Delphia immediately went to visit the mansion of Duchess Lucella.

However, the atmosphere in the mansion was quite subtle. Throughout her walk down the corridor, the maids greeted her with flushed faces.

‘Why do they all look so happy?’

The maids of this mansion are veterans who have served Duchess Lucella for roughly over twenty years.

In other words, they had been serving Duchess Lucella even before Delphia left on the pretext of troop training and frontier inspection…

‘Didn’t they used to maintain cold expressions according to Duchess Lucella’s will?’

Cool reasoning, elegant attitude, graceful atmosphere.

It would not be an exaggeration to say that these three were the motto of the maids in the Duchess’s mansion.

In the few months she had been away, the atmosphere of the Duchess’s mansion had become quite strange.

And not long after walking down the mansion’s corridor, Delphia could hear talk about something unknown called “honey bread.”

“Ah… I wonder if Honey Bread will come today?”

“We made a tart with fresh fruit today, I hope they’ll come…!”

“I wish I could just touch Honey Bread’s cheek once.”

Delphia, befitting a special ability user of the Mirmod family, had sharp hearing.

She could hear the maids continuously talking about a person called ‘Honey Bread’.

‘What on earth is Honey Bread?’

Why on earth had the maids changed like that?

Harboring these lingering questions, Delphia was guided to where Duchess Lucella was said to be.

She was able to easily enter the separate room where the Duchess was said to be.

The Duchess was sitting at a round table arranging flowers, and her appearance was elegant and dignified.

But Delphia could see it. That flower had been fed plenty of poison, it was a poisonous flower that would kill those around it.

As expected, she’s strange and dangerous.

Only fools would treat her like a senile old lady. Delphia sat down across the table, twitching her eyebrows.

“I wonder if you’ve been well?”

“More or less.”

“Living in this moldy place… You have quite the strong stomach.”

“It’s more peaceful than killing monsters in the frontier.”

Duchess Lucella skillfully countered Delphia’s sarcasm. She possessed the ability to deftly deflect such youthful impertinence.

Delphia, whose inner strength was not yet that great, muttered lowly as if talking to herself.

“Hah… Killing monsters is better than killing time picking mold.”

Duchess Lucella did not fall for such trivial provocation. She stared intently at Delphia’s rough silver hair and said,

“Get to the point.”

“Sien Mirmod.”

Duchess Lucella did not answer. Instead, she snapped off the stem of the poisonous flower she had been caressing and threw it towards Delphia.

Catching the poisonous flower in surprise, Delphia wore a puzzled expression.

“Oh? Suddenly? Is this a duel challenge?”

Usually, throwing a poisonous plant was a unique form of duel challenge in high society.

Just as knights threw down their swords, ladies threw flowers. But so suddenly like this?

“Do not touch Sien Mirmod.”

At the expression that seemed strangely to be suppressing anger, Delphia inwardly wondered,

‘That’s impossible. How could someone as cold as Duchess Lucella be suppressing anger?’

The Duchess’s words pierced Delphia’s confused ears.

“You can’t.”

The firm set of her lips made it seem like Sien Mirmod really shouldn’t be touched.

She who used to become stiff just by being near children, hating them.

Once, she was a being that all children of noble families were terribly afraid of.

For such a Duchess to make that kind of expression.

…The hypothesis that Sien Mirmod had somehow wrapped the Duchess around her finger was gaining more weight.

But there’s no way a child could do that. Normally, they should be wetting themselves just from the Duchess’s glare.

“No… why are you like this?”

Momentarily flustered, Delphia unknowingly became polite.

Regardless, the Duchess lightly tapped the table and issued an order to leave.

“Get out.”

Delphia twitched her eyebrows and muttered to herself.

“What, like someone who cares for her so much they’ve given her a pet name…”

The children of the Mirmod family die easily.

Therefore, for someone other than family to give a child a nickname or pet name meant that they loved that child more than anyone else… and it was full of implications that they would protect that child.

At Delphia’s provocative words, Duchess Lucella tilted her chin and opened her mouth.

“I don’t say things three times. Get out.”

Delphia knew just one fact about Sien Mirmod.

A fact that probably everyone knew, except for Sien Mirmod herself.

She threw out a topic as if to provoke the Duchess one last time.

“That child might not be Matthias’s real daughter, you know?”

“…What?”

“Is it okay to protect a child who might not be the family’s real daughter?”

At those words, the poisonous flower that had been touched by Duchess Lucella’s hand withered rapidly. And a bitter scent began to waft around Delphia’s nose.

Meeting the Duchess’s terrifying gaze, Delphia instinctively realized.

It was poison.

That woman had made a poisonous scent fill this separate room.

***

Delphia came out of the Duchess’s quarters, coughing and hacking.

“For someone not so young anymore, such spirit…”

Although she had managed to escape quickly with her illusion technique, if she had been even a little late, her life couldn’t have been guaranteed.

‘She probably didn’t really mean to kill me, but it was clearly a warning.’

Her breathing was still labored.

Delphia furrowed her brows and headed towards Matthias’s western mansion.

The problem was… that even this mansion did not welcome Delphia.

“They’ve defended it properly.”

It was plastered with holy power.

And as soon as she returned to the mansion, she encountered assassins sent by Matthias Mirmod.

After dealing with all the assassins, Delphia’s brow furrowed.

Whether it’s Duchess Lucella or Matthias Mirmod, they’re working hard to protect Sien.

Which means, Sien Mirmod has become their weakness…

‘I get Matthias, but how did she win over Duchess Lucella?’

Delphia slightly narrowed her brows before lifting the corners of her mouth.

She was starting to like that little Sien Mirmod more and more.

It’s not like she’s ever liked a little brat like this before in her life.

Seeing how she’s managed to draw all sorts of people into her fold, she must be something special.

Was it because she had met an interesting opponent after a long time? Her heart was pounding and racing. She usually acted as if she had a manic episode whenever she encountered interesting tasks that stimulated her, but…

“This is exciting, it’s been a while.”

Her ability was out of control due to the excitement. In an instant, her white hair fluttered, and a faint smile bloomed on Delphia’s red lips.

She glanced at the maid who rushed to her side, panting, and said,

“Sien Mirmod doesn’t seem to be in the family. Where is she?”

At first, she had only thought of grabbing Matthias’s weakness.

But as she learned more and more about Sien Mirmod, she kept getting more interested.

It seems like the priorities are getting a bit mixed up?

But whatever, as long as it’s interesting, it doesn’t matter.

She even started to want to properly bully her.

She spoke to the maid once more.

“Answer me. Where did she go?”

“W-well. From what I’ve gathered, I heard she’s in the Happy Class at Meloan Children’s Academy… but I’m not certain. The traces were erased.”

“Then let’s go.”

Delphia smirked.

“To see something interesting.”

The ‘something interesting’ is, of course, Sien Mirmod.

No matter what kind of kid Sien Mirmod is, now that she knew she was quite cunning, it was time to go and see for herself.

***

In the end, I was dragged to Meloan Academy by my dad’s hand, barely having rubbed the sleep from my eyes.

‘Sien, shall we go eat pork cutlet with daddy?’

‘Yes! I love pork cutlet!’

We were clearly… supposed to go eat pork cutlet.

I couldn’t understand why we had come to this academy full of sunshine and cute animals.

‘Sheesh, what is this all about!’

I looked around the academy with a face full of discontent, pouting my lips.

Where I was was a tea room.

It was a peaceful space where neat adults and children gathered to enjoy tea ceremony.

People smiled gently at me as I blinked my eyes. Dad was smiling affectionately as well.

The time for meditation to purify the mind had begun.

“Every human being is beautiful.”

“Learn how to love people here.”

I sighed deeply inside.

‘I should listen with a grain of salt. Humans are wicked! I’m the strongest!’

…I will never be tainted by pure goodness.

But sadly, there was a fatal obstacle, namely…

“The people of the world really are beautiful, aren’t they?”

It was my dad, who was meditating beside me and speaking to me affectionately.

Even his gaze was very affectionate and warm.

My already kind dad was becoming even kinder.

“The teacher says we should reach out to neighbors in need.”

“…”

“Sien?”

“Yeah… right.”

“Meet friends, share what you have, take care of those who are hurt, and love them. Warmly.”

Dad had become the successor of the villainous Mirmod family.

So he should have been tainted by evil and become a position to reign over villains, and shouldn’t just look at the world happily.

But dad’s current state was excessively kind. It was a troubling situation in many ways.

‘Even I’m trying to become kind again…’

I looked at my dad while sighing deeply.

“Sigh…”

“Our Sien will grow up to be so kind, right? Daddy is happy.”

Dad smiled, gently crinkling his eyes.

Seeing that, all that came out of my mouth were sighs.

“Absolutely not.”

I shook my head firmly, then looked ahead again.

If there was one fortunate thing, it might be that thanks to my insistence on having Acid and Leonhart come, they were by my side.

Of course… their presence was almost non-existent.

I glanced at them, who were so absorbed in dozing off that they couldn’t come to their senses, then gently bit down on my small teeth.

No matter how I looked at it, Acid and Leonhart were practically half-corpses.

To the point where I wondered why they were dozing off like that.

‘Did those two do something last night?’

I let out a long sigh and clasped my hands together in prayer like my dad.

Let’s set those two aside. That wasn’t what was important.

‘It’s troublesome if my sunshine dad becomes even more of a sunshine character.’

It was time for drastic measures.

***

Completely unaware of what thoughts Sien was having, Acid was nodding off. It was because he kept recalling what Leonhart had said during dessert time last evening.

While having dessert together that day, Leonhart had arrogantly lifted his chin and said,

‘You’re too weak.’

‘T-that’s…’

It was true, so he couldn’t refute it. Seeing Acid like this, Leonhart smirked.

‘I’m the only one who can protect the chestnut.’

He couldn’t refute that either.

‘Even I am far too weak compared to ‘that person’, but I plan to build up my strength soon.’

‘That person?’

‘As I said earlier, Mr. Matthias Mirmod. It seems he’s after the chestnut’s, no, Sien’s life.’

Listening to Leonhart’s arrogant yet dry voice, Acid felt dejected.

As he said, he was just a young child from the slums.

He was only saved by Lady Sien’s grace; without her, he would still be living as a beggar… just a young child.

He could faintly hear the noise of people meditating.

However, he couldn’t really hear such things properly. Acid’s small fist clenched, caught up in his own thoughts.