Chapter: 01
Prologue. I Am Aika. Aika de Valiert!
My name is Aika de Valiert.
I possess a mysterious ability.
For the past several days, I’d been sitting on pins and needles.
Though, to be fair, I’d climbed onto those pins myself.
“…Sigh.”
At the sound of that irritated sigh, my shoulders flinched on their own.
“The old man must’ve lost his mind if he expects me to take care of this.”
His menacing glare was fixed on me, so I quietly turned my head and looked out the window instead.
Even after avoiding his gaze, my cheeks still prickled.
Could he please stop staring at me? If he was going to keep looking, couldn’t he at least do it with kinder eyes?
I desperately wanted to say that out loud, but I only screamed it in my heart.
Because out of all the people Mom had told me about, he was the scariest.
She’d even said he was more frightening than His Majesty the Emperor, the Sun of the Empire.
“Hey.”
“…”
On top of that, I was sitting on the carpet while he lounged all by himself on a soft sofa.
Reclining like a delinquent, he crooked a finger at me.
I glanced at him, then slowly turned my head away and pretended I hadn’t seen him.
It was the bravest act of rebellion I could manage.
Still…
What’s the point of being handsome if your personality is awful?
Waaah, Mom…
No, this wasn’t the time for that.
I couldn’t forget why I’d come here.
Trying to improve our relationship, I forced a cheerful grin onto my face.
It collapsed almost instantly.
“Hey, Peanut.”
“I’m not Peanut!”
Unable to hold it in any longer, I shouted.
“Then Three-Head.”
“I’m not that either!”
“Then what?”
Hmph. Did I really have to spell it out?
I looked down at my own body.
No matter how unfairly he judged me, I definitely wasn’t only three heads tall.
Mom always said I was the prettiest and coolest girl in the whole world!
“…Four… heads?”
At least four heads tall, right? I’d accept that much!
A snort of laughter escaped him.
Grinding my teeth, I turned completely around and sat with my back facing him.
“You’d better come while I’m asking nicely. If I have to come get you, you’ll regret it.”
Ugh, seriously.
When he threatened someone, it didn’t feel like an empty threat.
Puffing out my cheeks and pursing my lips in protest, I reluctantly stood up.
I walked over and glared at him with narrowed eyes.
Even stretching my neck as high as I could, I only reached somewhere below his waist.
But I refused to be intimidated.
“You’re going to be living with me from now on.”
“…”
“I don’t have a hobby of raising kids. So stay quiet and keep out of my way, got it?”
“…”
Hmph! Well, I don’t have a hobby of raising adults either!
Still hugging my doll, I simply stuck out my lips and stared back stubbornly.
“Answer me.”
There’s an eighteen-year age gap between us, and he’s still this mean.
An adult who’s eighteen years older than me was threatening a little girl eighteen years younger.
What a bully.
Sigh… It’s not like I had the option of refusing to live with him.
I wanted to run to Mom and complain.
But I couldn’t do that anymore.
“…Okay.”
My head was full of tangled thoughts, but I answered obediently anyway.
“Good. Then go ask for some food. Stop hanging around in front of me.”
“But I already ate earlier…”
“Eat more. Looks like you stopped growing halfway.”
He abruptly stood up and roughly raked a hand through his hair.
Stuffing his hands into his pockets carelessly, he strode past me and left the room.
“Whew…”
I slumped back onto the floor.
It felt like a storm had just blown through.
If it weren’t for Mom’s dying wish, I wouldn’t be living with him either.
Grandpa likes me way, way more.
He’s destined to die young if I’m not around, yet this is how he treats me?
One day I’ll wipe that smug look off his face!
Even if he regretted it later and begged me with tears in his eyes, I wouldn’t forgive him.
By the time he begged me to come live with him, it’d already be too late.
Hmph!
“Hmph.”
So who was this good-for-nothing scoundrel who looked down on me?
The family member I’d be living with from now on.
Cassel de Valiert.
Well…
He’s my one and only uncle.
“The Mad Dog of Valiert.”
That’s what everyone called Cassel de Valiert.
He was also known as Cassel de Reguire.
The first time I met my uncle was at my mother’s funeral.
It had all happened because of a sudden accident.
Mom was an incredibly busy person.
She worked far more days than she rested, and even after giving birth to me, she continued working at the Imperial Palace.
There were countless mornings when I’d wake up only to find she’d already left for work.
She never explained exactly what her job was.
But I knew she was the Chancellor of the Empire.
“Chancellor, here’s the report.”
“Please help us, Chancellor!”
I’d heard her subordinates address her that way many times.
Even so, I’d never once resented her.
I was never lonely or upset.
Because Mom loved me more than anyone else in the world.
And I loved her more than anyone else, too.
I didn’t know who my father was.
Mom never told me.
“Mom, what kind of person is my dad?”
The one time I asked about him, Mom only smiled sadly and said he was someone who had important things he had to do.
Since he’d never come to see me, I figured he couldn’t have been a very good person.
After that, I never asked again.
I didn’t want to make Mom sad.
Anyway, one day Mom, who was always impossibly busy, had to leave the capital on official business and travel to another province.
She said she’d be gone for fifteen days.
So I begged her to let me come along.
Normally, I stayed home just fine with the maids, and I could even entertain myself alone.
Even if Mom was away for more than a week, I never complained.
But that day felt different.
For some reason, I was absolutely certain I had to go with her.
“Mom! I want to come too!”
“You want to travel with Mommy, Aika?”
“Yeah! I’ll listen to everything you say. I’ll be good. Please take me with you!”
“Hmm…”
“Just this once! Please, Mom! Just grant me this one wish!”
After Mom finally gave in, I got to travel with her for the very first time.
Her work finished without incident, and we were on our way home.
Inside the carriage, I was looking at a fairy tale book she was reading to me.
Then, without warning, we were attacked.
The carriage overturned.
“Aika!”
Mom wrapped her arms around me so tightly I could barely breathe.
Because of that, I wasn’t seriously hurt.
But I hit my head and lost consciousness.
When I finally woke up again…
Mom was already gone.
Grandpa later told me that I hadn’t been found inside the carriage with Mom.
I’d been discovered alone in a nearby forest.
But I remembered almost nothing from immediately after the accident.
It was as though that part of my memory had been torn away like pages ripped from a book.
Even the fragments I could recall were all mixed together.
The Imperial Palace said they were investigating what had happened to the carriage.
But no one told me anything.
The only thing I heard was that the Emperor had been furious.
Some people even said he’d completely lost his composure.
I thought I understood why.
His Majesty had been Mom’s longtime friend.
He must have been devastated after losing someone so dear to him.
And my mother had been incredibly intelligent and exceptionally capable.
Losing someone like her must have been a tremendous blow.
Mom’s funeral was held with great honor.
I cried so much that I barely noticed who attended.
Later, Grandpa told me that almost everyone from the Imperial Palace had come.
Many nobles attended as well.
And that was where I first met my uncle.
“…Mom?”
The same crimson hair.
The same golden eyes.
His jaw was a little more defined, and his features were sharper overall.
But his face looked so much like Mom’s that they could have been mistaken for twins.
I honestly thought she’d come back to life.
While everyone else mourned and wept, my uncle stared at Mom’s coffināand at everyone around itāwith eyes that looked as though they could kill.
“Mom…”
I stopped crying, threw my arms around the uncle who looked exactly like her, and clung to him for days without letting go.
By the last day, I’d cried myself to sleep from exhaustion.
When I woke up…
He was gone.
After that first meeting with my uncle, I spent the next few months living at Grandpa’s house with him.
