Chapter 2
Was there some kind of switch in their brains?
Depending on the situation, the members of the Crollot family would casually turn off their conscience and sense of morality.
‘The kind-looking Count and Countess were actually corrupt lords blinded by money.’
And what about Jonathan, who was smiling warmly in front of Reina?
He was a complete lunatic who didn’t even see people outside his family as human.
There was no way Reina, who had grown up in such a family, would be any different.
After transmigrating into Reina’s body, she had to calmly listen to the Count and Countess share tax evasion tricks so she wouldn’t attract unnecessary suspicion.
‘No matter how rotten their personalities are.’
Kidnapping a child is going too far!
“And Reina, kidnapping?”
As a chill ran down her spine, Jonathan spoke in a hurt tone.
“He’s a wandering orphan. I just picked him up from the southern coast where he’d been abandoned.”
…The southern coast?
Reina looked at the boy again.
Black hair. Blood-red eyes.
A body so weak it was pitiful.
And—
A wandering orphan from the southern coast.
‘No way.’
Reina’s face turned just as pale as the boy’s.
“Reina.”
Jonathan called her gently when she couldn’t take her eyes off the child.
“You won’t feel so lonely with him around. He’s human, so he’ll live longer than a cat.”
Jonathan smiled, hoping his sister would fill the empty space he left behind with this boy.
“Are you—”
“Hmm?”
Her voice was too quiet to hear, so Jonathan leaned closer.
That was when—
“Are you insane?! Have you lost your mind, Brother?!”
Reina raised both hands and began hitting Jonathan’s back.
Who was the boy Jonathan had brought?
‘It’s Calix!’
And not just anyone—he was the terminally ill younger brother of Lucius Ingersoll, the man known across the Empire as the “Monster Grand Duke.”
Reina felt like crying.
‘Now the Crollot family is definitely going to be wiped out by Lucius!’
Not long after Jonathan left for the Naval Academy, Reina saw Lucius’s name in an imperial newsletter.
Grand Duke Lucius Ingersoll, dispatched by imperial order to conflict zones near neighboring countries.
Only then did Reina remember which novel she had transmigrated into.
In the original story, it began when the female lead took in Calix, who had become a wandering orphan.
Her only “crime” was caring for him devotedly until his death, yet her family was driven to the brink of destruction.
The villain of the novel, Lucius, lost his brother and turned dark, declaring war on the female lead’s family.
‘Because Lucius accused her of kidnapping Calix and causing his death.’
Reina had once pitied the female lead for the suffering that awaited her.
But that was only for a moment. It no longer concerned her.
The Crollot Count family, which Reina now belonged to, wasn’t even mentioned in the original story.
In other words, Reina wasn’t a villain destined for justice, nor a side character fated to die unfairly.
The villain would be defeated by the original female and male leads joining forces, just as the story intended.
All Reina had to do was live her second life peacefully.
And for that peaceful life, she only needed to slowly distance herself from her family, who might end up in prison at any time.
‘That was the plan!’
But Jonathan, returning home after a long time, had just thrown a ticking time bomb into her quiet life.
“Reina.”
Jonathan grabbed her wrist.
“You’ve changed.”
Gasp.
Reina realized her mistake.
The shocking situation had made her lose control.
The Reina Jonathan knew rarely showed her emotions.
Her surprise and anger just now were enough to make him suspicious.
‘That can’t happen.’
Reina remembered what had happened a month after she transmigrated.
She had tried to stop the Count and Countess from giving a servant an excessively cruel punishment for a small mistake.
What happened then?
Their once-gentle gazes turned icy in an instant, and they began suspecting that something was mentally wrong with her.
She had nearly been dragged to a so-called “mental correction hospital,” a suspicious and dangerous place that wasn’t even a real hospital.
“You’re….”
Jonathan studied the tense Reina.
“You’ve gotten softer?”
“…What?”
“You used to slap me.”
Whenever Jonathan annoyed her, Reina would often slap his cheek.
He even seemed to miss the scratches her nails used to leave on his face. Compared to that, her weak hits on his back seemed disappointing to him.
‘Thank goodness.’
That he was crazy.
Reina sighed inwardly with relief and pulled her hand from his grasp.
“Why did you even go to the southern coast in the first place?”
Why on earth had Jonathan, not the original female lead, brought Calix here?
“The southern coast was a stopover before coming home. I stayed there with some academy classmates who had the same route.”
Reina felt despair wash over her.
A group of men in cadet uniforms would surely be remembered by many people.
‘And if he brought Calix while he was with friends—’
With so many witnesses, it would only be a matter of time before Lucius traced it back to the Crollot family.
“The southern coast is famous as a resort. I sent my classmates back first and stayed a little longer alone. I even changed into more casual clothes to feel like I was on vacation.”
“Then… did you meet the boy when you were alone?”
Jonathan nodded.
Reina’s stiff body relaxed slightly. At least that was the worst case avoided.
“I met him the night before I left. He was standing alone on a cliff near the shore.”
Jonathan glanced at Calix, then back at Reina.
“When I saw him standing there in the middle of the night, I thought of you. His eyes looked like yours did the last time I saw them.”
He thought of me when he saw Calix?
What kind of nonsense is that?
“When I said my heart hurt thinking about the day I left, I wasn’t exaggerating.”
Jonathan gently placed a hand on her shoulder.
“You suddenly couldn’t speak and looked so confused. We were practically best friends. You must have been so sad.”
Because of her weak health, Reina couldn’t go out often. Jonathan had been her only companion.
He believed that even if she didn’t show it, she must have felt unbearably lonely after he left.
“Even after I entered the academy, your last expression kept appearing in my mind.”
Wait.
Reina’s mouth slowly fell open as she listened.
“So when I thought about leaving this boy behind, it felt like I was leaving you there instead.”
So that means—
‘Jonathan brought Calix because of my silence back then?’
Reina was speechless.
She had just been hit by a dump truck and woken up inside a novel. What was she supposed to do?
Until she figured out which book she had transmigrated into, staying quiet had been the safest choice.
‘Afraid that making a mistake might affect the original story.’
And yet her caution had ended up twisting the story anyway.
Reina felt both dumbfounded and wronged.
“When I told him to come with me, he followed without resistance. He didn’t answer, but he clearly nodded.”
As Jonathan recalled the memory, he looked at Calix again.
“Come to think of it, I’ve never heard him speak. Is he mute?”
Jonathan clicked his tongue.
“If he can’t talk, then he’s no better than a cat.”
Shrugging, he turned back to Reina.
“Reina. I prepared this gift to make you happy, but if you don’t like it, you don’t have to accept it.”
Reina, who had been stunned after realizing she was the cause of the story’s distortion, snapped back to her senses.
“Are you going to return him to where he was?”
“That’s too much trouble. I’ll just hand him over to a slave trader.”
Reina felt dizzy.
If they kept Calix, Lucius would come accusing them of kidnapping.
If they sold him to a slave trader, Lucius would still come for revenge.
‘Because Lucius intends to start a war no matter what.’
He wasn’t the novel’s villain for nothing.
On the surface, he would pretend to wage war out of grief for his brother’s death.
But Calix was only an excuse.
Lucius had darker motives hidden beneath that excuse.
‘If I take Calix back to where he was now, could I still fix this?’
Reina looked at Calix.
As if on cue, he lifted his head, and their eyes met.
Seeing his dark, sunken red eyes, Reina suddenly found herself unable to speak.
She had been so caught up in the situation that she hadn’t spared a thought for him.
How must Calix feel, hearing himself discussed as a gift or a slave?
Reina struggled to find words, her lips moving soundlessly.
Then—
“I won’t….”
Calix, who had remained silent the entire time, finally spoke.
“I won’t hear anything, won’t see anything, and won’t say anything. So….”
His thin voice trembled.
“Please just let me stay here.”
