~Chapter 7~
Why is this guy acting like this all of a sudden?
His loyalty is off the charts!
“…Y-yes?”
I kept an eye on him and muttered “hmph” while nibbling on my sandwich.
“I mean, I admit he’s impressive, but there’s no way anyone would find his personality likable…”
“Give it here.”
That was when it happened. Somehow, the man twitched his lips and snatched the orange juice I was holding.
“!”
I yelled in shock as my daily ration was taken from me in an instant.
“Why are you taking a kid’s juice?!”
“Isn’t it enough to just get your protein and carbs? What do you need juice for?”
“Even so, taking it after giving it…! They say not even dogs get touched during meals…”
“You should be grateful I even gave you the sandwich. A child who doesn’t know gratitude cannot enter the garden. Out. Now.”
“Wha—ah, sir!”
What the heck? Why the sudden outburst?
“Out.”
“Noooo! Waaah!”
The man tried to grab me.
I clenched my fists and held onto the bench as tightly as I could, but his massive hand easily slipped under my armpits and lifted me up without effort.
“Sir!”
He carried me forcibly toward the garden entrance.
“Ahh, sir! What’s gotten into you all of a sudden?!”
“Again, that mouth.”
“Sirrr!”
“Keep that pouting mouth shut. We’re going to the annex. Now.”
And with that, the gardener set me down inside the mansion. The door closed behind him.
“…Seriously?”
To think he would throw me out of the garden just for a word. Is this supposedly rational man really this petty?
And it’s not even about him—it’s about the head of the house.
Don’t most noble servants trash-talk their masters behind their backs?
I knew he was loyal, but not this loyal.
I stood there, staring blankly at the closed door, my thought process stalled.
Suddenly, there was a thumping sound from the other side.
“?”
The door swung open, and there he was—the gardener.
He looked down at me with the same sharp eyes.
“You don’t need a kid’s juice either. Here, take it.”
He shoved the juice into my hands and disappeared again.
I stood there, stunned, processing the rapid sequence of events. Then a snicker escaped me.
“…Seriously, though.”
Really.
“Giving me the juice…! This is flirting, isn’t it? You have no intention of raising kids, don’t give it!”
I yelled at the empty garden.
[Ariena]
The garden’s name, written carefully in cursive, was taken from his wife’s name.
Accessible only to the direct line of the Crost family, it was meticulously maintained, yet somehow felt barren, like a desert.
During the war, all direct heirs of the Crost dukes had vanished.
‘I’m alone.’
Having ended the war, Calips gazed at the garden, silent as a tomb.
And he reached one conclusion:
‘It was a pointless war.’
Behind him, a long shadow fell.
The people who had cheered for him. The emperor who praised his war achievements. The nobles who looked at him with admiration.
All were empty shells.
‘What I tried to protect was my wife, who was expecting a child.’
Cedric, the first son who once picked up a wooden sword claiming he would help.
Lucas, the second son, who ran out waving at his father even though he only knew books.
…and the soon-to-be-born youngest daughter, Eve.
The war was fought to protect the kingdom’s people, but in truth, it had been for them.
“Heh—”
His face twisted as if to cry while looking at the empty garden, but all he could release was a long sigh.
Behind him, knights waited for orders.
“…Disperse. Everyone, rest.”
“Yes, sir!”
From that day on, cheers for the war hero disappeared.
The Crost duke searched the entire Frozen Kingdom for his wife and heirs, but all that returned were the grim expressions of his knights.
“Forgive me, Your Grace.”
By the 159th day of the search, when a knight lowered his head even before opening the door, Calips realized something.
The knights’ expressions were slowly becoming like his own.
‘I’ll need to wear a mask.’
From that day, Calips began his routine by putting on a mask as soon as he awoke.
His grief was his alone; it was not for them to bear.
When he wore the mask, the initially flustered knights gradually began to regard it as a symbol of their rational, cold-headed master.
They even stopped going to the garden every day.
“Who are you, entering the garden?”
If he ever wanted to enter, even once.
“I am the gardener employed by His Grace.”
He even started making absurd lies while covering his face with a robe.
His sorrow could be shown, but the duke’s grief could not.
Thus, the Crost household regained its vitality.
As if nothing had happened.
The fact that the entire family had vanished was known only to Calips.
Every night, he woke suddenly from dreams haunted by the screams of his missing family.
From shadows that followed him.
From the empty chair across the room.
From the dining room he entered alone.
Every breath tightened around the guilt of failing to protect his family.
Time passed, and one day, Calips felt he no longer needed the mask.
He thought he had to return to his family.
He had never planned how he would end his life.
But he was someone who, once he decided, could accomplish it.
The only thing he had failed at was protecting his family. So, to make amends, he felt he had to reach them as soon as possible.
[The Potion of Death]
Standing in the garden one last time, he pulled a potion from his pocket. He was about to uncork it when—
“E-excuse me!”
Someone had intruded into his and his family’s space.
A tiny, nut-sized blonde child appeared.
Two pigtails curled like springs.
Eyes as large and blue as sapphires.
“Phew, what a relief.”
Without permission, she slipped under his robe, sat comfortably, and let out a sigh of relief.
“…?”
He looked down, still trying to make sense of it.
A small white hand poked out of the robe, followed by a face glaring somewhere.
It was a maid of the Crost household.
‘…What on earth is this,’
But he barely had time to wonder.
The child said the scary person chasing her was her, and that the maid was looking for the girl. He understood the situation immediately.
“Have you seen a little girl running this way? About five years old.”
As the maid approached, she shoved the child’s head under his robe.
‘Probably the daughter of a maid caught in mischief.’
That was fine. He could be an invisible shield for a child, even if he was about to die.
But.
“She knows where the princess is.”
When he heard news of the daughter he had almost given up on, his senses, so long quiet as a grave, began to stir.
He sent the maid away and tried to speak with the child alone.
The little one didn’t reveal the princess’s location, but instead listed demands she wanted fulfilled.
“Please be my dad. A dad who protects me from bad people.”
She was audacious.
“What’s the extent of your safety zone?”
His face, hidden beneath the mask, was the first to show strain.
‘…Safety zone?’
The child’s language was far beyond that of a normal five-year-old, but there was another reason he frowned.
She radiated a will to survive from every pore.
“…Actually, my goal right now is to survive, eat delicious desserts, make friends, and even get a lover. How about it? You want to help, right?”
Yet all she wanted was to live.
Just for the sake of tasty treats, making friends, and having a lover.
She had no one by her side. No family. A street orphan.
She gained hope from something so trivial?
He had no words. It was absurd, yet he couldn’t crush her dream.
His resolve to return to his family was increasingly postponed.
Partly to find his youngest daughter, but also because he became curious about the child.
And.
When he happened upon a tiny head of blonde hair the size of a fist in the laundry room, he let out a hollow laugh.
The child had been fiddling with the clothes, which glowed faintly blue.
That was the reaction when using poison-based abilities.
Seeing the letters on the clothes, he became certain. The little girl was a spy sent by the Pose family.
‘Now I’m being manipulated by a five-year-old. I must’ve really softened.’
He closed his eyes at the absurdity, annoyed at the Pose family who tried to exploit a child, and at his own foolishness.
He felt a twinge of resentment toward the child for deceiving him, and was about to summon his knights.
Then.
“Ha—If I’ve done enough, I can survive, right? I really want to get away from the Pose family…”
The child’s sigh, uncharacteristically heavy, caught his attention.
It was as if she was silently asking him to listen.
The child exhaled heavily and neatly folded the clothes with the writing.
It was strange.
The letters were likely orders, and now that they were verified, they should be hidden—but the child did not.
Instead, she spread them out so the letters were visible, as if asking anyone to notice.
“Who made you do the laundry?”
“…Huh?”
Calips realized immediately.
‘Sir, would you like to try raising a child?’
All the words she had spoken while following him all day were not jokes.
They were a desperate plea.
“Your Grace! I think we’ve discovered a spy from the Pose family! Dressed as a maid, letters like this…”
“I know.”
It was now the adult’s turn to act.
Calips didn’t even look at the clothes the knight brought.
But his eyes, long dead, now glimmered with their true color, flashing vividly with crimson.
“Bring the maid named Dorothy to the office immediately.”
