Chapter 18

Luca’s voice of complaint had the impression that he still didn’t let his guard down.

His cheeky way of addressing him shocked me, so I quickly corrected him.

“Luca, he’s not a mister, he’s your uncle.”

“…”

Not wanting to hear it whatsoever, Luca promptly turned his head away.

With his attention towards the window, while only shaking his legs, he looked quite disrespectful.

In the initial story, he was such a kind child though…

Deprived of love, Luca was desperately keen about presenting himself well in front of his new family. How he wanted to receive attention.

But with how he’s acting now…

Uh, no way.

How can I teach him so that he actually listens to me…!

From the beginning, I never had any experience with parenting but…

In any case, let’s start with how to properly address someone.

Since he can’t continue to call him ‘mister’ forever.

‘This is totally different from what I read! This is just the destruction of his character!’

In the original story, the dedicated mentor Rüdiger and Luca had a father-son-like relationship, now, I can almost hear it crumbling away like a collapsing sandcastle.

‘Of course, if the original story followed its intended path, then I would get into a sticky situation… Even so, it would’ve been better if the relationships between the characters were somewhat close to the original piece, how disappointing.’

Like that, I tried to correct Luca’s impolite mannerisms for the better as much as I could in a calm fashion.

I was trying so hard that I ultimately forgot that I needed to apologize for dissing Rüdiger when he was trying to be polite.

In the midst of all of this, the carriage left the village of Emden.

Passing by the plaza in the carriage, through the small crack of the window, my eyes met Thomas’.

His eyes were brimming with betrayal.

As if I chose money and power over an old love.

But we weren’t even like that, good grief. This wasn’t even remotely funny.

All in all, this was simply unbelievable.

I smirked and leaned back.

It was more spacious than I expected inside the carriage, to the point I could almost comfortably stretch my legs out.

‘This is so much better than an economy seat in an airplane.’

If traveling by carriage is like this, then it’s not too shabby.

But that thought didn’t even last 5 minutes, it simply shattered.

With any excursion, rideability is important…

I nearly forgot that travel isn’t only determined by the comfy and spacious the seating is.

If that were the case, then riding in a cart with my arms and legs spread wide apart would’ve been the best way to travel….

Because of the rural village’s rocky dirt path, the carriage shook back and forth, side to side.

If there weren’t any comfy cushioned seats, my bottom would’ve been deeply bruised.

As the carriage wheels rolled over rocks, I tried hard to hold back whimpers of pain.

At least we’ll only ride on this path for a little longer before transferring to the train, it should be ok then.

When the scene with the train in the novel came to mind, my forehead wrinkled, still in agony.

I guess Luca mistook my pained expression with my not wanting to go to Winterwald, as he astutely asked,

“You don’t want to go that badly?”

“It’s not that I don’t want to go there that badly…”

“Really? Your face doesn’t look like that, auntie…”

“What’s wrong with my face?”

“It looks like death.”

“Haha, I keep on mulling over nostalgia from Emden. There’re too many precious memories.”

I had absurd excuses like this.

But Luca nodded his head, seriously contemplating that my excuses were fairly reasonable.

Soon after, Luca began to doze off, as traveling drained him.

Seeing this, he’s definitely a kid after all.

I grinned as I observed his head bobbing sleepily like that.

Rüdiger watched us quietly, speaking after Luca completely fell asleep.

“He must be tired.”

“He must not be completely recovered. Normally, he is a child with a lot of energy.”

I placed Luca’s head on top of my knees, concerned that he may fall forward if he was left alone.

Luca couldn’t even sense that his head was resting on my knees, he was sleeping soundly.