CH 04
“Cough… Cough.”
Damn it.
‘I didn’t even get a direct hit, but it hurts like this.’
In my previous life, I was working as a slave, unaware that Mom was dead.
Cassis found me a day later.
To be precise, I was discovered the day I collapsed from malnutrition by a knight of Vallois, not him.
‘It seems that the story does change when I go back.’
My 99th life began with the wrath of Cassis, a peculiar villain’s point of view.
Vivian was just an extra like me, triggering him to turn into a villain.
“Cough…”
It was hard to breathe as my weak lungs were filled with magic that was thicker than poison.
In my previous life, I knew how terrifying Cassis was.
Who was the scariest villain in the world?
Someone who sought ‘disaster’?
Someone who sought ‘position’?
It wasn’t that.
The scariest villain in the world was someone who was abnormally ‘obsessed’ with something.
When I think of Cassis sweeping across the Rolls Empire to revive the dead Vivian, I get goosebumps.
The blood-stained Vallois.
At the end of the process, Dad met the Saintess Empress, who was said to be able to bring the dead back to life.
‘Isilis.’
The mother of the female lead and the Empress with sacred power.
The savior of Cassis.
Their relationship was simply Cassis’ obsession to save Mom.
However, Dad’s obsession with isolation and the vague kindness of Isilis led to her death.
He was thus sentenced to death for murdering the Empress.
And I, Billishia, who was executed at the same time for being of the same blood.
‘I thought I’d be protected once I somehow met Dad…’
I was stupid.
I wasn’t in Dad’s life.
When I realized my own ignorance, my anger grew and my eyes lit up.
I was angry to see him, even though I was trembling under the pressure of magic.
‘If only you had found Mom a little earlier.’
I didn’t want him to love me in the first place.
‘But this is what you’ve been looking for for five years?’
Sniff.
Tears pooled like a well and ran down my cheeks.
I knew it was inevitable, but the second time I experienced Mom’s death, I resented Cassis for being late.
“…Judging from her outfit, she’s presumed to be Miss Vivian’s dignified maid, but she seems speechless with shock.”
The knight commander next to me glanced at me and finished the situation.
As I was five years old, he seemed to take it for granted that I was scared.
Then a light sigh escaped.
“It doesn’t matter.”
When Dad, who had looked at me with an annoying gaze, was about to get up—
“…just search the mansion…”
“Why are you shlow? Whyyy!”
Without realizing it, the core inside me burst out.
It was then that the two stopped acting.
“If you said you loved Mom, why are you so late! If you’ve been chasing her so badly, you shouldn’t be late!”
My body trembled from the pain and anger that pierced my bones, and eventually I burst into tears.
“…I thought you were a fool, but you seem to be able to talk.”
When I came to my senses.
I was staring straight into those purple eyes without realizing it.
He paused trying to wake Mom in his arms as he caught my gaze.
But soon he got up with a look on his face, thinking that dealing with a young maid was a waste of time.
“Let’s do a search first.”
“…Your Grace, that’s not the problem.”
“Then you mean I have to keep talking to this clot of blood?”
“No. Those eyes, that hair color…”
The knight who had been staring at me once frowned as if in disbelief.
“…Your Grace, didn’t you hear that child call Miss Vivian ‘Mom’?”
Dad, who was about to leave the prison, stopped walking just then.
“What do you mean?”
“It seems that Miss Vivian took her daughter with her.”
At the end of the knight’s faint reply, Dad was silent for a moment.
I thought he would turn his head right away and look at me.
‘Is it so overwhelming that Vivian had already died?’
For a while, he turned away from all situations and remained as hard as a stone.
I blinked my eyes wet with tears as I looked at my Dad’s back when he struggled to accept reality.
‘Anyhow, I need to be taken care of by him now.’
I couldn’t get over my anger, so it was the first meeting that wasn’t as good as before the return.
I want to say something.
What should I say?
Although we were blood relatives, Dad and I weren’t as close as blood in my previous life.
Shudder.
After hesitating, I finally spoke up.
“Vivian is my mother.”
A moment of silence
“So what.”
When he turned his head after standing for a while, my whole body stiffened with physiological fear.
The urge to kill if it was possible.
And hostility.
An eerie self-consciousness with two emotions was staring at me.
“So, is it that I have to take responsibility for that now? The cost of having an accident with another man while running away?”
“?”
No way.
Is he thinking that I’m someone else’s daughter?
Black hair and purple eyes.
Anyone can see I’m his daughter!
‘In my last life, after an official blood test, I was recognized as a direct lineage. But isn’t that a little too much?’
I couldn’t even laugh because it was ridiculous.
He hugged Mom tightly and narrowed his eyes.
“She has half of Vivian’s blood mixed, so let’s move on.”
Could it be that Mom ran away because he was so ignorant?
‘My desire to look good disappears in an instant.’
Seeing Cassis still struggling to temper his anger, I felt like I had to do something.
I looked around and rolled the torn paper at my feet.
“Your Grace. Anyone can see this…”
“I don’t know what happened to Vivian’s eyes while she ran away, but at least a small fry is nothing… ”
Thud.
A lump of paper suddenly slammed into his forehead and fell as he continued to say painful words.
“Y-Your Grace!”
“…”
He had never been hit, nor had he ever met anyone who would dare to throw a paper at him.
A look of bewilderment and surprise appeared on his face.
Cassis then stared at me properly.
“Dad! My hair! My eyes!”
I sighed when I saw his eyes shaking violently the moment he heard the word ‘Dad’.
‘Is this person my guardian?’
Never, no.
“Dad is an idiot!”
The eyes of benevolence, which looked a little nervous, were no longer able to keep up with me in front of me.
“…Just now …Dad, you said.”
“F-Five yeawrs old!”
Hicc, hicc.
As I finished my introduction, breathing in a rough breath mixed with crying, my whole body was exhausted.
I have to tell him this too.
Because of Mom I was drenched in tears, so my pronunciation became muddy as if I had put ice in my mouth.
“!”
It was then that he realized my age and his eyes narrowed even more.
“This is crazy.”
Looking at his face, he seems to be thinking about the past five years ago.
Cassis, who seemed to have finished grasping the situation soon, looked at me and sighed with an ambiguous expression on his face.
Still, I thought it would help his mood if I said that his daughter survived.
‘He must be a trustworthy father. That’s what Mom guaranteed.’
His five fingers, which he had unfolded confidently, curled up on their own because of his attitude in contrast to Mom’s last thing.
‘Am I bothering you?’
I expected it.
He also was a person who took care of his child just by looking at them in my last life.
“Did she raise her for five years? Raising her alone must have been harder than raising her together.”
Cassis looked at me for a while, then frowned.
My heart throbbed for some reason when my prediction became a reality in that awkward tone.
“…Then I’ll have to take her to the mansion.”
And a reluctant sigh.
“T-Then, is she the Grand Princess?”
“Take her with us for now. And do a blood test.”
That was the end of his appreciation of having a daughter all of a sudden.
However, those purple eyes as sharp as a knife were staring at me more earnestly than before.
“Your Grace. Viscount Shrek has been found.”
The suffocating gaze disappeared as another knight approached.
“Where have you been?”
“I found a secret passage leading out of the mansion, and it seems to have been hidden in the warehouse in that passage. Shall I pick it up right away?”
“Go right away.”
Dad, who seemed to have forgotten me in an instant due to a conversation with the knight, got up, still unable to let go of Mom in his arms.
Thump, thump.
My heart was pounding hard as if it were a drum.
‘Now what will happen? They say we’re going into the mansion, but… Ahh!’
Then my chubby legs suddenly floated in the air.
“Mommm!”
“Stay still.”
Stop.
I was panicking in shock because the floor was moving away in an instant.
Suddenly, a cold voice was heard above me, and I stopped shaking
‘…I’m scared to death.’
Politely holding Mom with one hand, he walked down the hallway holding me as if he was lifting a baby animal.
“Your Grace! It would be reckless to break into the warehouse in that state. L-Leave the lady to me… Your Grace!”
Belatedly, the knight who had been chasing after us shouted.
It was then.
‘Swishㅡ?’
The arrowhead that passed in an instant narrowly missed my cheek and stuck firmly to the opposite wall.
‘There are a lot of people who aim for him because he’s a villain.’
The arrow passed so quickly that it couldn’t be seen with the naked eye.
An arrow that would have hit my forehead exactly if Cassis hadn’t lifted me in time.
“It’s Vivian’s child.”
At that moment, the angle of the arm that was holding me stiffened.
“The last traces of Vivian. I’m the one responsible.”
He didn’t seem to be surprised by the sudden arrowhead.
It was only then that I realized that my concern was groundless, and the knight shut his mouth tightly and bowed his head.
“It seems that people have already been planted around the mansion, so you should go outside.”
“I understand, Your Grace.”
We were walking down that dark underground hallway.
Cassis, who suddenly turned his head, asked me.
“Name.”
“Bi…”
Billishia, my baby.
In an instant, the low pitched question contrasted with Mom’s voice, making my heart pound even more.
“Billishia.”
“…What?”
“B-Billishia!”
‘What else is wrong?’
When my whole body hardened as I couldn’t believe I have to hear that cold voice again in this lifeㅡ
“If you said Billishia, then that gift was a person.”
I looked at Dad who had his eyes closed.
Contrary to my expectation, it was a bittersweet remark.
‘Mom talked about me briefly before she left Dad.’
Cassis used to empathize with everything related to Vivian.
Him recalling the past. It’s a rare expression.
“What are you looking at.”
I glanced at Dad in anticipation of what might happen, then pretended to be dead and lowered my head.
Cassis was still a scary person.
