Chapter 20
A strange feeling welled up inside her.
As if something warm and soft was blooming in her chest.
Lefonya quickly turned her head away from Pellens to avoid his gaze.
What was that just now? It sounded like he was actually worried about me getting hurt.
She frowned and shook her head.
No way. That couldn’t be it.
He must have said it only because she kept bothering him—just telling her to stop.
He still couldn’t forget his dead younger sister.
He couldn’t even bring himself to guard someone else, and he couldn’t even graduate from the Academy because of it.
There was no way he’d worry about Lefonya, who had taken that younger sister’s place.
“You get it now, right? So stop sighing like that. What five-year-old sighs that much?”
Pellens lightly patted her head and stood up. Lefonya watched his back as he walked away.
But if what he said was true—
Isn’t that basically ruining his whole life?
If he continued to do nothing because his sister died—remaining a fossil at the Academy—she could already see where his future would go.
One day, he would be expelled or forced into a shameful graduation.
Then, unable to do anything, he would drift aimlessly until he died.
Whether the family cast him out to die, or hid him away in disgrace until he died—it would end the same.
…Well, it’s not really my business. I can’t even take care of myself, so who am I to worry about him?
Lefonya turned her head.
If she failed to find the family heirloom and was kicked out, she would also end up dying at the Pope’s hands.
Her fate wouldn’t be any different.
She activated her hobbyhorse and moved away—deliberately going in the exact opposite direction of where Pellens had gone.
I should stop pestering Pellens to guard me.
Suddenly, she felt jealous of the real youngest daughter of this family—someone whose face and name she didn’t even know.
What must it feel like…
To be remembered and missed even after death?
I’ll never know that feeling my whole life.
The more she lived as the Creighton family’s young lady—
the more she gained things the original girl should have had—
the stronger the inexplicable sense of loss and envy became.
She scowled and shook her head violently.
Did becoming five years old make my brain five years old too??
Get a grip.
She was far past the age of feeling loss or envy.
She wasn’t really a child—how pathetic would it be if she couldn’t even control her emotions?
She neatly tucked her feelings away.
And then—
Thud.
Lost in thought, she hadn’t been watching where she was going. Something snagged under the hobbyhorse.
The hobbyhorse tipped forward.
“…Huh?”
Water appeared before her eyes.
A very deep lake.
Lefonya blinked.
That instant felt strangely slow—almost like time had stopped.
“Uh…”
Unless she turned the reins, the hobbyhorse would continue straight.
But she had been distracted, moving without looking ahead.
Forward, forward, and forward—
“For god’s—”
Before she even finished cursing—
SPLASH!
Her body and the hobbyhorse plunged into the Creighton estate’s lake with a loud crash.
Gurgle…
The lake was deeper than she expected.
Lefonya and the hobbyhorse slowly sank toward the bottom.
I can’t believe I made such a stupid mistake.
She held her breath.
A real five-year-old would panic in a situation like this. But I’m not like that.
Blinking calmly, she began to swim.
Falling into the lake was surprising, but not a real problem.
She’d been taught how to dive, hold her breath, and swim by the Pope.
Back then, if I lifted my head for air, I’d get beaten half to death…
Remembering that, she swam upward without panicking.
That was when she saw it—the hobbyhorse sinking like a collapsing structure.
More precisely—the hobbyhorse decorated with expensive jewels and magic stones.
The first gift she had ever received in her life.
“…!!”
Lefonya stopped swimming.
The jewels and stones were sinking to the bottom of the lake.
Her first gift was being swallowed by the depths, ruined beyond recovery.
For some reason, the Duke’s face appeared in her mind.
His nervous expression when he handed her the hobbyhorse…
His relieved smile when he said he was happy to be her first gift-giver.
Without realizing it, Lefonya moved.
Of course it’s sinking—he stuck so many jewels on it!
Instead of going up, she swam toward the sinking hobbyhorse.
This was instinct—instinct born from starvation.
When she first saw the jewels, she didn’t think they were pretty—she wondered how long she could survive by selling them.
There weren’t just one or two jewels—there were dozens, and even magic stones.
So even though swimming deeper meant suffocating,
even though every stroke brought her closer to death—
Lefonya couldn’t stop herself from chasing the sinking hobbyhorse.
It wasn’t sentiment.
It wasn’t the Duke’s face.
It was simple:
The hobbyhorse is worth more than my life.
Gurgle.
Her lungs burned.
The jewels that sparkled so beautifully were growing dim the deeper they fell.
It was my first gift…
Maybe it would also be her last.
The foolish thought made her frown.
Her breath was running out faster than she expected.
A child’s body really can’t hold its breath long…
Even so, her eyes were fixed—not on the surface,
but on the hobbyhorse dropping toward the bottom.
Gurgle…
Her vision blurred.
If I die…
Would there be anyone who remembered and missed her, the way they missed that dead child?
Strength drained from her limbs—but she didn’t stop.
As if grabbing the hobbyhorse…
as if taking those no-longer-shining jewels…
would somehow make everything end well.
Then—
SPLASH—!!
A huge disturbance rippled through the water.
Someone grabbed her wrist.
And dragged her upward.
As they rose, the sinking hobbyhorse grew farther away.
Light returned to her darkening vision.
“Pwah!”
Lefonya broke through the surface, coughing violently as the air hit her lungs.
“Cough—! Cough—!!”
“Get a doctor!! Bring a doctor!!!”
Collapsing onto the ground, she lifted her head to see her rescuer.
Soaked from head to toe and shouting desperately—
It was Pellens.
“Se— cough cough!!”
Pellens, who had been yelling for a doctor, snapped his head toward her voice.
In his eyes churned panic, worry, anger, grief—a chaos of emotions.
“Are you out of your mind??!!”
He pushed back his wet hair, furious.
“If you fall in, you swim up—UP!! Can’t you swim?? No—you were swimming DOWN!! Why were you swimming DOWN?!”
Through wet lashes, Lefonya looked up at him.
She couldn’t tell whether the water on his cheeks was from the lake… or tears.
“…The hobbyhorse…”
Her tongue felt numb; her words slurred.
“The hobbyhorse… sank…”
His anger froze mid-breath.
“It was… my first gift… and… expensive…”
“Expensive—? Hey, kid. Those things can be replaced! I could go get one RIGHT NOW!”
But if you die, it’s meaningless.
If you don’t get out of the lake, none of that matters.
He swallowed the rest of his words, staring at the foolish five-year-old.
And the five-year-old scoffed weakly.
“…Not for me.”
The dripping-wet child shook her head.
“For me—”
Those jewels were something she could never have…
not even if she died and was born again.
Lefonya slowly lifted her head.
Seeing Pellens frozen, unable to respond, she spoke:
“You saved me.”
Maybe it was because she’d almost died and survived.
But the pitiful guy looked even more pitiful now.
He could live a perfectly good life—but instead he wasted it like a delinquent.
Just like she had foolishly chased the sinking hobbyhorse.
“You can protect someone.”
“…What?”
Lefonya, dripping wet, looked at him blankly.
“You saved me. If it wasn’t for you, I’d be dead.”
She brushed water from her face with a trembling hand.
Then, exhaling softly, she grabbed the soaked hem of his clothes.
“Graduate.”
Pellens looked down at her small hand gripping him.
“You can do it, you just haven’t done it. So graduate.”
Graduate from being a delinquent.
Graduate from the Academy.
“I need you too.”
“…You need me?”
His eyes trembled.
As if no one had ever said such a thing to him in his life.
Lefonya actually laughed.
Maybe it was because she had just come out of the water.
But she felt like the breath she’d been holding in her chest finally loosened.
Pellens stared blankly at her bright smile.
“Didn’t you hear me till now? I said I’d like it if you protected me. …Though I won’t force you anymore.”
She gently patted the back of his hand with her tiny hand.
“You did protect me. You can do it again.”
“Kid, you—”
He didn’t finish.
“Hey, kid!!”
The five-year-old Lefonya suddenly collapsed, unable to stay upright.
Ugh. Five-year-old bodies are so weak. Completely useless.
Thinking that, Lefonya closed her eyes.
