A few minutes after Diane went up to the room, the twins’ punishment was over.

“So you’re really not going?”

Michael, who was reading a book, sighed and asked. Daiban replied gruffly.

“Yeah.”

Michael just shrugged his shoulders.

Seeing this, Daiban, who was rolling around on Michael’s bed, still had a sullen face.

The scene he had witnessed earlier that morning wouldn’t leave his mind.

‘Dad!’

The girl who casually threw herself into her father’s arms.

‘Sweetie, you’re up early?’

The girl who naturally received his elder brother’s affectionate greeting.

There was much talk among the household about the new sister who had appeared while they were away.

‘The gossips say she’s monopolizing father and elder brother’s attention.’

The unplanned runaway lasting this long wasn’t Daiban’s intention.

Because of all the rumors, Daiban wanted to return home as soon as possible to meet the girl who would play the role of his father’s fake daughter.

Nevertheless, he had no choice but to run away together because of his twin brother.

It was truly by chance that he saw her first at the auction house.

‘She’s nothing special.’

That was the conclusion Daiban reached as soon as he saw his new sister.

As expected, there was no need to pay attention to what the gossips said.

She didn’t look like a child loved by the family at all, wandering alone without any escorts.

‘Besides, she’s different from us.’

The innate magical power within her body was almost non-existent. Other than that, there didn’t seem to be anything particularly noteworthy about her.

Upon realizing this fact, his ill feelings towards her disappeared. More precisely, it could be said that all interest had faded.

‘Michael, Daiban…’

It was a bit surprising that she recognized them right away, but well, it wasn’t unreasonable for her to recognize them if she had heard about them from father or elder brother.

Anyway, it was a relief to know that the child who was said to have newly arrived was nothing special. He thought there was nothing more to worry about and was about to leave.

What caught their ankles as they tried to move while hiding their presence was a loud boom.

‘Diane!’

There, father and elder brother appeared, followed by a line of knights.

To him, the girl looked fine. Yet they rushed over and carefully checked for any injuries.

Everyone was in a flurry over the sudden nosebleed.

‘It doesn’t even look serious.’

A child that needs to be worried over so much just because of a mere nosebleed.

Daiban, who was hiding nearby, was quite shocked by this sight.

Why on earth did father bring such a weak child? A weak child doesn’t suit their family. Unless she was excellent at strategy like elder brother or had strong magical power like themselves.

‘Is it because of the black hair?’

After all, there had to be at least one similarity to pass her off as a real daughter.

At that moment, Michael said coldly.

“So how long are you going to stay in my room? Get out.”

“How cold, let’s stay a little longer.”

A teacup flew towards Daiban’s head, which didn’t move an inch.

Daiban habitually just turned his head to avoid the flying teacup. Michael watched as the teacup he threw fell weakly onto the bed and said.

“I told you to get out.”

“Didn’t you see earlier?”

“What.”

“Father carrying her.”

“So what. Don’t pay attention to it.”

Daiban didn’t say anything in response. Sitting there with a sullen face, he looked deep in thought.

Just to be clear, Michael wasn’t curious. He had no interest whatsoever in whether his brother, who had arbitrarily taken over his space, was jealous or worried.

However, his brother was like a leech who would never leave unless asked.

Michael reluctantly asked with an expression as disinterested as watching a cow passing by a chicken.

“So what’s the problem now.”

Daiban, who had been rolling his eyeballs following the ceiling pattern lost in thought, grinned.

“Shouldn’t we remove the stone that rolled in?”

‘Why are my ears so itchy.’

I scratched my ear and checked again if the door was tightly locked.

In the end, only the Duke, Clemens, and I had breakfast together.

‘They didn’t come because of me, right?’

Throughout the meal, I tried very hard not to look dejected. But it seemed that it was all visible to the Duke and Clemens.

‘They’re just willful children, it’s not your fault.’

‘You can have meals with the twins later, don’t worry.’

Throughout the meal, they kept comforting me that it wasn’t because of me.

‘They’re so different from Clemens.’

From the moment I first saw them in the living room, neither of them had a particularly good reaction.

Daiban openly antagonized me, and Michael seemed to have no interest in me at all.

‘They misunderstand.’

Daiban thought I was the one who told them they were at the auction house.

‘Once the misunderstanding is cleared up, we can quickly become friends.’

According to Clemens, Daiban’s favorite snack was squid, and Michael’s favorite snack was dark chocolate.

I asked Delma to beautifully wrap each snack with the wrapping paper I received.

‘I’ll give them as gifts when I meet them.’

With that thought, I put the gifts in my bag. At that moment, I noticed the silver snake sleeping peacefully in the bag.

‘Come to think of it, I’m worried about this one too.’

It was clearly different from its previous appearance when it was desperate to come out, complaining of stuffiness.

‘It hasn’t woken up once since that day.’

When I first discovered the silver snake, I felt relief and anger at the same time.

Where on earth had it been all this time, why did it get caught by those bad people, and so on. There was a mountain of things I wanted to ask and scold it for.

I was planning to say all those nagging words when the silver snake woke up.

The silver snake, which used to wake up at the slightest touch before, didn’t even stir now when I poked it repeatedly.

“Silver snake, wake up now.”

No matter how many times I shook it to wake it up, the silver snake showed no sign of waking.

‘This is really strange.’

No matter how much I racked my memory, I had never seen a divine beast sleeping in the original story.

‘I hope nothing’s wrong.’

I was worried, but I couldn’t tell anyone else that something was wrong with the divine beast’s body.

I carefully put the silver snake back in the bag and placed it quietly beside the bed.

Dark moonlight filled the room.

Lying on the bed, staring blankly at the ceiling, I suddenly realized.

‘Come to think of it, the twins have come to the mansion too.’

All the villain family members had gathered in one place. In other words, it meant that all the conditions for the original story to begin had been met.

The next day, Daiban, hiding in a corner of the corridor, yawned loudly.

In fact, Daiban had been very busy since the previous day. He had stayed up all night setting his own traps all over the mansion. Those traps were for his new sibling who had arrived not long ago.

‘A weak one like you is not needed in our family.’

Daiban intended to personally inform her of this fact.

In truth, if he were to use magic to inform her, there would be countless methods, but it was a principle not to use magic within the mansion unless in special circumstances.

Even if he could use magic, seeing how much father and elder brother cherished her, he couldn’t use magic directly on her.

Instead, he decided to set traps that seemed like mischievous pranks of a child.

That was why he had dropped banana peels on the floor of the corridor where Diane often walked.

Daiban had no doubt that Diane would fall ungracefully and start crying right there.

‘She’s out!’

Just then, Diane came out into the corridor with a backpack, taking small steps. Soon, one of Diane’s feet stepped onto the banana peel.

Diane, who had stepped right on the banana peel, tipped backwards. Daiban’s eyes sparkled.

“Oh my, young lady! Are you alright!”

At that moment, a large knight appeared from somewhere and grabbed Diane’s backpack. Diane, who had been dangling from the knight, was carefully placed back on the corridor.

“Wow, thanks, Bart! That was a close call!”

“No need for thanks! This is my duty!”

The knight shouted loudly and then disappeared swiftly with the banana peel he had placed on the corridor.

‘Tsk, what a waste.’

Daiban continued to follow Diane, checking the locations of the traps he had set.

The second thing Daiban had prepared was placing a large earthworm where Diane always spread her mat.

‘Since it’s a huge bug, she’ll surely be scared, right?’

It was an earthworm as big as his palm.

He imagined Diane being so surprised that she would fall backwards and burst into tears right there.

That wouldn’t look too bad. Maybe he could even forgive her for monopolizing father and elder brother’s attention.

‘Maybe father and elder brother will get tired of those crying sounds too.’

If that happened, it would be more than satisfactory.

Diane took out the mat from her bag and spread it out. Then she lifted the mat she was about to place gently on the ground.

‘She finally saw it.’

Actually, he had been worried about what to do if she didn’t see the huge earthworm and just spread the mat over it.

Fortunately, it seemed that wasn’t going to happen.

‘Now she’ll scream.’

Hehe, what Daiban heard while suppressing his laughter was unexpected words.

“Why are you there, it’s dangerous.”

Wondering what this meant, he peeked out his head to see Diane carefully lifting the earthworm with a long branch.

“It’s dangerous here where many people walk, so hide over there. Understood?”

The earthworm, moved to a safe spot among the grass, nodded. It seemed as if it was thanking Diane.

Daiban gritted his teeth.

“Hey, you!”

Finally, unable to bear it anymore, Daiban strode towards Diane. Diane’s eyes widened at Daiban’s sudden appearance.

“Huh? Where did you come from?”

“Why should I tell you that?”

Daiban replied gruffly, crossing his arms.

All plans to secretly set traps and tease her had failed, so all that was left was to confront her directly.

“You, that day we met at the auction house,”

“Ah, right! I really didn’t say anything that day!”

“…What?”

“I’m not the one who told dad that I saw you at the auction house that day!”

Daiban frowned. That was something he had realized belatedly too.

In fact, he didn’t know until after receiving the punishment. Later, when he was taking a magic control lesson from Sophia, Sophia told him.

‘I felt young master Daiban’s magic that day. I had just laid tracking magic around the area to find the young lady.’

Anyway, Daiban still thought they were caught because of Diane.

The reason Sophia had laid tracking magic there was to find Diane who had suddenly disappeared.

Well, anyway, that wasn’t important now.

“That doesn’t matter anymore, because that’s not why I came.”

“Then?”

“The problem is that you’re a weak child who just gets nosebleeds.”