clothes.”
The unintelligible command hung in the air for a moment.
Out of habit, the boy obeyed without thinking.
Thinking makes the pain worse.
Accepting what was given to him was the only way to live this painful life, no matter how painful it was.
As he stood there, unclothed, the master pulled out a thick whip.
“You have clean skin.”
Before Ioannes could realize the meaning of the words, the whip flew across his back.
Ioannes sank to the ground, his eyes flashing white with pain.
His back ached like a pharynx pressed against his skin.
He thought he’d been hit, but being hit with a riding whip, the kind used to whip horses, was nothing like being hit with a fist.
Instead of being beaten, it was as if his back was on fire.
He cringed as the blows came in quick succession.
Gritting his teeth against the pain that clouded his vision, he clenched the fist Ioannes hadn’t yet opened.
Why, at this moment, did he remember her touch?
The woman’s hand that had slapped his cheek so relentlessly.
There was no way that a woman’s hand, drugged and drunk, could be the same as a middle-aged man’s whipping, but it felt oddly familiar.
But in spite of all this, not a single tear rolled down the boy’s pale face.
He must clear his mind.
This is what happens when he has expectations, when he expects love from someone.
The boy’s heart, already broken by the harsh environment, was completely destroyed in that moment.
All of his emotions drifted away somewhere far away, leaving him with an empty heart.
Just like that, the boy’s world, his last hope, his affection for and expectation of humanity, was completely destroyed.
It was then.
Suddenly, the whipping stopped.
“What are you doing here!”
He heard the man yell. The pain was deafening.
Ioannes, crouching, raised his head from the blood.
Ah, red.
There it was again, the color red.
But it was unlike any red he had ever seen.
Wavy red hair cascaded from a small girl’s waist in tiny waves.
A doll-like girl, dressed in a fine pink dress and shiny bronze shoes.
Her eyes were emerald as she stared at him, wide with surprise.
He knew at once that it was the most beautiful and precious thing he had ever seen in his life.
The image of the girl rushed into his empty heart like a road and filled it.
From then on, there was only Delphine, Del, Delph. Delphine Pembroke.
There was only her.
***
Delphine awoke to the sound of a bitter wind rattling the window frame.
Outside the window, a blizzard was gathering.
There was no way he would have set out in this weather.
Delphine dressed more slowly than usual to stall for time, then descended to the first-floor dining room.
‘There it is…’
The man was dressed in casual clothes, not his usual uniform, sipping tea gracefully.
Delphine hesitated for a moment, unable to enter immediately.
Then, as he sipped his tea, he spotted her first.
The corners of his mouth turned up in a pleasing arc.
“Good morning, My Lady.”
Delphine stared at his brazen face in disbelief.
The man took another sip of his tea and added, lazily and leisurely.
“Sometimes I’m glad for that maniacal blizzard, for it allows me to be with my wife in peace.”
Elegant words.
Aristocratic gestures.
Gone was the man who had howled like an animal last night.
He was once again the masked figure of the Marquis of Pride, the perfect hero.
“Lord Pride… No, Ioan, we need to talk.”
“Yes, My Lady. At your pleasure.”
He smiled gently, his eyes twinkling.
Delphine glared at him, her eyes blazing, and bit her lower lip tightly.
It’s a mask, a fake.
The man she’d seen last night was his true identity.
A slave with a back full of scars, a wild and cruel temper.
Ioannes Pride.
Last night, an emotion that had been temporarily masked by shock came rushing back to her.
It was a regret.
Was this all there was to the friendship they shared that young day?
Or had she been deluded to believe it was friendship?
Because he is a slave to be beaten, and she is the daughter of his master?
Perhaps he had always dreamed of revenge, even from those days, even as he smiled meekly in front of her?
“Don’t pretend you don’t know. Ioan, you’re the one, the slave who was sold to my house from District 3!”
The man raised an eyebrow in question at that.
“The… Pembroke must have had a slave with the same name as me.”
“Enough of your ridiculous theater!”
Delphine slammed her hand down on the table with a loud bang.
“Then how do you explain that tattered back of yours?”
The man’s eyes narrowed, but only for a moment.
“… That. I’ve been keeping it a secret for so long I don’t want you to be surprised and disappointed.”
He replied calmly, tilting his teacup gracefully.
“It’s a burn mark left over from a childhood argument.”
“Oh, so the enchanted fire only targeted your back and burned it?”
At the sarcastic remark, the man finally set the teacup in his hand down on its saucer and stood up.
Delphine continued to glare at him, unperturbed.
“I don’t know who… you’re mistaking me for, but I am not.”
As if to say enough, the man added, coldly.
“Now I’m starting to get a little unpleasant myself.”
The way he spoke, rattling his glass, was the perfect central aristocrat.
“… Really?”
He’s going to play it straight.
“How long do you think you can keep this up?
Glaring at him, Delphine slowed her steps.
The man’s gaze softened a little, as if he thought she’d given up.
“Yes. It’s a well-deserved holiday, so why don’t we spend it at the mansion…”
Delphine grabbed the chef’s knife in her hand and brought it down on her arm.
“Delphine!”
He grabbed her wrist, which had been struck out of thin air with lightning speed.
The motion to drive the knife into her arm was blocked before it was fully executed.
“What do you think you’re doing, Lady…”
He spat out a string of venomous words.
His once graceful face had long since become ugly and distorted.
Delphine, who had succeeded in unmasking him so easily once again, smiled triumphantly.
“Because you dare to defy your master.”
