🔊 TTS Settings
Chapter : 9
“Right! An intruder! I am an assassin! The youngest assassin!”
“Then you came here to kill someone?”
“That’s right! But now I’ll only kill one!”
“Hahaha, you think you can kill even one?”
It felt like a blade-like wind was blowing from somewhere.
Not just cold—this wind felt like it wanted to tear its prey to shreds.
“I’ll kill one!”
“How?”
“I just have to do it many times!”
“Ah, I see. That’s true—if you stab enough times, there’s nothing you can’t kill.”
Before I knew it, those blade-like eyes had come right up close and lowered themselves to meet my gaze.
Then he flicked my nose lightly with his finger and said,
“You’re persistent… You really are from that family, aren’t you? That’s a shame.”
“Hm?”
“Nice to meet you, assassin. I’m Demian. Demian Icarus. And you?”
Icarus!
I examined my target candidate more closely.
As I leaned in so close that our noses almost touched, Demian Icarus’s eyelids twitched slightly.
“I am No. 1!”
“…Ah.”
Up close, those blade-like eyes looked like watery gemstones.
With pitch-black hair that reached his waist and silver-rimmed glasses, that devil looked as if he had been made from eyes, night, and rainclouds combined.
A night devil.
“No. 1.”
“Yeah!”
“Hm. I see.”
The night devil suddenly moved away.
Smaller than the snowman, but to me, he still seemed impossibly tall.
I tilted my head since I couldn’t see his expression properly, but before I could figure anything out, he turned around.
“Be careful in the hallway, No. 1.”
As I followed his retreating back with my eyes, I faintly heard a voice like falling rain.
“So you don’t get hurt.”
When I blinked once, the devil had already disappeared.
“…A devil! A night devil! Damn magicians! Pretty magicians!”
As soon as I came to my senses, I muttered “Demian Icarus” about five times and ran down the corridor again.
“Demian Icarus! Demian Icarus!”
Then I was caught by the vicious skirt-wearing devils.
“How did you find out? The young master told us our baby was there.”
“Night devil! Pretty!”
“He is pretty, isn’t he? Hohoho! Now then—ta-da! Shall we switch this one for the other you were given?”
The devils and I agreed to exchange the snow lump once every two days.
“Now then, you should come have lunch.”
“Mm?”
An hour later,
I stood blankly in front of a mirror, spotless from head to toe, wearing a purple dress for children.
“…?”
And another hour later,
I lay on a bed in a clean room, patting my round belly, with the snow lump beside me.
“…?”
No matter how long I waited, the interrogation didn’t resume.
Exactly 4 hours and 12 minutes later, I was still lying there, patting my belly.
Pat, pat…
“This is strange. This place is strange. Everything is strange…”
I trailed off and stared blankly at my slightly swollen stomach.
It kept tickling inside.
“There are butterflies in my stomach.”
I can’t remember home.
I should try to return to the nanny and the researchers.
To go back—
“This is strange.”
The moment I thought of that place, the butterflies vanished instantly.
Instead, my heartbeat grew louder.
I quickly turned my head and buried my face into the snow lump.
Then I mumbled to myself,
“As expected of devils. Magicians use magic. Evil… Just you wait, you devils!”
At this rate, I decided I absolutely had to kill one person tomorrow and leave this place immediately.
As soon as Demian finished his duties, he folded space and arrived instantly in his father’s office.
Thud!
The moment his feet touched the ground, he lightly tapped it.
As a dense barrier of magic filled the surroundings, he greeted his father with his eyes.
After ensuring their conversation wouldn’t leak out, he walked over and sat on the guest sofa in the family head’s office.
His clean, elegant series of movements resembled his father exactly.
“Let’s just send her back.”
“Is that necessary?”
“You said she doesn’t know anything.”
“The interrogation isn’t over yet.”
Sensing that his son was more impatient than expected, the duke, Millian Icarus, raised his head.
A faint trace of concern appeared on his cold face as he asked,
“Is it because she’s from Clopford?”
“That’s not unrelated.”
“Why are you so impatient?”
“I started having dreams again. Very fragmentary ones, though.”
Sensing his father’s concern, Demian slowly opened and closed his eyes as he spoke.
Though he was not a born mage, Demian occasionally had prophetic dreams regardless of magic.
It was assumed to be due to a saintess among his distant ancestors.
Even if they were fragmented, they couldn’t be ignored—because his dreams were as accurate as that ancestor saintess’s.
Millian waited with a serious expression.
“It was a scene where a child inside our family turned into a monster and harmed people… I only saw the child’s shadow. So I’m asking—are you certain she’s not a monster?”
“I confirmed it myself.”
“I see, then.”
Demian lifted the corners of his lips slightly and smiled gently, as he usually did.
“Then I won’t insist on sending her away. But we can’t lower our guard.”
“I’ll keep the dream in mind.”
“Yes.”
Only then did the anxiety ease from Demian’s face, and he smiled.
But as he turned to leave, the smile vanished.
His sharp instincts were warning him.
That child had a secret.
A secret that was anything but light.
If that secret threatened the things he had to protect, he had no intention of sparing her—even if she was just a child.
“Don’t grow too attached to her, Father.”
Watching someone who calls herself ‘No. 1’… it’s not hard to understand, though.
Swallowing the words he couldn’t say, Demian put on a painted smile again.
Unaware that even having this thought would one day make him regret it deeply.
Millian stared at the spot where Demian had been sitting, lost in thought.
‘The shadow of a child…’
Suddenly, the baby assassin came to mind.
Though he didn’t know everything yet, what he had learned was enough to impress him.
Just surviving in that insane family was worthy of praise.
But at the same time, he found her peculiar.
Children who are abused are usually timid.
But she wasn’t like that at all.
Instead, she delighted in conversation.
She lacked the awareness to filter her words.
Yet she instinctively knew whether someone was looking at her—and whether they were listening.
She wanted to be accepted, yet didn’t fear failing to please others.
As if she were a monster raised on a remote island.
‘As if she clearly knows she’s a different kind of creature from ordinary people.’
He knew where such traits came from.
Or rather, what kind of people showed them.
‘A born mage, after all.’
Like his wife, Logitsa Ryu, who had been sealed four years ago.
Logitsa Ryu, head of the Spring family.
She was a born mage with the power of “sealing.”
And a hero who sealed herself to protect others from herself.
A faint trace of pain crossed Millian’s ice-like face.
‘If it were her, she wouldn’t have sent that child away.’
And so, he decided he wouldn’t either.
It was a decision he had made after seeing the child—but also one he couldn’t avoid when thinking of her.
‘Since she’s from Clopford, all the more reason to keep her here.’
If they tried to send her to another magic family for safety, there would be almost none who could stand against Clopford if they came to take her.
‘They reject magic, yet act like loyal dogs of the imperial family.’
Despite tolerating magic families because of monsters, the imperial family had begun rejecting magic within itself.
Claiming they alone must be the most sacred.
And Clopford had been acting in ways that pleased such an imperial family.
‘So the child must be protected by one of the four great families at the very least.’
For now, the Winter family was the best choice.
Though her relationship with the children was a concern—
‘If she tries to kill someone… Demian might be fine, but Theo is another matter.’
The Icarus family of Winter traditionally operated on the law of the strong.
Even the servants wielded magic—no ordinary feat. They were all rigorously selected individuals, possessing both character and strength.
And the direct bloodline of Icarus were those who commanded their loyalty.
