Chapter 52

(tl: the point of view on this chapter is dizzying, okay? it will start with count candor and it will change to third people POV and go back after a few sentences)

Count Candor could not hide his absurdity.

Did this blind little princess ask me to carry her?

“Ouch, my leg.”

Now I even pat my short leg with a cotton ball-like fist.

It was amazing.

Count Candor showed his back.

The child was carried on his back as if she had waited.

Under an unexpected weight, Count Candor briefly faltered.

“Is it this light?”

I thought it would be quite heavy because she looks like she eats well and has chubby cheeks and chubby limbs.

It really seemed like a cotton doll.

The only difference is that there is warmth.

“I want to go to my room.”

“…”

Count Candor frowned, but began to walk.

The short arms hugging the neck were awkward.

It smelled savory and sweet.

Light, small, fragile, but obvious warmth.

I felt strange maybe because it was unfamiliar.

There was no one in the child’s receiving room.

Instead, strawberry tarts and milk were prepared on a small tea table.

‘Two servings. You expected me to come.’

As expected, the bloodline of Paeraton.

It’s not a normal child.

“Please put me down. I want to eat with my grandfather.”

Count Candor frowned again, but silently put the child down.

And I’m going to sit across the chair.

“······.”

The chair was in the shape of a pink scallop.

It would be very very cute for someone, but it was very terrible for Count Candor.

“……Did your Excellency eat refreshments in this room?”

“Yes! I ate them with my brothers, too.”

A scallop-shaped chair with a fountain-shaped tea table.

The tea was aurora as if it were for a fairy’s tea party.

“Grandpa, are you going to eat standing up?”

When I saw a child sitting on a scallop looking up, what I was going to say disappeared.

Count Candor creaked and sat on the scallop.

“This is delicious!”

“I don’t want to eat it. Please answer my question.”

Luatisha inflated her cheeks and rubbed her lips.

However, he went straight to the point without grumbling.

“Daphne Naia.”

It was just a name.

However, the name pushed Count Candor like a big tsunami.

It’s been a while since I heard this name.

He endured the shock by slowly closing his eyes and opening them.

“……where did you hear rumors about her?”

When Luatisha sent a letter, I wondered what this was.

However, the second time she sent a picture of an olive tree, it became clear.

Daphne.

This is a picture of Daphne.

I knew well that this blind little girl was talking about like a hamster.

She heard about Daphne somewhere and tried to use it in his relationship.

How dare.

Daphne was not a woman who would be easily mentioned for that.

She was still a red-blooded wound for Count Candor.

“Well, I don’t know in detail.”

“Was she your grandfather’s girlfriend?”

Innocent question.

The two eyes of a child looking up at himself.

No wonder my pulse went away.

Girlfriend. I’ve never heard that before.

Fever passed by Count Candor’s dry mouth.

“Yes, she was my girlfriend.”

“Wow, tell me! I want to hear about your relationship!”

It was ridiculous to see the child begging with excitement.

What the hell is this crazy kid thinking?

“How did you meet her? I bet you didn’t bump into each other while running with bread on your mouth because you were late.”

What kind of meeting is that?

“…… It was normal. We met at an ordinary party.”

“Party! Yes, it’s a party!”

The child nodded violently, clenching her fists.

I wondering what else she was excited about.

Looking at it reminded me of an old encounter that I thought I had forgotten.

A noble family’s evening party.

A lady who came out to the garden for a while to get some fresh air and broke her heels.

What did she do? She couldn’t overcome her temper and threw her broken shoes.

She happened to hit the top of the head of the man watching.

The lady, who didn’t know what to do, stopped apologizing and got angry at me asking why I was JUST watching and why I was watching.

“Carry me on your back.”

“…”

“I can’t go barefoot.”

Eventually, the man carried the lady on his back.

However, the moonlight was so beautiful that day, and the long watery hair of the lady was particularly shiny.

And the shoes with jewels were very hard.

Did I get hit on the wrong part of the head?

It was the meeting of the century enough for at least one man to fall in love.

It was a very ordinary meeting, and a very ordinary relationship continued.

“Sigh, it’s so fateful. It’s a copy of the Rofan.”

When I saw a child muttering with her hands tightly together, I laughed in vain.

Count Candor was surprised at himself.

I didn’t know I could say this casually about Daphne.

I thought it would be poisonous to take out memories that only left scars.

But it wasn’t.

Happiness still remained there.

Just thinking about it like this makes me smile.

“My grandfather was surprisingly a romanticist,”

Count Candor paused at Luatisha’s words.

“You were unexpectedly a romanticist.”

The old voice in my memory was revived.

What Daphne said.

“········There was a time like that. But I guess it wasn’t like that until the end. When I saw her leaving me.”

“Did the sister leave you grandfather?”

I thought she was a happy lover.

I also thought our love was special.

But it was an illusion.

One day, Daphne suddenly disappeared.

Without a trace.

Count Candor could not admit it because there were no signs.

I looked for her again and again.

I kept looking for her.

He knelt down to the predecessor Duke Paeraton, saying he would do anything if he could find her.

Then one day, all the mercenaries brought Daphne’s relics.

The ring he gave Daphne as a gift.

It was said that it was mixed in the loot of the monster village.

“…she actually had a lover. She was attacked and killed by a monster on his way to another city with the man.”

Count Candor’s eyes were dim.

“This necklace was brought by someone who went to the monster subjugation.”

“No.”

Luatisha shook her head.

“I stole it.”

Count Candor’s expression collapsed at the unexpected answer.

“…Did you say you stole it?”

“Yes, I stole it from someone else. This necklace couldn’t have been in the monster’s hand in the first place.”

Count Candor’s expression hardened.

Luatisha made eye contact with him and said each letter clearly.

“Because Daphne Naia was not killed by the monster.”

“What do you e mean?”

Count Candor stared at Luatisha with an exciting gaze.

“I will never forgive you if you’re making fun of this old man. Even if you are a direct line of Paeraton.”

“Grandpa.”

But isn’t the child sighing “Ha-.”

As if she was frustrated rather than scared?

“I got revenge to my uncle, and I put the auditors and grandfather behind me in a blink of an eye.”

(tl: talking about taking down count yosenheim, the one responsible for her missing child support)

“…”

“I’m a good kid.”

Luatisha, bang, bang!

Knocked on her chest.

“Oh, yeah, yeah.”

Luatisha pouted her lips at the unsure answer.

“At least I’m not a bad enough child to put other people’s precious memories in the gutter.”

Count Candor stared at the child’s face.

A soft face that makes me wonder how such a thing came out of the Duke of Paeraton.

But it shouldn’t be taken easily.

This child’s skill is by no means an ordinary five-year-old baby.

“Nevertheless, you agree that I am not such a mean child.”

I can’t believe I’ve always judged people in a dichotomy.

“I think it’s better for you to check it out yourself than for me to say it out loud.”

Luatisha, who stood up from the scallop, took something out of the inner room.

It was a bunch of documents.

Count Candor opened the document with a little trembling hand, but without hesitation.

“Lee, Geon,·····.”

I was determined not to be surprised no matter what was written.

However, the contents of the document were far beyond his imagination.

Daphne did not have another man, nor did she run away from Count Candor.

It was a kidnapping.

And her body was tested as an experiment.

A disastrous experiment that humans can never bear.

They split her teeth.

How can the soft woman stand for so many of these experiments?

A woman who couldn’t even walk barefoot in the garden because her soles hurt.

The hands holding the documents keep shaking.

“all of this, all of this,·······”

Eventually, after the brutal experiment, Daphne died.

Count Candor did not know whether to be relieved that her suffering was over or angry and sad about her death.

However, one thing was certain.

When Daphne was suffering like this, he couldn’t do anything.

I couldn’t find her, and my knees were boiling in front of the unidentified intermediate story.

I wanted to kill myself who was desperate like the protagonist of the tragedy betrayed by love.

Even at that moment, Daphne suffered like this.

“Do you need my help?”

It was a secret whisper.

Count Candor raised his head.

The child was looking at him with a strange look.

“There’s someone who has made false evidence to kidnap and experiment with Daphne and make you give up because it was oart of his plans.”

Count Candor sighed.

Yeah, there’s still work to be done.

“That revenge, can I help you?”

“Thank you for the offer, but you don’t have to help me. That’s entirely what I have to do.”

“······And when will that be? For you to finish your work? And what will happen afterwards?”

Children are sometimes too sharp.

“Are you going to die?”

“… There’s no reason to live more.”

Count Candor answered in a helpless way and carefully examined the documents, excluding emotions.

There were black marks all over the document.

“Why is the phrase erased?”

“I don’t know that.”

Anyone can tell it was recently erased.

“Are you not going to let me know who the criminal is?”

Count Candor’s eyes became sharp.

Are you trying to trade with the criminal on the pretext of his identity?

“No. I didn’t delete the criminal’s name. I can tell you who the culprit is. However,····.”

Luatisha looked disappointed.

“There’s no evidence. Because there’s no name on the paper. You have to trust me. Will you trust me?”

Count Candor remained silent.

Now that we have obtained this data, we will know who the culprit is if we look into it carefully.

It will take a long time because there is only the date of the experiment and there is no place or participant, but it can definitely catch the exact culprit.

So it’s right to shake your head instead of believing in uncertain words.

But…

“… I believe in you.”

Luatisha looked at him for a moment and opened her mouth.

“It’s Count Yosenheim.”

At that moment, all kinds of thoughts swirled inside Count Candor.

Is it true?

Are you trying to use me to get rid of him?

Is there any reason to get rid of it?

He’s already in prison.

Why does Count Yosenheim did that to Daphne?

But the relationship between the two was good.

Contrary to the idea flowing like a torrent, the head nodded.

“…….I see.”

I was surprisingly convinced.

“I stole Daphne’s necklace from Count Yosenheim these days. I thought it was a necklace of spirit…”

Luatisha didn’t know whether to say that absurd or childlike reason

“I saw the portrait inside the rocket and knew it wasn’t it. So I stole an experimental report on Daphne.”

“How the hell did you steal it?”

“With the help of Arendwell’s tax law, I stole it…”

Arendwell tax method?

What are you talking about?

However, I understood that she didn’t want to tell me the means of acquisition.

“······Daphne’s older sister thought the grandfather abandoned her.”

How dare she say that?

I totally believed she betrayed me.

“That’s what Count Yosenheim said back in the days. ‘I won’t come to save you. I already married another woman and had a baby.’”

“That’s ridiculous.·····!”

“Grandpa didn’t marry because of Daphne sister?”

Count Candor was not good looking enough to say that he was excellent.

Ability, charisma, skill.

None of them is not the best.

In addition, what about his family?

Count Candor was a long-standing vassal family of Paeraton, and was historic and reputable.

As such, it is closely related to the backbone of the Duchy.

A powerful background with tremendous abilities.

It was for two reasons that he did not become the head of the Senate.

The first was because he didn’t build his own power by connecting with people around him.

The second is more important because he is single and has no successor.

The second reason was that people did not want to unite around Count Candor.

“… That’s right. Because I thought I was betrayed by her, so I hated love.”

But if it was true, he would have had to have a political marriage with the right person.

Slowly, Count Candor’s lips opened.

“In fact, I didn’t want to love anyone other than her. No woman, even if it was just a girlfriend, could be left as my wife.”

Now it was my inner heart struggle that I had to face properly.

“Then, what about the fact that the grandfather didn’t adopt anyone?”

“… That’s right. It’s a foolish stubbornness,”

Luatisha quenched her dry lips with her tongue.

She carefully opened her mouth.

“If Daphne had a baby in her stomach…”

The child in the stomach.

At that, Count Candor raised his head.

“Do you mean Daphne was pregnant with my child?”

“Yes.”

“T, the child,·····.”

Count couldn’t bear to say.

The mother died after a human experiment.

Then the child is probably—