CH 8

Since two years ago, whenever he had nightmares, she would always stay by Claude’s side to comfort him. Of course, this older sister also kept distracting him by telling him that he was very beautiful. That way, I didn’t think Claude would grow up like the spoiled little brother in her previous life, who tried to outdo me.

After hearing my words, I heard a noise from the corner of my sister’s mouth.

“What did you say in the morning, Noona?”

I was so surprised that I covered my mouth.

“Claude! Are you finally able to talk?”

Claude rubbed his eyes, got up from the bed and started making sounds again, “Ah, ah-” Then he smiled.

“Yes, Noona. My voice is coming out properly now.”

“That’s very good news, little brother!”

I hugged Claude tightly. I was certain Mother would be very happy if she were here right now. I couldn’t believe she missed such a touching moment.

Claude’s blue eyes looked up at me.

“Noona. You’re not going to leave me, are you? You’ll stay with me forever, right?”

Catching a glimpse of the details in my little brother’s nightmare, I nodded.

“Yes, I will never leave you. I promise.”

Claude took my hand and held it tightly. His hands were sweaty and clammy, probably because of the anxiousness.

I was going to buy a cake and throw a party to celebrate Claude’s voice coming out today.

I went into town after a while and stopped by the bakery to get bread, snacks and cakes. Of course, Claude didn’t like sweets and didn’t enjoy them either. I bought a lot of sweets because I was the one who wanted to eat them. The bakery owner said that my little brother was very cute, he even gave us a chocolate-sprinkled cake sprinkled as a gift.

‘Hmm? This looks familiar to me.’

Where could I’ve possibly seen it?

While counting, I squinted my eyes to see the scene behind the glass door. I felt frustrated that I couldn’t remember it properly even after thinking about it for a long time.

Then, a little brown-haired girl approached the counter. The child called the owner of the bakery father.

“Daddy. Give me some cookies too.”

“Huh? Does Mary want to bake cookies too? My daughter is only nine years old, so it’s not appropriate to make you work.”

“No, I just want to eat cake.”

“Yes, yes. You can hang out over there. I’ll teach you how to make bread later.”

“….”

The bakery owner was the kind of person who only listened to what he wanted to hear. The nine-year-old girl was also just mumbling incomprehensibly. I didn’t hear it clearly, but I guess she was probably swearing.

“Hey, you can eat this.”

I gave the nine-year-old cookies and turned around. Come to think of it, I heard the name Mary in my dream a few days ago as well. The dream became hazy once I woke up. Maybe the dream from last night was just a silly one.

Claude, who had been following me around all this time, stretched out his hand.

“Noona, give it to me. I’ll keep it for you.”

“Oh, it’s fine.”

“Then just let me carry one bag of those. Is that alright with you?”

“Okay. Then please hold the cake carefully. Claude, is there anything else you want to eat? I brought a lot of money today. I’ll buy you everything you want. This is to commemorate the first day you speak again!”

Claude pondered over my words for a while. Then he only said one wish.

“Then, I want to learn martial arts.”

“Hoo… Martial arts? Are you afraid someone will hit you again?”

“Oh, no. It’s just that I’m the only boy in the house. I can’t live on with such a weak body forever. I wish I could grow as tall as Charon.”

It would be a good thing if he became stronger.

Claude looked at me with a serious gaze whilst asking for my permission.

Right. Claude has a short figure and soft body. He looked as adorable as a doll at his age, but it wouldn’t be good for him to be timid after he grew up.

“Yes. Nowadays, the nobles also train their bodies by doing martial arts. I also think you should learn, so I’ll buy you fencing equipment.”

The sport became popular among the general public not long after rumors spread saying that, ‘The royals like something in this day and age’.

It would be nice if I could teach it to my younger brother. Unfortunately, there were no teachers who offered to teach children from the commoner background. They didn’t accept commoners as their students unless their potential students had a lot of money. This was because teachers who teach nobles have high self-esteem and didn’t accept just anyone as the student under their guidance. There were people who taught themselves through reading books, but I didn’t know how they succeeded in doing so.

Where do they sell fencing equipment?

It was time to look around the streets and find a shop. Claude grasped my hand tightly with a troubled expression.

“Hmm? What’s wrong?”

My younger brother whispered softly in my ear.

“Noona. Someone keeps following us.”

I glanced in several directions after hearing my brother’s words. It was true, a man was following and watched us in a suspicious manner.

‘Is he a kidnapper?’

For a moment, a bad speculation came to my mind.

Kidnapping children and selling them somewhere, or damaging their body parts to make them beg. There are criminals everywhere in this world who do bad things like that. As a strange man followed us, cold sweat continued to run down my back.

‘I should have followed my mother’s ritual and come out.’

By living outside the capital, we could roam freely around the city without fear because our mother always cast spells on us.

My mother, who called herself a witch, used to cast mysterious spells on us by making us emit a strange smell, in which she said that it was a spell in order to eliminate suspicious people who got interested in our presence. I didn’t believe her, but I always let her cast it on me.

She was a motherly figure with weird superstition, but other than that, she was the perfect mother for me.

It’s been a week since my mother went on a business trip. I also felt a little guilty coming to the city when my mother was away. Even though it was a superstition, I felt the need to perform the ritual just like my mother did. However, it was impossible for now, because I don’t have the power of a witch.

“Claude, should we run?”

We have to run all the way to the omnibus train to get back to the village, I signaled to my brother as I thought that we shouldn’t be caught by that strange man.

“1, 2, 3! Run!”

Holding Claude’s hand, we ran recklessly without caring if the bread and cakes would be ruined or not. I tried to get away from the suspicious man by passing through the crowd of people. I ran for quite a while and arrived in front of the omnibus train.

“Huft….Huft. Are you alright?”

“Uh, yeah…”

We looked around while gasping for breath. Fortunately, I didn’t see the strange man from earlier. We jumped into the back door of the carriage. This omnibus carriage, which had seats facing the person in front of each other, was large enough to hold more than 20 people at once. They took us near the village and charged us a reasonable price, therefore we used it conveniently.

The woman across from us looked at our faces and smiled.

“Oh my, you’re so gorgeous. Did you guys come here to hang out at the city center?”

“Yes. We went out to buy some snacks.”

“All right. You two are so cute. Do you want this?”

The lady gave us a candy that looked like a yellow pebble.

“Thank you.”

Free things would always be received with open arms.

I put a piece of candy in my little brother’s mouth first, and put it in my mouth as well. Now that I had something sweet in my mouth, I was able to relax a bit.

“Noona, I’m sorry. Looks like the cake is ruined.”

Claude showed me the box of cookies in his hand. Of course the corner of the box was slightly dented. The beautiful buttercream cake looked like it had been ruined.

“It’s okay. It would have been the same when we entered the ship.”

Even if it was ruined, it would still taste the same. And the reason I bought this cake was to celebrate Claude’s improving skill in speaking. We would just light the candles and celebrate it. I patted Claude’s head to comfort him.

When I got home, my mom had already arrived first. I took a deep breath when seeing my mom after a long time.

My mom was always beautiful.

My biological mother with long, curly red hair and looked like Sophie Marr in her heyday, was beautiful enough to be a movie star. However, it was a pity that there was no such a thing in this world where I was reborn.

Why was red hair looked down upon in this world?

Emperor Royan, who first united the Morris Empire, was so famous that he even appeared in history books and children’s fairy tales to be deposed because of a red-haired woman.

If my mother hadn’t had red hair, all kinds of men would have stuck by her side.

I felt sorry for my mother for she had to be on her own, but at the same time, I appreciate that my appearance was similar to hers. It was because one of the things that satisfied me most about being reborn in this book was my appearance.

“Where have you two been?”

“I bought some bread. Oh, right, mom. Claude can finally speak!”

I ran and hugged mom while breaking the news to her excitedly.

“Now, he doesn’t write on paper or on the floor anymore, but he can speak with his mouth. Even Claude’s voice sounds funny.”

“Really? That’s great.”

Mother watched me and Claude alternately, then she suddenly frowned. She looked towards the door and muttered.

“Something’s bothering me. Is it the person sent from there?”

“What?”

I thought the sweet smell of snacks had sent flies flying. But I didn’t see many insects around what we bought. Then I remembered the man who was following us earlier.

“Oh! A strange man seemed to have followed us earlier.”

“A strange man? What did he look like?”

“Well, I only saw his slightly wide forehead, bright blonde hair with a big belly and a crooked nose?”

“Hmm.”

Mom, who was listening to my explanation, suddenly went to the door and opened it with a terrifying look on her face.

“Who are you! Why are you following my children?”

At the front of the door, the big-bellied man was preparing to knock on the door, who was the one I described to my mother just now, and he was instantly startled and froze in his spot as it seemed that he was going to knock on the door and stood there with an indescribable expression. Claude and I were shocked. Since when has he been following us around like this? I was certain this guy wasn’t on the omnibus earlier.

The man coughed several times and started making excuses to us.

“Excuse me… I’m not a freak.”

“People don’t think sleeping is weird.”

My mom crossed her arms over her chest and glared at the strange man. My left finger twitched uneasily under my mom’s right elbow. Looking at the smoke that came out little by little from mom’s hand, she seemed to want to do something again.

Perhaps, the outcome would change depending on the man’s behavior or answers later.

Whether he would be found in the city with no memory after today, or in front of the National Police Agency with no memory and no wallet. The future that awaited this man was one of the two I mentioned above.

‘Why do people keep coming to my house like this?’

At that moment, I didn’t know that those people were actually looking for Claude.

When my mother’s expression became strange, the big-bellied man hurriedly took out his business card from his breast pocket and showed it.

“This is my identity.”

After staring at the business card for a while, mother asked, suspicion still lies in her eyes.

“How can I believe that this is really your business card?”

“Actually, I came here at the behest of His Majesty. Who is that behind you?”

“Lying to me like this won’t work. You just have to tell the truth.”

Mother snapped her fingers right in front of the man’s face. The old man’s eyes went blank along with the sound of the snapping fingers. He walked into the house as if hypnotized and took a seat on the chair.