#5
Noah, instead of answering, stretched out his hands and gently cupped the cheeks of the man walking ahead of her. Everyone she had done this to had smiled at her. And this man, too, was looking at her and smiling softly.
“Will you mawwy me?”
“If the young lady wishes it.”
Whoa, was getting married this easy? All I had to do was ask? Was this thanks to Lucas, the Grand Duke of the North?
“Youw name…”
He said he’d marry me if I knew his name, so I should ask for that first. Tell me your name.
“Noah!”
Just as she was about to seriously exchange names with the man and discuss their bright future, a firm voice suddenly called her name. Noah’s small head whipped around.
The moment she saw Lucas, Noah’s lips jutted out into a pout.
Why is this man interrupting and making a scene right now, just when I’m about to secure the marriage he wanted so badly for me?!
“My greetings to one who is blessed by Arghen.”
The man who had been holding her knelt on one knee, bowed his head, and set her down from his embrace. Sitting on the floor, Noah looked around.
She was back in the room where she had first woken up. The man was kneeling on one knee in a formal posture, bowing his head to someone.
She saw Lucas standing like a great wall and a man sitting alone on a large sofa.
Recognizing the young version of the stiff and cold Emperor Alex, Noah pushed her hands against the floor and got up.
“What were you thinking, wandering off alone! What if something had happened to you!”
Lucas’s voice was scary, almost scolding, as if he’d just realized she was missing. He reached his arm out towards her, and Noah quickly tried to waddle away from his grasp.
Hey, I’m back safe, so calm down. I have a lot to do right now, you can’t interrupt. First, I need to settle things with my future husband, and since you never know how things turn out, I should also build a connection with the Emperor.
Faster than she could escape, Lucas’s hand closed in. Noah, still pouting, smacked his approaching hand away with a slap.
“Gweetings… gweetings… time for gweetings.”
Let’s do the greetings.
I need to create the image of a child who, though young, knows manners and is kind and obedient, right? By doing this greeting, Lucas, you can also show off what a great child you have, so just be still for a moment!
Noah, who had been running around trying to evade Lucas’s hand, stopped short when she saw Alex in front of her. She remembered the posture the man had just taken.
“Awghen’s bwessings…”
Blessings of Arghen…
She already knew the greeting for the Emperor, but her disobedient tongue rolled on its own anyway. Worse, as she knelt on one knee and bowed her head, her small body tipped forward and she tumbled over.
“Now I understand why you didn’t want to show her off.”
With a hearty laugh, someone’s hand slid under her armpits and lifted her up just before she landed ugly on the floor. Noah let out a small sigh.
Since it’s a child’s body, I guess I have to get used to people sticking their hands under my armpits and lifting me up whenever they want, but I still get startled first whenever someone suddenly picks me up like this.
“If I had such a cute Omega son, I’d probably hide him away and not show him off either.”
Plonked down on the Emperor’s knee, Noah sighed exaggeratedly and looked at Lucas, who was sitting on the adjacent sofa.
“That’s why I wanted to return to Austen.”
“Noah is three years old this year?”
“Yes!”
Although it was a conversation between Alex and Lucas, Noah quickly raised one hand and answered promptly when Alex confirmed her age.
“Wow, she’s like a doll.”
While she was distracted by Alex and Lucas, another voice spoke. Noah quickly looked up. The man who had been kneeling was now standing to the side, slightly bowing his head, and something was rushing quickly towards them from the window.
“Can I hold her too?”
If you want to hold me, you should ask me, the person involved, for permission. Why are you asking Lucas and Alex?
The moment she saw the brown hair and distinctly reddish eyes, Noah instantly recognized this child as Matthew. Matthew, who had been quite handsome as an adult, was a very good-looking child.
If she hadn’t met that man earlier, he would have been a target to be charmed using her cuteness to the fullest. But to Noah, who had already given her heart to another, he was just a child.
The Crown Prince was fine too, but the mage seemed better. At least she could escape laundry and baths.
Remembering how the man’s touch had cleaned her up, Noah looked at Matthew approaching her and quickly shook her head back and forth.
Dammit…
A child’s opinion is naturally ignored.
A seven-year-old boy couldn’t possibly hold a younger baby properly. Held clumsily and haphazardly, dangling awkwardly in the air, Noah half-closed her eyes and expressed her discomfort as much as she could.
She felt like throwing a fit and demanding to be put down, but she had to maintain decorum in front of the Crown Prince and the Emperor.
“Papa, is Noah an Omega?”
I am not a toy teddy bear. My shoulders are going to dislocate. Can’t you just put me down?
“So it seems.”
“Then. I want her.”
It seemed like he tried to adjust his hold, but since he hadn’t been holding her properly from the start, when Matthew lost his grip, Noah, now sitting on the floor, quickly tried to crawl away from him.
But she couldn’t stop Matthew, who was more agile than her, from grabbing her face and boldly planting a kiss on her cheek without permission.
“Matthew, people aren’t objects, you can’t do that. And it’s not something you can decide alone. Most importantly, Noah must agree.”
Before she could even properly confess or confirm anything, hearing the Crown Prince’s bombshell statement out of nowhere, Noah looked at the man in a panic. When her eyes met his, a wave of misery washed over her. I haven’t even confessed my feelings to him, and he saw me being hugged and kissed by another man right in front of him.
“No!”
Voicing her strong objection, the moment Matthew put her down, Noah quickly ran to the man. She stretched out her hand and tightly grabbed his index finger.
“My papa is Gwand Duke! Big wand! And pwetty wand! So if you mawwy me, I’ll make you vewy happy.”
My papa is the Grand Duke of the North. His territory is vast and has lots of ore, so he’s not lacking financially. So if you marry me, I’ll make sure you never touch a drop of water and live happily forever, is what she wanted to say. But from Noah’s mouth, which couldn’t form proper thoughts coherently, any random words just tumbled out.
“Huh? My papa is the Emperor. And I’m the First Prince, so I’ll become Emperor. If you marry me, I’ll give you the whole Empire.”
Noah, who had tightly gripped the man’s index finger while confessing, looked at Matthew, who was holding her other hand and saying something similar. Seeing him grin and boast about giving her a country, Noah’s heart sank with a thud.
“If you marry me, you’ll be Empress.”
“…Matthew, that’s probably not such a simple matter.”
“Noah, do you even know what marriage is?”
Noah, who had been looking at Alex admonishing Matthew, glanced at Lucas, who was looking at her with a stiffened expression, checking if she even understood the concept of marriage.
“But what youw name?”
None of that matters. First, tell me your name.
“Raymond, where did you find this child?”
“I brought her here after seeing her alone in the hallway a moment ago.”
At Alex’s question, Raymond, who had been pretending not to be there until now, answered while looking down at Noah, who was gazing up at him as all eyes turned his way.
“Anyway, thank you for bringing Noah back safely.”
As Lucas expressed his gratitude to Raymond and grabbed Noah’s torso, Noah clutched Raymond’s index finger even tighter.
“Not at all.”
“Oh, did I mention it? Raymond has been confirmed as the next Royal Head Mage.”
“Head Mage?”
Whoa, awesome. As she was hauled away in Lucas’s arms, Noah didn’t take her eyes off Raymond. I know your name now, so we’re getting married, right? That’s the deal, right?
Unable to say it aloud, she put intense force into her eyes, desperately trying to convey her meaning, but Raymond just smiled an unreadable smile.
Lucas stroked the head of Noah, who was repeatedly tapping his hand with her small hand from within his embrace.
In the carriage to the palace, she had been chattering away about something, incredibly excited, then suddenly slumped over and fell asleep in an instant, which had given him quite a scare. He hadn’t expected the child who was laughing brightly just moments ago to collapse fast asleep like that.
He had only just realized she was asleep upon hearing her steady breathing when, the moment they entered the imperial grounds, countless eyes fell upon Noah.
Recluse.
He was well aware that word referred to him.
He disliked mixing with people and found bustle annoying, so he lived alone.
If he hadn’t met Loren, he would have continued that life, but after meeting Loren, Lucas’s life changed completely.
Loren, who was frail and felt the cold easily, spent about a third of the year in the capital, so naturally, Lucas spent more time there too.
Since Loren, like himself, preferred a quiet life, Noah had never been seen in public until now, at three years old. Even when he heard rumors had spread and caused an uproar that the Grand Duke of the North’s only child was an Omega, not an Alpha, he treated it as someone else’s business.
Anyway, since he, who rarely showed himself, had brought Noah out, by the time they returned home today, rumors about Noah would likely be rampant throughout the capital.
Oblivious to all this, sleeping soundly, Noah twitched her small hand and even smiled sweetly in her sleep. What sweet dream is she having to smile so prettily? Even on his way to the Emperor’s inner quarters, Lucas’s gaze was fixed not ahead, but on Noah.
And entrusting the sleeping Noah to the royal nanny had been the mistake.
When he returned to the reception room with Alex and Matthew, who wanted to see Noah, only the pale-faced royal nanny was there.
She had briefly left to instruct someone to prepare a snack for when Noah woke up, and in that time, Noah had disappeared. His heart sank at the news, and at that very moment, the door to the reception room opened.
And because she appeared with the next Royal Head Mage, the incident didn’t escalate further and was concluding at this level.
