Chapter 20
The feeling was strange. It felt as if something soft and fuzzy was blooming in my chest.
Lephonia turned her head sharply to avoid Pretes’s gaze.
‘What is this? It’s as if he’s actually worried about me getting hurt.’
Lephonia furrowed her brows and shook her head. That couldn’t be it. It was clearly his way of telling her to stop being such a nuisance.
He couldn’t even bring himself to guard anyone else because he still hadn’t moved on from his dead younger sister, and he couldn’t even graduate from the Academy.
There was no way he would worry about Lephonia, who had taken that sister’s place.
“You get it now, right? So stop sighing like that. What kind of five-year-old sighs so much?”
Pretes patted Lephonia lightly before standing up. Lephonia watched his retreating back for a long time.
But if what he just said was true—
‘Isn’t that just a surefire way to ruin his life?’
If he couldn’t do anything because his sister died and remained a fossil at the Academy like this, his future was clear without even looking.
Eventually, he would be expelled or graduate in disgrace, and he would end up dying just like this, idling away his time as he was now.
Whether he was kicked out of the family and died, or was hidden away by the family in shame until he died.
‘……Of course, it’s none of my business. I can’t even manage my own life, so who am I to worry about someone else?’
Lephonia turned her head. If she couldn’t find the heirloom and time ran out, leading to her being disowned by the family, she would ultimately fail her mission and die at the hands of the Pope. Her fate was the same.
Lephonia started the wooden horse and moved away. The wooden horse moved in the exact opposite direction of where Pretes had gone.
‘I should stop pestering Pretes to be my guard.’
Lephonia suddenly felt envious of the family’s real youngest daughter, whose face and name she didn’t even know.
What would it feel like to have someone who remembers you and searches for you even after you’re dead?
‘I’ll never know that feeling in my entire life.’
The more she lived as the Lady of Kreitan, and the more she obtained the things the original Lady should have received.
An inexplicable sense of loss and envy grew.
Lephonia furrowed her brows and shook her head vigorously.
‘Did I really become five years old in the head just because I became five years old in body?’
Pull yourself together. You’re past the age of feeling loss and envy. You’re not a real child; what are you going to do if you can’t even control your own emotions?
Lephonia neatly tucked away her feelings. And it was at that moment.
Thud.
Lost in thought and not looking where she was going, Lephonia was startled by a sound.
The wooden horse had hit a rock and was tilting forward.
“……Huh?”
Water appeared before Lephonia’s eyes. A very deep lake, at that.
Lephonia blinked. That moment felt incredibly slow. As if time itself had stopped.
“Oh…….”
Unless Lephonia steered it, the wooden horse would continue straight in the same direction.
The problem was that Lephonia, lost in her thoughts, had been moving the wooden horse without looking properly ahead.
Forward, straight forward.
“Damn it…….”
Before the curse could even finish.
Splash!
Lephonia’s body and the wooden horse plunged into the lake of the Kreitan estate with a loud noise.
Gurgle.
Deeper than she thought, her body and the wooden horse slowly sank to the bottom of the lake.
‘To make such a stupid mistake.’
Lephonia held her breath.
‘A real five-year-old would be panicking in this situation, but not me.’
Lephonia blinked and swam habitually.
She was just surprised to have fallen in, but it wasn’t a big problem.
It was only natural, as she had learned how to dive, hold her breath, and swim from the Pope.
‘When I was in training, if I couldn’t hold my breath and poked my head out of the water, I’d be beaten until I was half-dead.’
Recalling the memory, Lephonia swam upward with composure. Just then, she saw the wooden horse sinking like it was collapsing.
To be precise, the wooden horse adorned with expensive jewels and a magic stone.
And the first gift she had ever received in her life.
“……!!”
Lephonia stopped moving without realizing it. Those expensive jewels and the magic stone were sinking to the bottom of the lake.
The first gift she had ever received was crashing miserably to the bottom of the lake.
For some reason, the Duke’s face came to mind.
The face he had when he gave her the wooden horse, looking nervous, and the face he had when he smiled, saying he was happy to be the one to give her her first gift.
Lephonia moved her body without thinking.
‘It’s heavy because he put all those jewels on it!’
Lephonia swam not toward the surface, but toward the sinking wooden horse.
This was the instinct of hunger. When Lephonia first saw the jewels on the wooden horse, she hadn’t thought about how pretty they were; she had thought about their price.
She had thought about survival, wondering how many months she could go without starving with just one of those jewels. And there weren’t just one, but dozens of them, plus a magic stone embedded in it.
So, even though she knew that swimming toward the bottom of the lake meant moving further away from life and cutting off her air, Lephonia couldn’t help but swim after the sinking wooden horse.
A wooden horse more expensive than me.
That was the only reason. It wasn’t because the Duke’s face had popped into her head. It would be stupid to make a choice like this for a reason like that.
Gurgle.
Lephonia’s breath hitched.
The jewels that had shone beautifully on the wooden horse lost their original luster the deeper they sank into the lake.
‘It’s my first gift…….’
And perhaps it might be her last.
Lephonia, who had thought such a foolish thing without meaning to, furrowed her brows.
Her breath was cut off faster than she had expected.
‘A child’s body… really can’t hold its breath for long…….’
Even so, Lephonia’s eyes were fixed not on the surface of the lake, but on the wooden horse falling to the bottom.
Gurgle.
Lephonia’s eyes grew dim and cloudy.
‘If I die…….’
Would there be anyone who would remember and miss me like they do that child?
Lephonia’s body began to lose strength. But she didn’t stop.
As if catching the wooden horse sinking to the bottom, and getting her hands on those jewels that no longer shone, would make everything end well.
It was then.
Splash—!
The water surged violently. Then, someone approached, grabbed Lephonia’s wrist, and pulled her upward.
As she rose to the surface, the sinking wooden horse grew distant, and light flooded into her dark eyes.
“Puh-ha!”
Lephonia was pulled out of the lake by someone’s hand. As her breath suddenly returned, a fit of coughing erupted from deep within her chest.
“Cough, cough!”
“A doctor!! Bring a doctor!!”
As she collapsed onto the ground, Lephonia looked up to see who had saved her.
Soaked from head to toe and shouting, it was Pretes.
“Pre… cough, cough!!”
Pretes, who had been shouting for a doctor, turned his head sharply at Lephonia’s voice.
In the eyes that met hers, various mixed emotions—anxiety, worry, anger, and loss—were swirling.
“Are you crazy??!!”
Pretes shouted in a rage, sweeping back his wet hair.
“If you fell in, you should have come out immediately, why!!! Can’t you swim??!! No, that’s not it, you were swimming toward the bottom!!! Why were you swimming toward the bottom instead of the top!!”
Lephonia looked up at Pretes with water-filled eyes. It was hard to tell if what was flowing down Pretes’s cheeks was water or tears.
“…The wooden horse.”
Her tongue felt heavy, and her pronunciation was slurred.
“The wooden horse was sink-ing.”
At the faint voice that sounded like it might fade away at any moment, Pretes, who had been angry, froze.
“It was my first, gift… and it was expensive.”
“Expensive, you say expensive. Hey, kid. You can get things like that anytime. Huh? I can get you something like that right now.”
But if you die, it’s all over. If you don’t come out of the lake, things like that are useless.
Pretes swallowed his words and stared at the foolish five-year-old. At the same time, the five-year-old gave a light, bitter chuckle.
“…Not for me.”
The soaked child shook her head.
“For me—”
These are jewels I could never have, even if I were to die and be reborn.
Lephonia slowly lifted her head. She opened her lips, looking at Pretes, who was frozen as if he didn’t know how to respond.
“You saved me.”
Maybe it was because she had survived after nearly dying. That pathetic guy looked even more pathetic.
It was a pity to see him living like a degenerate when he could have lived a perfectly good life, and he looked as foolish as she did, chasing after a wooden horse even when she knew she might die.
“You can protect me.”
“What?”
Soaked to the bone, Lephonia looked at Pretes with a dry expression.
“You saved me. If it weren’t for you, I would have died just now.”
Lephonia wiped her wet face with her palm. Her small hands trembled, perhaps because she had tried so hard to swim after the sinking wooden horse. Lephonia let out a light breath and grabbed the hem of Pretes’s wet clothes.
“Graduate.”
Pretes looked down at his grabbed sleeve.
“You could have done it, but you didn’t. So, graduate.”
Graduate from being a degenerate, and graduate from the Academy.
“I need you, too.”
“You… need me?”
Pretes’s eyes wavered.
Lephonia burst into laughter at the sight, as if he had never heard such words in his life.
Maybe it was because she had fallen into the water and come back out. She felt as if the breath that had been blocked until now had finally cleared.
Pretes stared blankly at Lephonia’s bright smile.
“Did you not hear what I said until now? I said it would be nice if you were my guard. …Of course, I don’t intend to force you anymore.”
Lephonia tapped the back of Pretes’s hand with her small hand, as if to comfort him.
“You protected me now. You can do well next time, too.”
“Kid, you.”
Pretes’s words could not continue.
“Hey, kid!!”
The five-year-old Lephonia could no longer hold up her body and collapsed, fainting.
‘Ah. Five years old, so weak. Truly useless.’
Thinking that, Lephonia closed her eyes.
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