As I shrugged my shoulders and walked past lightly, I heard Sabrina following behind me, breathing heavily.

“Aren’t you going to answer? Where are you going?”

“If you’re bored, go play with Jonathan.”

I don’t have time to argue with you right now.

“Are you ignoring me?”

“Now we’re finally communicating.”

Following the head butler to the study, I ended up having a very strange experience. To survive in this harsh world going forward, I need knowledge about the reality I’m currently living in. Up to that point, it was an excellent idea.

First, I pulled out the thinnest book from the bookshelf. However, as I boldly opened the book with the intention of reading it all at once, I soon realized:

The fact that I couldn’t read.

Come to think of it, that was true. Just because I died and came back to life doesn’t mean non-existent knowledge would magically appear.

“By the way, Sabrina.”

“What, what?”

“You… can you read?”

As I slowed my hurried steps and asked casually, she put on a smug expression.

“Of course!”

I felt irritated by the mocking gaze from someone who didn’t even seem particularly intelligent, but pride wouldn’t solve my illiteracy.

“Then, will you teach me how to read?”

“What? Why should I?”

I was about to turn my head and say, “If you don’t want to, forget it,” when it happened.

Thump.

I made direct eye contact with the jet-black eyes of the boy sitting in the distance.

‘Ricardo, so you were here after all.’

His eyes, catching the sunlight, emitted a mysterious radiance.

He sat in a chair prepared in the rear garden, using everything around him as a backdrop. With his legs, long for his age, crossed as he drew, he looked every bit the young nobleman.

As I came to an abrupt stop, Sabrina, who had been grumbling behind me, bumped into my body with a thud.

“Ouch, why did you stop suddenly?”

“Who’s that?”

I asked Sabrina subtly, trying to probe. Ricardo’s memory loss must have happened sometime between his awakening and manifestation. But why had he become a nameless child in the east wing?

“What, who? Ah…”

Even as I exchanged words with Sabrina, I couldn’t take my eyes off the boy, as if I were bound.

“I don’t really know. But one thing’s for sure.”

“What is it?”

“He’s annoying.”

That’s not something you should be saying.

“In what way?”

“He doesn’t answer when people talk to him.”

I seemed to understand the reason, but I didn’t bother to add anything.

Ignoring Sabrina’s words, I carefully observed Ricardo. His appearance was shabby, and not a single servant was by his side.

“He stays in the east wing, but sometimes comes out here to draw. But why are you staring at him so intently?”

He seemed free at first glance, but there were many watchful eyes around him.

“What? You have eyes to see with. He’s disgustingly handsome, isn’t he? I was really surprised when I first saw him.”

It was a subtle surveillance that a child’s eyes would never notice. So the only places he could stay were the east wing, the low hill extending from it, and the rear garden.

“Is he… similar to me?”

“What? A bastard, you mean?”

Yes, you tactless Sabrina. You always have to say it.

“He’s not a bastard.”

“How do you know that?”

“His surname isn’t Pennel. He doesn’t have a name.”

“He doesn’t have a name?”

The child of the east wing was not forbidden from being called by name; it literally meant he truly had no name. As I examined him more closely, Sabrina’s unkind explanation continued.

“I heard Father brought him because he has a natural talent for painting, but Justin should explain it properly.”

Even though it was clear I wouldn’t be welcomed if I approached him right away, my feet were already moving towards him.

One step, two steps, three steps.

He lifted his head, perhaps noticing my approach. Our eyes met directly at close range. It felt as if my eyes were being sucked into his, as if connected by an invisible string.

It was the moment he tilted his head curiously.

‘W-What is this?’

An unbelievable emotion resonated loudly in my chest. How could my heart ache and throb like this when the memory of love wasn’t fully intact?

What I was feeling now wasn’t the tickling sensation you get when you see a flower blooming by the roadside, but the devastating feeling of seeing a collapsed ruin every time you look. It was a pain as if my entire heart was being completely scratched by a red-hot iron skewer.

I thought the vivid emotion I felt last night was just a temporary whirlwind caused by the unbelievable events that had rushed in all at once, but…

“Don’t come closer.”

But the clear voice that reached me shattered the sensation that was sharply cutting through my chest.

“Uh, why, why?”

“I can’t allow a slave to come close.”

“What?”

The low voice for a child, and the chilly expression that seemed out of place for his age.

Perhaps that’s why he was even more annoying. So, for the first time, I found myself agreeing with Sabrina’s opinion.

I could hear Sabrina chuckling behind me.

Even when she blocked my way and made me commit a discourtesy in the corridor, she wasn’t as hateful as he was now.

“Don’t laugh, Sabrina.”

I had to pour out a tirade to correct his rude way of speaking right away, but I couldn’t help but examine my own attire first.

His situation didn’t seem much different from mine, but a handsome face was truly remarkable. No matter what he wore, he just didn’t look like a slave at all.

* * *

Back in my room, I bit my thumbnail, lost in thought.

The current emperor of Dermeier naturally feared the prophecy given to Ricardo. My birth father, Count Pennel, under the emperor’s instigation, kidnapped and imprisoned Ricardo who was in hiding in the principality.

Ricardo is currently hiding his name. He might have been threatened by Count Pennel, or he might not want to reveal it himself.

Perhaps Ricardo believes that Duke Rochester, who feared the prophecy as much as the emperor, abandoned him.

Tuk, tuk, tuduk, tuk.

But why did she follow me all the way here?

“Hey! It’s noisy.”

“As expected of a slave’s room, there’s nothing to see.”

With nothing better to do, Sabrina followed me to my room and went around tapping here and there with a children’s fan.

I wanted to tell her to shut up right away, but I couldn’t help but survey my room, which looked like one a slave would use.

“By the way, Sabrina.”

Sabrina half-covered her face with the fan she had snapped open and gave me a sidelong glance.

“What? Are you going to tell me to leave?”

“No, it’s about your brother.”

“Brother? Oh, Justin Lowy Pennel, that jerk?”

At this point, I became quite curious about what Sabrina might be saying about me elsewhere.

“Yes, that Justin. Blonde hair and blue eyes, right?”

Sabrina suddenly widened her eyes and glared at me.

“Are you doing this on purpose to make fun of me?”

There are countless reasons why Sabrina might dislike me, but the biggest reason was probably my hair color.

The color that has symbolized this family for generations is silver hair and blue eyes. But that doesn’t mean it necessarily appears in every generation. That color was considered noble, and because it was rare and precious, it became the family’s symbol.

In other words, the color of the head of the family, that’s what silver hair and blue eyes were.

“You’re trying to make fun of me for not even having blonde hair, let alone silver hair, aren’t you?”

“No, I’m not.”

At my firm answer, Sabrina’s mouth clamped shut.

“I’m in no position to make fun of anyone when I’m mistaken for a slave. I have no desire whatsoever to be swayed by such color games. If I didn’t have silver hair and blue eyes, there would have been no reason for me to be dragged into this household.”

This was also my speculation, but it was the only plausible reason why Count Pennel had given only me, among his illegitimate children, the Pennel surname.

Sabrina looked quite shocked. It’s understandable, as she probably thought my presence here was a great fortune. Most illegitimate children of noble families lived lives worse than commoners.

“So where is your brother now?”

It’s not that I had never seen Justin. However, whenever I encountered him, I always lowered my head, and fear blurred my vision so I couldn’t clearly see his hair color.

“He went with Father!”

Sabrina shouted. No, how was I supposed to know where her brother was in the first place? Come to think of it, I might have heard something in passing.

That he’s currently immersed in his training to become the head of the family.

“How old is he?”

“You don’t even know my brother’s age?”

“No, I don’t.”

Sabrina let out a deep sigh.

“He’s sixteen.”

Justin hadn’t mistreated Ricardo from the beginning. One day, he happened to see one of Ricardo’s paintings, which could be called a masterpiece for its beauty.

Justin, captivated by the world depicted by the nameless child of the east wing and by Ricardo himself, who would later be called the absolute beauty of the empire, expressed his twisted affection by terribly abusing him.

The fact that he was sixteen meant that his distorted hatred towards Ricardo had already begun.

I closed my eyes for a moment and recalled the moment when I was dragged to the stake. Ricardo was definitely there at that place too.

With eyes as empty as a dead person might have.

In my imperfect memory, Ricardo was covered in blood all over. He, who had clearly been endlessly cutting and slashing something with a sharp sword, seemed as if he had become a sword himself.

I looked down at my small hands and skinny arms.

What could I do with this weak, insignificant body? Could I really protect him?

As I listened to the irregular noise Sabrina kept making with her fan, I fell into deep contemplation.