The merchant who bought him for a pittance washed him clean, dressed him, and made him stand before him again.

“Hooh… Indeed, my eyes were not mistaken. I bought him well for cheap.”

In that room, Ioan encountered a mirror for the first time in his life.

Looking at the unfamiliar reflection of himself in the round frame, the boy thought.

‘Blonde… A similar hair color.’

It’s the hair color that woman wearing a wig so desperately wanted.

Probably inherited from his birth father, whose name and surname he doesn’t even know.

But except for the hair color, he closely resembled that woman’s appearance.

The white skin that never tanned despite hard labor, lips with a reddish tinge.

He recalled the words the ‘customers’ would utter while roughly grabbing and shaking the woman’s cheap wig, saying that contrast felt strangely sensual.

“Good, good. Nobles like this kind of appearance…”

The merchant kept muttering satisfactorily.

Though he couldn’t fully understand the situation, it seemed he had benefited a bit from his appearance resembling the woman’s.

The merchant fed him well to fatten him up, and before long, sold him again for gold coins.

What he had given the woman was just a few silver coins.

Even he, who knew neither letters nor numbers, could quickly infer that the merchant had made a profitable deal.

“This is where you’ll live from now on. It’s a place where noble people stay, so behave well.”

Standing before the huge mansion’s door he thus encountered, he could only think of one thing.

Will I really not starve anymore?

Inside the mansion, past the iron gate, was a clean and beautiful world, entirely different from what he had known.

Staying in that peaceful world for a few days, hope, long forgotten, swelled like a balloon in the boy’s heart.

Like in his childhood when he expected to receive his mother’s embrace if he collected copper coins.

Perhaps, perhaps he too could become happy here.

The senses and emotions he had forcibly erased one by one began to revive.

Like a small seed that had been quietly sleeping in dry soil.

But sometimes hope is merely a light that cruelly illuminates despair.

“Go to the stable. Don’t think about straying elsewhere without permission.”

On a day when the sunlight was particularly warm.

Following the order of a senior servant, he went to the stable and found a man with red hair in an empty stall.

From very far away, he had once heard someone refer to him as ‘Master’.

Unable to dare greet him first, Ioan stood blankly and thought.

‘Red hair…’

That woman had complained even about her hair being reddish-brown, but this man had brilliantly bright red hair.

In this peaceful world, does something like hair color not matter?

As he was blankly thinking this, the ‘Master’, who had been looking down at him with disgust, suddenly spoke.

“Take off your clothes.”

It was a moment after the incomprehensible order was given.

The boy followed the command habitually, without any thought.

Thinking only makes it more painful.

Just accepting things as they were given was the way to at least reduce mental suffering in this painful life.

Emptying his mind like that and standing with his upper clothes removed, the master pulled out a thick whip.

“Such clean skin.”

Before he could grasp the meaning of those words, the whip flew at his back.

Ioan felt his vision flash white with the sudden intense pain and collapsed right there.

His back felt as if it was being branded with a hot iron.

He thought he had grown accustomed to being hit, but being struck with a riding crop used for horses was completely different from being punched.

It wasn’t like being beaten, but as if his back was being burned with fire.

His body involuntarily curled up at the successive lashes of the whip.

Gritting his teeth against the pain that clouded his mind, Ioan clenched his not yet matured fists tightly.

Why, at this moment, did he think of that woman’s touch?

The hand of that woman that would mercilessly strike his cheek.

Though the movements of the woman soaked in drugs and alcohol couldn’t be the same as the middle-aged man’s whipping, he felt a strange sense of déjà vu.

Yet, through all of this, not a single tear flowed from the boy’s youthful face.

I must empty my thoughts.

Empty my heart too.

This always happens when I have expectations, when I hope for love from someone.

The boy’s heart, already crumbling from the harsh environment, completely burned away at that moment on that day.

It felt as if all emotions had drifted far away somewhere, leaving his heart completely empty.

That’s how the boy’s world, his last hope, his affection and expectations towards humans completely collapsed.

It was right then.

Suddenly, the pouring lashes stopped.

“What are you doing here!”

A man’s thunderous voice was heard. His ears were numb with pain.

Ioan, who had been curled up, raised his head amidst the blood.

Ah, red.

Once again, there was red before his eyes.

But it was different from any red he had seen until now.

Wavy red hair rippled like small waves at the waist of a little girl.

A doll-like little girl wearing a fine pink dress and shiny burgundy shoes.

Her eyes, wide open as if surprised and staring intently at him, shone like emeralds.

He could instantly tell that she was more beautiful and precious than anything he had seen in his life.

The girl’s image flooded into the boy’s empty heart like a tidal wave, filling it completely.

From that moment on, in his world, there was only Delphine, Del, Delph. Delphine Pembrook.

One and only her.

#Chapter 2. Blizzard Like Madness

Delphine suddenly opened her eyes at the sound of the dreary wind shaking the window frame.

The weather outside seemed ominous, as if a blizzard was approaching.

He wouldn’t have gone out in such weather.

To buy time, Delphine changed clothes more slowly than usual, then went down to the dining room on the first floor.

‘…He’s really here.’

Unlike usual, the man was elegantly sipping tea, dressed in casual clothes instead of his uniform.

Delphine hesitated for a moment, unable to enter right away.

At that moment, he, who had been tilting his teacup, noticed her first.

The corners of the man’s mouth curved up in a pleasing arc.

“Good morning, my lady.”

Delphine stared at that shameless face with an dumbfounded expression.

The man took another sip of tea and added gently and leisurely:

“There are times when this mad snowstorm is welcome. As it allows me to be with you so leisurely like this.”

Elegant manner of speech.
Aristocratic gestures.
Where had the man who howled like a beast last night gone?

He had once again perfectly donned the mask of the great hero, Viscount Pryde.

“Lord Pryde… no, Ioan! We need to talk.”

“Yes, my lady. By all means.”

He smiles gently, crinkling the corners of his eyes.

Delphine glared at him with blazing eyes, biting her lower lip hard.

That’s a mask, a fake.
The man she witnessed last night was his true identity.
A slave with a back full of scars, with a rough and cruel nature.
Ioan Pryde.

The emotion that had been momentarily obscured by shock last night rushed back to her.

It was disappointment.

Was that all our friendship we shared in those young days amounted to?
Or was it just her delusion to believe it was friendship?

Because he was a beaten slave, and she was the daughter of the master who beat him?
Perhaps from that time on, he had always been smiling meekly in front of her while dreaming of revenge inside?

“Don’t pretend you don’t know. Ioan, it’s you! The slave who was sold to our house from District 3!”

At those words, the man raised his eyebrows as if perplexed.

“…It seems there was a slave with the same name as me in the Pembrook household.”

“Stop this ridiculous act now!”

Delphine slammed the table with a bang.

“Then how do you explain that tattered back of yours?”

The man’s eyes turned cold for a moment, but it was very brief.

“…My, I had been hiding it on purpose all this time, fearing you would be so surprised and disappointed.”

He elegantly tilted his teacup and calmly replied.

“It’s a burn scar left from a fire in my childhood.”

“Oh, really? I suppose the magical fire targeted only your back to burn?”

At the sarcastic remark, the man finally put down his teacup on the saucer and stood up.

Delphine continued to glare at the man, undeterred.

“…I don’t know who you’re mistaking me for, but you’re wrong.”

The man added coldly, as if telling her to stop.

“Now I’m starting to feel a bit unpleasant as well.”

His manner of speaking, putting on airs, was the perfect embodiment of a central aristocrat.

“…Is that so?”

You’re going to pretend till the end, aren’t you?

‘Let’s see how long you can keep up this act.’

Delphine, who had been glaring at him, slowly stepped back.

Thinking she had given up, the man’s eyes softened a little.

“Yes. Since it’s a rare holiday, at the mansion…”

Delphine, who had picked up a dinner knife, brought it down towards her own arm.

“Delphine!”

He grabbed her wrist, which was raised in the air, with lightning speed.

The motion of trying to plunge the knife into her arm was prevented before it could be properly executed.

“What are you doing? …My lady.”

He spat through gritted teeth.

His elegant face had long since contorted beyond recognition.

Having succeeded once again in stripping off his mask so easily, Delphine smiled with a hint of triumph.

“This is what happens when you dare to disrespect your master.”