LRVP Chapter 01

Chapter 1

There’s a saying that if life is boring, you should have a child.

That saying applied to me as well.

“Our little Lucian, why are you so quiet today…?”

The most dangerous time when raising a six-year-old is when they are too quiet.

With a bad feeling, I stepped into Lucian’s room and was instantly horrified.

“Lucian!”

The entire room was covered in flour. Lucian, covered from head to toe in flour, ignored my shocked voice and continued spreading flour on the walls.

I rushed into the room and picked Lucian up, and the flour began to fall off his body.

“Are you crazy? Where did you get all this flour?”

This little child couldn’t have gone to the kitchen alone to get flour, and there’s no way the kitchen staff would have let him do that.

“Where’s the nanny? Where’s Grace?”

“The nanny went out. I pretended to be asleep!”

“What?”

I was at a loss for words as Lucian proudly puffed his chest, acting like he’d done something impressive.

“You pretended to sleep?”

“Yep.”

“Why?”

“So I could surprise you, Aunt!”

Lucian said that and smiled brightly. Seeing the innocent smile on his face, I couldn’t even be mad.

“Okay… Our Lucian is such a good boy… You’re making my heart strong by training me like this…”

“What?”

Lucian looked at me, clearly displeased. But right now, I don’t have the energy to care about his feelings.

As I tried to stand up, I accidentally stepped on a flour sack and slipped.

“Ah!”

With a short scream, a dull sound echoed in my head.

“Haha! Aunt, you’re so silly! Watching you fall is so funny!”

Lucian’s laughter felt farther and farther away as I blacked out.

While I was unconscious, many scenes passed through my mind.

I saw an image of a woman with black hair lying on a bed reading a book, and then her crying as she closed it.

They say that just before you die, memories from your past life flash before your eyes, but as I thought about it, I realized I had no such memories.

I finally understood. These were memories of my past life, and my current life was in the world of a novel I was reading in my previous life, titled From Bastard to Head of the House.

The protagonist of From Bastard to Head of the House, Edwin, was the illegitimate son of the Duke of Bellomon, the head of the most prestigious family in the Robertta Empire.

After enduring many hardships in orphanages, he enters the Bellomon estate at the age of nine, where he was meant to belong.

But life in the estate was not easy.

Lucian, the Duke’s legitimate son, bullied him every day. The vassals also hated Edwin, seeing him as a threat to the inheritance.

Edwin eventually meets the heroine, Amelia, at the academy, and with her help, he defeats the villains and becomes the Duke of Bellomon.

And one of the villains who gets punished by Edwin was…

“Aunt, you’re a sleepyhead. Why are you sleeping all day?”

It’s my nephew, Lucian Bellomon, my only flesh and blood.

When I blinked my eyes, which were still blurry, I saw Lucian’s innocent face.

“Lady Lucella, you’re awake!”

“Are you okay?”

At the same time, the maids, their faces full of concern, rushed to me.

“What happened?”

I rubbed the back of my head and opened my mouth.

“You stepped on a flour sack on the floor and slipped.”

“There was a toy in the way… You slipped and hit your head on it.”

“You were unconscious for half the day.”

“That’s why my head hurts.”

As I touched the back of my head, I felt a bump the size of a fist. It was lucky I didn’t suffer a concussion, given how big it was.

“Are you feeling nauseous?”

“No.”

“Is your head dizzy?”

“No, I’m fine. But what about Lucian?”

“He’s over there.”

I turned my head in the direction the maid pointed and saw Lucian playing with the stuffing from a cushion.

He had just been sitting next to me, but now he was everywhere, a little troublemaker.

“Lucian.”

I called his name softly, and the little troublemaker pouted and came over.

“Are you going to scold me again?”

Normally, I would have scolded him, saying that flour was for cooking and not for playing, and that he shouldn’t pull the stuffing out of cushions…

But instead, I hugged him tightly.

“Hmm?”

Lucian seemed surprised by my sudden action. He tried to escape my hug, but I didn’t let go and held his little head tightly.

I knew that my little troublemaker would face a terrible future.

---

I was born into the Rilfrey family, and my childhood was perfect.

The family was wealthy, my parents were kind, and my older sister, who was five years older than me, was loving. Compared to my hard life before my reincarnation, this life was filled with happiness.

But those happy times were short-lived.

When I turned twelve, my parents died in a carriage accident.

Both my sister and I were minors, so the title of Count naturally passed to my father’s younger brother, Adolf Rilfrey. And Count Rilfrey treated us badly.

He saw us as a nuisance, and once my sister became an adult, he pushed for her marriage, as marriage was the easiest way to get rid of unwanted family members.

That’s how my sister ended up marrying into the Duke of Bellomont’s family.

Our uncle bragged about forming an alliance with the Bellomont family.

But my sister couldn’t be happy.

The Duke already had someone he loved.

With no one to rely on, one day my sister made me an offer.

“Lucella, let’s live together. If you stay in Rilfrey, you’ll end up in a miserable marriage just like me. I want you to find someone you love and be truly happy, not get married the way I did.”

She meant that she would protect me until I was able to support myself.

“But I’m not from the Bellomon family. I can’t continue living with you, the Duke’s wife, with the Rilfrey name.”

“I’ll talk to Dehart about it.”

Dehart Bellomon was the Duke of Bellomon and my sister’s husband. I didn’t think that cold-hearted man would allow another person to live in his house.

“Do as you wish.”

But to my surprise, he allowed it easily.

“Just don’t interfere with what I do or where I go.”

There was a condition, though.

It was a hurtful thing to say, but my sister didn’t react much. She was just happy that we could live together.

But I knew. 

I knew she was hiding her pain.

So, I always tried to make her smile. 

We only had each other to rely on.

When I heard she was having a baby, I was overjoyed. I was happy that my sister would have someone else to love. I was excited that I could return the love she had given me to her child.

But before I could repay my debt to her, my sister fell ill with an incurable disease.

“Lucella, please protect my child.”
“I will. I’ll protect Lucian no matter what.”
“Thank you. And I’m sorry for asking this of you.”

With those last words, my sister passed away at just 23 years old.

I was only 18, left alone in the world with my two-year-old nephew, Lucian.

I worked hard to raise Lucian, determined to give him all the love my sister couldn’t.

Some people criticized me, saying I had no right to stay in the duke’s estate since I wasn’t related to him by blood. But I ignored them. 

I had to keep my promise to my sister, no matter what.

But raising Lucian was difficult. 

Even with the help of the nanny and maids, it wasn’t easy. He was mischievous and strong for his age.

Sometimes, when things got tough, I would cry in secret. 

But he was my everything.

Raising a child—especially one who looked just like my sister—was both joyful and fulfilling. Watching him grow gave me a sense of pride I had never felt before.

“But Lucian is supposed to be a villain.”

Not only that, he would be punished by the protagonist, Edwin, who later became the Duke of Bellomon.

“How is that fair?”

Lucian lost his mother at two years old and never received love from his father.

And yet, his fate was to die? That was too cruel.

‘Of course, Lucian did bully Edwin a lot…’

Lucian’s mischievous nature was at its peak when he tormented the protagonist.

He would mix worms into Edwin’s pasta, lock him in rooms, and even scheme against him when he got older.

‘I understand why Lucian resented Edwin.’

Edwin was a bastard child who suddenly appeared and took all of the duke’s affection—love that Lucian, as the legitimate son, had never received.

‘But that doesn’t mean bullying him was right.’

No matter the reason, violence and exclusion could never be justified.

‘I have to raise Lucian properly.’

To him, I was practically a parent. And no parent wants their child to grow up into a bad person.

Most importantly, if I wanted to prevent his tragic fate, I had to make sure he grew up well.

‘I have to protect my sister’s child.’

To fulfill my sister’s final wish.