Chapter: 02
The protagonist, Sisrain, and Heinri first met at the estate.
The estate was known simply as the “Forest.”
It was a secret institution that gathered orphans of unknown origin and awakened their latent abilities.
In that world, magic and supernatural powers were incredibly rare, so nobles willingly paid enormous sums of money to adopt gifted children.
After all, they wanted a child who could become a trophy that would bring glory to their family name.
In the novel, the children raised in the Forest were called “Trees.”
Long ago, an ancient shaman had sacrificed their life to cast a powerful spell over the Forest. That spell drew out the children’s hidden potential and awakened their abilities.
However, such a powerful and useful spell often came with a side effect.
The stronger the awakened person’s ability became, the more likely they were to suddenly lose their reason and go berserk after reaching adulthood.
It wasn’t a problem while they were children.
It became one once they grew up.
‘That’s why Sisrain and Heinri suffered.’
My favorite character in the novel was Heinri, the male lead.
He was born to a lowly courtesan but inherited the extraordinary magical talent of his noble father.
He was the finest Tree in the Forest.
‘And he was ridiculously handsome!’
But this beautiful prodigy—with silver hair and violet eyes—was arrogant and had a terrible personality because of the inferiority complex of being abandoned.
On top of that, after his father told him, “You were born from a filthy body,” the trauma drove him to become obsessively clean.
Heinri’s father had thrown away the courtesan carrying his child as carelessly as a used tissue.
To such a man, Heinri was nothing more than an unwanted stain on his life.
Abandoned from the moment he was born, the boy wandered the streets after even his mother—who had raised him alone—passed away, until he eventually drifted into the Forest.
As time passed, Heinri’s trauma only worsened.
And so did his obsession with cleanliness.
‘And Sisrain looked like a complete beggar…’
When Heinri first met Sisrain, the latter’s appearance was utterly miserable.
His hair was unkempt, and after living in a cave, he was covered in soot, looking like a black ghost made of dust.
To make matters worse, the foot caught in a trap had become infected and was already rotting.
The moment Heinri saw him, he felt instinctive disgust.
So the first words out of his mouth were—
“You’re filthy.”
After that, the ill-tempered chihuahua of a protagonist relentlessly tormented Sisrain.
‘He eventually paid the price for it.’
Readers accepted Heinri’s twisted personality because they had seen his tragic backstory…
But in the eyes of young, obsessively possessive Sisrain, Heinri was simply someone who deserved revenge.
‘To be fair, Heinri really did go too far.’
Even I had been shocked when he deliberately stepped on Sisrain’s injured foot while mocking him for limping.
By the time Sisrain beat him up later, I could only think, Well… he kind of deserved that.
But there was a catch.
Sisrain actually possessed imperial blood.
After becoming a member of the imperial family, Sisrain framed Heinri for treason.
Then, after leaving him with nowhere to run and utterly ruined, he kept Heinri by his side and tormented him with almost surgical cruelty.
‘It was so heartbreaking…’
There wasn’t a single peaceful scene.
Whenever the novel gave them even a tiny moment of peace together, readers squeezed every last drop of happiness from it like licking the inside of a yogurt lid.
‘I was one of those desperate readers too.’
But no matter how hard we tried to savor those moments, it became increasingly unbearable watching Sisrain descend further into madness.
‘Please stop. Just… stop…’
Those were the days when I cried myself to sleep, soaking my pillow because my favorite character was suffering so much.
And then…
I suddenly ended up inside the novel.
“Isn’t this development way too abrupt…?”
I muttered to myself.
“Anette, do you have a question?”
The teacher leading the class smiled warmly as she asked.
Ah.
I’d completely forgotten I was in class.
Bright, sparkling eyes turned toward me.
The children ranged from four to twelve years old since it was a mixed-age lesson, but they all had one thing in common.
They were unbelievably adorable…!
Seriously, they looked like peeled quail eggs.
Smiling, I shook my head.
“No, Teacher.”
“Then shall we end today’s lesson here?”
“Yeees!”
The children threw their tiny potato-like fists into the air and cheered.
After class came lunch.
Today’s menu consisted of warm lamb stew, soft cream buns, colorful strawberries, blueberries, and more.
“Anette! Isn’t it more fun taking classes with the little kids too?”
Across from me, Sasha—whose lips had turned purple from stuffing blueberries into her mouth—asked between bites.
You’re a little kid too, Sasha.
“The classes for our age group are too hard. They only teach difficult things…”
Sasha looked dejected, so I answered casually.
“I don’t think they’re that difficult.”
“Wah… That’s because you’re smart, Anette!”
The Forest had a well-organized curriculum to raise excellent Trees.
Besides the basic etiquette required for adoption into noble families, they taught history, culture, geography, alchemy, magical formulas, and many other subjects.
Fortunately, I had always been a model student and did well academically.
‘Even though I don’t have any awakened abilities.’
Of course, in the Forest, what really mattered wasn’t grades.
It was abilities.
Someone like me couldn’t even become a Tree.
I was just… a weed.
Well, that’s what extras are.
“But you have magical power, Sasha. If you eat a lot, your magic will grow stronger too. So hurry and eat.”
“Really? Okay!”
Completely convinced by my ridiculous lie, Sasha eagerly began devouring her bread.
While she was distracted, I secretly wrapped a cream bun in my handkerchief and grinned mischievously.
Hehe. I’ll take this to my little baby.
By now, Sisrain was probably inside that pitch-black cave without even a glimmer of light.
Thinking about him made my chest ache.
In the novel he became a terrifying obsessive psychopath.
But the real Sisrain I had met was just a lonely, hurting boy.
‘And he was way cuter than I’d imagined!’
Just as I’d fallen for child Heinri when I first saw him in the Forest…
I had completely fallen for child Sisrain too.
‘Those two deserve a brighter future.’
So my current goals could be summed up in two points.
- Let Sisrain live comfortably in the Forest like the other children.
- Help Heinri and Sisrain become friends.
‘If they’re close from childhood, then the tragic future won’t happen, right?’
Maybe this tragedy could even turn into a fluffy romance.
Grinning, I happily let my imagination run wild.
That night.
I secretly slipped into the kitchen and knocked on the counter.
Knock, knock, knock! Knock—knock, knock!
The rhythm was a secret signal Sisrain and I had recently invented together.
The fact that we’d even made something like that meant we’d grown pretty close lately.
Of course, it had taken a lot of effort on my part.
Every day I brought him food, chatted endlessly even though he only gave short replies and tried to avoid me…
It was an endurance test.
Still, thankfully, he seemed to have opened his heart to me a little lately.
Just a tiny bit.
About the size of an ant’s butt.
A few moments after hearing the signal, the cabinet beneath the counter slowly opened.
A young boy who resembled a little wolf cautiously emerged.
Ruby-like eyes gleamed beneath his messy black hair.
“Anette.”
“Sisrain!”
My face immediately lit up.
I hurried over and pulled the cream bun from inside my clothes.
“You like these, right? I saved this especially for you. I wanted to bring two, but there weren’t any extras today. Next time I’ll definitely bring two. Here, hurry and eat.”
I happily chattered away…
But something about Sisrain felt strange.
He wasn’t eating the bread.
Instead, cold sweat trickled down his face.
‘What’s wrong?’
Looking more closely, I saw that his ankle was bright red, and the flesh had been torn away so badly that I could almost see the bone.
My heart dropped.
“…You’re hurt. What happened?”
“I’m fine. It’s nothing.”
Sisrain tugged down his shorts, trying to hide the wound.
“That’s obviously not ‘nothing.’ Doesn’t it hurt?”
“No.”
“It doesn’t.”
Liar.
Did he crawl all the way here just because I called him, even with that leg?
‘It has to be one of Mrs. Mimosa’s traps.’
Thinking about him suffering alone made my chest tighten painfully.
Even though he hid himself from the world just to avoid getting hurt…
He had still ended up hurt again.
Sisrain.
‘They really weren’t kidding when they called it a hellish fate…’
Like so many protagonists in novels, Sisrain had a deeply twisted past.
His mother belonged to the Mephisto bloodline, a family that possessed the power of ancient demons.
Sisrain’s father, the Emperor, loved her deeply.
The two even had a child together.
Among the Mephisto descendants, some were born with a rare ability known as the Black Ability—a gift so precious that perhaps only one child would inherit it after several generations.
But that power was also a curse.
It sharpened the user’s senses until ordinary life became difficult.
And while it granted immense strength, it was said that demons toyed with the child, turning their life into a living hell.
Whether that story was true or not…
Sisrain’s childhood had certainly been miserable.
His mother was murdered.
He himself was secretly abandoned.
Afterward he endured countless hardships—traveling with a circus, being an abused child, even being sold at slave auctions—before finally arriving at the Forest.
‘A child shouldn’t have eyes that deep… and that dark.’
He must have grown up in a place where he couldn’t even admit that he was hurting.
Realizing that again, I unconsciously clenched my fists.
“I’m sorry, Anette.”
The sunset-red gem-like eyes of the boy lowered toward the floor.
“You’re angry, aren’t you? I always make people angry.”
“…”
A lump rose in my throat.
I couldn’t answer for a moment.
It’s not you who’s bad.
The adults who get angry enough to frighten an eleven-year-old are the ones who are wrong.
“Sisrain, I’m not angry.”
“…Really?”
“Yeah. I’ll only say nice things to you!”
I smiled brightly.
Looking puzzled, Sisrain asked,
“Why?”
“Because you’re pretty.”
I answered shamelessly.
Sisrain quietly gazed at me with those crimson eyes peeking through his black hair.
Then, with the faintest smile, his gentle voice drifted out.
“You’re the pretty one, Anette.”
