The Villainess Intends to Have It All - Chapter 59

The two who returned to the mansion from the unforgettable willow tree went to find Revil.

“Count, Duke!”

Revil’s voice bounced with joy, seemingly pleased to see the two visiting him since morning.

As Erina and Sandes arrived a little later than breakfast time, Revil had already finished his meal and was preparing for his lessons.

Sandes asked the head maid to postpone the lessons for a while and led Revil and Erina to the study.

As Erina held Revil’s hand and moved towards the study, the child’s expression seemed somewhat gloomy.

Worried that he might be harboring negative thoughts, Erina called out to Revil.

“Revil.”

“Yes, Count.”

He appeared somewhat dispirited.

Before Erina could say anything, they arrived at the study and quickly entered, seating Revil.

The child’s face, which had been wearing a happy smile, was now shadowed.

It seemed he was worried about being sent away.

As Sandes sat down across from Revil, Erina sat next to the child.

When returning by carriage earlier, Sandes had expressed fear about delivering the news to Revil alone.

So he had asked Erina to be present when telling Revil the truth.

Erina had gladly accepted.

From the moment she brought him out of Iolls, she had decided to raise this child.

Wanting Revil’s happiness more than anyone, she wished to be the first to tell him about his family.

“Revil.”

Revil wiggled his feet imperceptibly and did not answer.

It seemed he had unconsciously anticipated something.

Erina gently stroked Revil’s head and said.

“We’ve found Revil’s family.”

Revil stiffened at Erina’s words, then hung his head low.

They had expected him to be happy about having a family, as he had always believed himself to be an orphan, but Revil’s feelings appeared to be somewhat different.

“Revil.”

At the gentle call, Revil suddenly lifted his head and looked up at Erina.

The child’s face, which should have been joyful, was heavily clouded, and tears glistened in his once-sparkling eyes.

“Are you going to send me away? I don’t want to, Count. I just, I just want to stay with you, Count.”

Revil clung to Erina’s hand.

As if unable to hold on with all his might, Revil’s fingers trembled as they barely grasped her hand.

“It’s alright. I don’t need a family. You said you would be my family, Count.”

The child desperately tried not to be separated from Erina.

Erina, with a heart full of sympathy, wiped Revil’s tears and spoke slowly.

“But Revil, they’ve been searching desperately for you. When you meet them, surely…”

“No, I don’t want to go! They’re the ones who abandoned me anyway! Are you trying to abandon me too, Count?”

Watching Revil vehemently refuse to meet his family, Sandes felt his breath catch.

The maid who had worked at the Iolls household said that Mirea had constantly berated the child, as if brainwashing him.

Saying he was a useless child abandoned even by his family, a stupid child so worthless that even his family turned their backs on him.

“Please don’t send me away. I can be quiet and well-behaved. I can eat only a little.”

Revil began to cry, clasping his hands together in supplication.

“Please don’t abandon me. Please don’t send me to the people who abandoned me, please.”

As Revil suddenly stood up and tried to kneel on the floor, Sandes hurriedly rose and approached him.

“No. No, Leo. You weren’t abandoned.”

Sandes lifted the collapsed Revil and suddenly knelt before the child, looking up at him.

Sandes hesitated, as if even touching him was delicate, then gently grasped Revil’s arms.

“You weren’t abandoned, Leo. How can you say such things when I’ve been searching for you so desperately?”

“Duke…?”

Revil stared blankly at Sandes, who was looking up at him with a painfully contorted face, as if surprised.

At that moment, a tear fell from Revil’s eye.

“I’m sorry. For not recognizing you earlier. I’m truly sorry. For not finding you sooner.”

Sandes could not bear to face the child’s eyes, which sparkled like jewels reflecting his tears.

Under Revil’s steady gaze, Sandes couldn’t hold back and bowed his head deeply before the child.

“Please don’t say such things. Leo, how could I abandon you? How could I?”

Sandes’ body trembled as if sobbing.

“Duke, I’m not Leo.”

“Leorvil, that’s your name. The name your mother, my sister, tried to protect.”

“But they said I was an orphan abandoned even by my family. The director clearly said I…”

Sandes raised his head and met Revil’s eyes.

Revil’s face, looking back at him as if not understanding, seemed full of wariness.

Sandes felt deeply pained by the child’s raw emotions.

“No. You weren’t abandoned. It’s true, Leo.”

He gently stroked Revil’s soft hair.

“Even when I thought you were dead, I missed you every day.”

Sandes had never forgotten the child for a single day since he thought Revil had died.

Though he had spent only two years with Revil, Sandes had lived on the memories the child had given him during that time.

The day he first fed him formula milk obtained by practically begging from people, the day he ate the clumsily made baby food with relish, the day he first called him ‘Papa’.

The first impressions the child gave were indescribably beautiful.

It wasn’t all happiness, but his feelings for the child were genuine.

In truth, when he first saw the child, it was only out of a sense of duty to his sister’s last wish.

After a month, it was a sense of responsibility, not wanting to trouble an innocent child.

Then at some point, Revil had deeply embedded himself in his life, becoming his reason for living.

“If I had known you were alive, I would have searched for you by any means necessary.”

Revil, sensitive to others’ emotions, immediately read the desperate sincerity in Sandes’ eyes.

Sandes smiled painfully at the child’s confused expression.

“Duke, are you my father?”

“I am your uncle. My sister is your mother. But you always called me father.”

“I did?”

Sandes, finding Revil’s wide-eyed look adorable, once again slowly stroked the child’s light brown hair.

“Yes. You can’t imagine how happy I was when the first word you learned was calling for me.”

There was something Sandes regretted most when he thought he was holding Revil’s corpse.

It was not revealing his feelings and not expressing his true thoughts, even when he felt shy and awkward.

Sandes had vowed that if he ever met the child again in the next life, he would not hide the thoughts and feelings he had while looking at him.

He cupped Revil’s soft cheek with a trembling hand.

In the place of what was once taken for granted, only longing remained.

He had been complacent, thinking the child’s warm embrace, which sometimes annoyed yet always made him happy, would always belong to him.

The regret was far too long.

If only he hadn’t been so stern, if only he had embraced him one more time, if only he hadn’t held back saying ‘I love you’.

“Leo, thank you.”

“…For what?”

Revil’s eyes slowly welled up with tears.

Though the child had lost his memories, he seemed to feel it instinctively.

“For being alive, for being my nephew, for meeting me again. I’m grateful for everything.”

Tears fell onto Sandes’ hand as he cupped the child’s cheek.

“Am I really not an orphan?”

“Of course not.”

“Do I really have a family?”

“Here, right in front of you.”

“You didn’t abandon me because you disliked me?”

“How could I abandon you, when I’ve been searching for you even in my dreams?”

Revil bit his lip and tears fell steadily.

The child’s deep and intense sorrow flowed through Sandes’ hands, reaching even Erina who was watching the two.

Erina’s heart ached seeing Revil, who resembled herself in not being able to cry out loud.

“Duke.”

“Call me uncle, Leo.”

“Un, cle.”

“Leo.”

“Uncle… Uncle!”

Revil threw himself into Sandes’ arms, tightly hugging his neck and sobbing loudly.

Sandes buried his face in the warmth of the embrace and held him tightly.

The two, seemingly different yet alike, did not let go of each other for a long time.

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After crying for a while, Revil fell asleep as if collapsing from the release of tension.

Sandes asked Erina’s permission and personally carried the child to lay him down in his room.

Returning to the study and quietly opening the door, he found Erina staring blankly at the place where Revil had been sitting.

Sandes leaned crookedly against the wall, silently watching Erina lost in thought, not even brushing back her fallen side hair.

He couldn’t tell what she was thinking.

But the deep shadows in her eyes were dizzyingly unfathomable.

Revil, who found his family at age 7; Erina, who lost her family at age 7.

Knowing the similar yet different pain of the two, Sandes hoped that neither Erina nor Revil would be consumed by sorrow any longer.

“Erina.”

Erina, who had been gently stroking the place where Revil had sat, came to her senses at Sandes’ call.

“Ah, Sandes.”

Sandes walked over to her and sat in the place where Revil had stayed.

Erina lifted her head and looked at Sandes calmly.

Her face held a faint smile, but dark shadows lingered in her deep golden eyes.

“I’m glad. That Revil found his family.”

“It’s thanks to you, Erina.”

“Revil… Should I call him Leorvil? Or Leo?”

“Whatever it is, Leo will be happy.”

Sandes carefully brushed back her disheveled side hair, noting her somewhat dazed gaze.

“I hope it doesn’t hurt too much.”

Erina’s face clouded over.

Revil had found his family, but she could not find hers.

Even the deity who returned her time did not turn back time to when her parents were alive.

The fact that she could never meet them again hit her once more.

“Someday it will dull. Perhaps when another family comes to me, I’ll remember this pain as a memory, when I’m so immersed in happiness that I no longer think of the pain.”

Sandes silently embraced her as she ached with her whole body.

It was a time of both happiness and pain.