He froze for a moment, then quickly hardened his expression.
“What you’re saying is impossible.”
Raymond seemed to think Yerpi was joking or trying to deceive him.
That wary gaze reminded her of Dante.
Strangely, she could read Raymond’s concern for Dante in those golden eyes.
‘So he’s been worried about Dante.’
In truth, he hadn’t ignored him—approaching had simply been difficult.
That was probably why he had assigned the maid Dante trusted most as his caretaker, and continued receiving reports about the child.
Yerpi waited silently, offering no further explanation, only hoping Raymond would believe her.
After a brief silence, Raymond realized Yerpi was telling the truth.
“…I haven’t received such reports from the caretaker.”
If Yerpi’s words were true, then only two possibilities existed in his mind.
Either the caretaker didn’t know, and Yerpi did.
Or the caretaker knew, but had concealed it from Raymond.
Yet setting those aside, Raymond seemed genuinely stunned by the fact that Dante could speak.
It was certainly a good thing.
But the fact that Dante had known how to communicate all along, yet remained silent until now.
And the way he had ultimately turned away even during the recent incident—this troubled him deeply.
There was a rift between Raymond and Dante, one Yerpi didn’t yet understand.
She couldn’t know its nature immediately, but her sincere heart was gradually moving Raymond.
“If what you say is truly the case, then I’ll allow it as you wish.”
It meant he no longer cared whether they grew closer or not.
At those words, Yerpi’s face brightened.
It was fortunate that Raymond had granted her permission to meet with Dante, but more than that, she was simply happy he had believed her.
Her gentle smile was as sweet as the scent of spring.
Raymond watched her silently for a moment before finally speaking after a long pause.
“If you truly intend to grow closer to Dante, could you ask him why he’s kept such an important matter hidden all this time?”
Yerpi’s eyes widened in surprise at the request.
Raymond seemed to think she was flustered, furrowing his brow slightly as he continued.
“If I were to ask, he’d only shut me out.”
“If the chance arises, I’ll definitely talk to him.”
“…Yes.”
Raymond let out a quiet sigh, as if trying to push aside complicated emotions.
It was quite unexpected, yet she couldn’t fail to understand his feelings.
Seeing the exhaustion in his eyes, Yerpi found herself sinking into thought as well.
His refusal to give up on Dante likely stemmed from longing for his elder brother and a sense of duty toward the child left alone.
Yet their relationship had been strained for a long time, and that deep-rooted rift now existed independently of the emotions Raymond held.
There was a line that needed to be respected at this point.
But seeing the turmoil in his eyes, Yerpi couldn’t help but ask.
“Before I ask Dante, could you tell me what happened between you and him?”
Those words stopped Raymond, who had been about to leave.
She believed everything had its proper order. To untangle a knotted thread, one needed to understand what had happened up to this point.
After a long, silent standoff, just as Yerpi’s mouth had gone dry, Raymond finally spoke.
“The child… has an issue with his appearance. He was born that way.”
This was before Dante’s birth.
In truth, the former Duke, Roman Growen, had been born with a weak constitution, making him inadequate to lead an entire territory.
Yet his nature was inherently kind, gentle, and considerate toward everyone.
No one could hate a man who treated even the slightest blade of grass swaying in the breeze with such care.
Raymond felt the same.
Though he sometimes found his elder brother’s excessive kindness foolish, he loved him deeply as family.
It was no different on the day Dante was born.
His brother loved his child, born different, but grieved deeply seeing his own wife grow to hate the child and drift further away.
It was from that moment that Raymond began earnestly taking charge of each season’s affairs to ease his brother’s suffering.
Originally, his brother had struggled to manage the territory, and Raymond had long grown accustomed to handling the vassals’ disputes.
As time passed, Raymond began handling most matters himself, and by Dante’s third year, reports that should have gone to the Duke first were arriving directly in Raymond’s hands.
That was likely when it began.
When Roman’s wife, the spice merchant’s daughter Hayers Growen, and her secret lover first sensed danger.
They concluded that Raymond would eventually oust his brother and seize the ducal seat.
If Raymond became Duke, Hayers would clearly be cast aside as an irrelevant old woman. Their only option was to kill Duke Roman themselves before Raymond could act.
The idea of striking first came from the lover, though at the time, Hayers hesitated, wary of his plan.
But the lover had his own reasoning.
He claimed that since Dante possessed the legitimate bloodline to inherit, killing Roman and placing Dante on the throne would allow them to rule as regents behind the scenes.
Hayers foolishly fell for that absurd idea.
They plotted their move during Raymond’s absence from the castle, and so Roman died after drinking poison prepared by his own wife.
However, what they hadn’t anticipated was Raymond returning to the castle far sooner than expected.
And before they could disguise the corpse as having died of natural causes rather than poison, Raymond had already uncovered the truth.
Raymond purged everyone involved with Hayers and her lover, exiling them all to the distant lands of winter.
He inherited the title of Duke and took charge of everything that remained.
Yet despite his perfection in every other way, one thing he had overlooked was failing to truly see into the child’s heart.
“Still, he was gentle at birth. But after his parents passed, he went completely wild.”
The deaths of the former Duke and his wife were the result of a conspiracy entwined with treachery.
Though Dante appeared as a young dragon, his intelligence far surpassed that of an ordinary child.
He was certainly old enough to understand that the tragedy stemmed from his mother’s infidelity.
By the time Raymond tried to check on Dante after resolving everything, it was already too late.
He had considered the incident at his father’s funeral—when the child dropped a flowerpot onto the coffin—as serious rebellion, but still believed it would end there.
Yet those events were merely the beginning. The accidents and disturbances caused by the child escalated beyond control.
“I know he never grew up feeling loved. But no matter what, the chaos he caused was unbearable. I had no choice but to restrain him.”
Raymond used force to subdue Dante. The more he did, the fiercer Dante’s resistance became.
“He seemed to understand my words, but whether from defiance or something else, he’d convulse whenever I came near, so I couldn’t even touch him directly. Only when I entrusted him to a maid named Meidi did the problems lessen. That’s when I began to hope.”
Dante remained estranged from Raymond, but he stopped causing the serious incidents he once did.
Gradually, Dante seemed to be changing, and Raymond’s hope grew once more.
From afar, Raymond watched over the child and made a new vow.
When the day came that this child could live as a proper human being, he would surely inherit the family name.
Just earlier, the emotion Raymond had felt toward Dante during that accidental incident—before understanding the situation—was pure disappointment, shattering in an instant all the hopes he had nurtured until then.
Had it not been for Yerpi’s explanation revealing the act hadn’t been intentional, the emotional rift between them would have deepened even further.
He owed her gratitude.
Yet he felt strange, unfamiliar with himself for speaking so openly about the past.
‘No matter what, what on earth am I doing, saying all this?’
This situation—sitting across from a woman he had initially intended to keep distant, asking her to help with a troubled child—felt utterly bizarre.
No matter how twisted his inner thoughts were, Yerpi listened calmly to Raymond’s words in this moment.
Her serious green eyes stirred something unknown within him.
Yet upon reflection, things that remained unpredictable—whether desired or not—always seemed to bring sudden upheaval.
A dryness rose in his throat. Raymond moistened his lips with the cold, leftover tea.
The Villainous Demon Lord Laid an Egg for Her (Female-Dominated)
Several months after transmigrating into a book, Yu Wu found herself facing the demon lord Li You, who could no longer conceal his dragon horns. With one hand on her aching waist and the other gripping a sharp sword, she stared at him.
The demon lord’s eyes were red with fury:
“This is all your doing! Today, I won’t rest until I kill you!”
Yu Wu rubbed her temples. Putting aside the taboo against bloodshed during pregnancy, wasn’t it this very man who willingly walked into her trap that day?!
Warnings:
- Male pregnancy.
- Height ratios are set to mirror typical male-female height proportions.
- Characters include a foot-loving demon lord and an eldest daughter from an immortal family’s concubine lineage.
