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chapter 10
“Could it be that the third one’s dead?”
“Huh?”
Suddenly?
“I mean your older sister, the one above you. The third, Diana. Even if you didn’t see her face, you must have heard news, right? You don’t know Diana?”
“…I know her, but why?”
“Is she dead?”
“No?”
“Really?”
Ryan’s expression became strange.
“The Bless you just wrote… that’s Diana’s, isn’t it?”
“So?”
“You also have the same Bless?”
“Yes.”
I tensed up. Ryan’s reaction, which I expected to be entirely happy, seemed somehow suspicious.
“Hey.”
Ryan grinned and bent down, pressing his lips to my ear. Then he whispered.
“Blesses don’t overlap.”
I swallowed in shock at that moment. Goosebumps ran down my spine at the clarity of his voice.
“If Diana is alive, no one else should be able to use that Bless. Then what are you?”
“…….”
[It seems the same Bless cannot manifest in more than one person.]
This is one of the <Laws of Ability>, still under steady research even by the family administrators, and not yet fully confirmed.
Information like this wasn’t something Ryan, who had been imprisoned and cut off from the world at twelve, could easily access.
‘And… why is he so certain?’
I, too, was not fully confident about that law. Why? Our family’s history isn’t that long. The existence of ability users is recent, and there haven’t been many documented cases of abilities appearing.
Why these abilities suddenly appeared, and why the power is inherited only in the Basenberk bloodline…
Everything about it was still unknown, even to the ability users themselves.
Yet Ryan seemed different. It was as if he were confident about some principle of abilities that no one else knew…
“Are you a mutant? Or—”
Ryan smiled ominously, locking eyes with me.
“Are you hiding anything else?”
My heart raced violently.
Then—
Thump, thump, thump, thump.
Heavy footsteps approached from outside, and the door suddenly burst open.
“Hyungnim!!!”
Startled, I turned to see the man who had barged in.
Perfectly straight bangs. Silver hair cut sharply along the jawline. Short hair and a seriously thin body—at first glance, it was hard to determine his gender.
He was clearly—
‘Silver hair! That’s Rivan!’
Ryan’s prison mate. And, I guessed, his closest ally who had probably helped him exact revenge ever since.
Fortunately, the timing of his entrance wasn’t bad…
“Eh?”
Rivan tilted his head, looking at me.
“And who is this cute little lady?”
Ryan straightened his back and silently looked at me.
“…….”
“…….”
Tension hung between our locked gazes.
“She’s my daughter, for now.”
“What?!!!”
“Phew, let’s go back a bit…”
Ryan sighed and walked toward Rivan.
“Before I went to prison, I…”
Resting his hand playfully on Rivan’s shoulder, Ryan spoke theatrically.
“Back then, I fell in love with a girl whose name I didn’t even know—for one night.”
“One night? What are you saying? If it’s before you went to prison, weren’t you still babbling as a baby?”
“Let me introduce her.”
Ryan spread his hands toward me.
“She’s my daughter, unknowingly created that day.”
A brief silence fell… and Rivan burst out laughing.
“What utter nonsense!”
“Ha ha ha ha!”
“Ha ha ha ha!”
Watching the two men laugh as if the room would collapse, I swallowed hard. It seemed right to play along for now.
“Nice to meet you! I’m your daughter, Vania!”
“See? I look cute, just like Dad!”
“Oh, what are you saying!”
Rivan shouted at Ryan, who was pretending to be playful.
“Who do you think you’re fooling! Are you telling me to believe this?”
“What if you don’t?”
Even though it had been a year since their reunion, the two seemed as close as if they had met yesterday.
It made sense—they both grew up more like brothers, sharing blood, than actual siblings while imprisoned at a young age.
‘By the way, his speech is unusual. Southern origin… maybe?’
I observed Rivan carefully even amidst everything.
“Anyway, you need a beating.”
“Wah! Why, what?!”
Ryan grabbed Rivan by the back of the neck and grinned.
“What, Yally Yally Yallaseng? Do you really want to die? Do you know how embarrassed I was reciting that stupid code out loud?”
“Ehh? You read it out loud? Why…? You could’ve just shown the note to the owner. I paired them already, didn’t I?”
“……!”
Fool. He finally realized it, and Ryan’s expression went blank for a moment.
“Wow. Dumb as a rock, huh?”
“Shut up!”
“Ugh!”
Embarrassed, Ryan lightly poked Rivan’s stomach, turned around, and froze when he saw me.
“…….”
No… don’t look at me.
I bit my lips hard to suppress the burst of laughter.
“Funny?”
“No…”
Ryan started packing loudly.
Soon, with a stuffed duffel on his back and the sword he had taken from a soldier upon release strapped securely to his waist, he said:
“Alright, let’s board the ship. We’re heading straight to the continent.”
“Yay!”
Rivan cheerfully went ahead, followed by Ryan. I hesitated, unsure what to do.
“What are you doing?”
Ryan, who stopped going out, looked back at me.
“Why aren’t you following?”
“Ah!”
A cool sea breeze blew.
White seagulls squawked over the dazzling water.
The ship heading to the continent, the Laferi, sailed smoothly.
Here, on the sunlit deck, with the sound of waves lapping at our ears, were three suspicious passengers:
Ryan (24, recently released after 12 years for mass murder and arson)
Rivan (23, released a year ago after 11 years for illegal experiments)
Vania (12, posing as a criminal’s daughter—my half-sister)
‘Wow. What a combination.’
I was breathless.
From a high-status family princess to a member of a former criminal gang—my social status had plummeted.
“Ah, so the family kicked you out. Because you’re useless.”
Rivan, finally hearing my situation after boarding, expressed sympathy.
He was very sociable.
Within an hour of meeting him, I learned he was from the southern continent, Rotschild; his unusual hair style was a local trend; and he had a younger sibling separated from him as a child.
“All done. So cute…”
“Th-thank you.”
Rivan tied my hair neatly on both sides, smiling.
“Ha ha ha!”
“Ha ha, hmm.”
…Ah. I broke out in a cold sweat.
Pale skin that seemed never to see sunlight. A thin body and pretty face. Short hair—so convincing as a girl.
I knew very well how dangerous this harmless-looking man, Rivan, could be.
‘He was famous before I returned.’
Better known as the “White Magitech Engineer” for his silver hair than his real name.
Former youngest professor in the Magitech Department of the Imperial Academy.
A terrifying genius inventor.
He had created dozens of weapons capable of mass casualties.
Before my return, Basenberk’s mercenaries fell helplessly before his advanced weapons.
‘No wonder the White Magitech Engineer attacked our family…’
Curious, I had investigated him after returning.
I discovered he, like Ryan, was from the Abyssus prison.
Meeting him now confirmed my suspicions.
‘As expected.’
He had been allied with Ryan from the start…
Moreover, Rivan—
“Phew, it’s hot. Shall we go to the cabin first?”
He smirked at me and moved first. Ryan followed, and I nervously took a moment to steady myself.
Unlike Ryan, who had been falsely accused, Rivan was…
‘The real deal.’
A genuine criminal.
