The Marquis did not often visit the annex where Ramiel’s hat was located, but he brought something with him every time he came. Things like snacks and toys. Ramiel was young and didn’t know who he was. He just knew that he was a great nobleman. He didn’t even know who his father was. He only thought of himself as a nobleman who came to the outbuilding and looked after him. And only when he reached the age of cognitive ability did he realize that the Marquis Ruivan was his father.
‘Father…’
Now that he was eight years old, Ramiel realized that his situation was a little different from others. Even though he had grown up in this place his whole life, he was not so stupid that he could not hear the noises of the maids whispering behind him.
Ramiel asked on a dazzling day in early fall.
“Hey, mother, can I go to where the marquis is?”
His mother laughed with an embarrassed face at Ramiel’s question. It was the child’s first question, and the first time he referred to the Marquis as his father.
“Why do you want to go there?”
“They say I have older brothers. I want to meet them.”
His mother, Litanna, was a quiet person. She had never laughed out loud, and she had never made a loud noise. She didn’t run around loudly or walk fast or stomp. She said that if silence were born as a person, it would be like Litanna. Perhaps because of that, the outbuilding where the mother and son were staying was always quiet. The two maids who served them didn’t say anything. They silently did only what was given to them and left the annex. So Ramiel’s world was all about silence and silence.
He figured he shouldn’t make any noise. He didn’t have many happy experiences, but even when something happy happened, like when his father gave him a bunch of books as a gift, he didn’t laugh out loud.
“You want to meet your brothers?”
Nod.
Due to her weak body, Litanna had difficulty waking up in the morning. She would slowly open her eyes around noon. Accordingly, Ramiel always opened his eyes around the time the sun was shining, but today, unlike usual, he woke up early to the sound of a sonorous voice coming from near the annex. Ramiel rubbed his eyes, got up, looked for the source of the sound, and opened the creaking window. Two boys were playing with wooden swords on the green grass.
‘…Who is it?’
Until now, he had never seen anyone near the outbuilding. Ramiel and his mother were unable to leave the outbuilding. At most, they were only allowed to take a walk in the nearby garden. His mother never told him the reason, and since the maids had never dealt with Ramiel in the first place, they had no reason to tell him, so he did not know. So Ramiel said there must be a rule that people should only move in their own space, and he accepted. He thought that it was probably because of this rule that he and his mother could not go to the main house where his father was. According to his thoughts, it would be impossible for his father to come here, but Ramiel’s world was a bit unreasonable and too narrow to even accept that.
“Who are they?”
Did they break the rules? The children, who appeared to be one or two years older than him, made loud noises. They were angry, screaming, jumping around and clashing swords. It was like he had never heard such a loud sound before.
“You idiot!”
“Whahaha! Are you losing your temper?”
Ramiel, who had been watching the children play, asked the maid after they left.
“…Who are those kids?”
It was the first time that a child as pretty as a fairy spoke to her directly. The maid, who thought she would never have to talk to him in her life, was at a loss as she did not know what to make of her words. Should he be ignored or respected? After much deliberation, considering the possibility that he might one day become an official member of the family since it was a child being cared for by her master, the Marquis, she clumsily gave her honorifics.
“They are the sons of His Excellency the Marquis.”
“His Excellency the Marquis?”
“I mean the master of this mansion.”
“Then… Are they my brothers?”
“Uh, well, technically, that’s right, right? Huh.”
The maid was so startled that she quickly walked away before Ramiel could say anything to her again.
“Huh, he looks so damn pretty like his mom. I was so possessed that I almost told him everything. Such a shame. We won’t meet again.”
He didn’t know what his situation was like, and she almost went so far as to say something meaningless, telling him to hold on to the child and live quietly.
“His Excellency the Marquis’s son…”
It was a story about his brothers.
‘I also had a brother.’
Ramiel wanted to meet the brothers full of sound.
“These days, my brothers play with swords here in the morning. I also want to play with swords like my brothers.”
“Rael, baby.”
His mother smiled with a very embarrassed expression on Ramiel’s words and gently stroked his face. Litanna, who had been pondering for a while what to say, held her young son in her arms and patted her before opening her mouth.
“I’ll tell the Marquis.”
* * *
Ramiel was kicked in the stomach and fell to the floor of the gym.
“Ugh!”
As he collapsed, he remembered the first time his mother asked his father for permission to go out. His mother, who was in front of him, held both of his shoulders behind her and barely spoke.
“To Ramiel… Could you teach him swordsmanship?”
Litanna’s hands on his shoulders were clammy but she was trembling. Even young Ramiel could feel that she was very nervous. At that time, he didn’t know why his mother was so upset. He was so happy that the Marquis gave him permission that he smiled brightly and was busy burying his face in the hem of his mother’s skirt.
The eldest son of the Marquis de Ruivan continued to huff at him as if his anger was not relieved even after he kicked Ramiel. He was so angry that his father was walking around with leeches in the outbuilding, but he even insisted on taking swordsmanship classes with him. His mother, him and his younger brother made a fuss, saying they absolutely hated it, but it was no use as his father had already turned his attention. So he cried and decided to eat mustard and take a swordsmanship class together.
‘You damn white bastard!’
He caught up on what they had learned in a month in just three days. Whatever they did, he learned it quickly and made progress every day. The swordsman teacher also showed an unusual reaction. The person who always parroted, ‘Yes, you did well’ with an expressionless face, gave Ramiel a sincere compliment. The teacher knew very well that he had to coax the Marquis’ son, who was stubborn and picky, to tell him he was doing well. However, his skills were far too superior to simply reject the illegitimate son of the Ruivan family. Even if he taught him one thing, he awakened his fever. He was quick to understand and learn, and perhaps he was smart enough to quickly collect information from the outside world and make it his own. A genius who may or may not have appeared in the century, that was Ruivan’s bastard son. His looks, his skills, and even his personality. It seemed like all the good things about Ruivan were focused on him. There was no way the marquis’ sons didn’t know that fact. His jealousy, inferiority complex, and thoughts of being left behind by the outcasts in the outbuilding who were inferior to him ultimately expressed themselves in violence toward Ramiel.
“You bastard broke my sword?”
Ramiel was knocked out by an unexpected attack. He said it was common for wooden swords to break during sparring. He said it was never wrong if the sword broke, but he couldn’t understand why his brother was angry.
Shocks worse than violence came one after another.
“How dare you bring up the topic of outbuildings! Do you know what kind of bastard you are?”
Ramiel looked blankly at his older brother’s face as he cursed me and his mother repeatedly. It was the day when, for the first time, he encountered the truth that he had vaguely guessed what the world he belonged to was like. Litanna cried and cried as she saw Ramiel come back covered in wounds.
“Rael, my baby. My Rael. Sorry. I’m really sorry.”
He stopped taking swordsmanship classes. This was because His Excellency the Marquis and his wife stopped him, saying it was impossible for a bastard to take over the position of a legitimate son. After seeing Ramiel’s genius, the boy gradually stopped visiting the villa, and there was no way for him to have a servant to properly take care of a concubine who had lost his favor.
After Litanna passed away, Ramiel in the separate building could not meet the Marquis for over a year. Left behind with harsh abuse from servants and neglect from adults, one day he was led by the hand of the Marquis who suddenly burst into the annex and began practicing swordsmanship again. The genius was still there. He quickly regained his lost sense and grew day by day. When his skills reached par with those of Ruivan’s knights, Ramiel was officially enrolled into the family. And soon he became the youngest person to participate in the subjugation war as ‘Ramiel Ruivan’.
* * *
“Where did you hear that? That title.”
Ramiel’s expression was fierce. It felt like if he shook a little more, his life would spill out.
‘What on earth did I do wrong?’
Ray broke into a cold sweat.
“…How dare you do that.”
Meanwhile, Ramiel had to grit his teeth to suppress the past that suddenly came to mind.
“How did you say that name?”
“Ray, Rael, the pronunciation seems to match and it looks good to say…”
The childhood name Rael was a name that no one in Ruivan knew. The only person he knew was Willpoff, but there was absolutely no way he would have said this to Ray Alexis during the brief tour of the mansion. It was probably just a word she uttered without much thought after mulling over his name, Ramiel. It’s easy to guess, but he lost his composure for a moment when he heard a name come out of the mouth of someone he had never thought of in such a long time.
‘Rael, what can you say?’
Now it was nothing, just a simple title made up of a shortened name. There was no need to be sensitive about it.
“If it makes you uncomfortable, Lord Ramiel, I will just call you by your first name.”
Ray Alexis quickly withdrew the offer.
“Ray, Rael, it’s okay. Let’s just call each other that.”
Even if he said it was okay, he felt like it would never happen. Ray asked with the feeling of someone who accidentally touched the dragon’s evil spirit.
“…Is it really okay?”
“There is no way it is not okay. It’s just a title.”
That didn’t seem to be the case at all.
‘I should never use that title when we are alone. It’s just for showing to others anyway.’
Ray had other people’s eyes on her, so she decided to use nicknames only when they were alone so Ramiel didn’t carelessly harm her. Of course, Ramiel was not so evil that he would do something to someone just because of his title, but she still needed to be prepared for an unexpected situation. It was a thought.
Ray carefully looked at Ramiel’s expression. Seeing him drinking tea peacefully, she changed the mood and changed the subject slightly.
“Yes. Well, I’ll call you that from next time. Hey, it’s him, the coachman.”
“Coachman?”
“The red-haired man who came with you last time.”
Ray still seemed to think of Kreha as a coachman, but Ramiel did not bother to correct that.
“Why him? Did he do something that made you uncomfortable?”
“That’s not true, his face was spotted…”
He casually said it was no big deal, so she just passed it over, but his face was almost like colorful confetti. It was as if someone had hit him hard. Ray was worried that he might be being bullied by others. Judging by the way he openly criticized and laughed loudly in front of Ramiel, she thought he had the perfect personality to go somewhere and get beaten up, but when she saw him get beaten up, she felt sad.
“He was wandering around the mansion, did Ramiel not see him?”
“Ahh. That’s no big deal.”
“How is it not a big deal? The person’s face turned into a rainbow. I wonder if someone is bothering him?”
He didn’t know if it was because she was not a daughter from a noble family, or if Ray was a unique case, but the vocabulary she used was different from other ladies.
‘A rainbow.’
He laughed and continued talking, making a small sound.
“He is Kreha, Commander of the Knights of Ruivan, whom I mentioned earlier.”
“Yes?”
“It’s an injury you got while sparring with me, so don’t worry about it.”
The words were sparring, but it was no different from a one-sided beating. Before meeting Ramiel, Kreha was a man with no one nearby to rival him. He believed in that and went around here and there, but he never thought that he would fall for a man who looked like an angel and had never even held a sword. Kreha, who was beaten so thin and lost miserably in sparring, attempted several surprise attacks after that, but he has never been able to defeat Ramiel even once. The current wound was inflicted unilaterally by Ramiel under the name of ‘sparring’ in return for a loud fight two days ago.
“It wasn’t the coachman…”
‘I guess that’s why he was able to joke around and laugh like that because he was the leader.’
A small misunderstanding arose in Ray’s mind.
—————————————————————
Translator Note:
Hello there! This is RJR. I hope you liked it <3
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