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Chapter 02
“M-Miss… Maydil… Who is that?”
Startled by the sudden order, the maid who had been arranging the curtains blinked innocently as she asked.
Winter, already in poor condition, immediately felt irritation rise.
Seriously, what is wrong with these people? How could they not know my precious favorite all this time?
“May! You don’t know? The stable keeper’s son who manages Stable No. 3!”
Of course they didn’t know. There was no way anyone in this enormous ducal estate would bother memorizing the name of a little boy who spent his days hiding from everyone’s eyes.
“Stable No. 3… Umm…”
The maid, Cindy, tilted her head before nudging the maid beside her with her elbow and quietly asking,
“That brute had a son?”
“Who knows? Ah, are you talking about that filthy little brat?”
“…Little brat?”
“Yeah. The skinny kid who sometimes cleaned Stable No. 3.”
“Ah!”
Only then did Cindy remember.
“But why would Miss want to see him…?”
The maids abruptly fell silent.
Winter’s expression was anything but ordinary.
“Come to think of it, before Miss collapsed, wasn’t there another little boy besides Young Master Albert? Could that have been the stable keeper’s son…?”
The maids exchanged silent glances.
Albert, her cousin, had been punished with confinement over the incident, but no one spared a thought for the other child who had been caught up in the fight. But Miss was different. If there was one thing she was known for, it was her relentless persistence.
The maids assumed Winter intended to make the pitiful stable keeper’s son even more miserable than he already was.
“How much longer are you all going to stand there dawdling?”
Watching the whispering maids, Winter shouted.
“Y-Yes! I’ll… I’ll be right back!”
Startled, Cindy hurried out of the room.
After much difficulty, she found Maydillion curled up in a corner of the ducal estate.
It didn’t take long for her to realize this wasn’t something she could handle alone.
The stable keeper’s son was simply too dirty and shabby to bring before Miss.
“Oh dear. If we bring him in like this, he’ll probably spread diseases.”
In the end, the maids dragged the trembling Maydillion away, scrubbed him from head to toe, dressed him in clean clothes, and only then managed to make him look somewhat presentable.
Throughout the entire process, Cindy couldn’t stop staring in shock.
The first surprise was discovering that what she’d thought was ash-gray hair was actually silver.
The second was that the child didn’t seem sound in either body or mind.
“I hope we’re not cleaning up a corpse today…”
Feeling uneasy, Cindy carefully gave the boy several warnings.
“When you go in, greet Miss politely first. She’s very sick right now, so she’s extremely sensitive. Be careful not to upset her. Understand?”
Of course, Winter had been consistently sensitive even when she wasn’t sick.
“Y-Yes…”
“And another thing. Miss is, um…”
Cindy started to say something else before stopping herself.
They had already spent far too much time washing the child. If they delayed any longer, Miss’s already limited patience would surely snap.
“…No, never mind.”
Besides, it wasn’t as if this little boy would have any conversation with Miss beyond greeting her.
He’d be lucky if he could even walk out of that room on his own.
Letting out a deep sigh, Cindy led Maydillion to Winter’s room.
“Miss, we’ve brought the boy.”
“Come in!”
Winter’s voice answered as though she’d been waiting.
Both Cindy and Maydillion flinched at the same time.
A moment later, the door opened like the entrance to hell.
“Y-You… called for me?”
“Mhm. That’s right. Hello.”
Leaning comfortably against the sofa, Winter answered casually.
But her golden eyes sparkled brightly.
“May, sit here. Everyone else, leave.”
Patting the seat beside her, Winter dismissed all the maids.
Expecting a beating to begin at any moment, the maids disappeared as fast as though their tails were on fire.
At last, only the two of them remained.
With all the interruptions gone, Winter leisurely looked May over.
His still-damp hair was a little long and messy, but clean.
Thanks to it being neatly brushed back, his smooth, handsome forehead was fully visible.
The only flaw was the dark purple bruise across it.
Seeing Maydillion standing there with his head lowered, unable to meet her gaze, Winter’s expression darkened.
No matter how much they had washed him and dressed him in clean clothes, Maydillion still looked terrible.
Countless wounds covered his small body, many not even hidden by his clothes.
The yellowing and bluish bruises scattered across him clearly showed this wasn’t a one-time incident but ongoing abuse.
Staring at the scratches and scars that hadn’t yet healed, Winter let out a long sigh.
Without thinking, she reached out.
“Your forehead… is it alri—”
“I-I’m sorry!”
Before Winter could finish speaking, Maydillion cried out in panic.
His thin hands covered his head as they trembled violently.
Winter froze with her mouth slightly open.
“What…?”
“I-I was wrong… I-I did something wrong. Y-You were walking by… and… um…”
He rambled incoherently.
At this age, Maydillion couldn’t speak properly.
Whenever he became flustered, his stutter grew much worse.
No one had ever truly held a proper conversation with him.
Almost every word he’d heard throughout his life had been an insult.
If someone raised in that environment could speak normally, that would have been the real miracle.
“May.”
“I-I’m sorry. S-Sorry… I-I… dared… M-Miss… because of… me… you got… hurt…”
Apparently, Maydillion believed Winter intended to torment him by blaming her illness on him.
Not just Maydillion.
Most of the people in the ducal estate probably thought the same.
This place was so filled with violence and malice that such an assumption came naturally.
Maydillion had already suffered enough.
His body shook with terror, and the fear twisting in his eyes was so heartbreaking and suffocating that Winter almost wanted to look away and pretend she hadn’t seen it.
Fortunately, unlike everyone else, Winter had power.
Power to erase violence and coercion from Maydillion’s life.
Power to let him walk only on a road that had been carefully cleared for him.
She withdrew the hand she’d extended and put a little distance between them.
“May.”
“I-I was wrong… I was wrong… I’m sorry… P-Please…”
“May.”
She continued calling his name until he finally calmed down.
After a while, Maydillion, who had been frantically begging for forgiveness, cautiously raised his head.
At last, their eyes met.
For the first time in his life, someone looked at him with warmth and gentleness.
Maydillion’s lips slowly relaxed.
Looking into his wide crimson eyes, opened in astonishment, Winter smiled even more deeply.
The current Maydillion was so tiny and fragile that he reminded her of a baby snow rabbit.
Once again, Winter slowly reached her hand toward him.
Because he was so frightened of hands approaching his head, she moved slowly enough that he could watch every movement.
“May.”
Then Winter softly called his name.
“…Y-Yes.”
Still staring blankly at Winter’s pale hand, Maydillion answered a moment later.
“Would you like to be friends?”
Finally smiling brightly, Winter asked.
But the moment he heard those words, fear once again filled Maydillion’s face.
The nobles who had approached him kindly before had always ended up beating and trampling him whenever they pleased, using the ridiculous excuse that they were “friends.”
“I-I understand… Th-Thank you.”
Seeing Maydillion nod with a deathly pale face, Winter gave a bittersweet smile.
It seemed she’d first have to erase all the terrible thoughts filling that little head and teach him what friendship actually meant.
Just then, the content expression on Winter’s face suddenly turned cold.
Her trembling hand clutched her chest.
“…Ugh.”
“M-Miss?”
The world spun.
A shrill ringing filled her ears.
It felt as though the pounding of her heart echoed through her entire body.
A burning sensation spread upward from the tips of her toes.
As Winter staggered and collapsed forward, Maydillion instinctively caught her.
Grinding her teeth against the agony, Winter cursed inwardly.
I’d barely gotten out of bed.
My heart can’t withstand this rampaging mana.
“M-Miss! Miss…!”
Panicked, Maydillion tried to lift Winter, but he simply wasn’t strong enough.
His arms, emaciated from years of malnutrition, were pitifully weak.
Looks like both of us need to build our stamina first, Winter thought as her consciousness slowly faded.
Miss had changed.
That was the rumor circulating among the servants of House Vladimir lately.
After suddenly suffering a mana rampage and being declared terminally ill not long ago, she’d recently started spending time with the stable keeper’s son.
The servants whispered among themselves about the unpredictable ten-year-old.
“Do you think she’s going to cause another huge incident?”
“Hm… But if you think about it, she hasn’t really caused any trouble lately, has she?”
“Well… that’s true…”
Far from causing trouble, Winter had become the most well-behaved and exemplary child anyone had ever seen.
She ate three healthy meals every day without fail.
She even drank the bitter medicine that was supposed to strengthen her stamina without a single complaint.
She also read books.
And exercised.
The only unusual thing was that she did all of it together with the stable keeper’s son.
The servants were both delighted and uneasy.
They simply couldn’t believe that little devil could behave like this.
“Pant… pant… M-Miss… I… I can’t run anymore…”
Maydillion gasped for breath.
Perhaps because he’d spent every day by Winter’s side talking with her lately, his vocabulary had grown noticeably, and his awkward speech and stuttering had also improved considerably.
“What are you talking about, May? Don’t you know how dangerous muscle loss is?”
Running beside him, Winter scolded him.
Even as she said it, her own face was deathly pale, her legs trembled uncontrollably, and her lips had already turned bluish.
