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Chapter 12
I felt my heart drop.
I hadn’t looked in a mirror, but I was sure my face had gone completely pale. Rather than turning into a romantic comedy, this was charging straight toward a bleak, psychological thriller where everything falls apart before love even begins. The main character was already clashing with the male lead the moment they met.
I couldn’t become the unfortunate bystander caught in the crossfire of the main couple’s conflict.
I hurriedly shouted.
“Why are you acting like this? Callisto, what kind of disrespect is this toward Lord of Armagh? Apologize right now!”
“No! He started it first! What did I even do wrong?”
“Callisto!”
People around us began to murmur. Sensing their glances, I quickly lifted Callisto into my arms. Lawrence, looking flustered, tried to stop me.
“I’m fine, Étienne. Instead, why don’t you just put the child down and we—”
“No! If you’re leaving, take me too! I’m going too!”
But as Callisto struggled in my arms and threw a tantrum, even Lawrence had no choice but to back down. His expression, which had always been gentle and warm, had gone stiff. Even Lawrence, who was usually kind, had changed his face like this. The mischievous seven-year-old had completely ruined his image in front of the male lead.
I didn’t know where things had gone wrong, but I felt nothing but resentment toward everything. Had author H tricked me? Is this even a dark fantasy novel—or just an extreme parenting story?
Either way, I decided to escape this situation for now. Lawrence would likely start visiting the count’s estate regularly soon, so it would be better to fix Callisto’s image then. Though I wasn’t even sure it could be fixed…
Would Lawrence even like a spoiled, troublesome kid like this?
Feeling a little deflated, I said to Lawrence as if apologizing:
“Lawrence, I’m sorry. I think we’ll have to go upstairs first. This is Callisto’s first time at a gathering like this, so he must be overwhelmed. He’s not usually like this… he’s actually very kind.”
“……”
Lawrence looked at me like he was silently asking where exactly that kindness was. I answered inwardly: his face, obviously.
“Yeah! Let’s go upstairs quickly! Leave that kid behind and just you and me—”
“Callisto Armagh. That was very rude.”
A single gesture from Lawrence could have gotten Callisto dragged back to the ducal house and punished immediately. The “future obsessive male lead” candidate had no intimidating aura at all, but plenty of nerve.
“Why? He called me a brat first.”
“Calli, ‘brat’ isn’t an insult…”
“I’m not a brat. I’m only five years younger than Étienne.”
To a seven-year-old, five years was more than half his life. But in front of the murmuring nobles and watching children, I couldn’t argue with him.
After hastily saying goodbye to Lawrence, I hurried out of the banquet hall carrying Callisto. Only after Lawrence disappeared from sight did Callisto finally quiet down.
On the way to Callisto’s bedroom, I tried to scold him gently.
“Why were you acting like that toward Lawrence? He seemed kind and nice. You should get along with him.”
That way I could live more peacefully too. I swallowed the rest of my honest thoughts.
Callisto looked up at me intently. His small face—still baby-like despite a little weight gain—held a defiant expression. In a sharp voice, he interrogated me.
“Why? You want to get along with that fox bastard?”
“Where did you even learn to talk like that? Speak nicely.”
“Do you want to get along with that fox bastard?”
“Does adding honorifics make it polite? And this isn’t about me.”
It was so hard getting the main couple together. If I had known the future through dreams as in the original story, I would know Lawrence was on our side, but I couldn’t understand why things were going like this.
As I sighed, Callisto asked in a probing voice.
“So you’re saying you don’t want to get along with that fox guy?”
“Uh… well, it’s better to get along than not, right?”
While answering vaguely, I wondered why Callisto was so tense. Then suddenly it hit me—Étienne was a “sub male lead.”
Soon, Étienne would attend lessons at the count’s estate with other noble children, and Lawrence would also be among them. Callisto, as a ward of the count’s family, wasn’t supposed to attend, but Lawrence, feeling sorry after meeting him at the banquet, would arrange for him to join.
During those lessons, Étienne would fall in love with Lawrence at first sight.
Only then did I realize why Callisto had been acting so hostile today. He must have already seen that future in his dreams. That’s why he was wary of me and Lawrence.
Trying to escape his fate as a future obsessive male lead, I was about to be dragged into an unwanted love triangle because of this troublesome kid’s unnecessary dreams.
I quickly spoke up.
“What I mean is… you don’t have to be on bad terms. I’m not saying I like Lawrence or anything. Do you understand?”
Do you? You have to understand.
Trying my best to convey “I’m not interested in Lawrence,” I glanced at Callisto.
“Mm… so you hate him? You swear?”
I hadn’t said I hated him. I couldn’t exactly say I liked the male lead, but hating him didn’t seem like it would help my peaceful future either.
“I’m not asking you to swear over something like that…”
“You won’t swear? Are you lying?”
“Ah… fine, fine. I swear.”
He was making me swear over something so trivial.
Fortunately, Callisto seemed to relax after hearing my answer. Looking oddly pleased, he buried his cheek into my chest and squirmed happily.
After causing all that chaos, now he was acting like a kitten.
It was absurd, but his soft, warm cheeks felt nice. And when he smiled with wide eyes like that, he was honestly adorable, so I just let him be, thinking to myself:
Kids really shouldn’t be raised like this. At this rate, even if I avoid an obsessive male lead, I might end up raising a spoiled brat instead. Not even a brat—more like a “kindergarten-level male lead.” A term I’d never even heard before.
Sighing, I continued toward the far western bedroom where Callisto’s room was located. He was getting heavier, and my arms were starting to ache, but he showed no intention of getting down.
It was a long and difficult job raising this troublesome kid.
In the original story, there wasn’t much description of Callisto’s bedroom. I only remembered that Étienne often visited Callisto’s room to beat or punish him. Even though it was far from Étienne’s room in the east wing, he would deliberately walk all the way to the western end just to torment him. Étienne was unnecessarily diligent in that regard.
Because of that, I had avoided Callisto’s room entirely, worried that if he saw Étienne’s actions in detail through his visions, he might misunderstand.
But when I finally arrived at the western wing, I regretted never coming here before.
It looked far worse than I had expected.
The Count of Winyeats was a good man, but always busy with his many businesses. Even I rarely saw him, and he hardly ever visited my room. So he had left Callisto’s care entirely to the servants.
The head steward in charge of Callisto had treated him exactly according to his status as “the count’s illegitimate child.”
Callisto’s room was nothing like my own lavishly decorated bedroom. It was a stark, empty space with no decorations—just a narrow bed and an old wardrobe. The blanket on the bed was so thin it looked incapable of keeping out the cold seeping through the walls.
I frowned, biting my lower lip.
Callisto tilted his head and asked while wrapping his arms around my neck.
“What’s wrong? Am I heavy? Should I get down?”
I had already been thinking he was heavy. Now that we had arrived, he was suddenly offering to get down. So he hadn’t intended to get down all along…?
He had been acting spoiled all day, completely unlike his usual self.
But that wasn’t the main issue right now.
I placed him on the bed and looked around with a hardened expression, searching for a bell to summon the servants. But there was no bell anywhere in the room connected to the servants’ hall below.
My face darkened further.
“Lisa, could you go down to the servant hall and call Cliff for me?”
“Yes, young master.”
I asked a passing maid in the hallway to summon the head steward. Callisto looked confused, but I couldn’t relax my expression. Soon after, Cliff arrived.
“Young master. What brings you to the west wing? This is not a place you should be visiting.”
“……Cliff.”
Cliff, the head steward, was a loyal servant who had served the Winyeats count’s family for generations. That was why the count had entrusted him with Callisto’s care.
I had never thought deeply about him because he had no major role in the original story.
So I had forgotten something important.
Cliff was not a cruel man, but he was deeply loyal to the count’s house to the point of being rigid, authoritarian, and narrow-minded.
To him, an illegitimate child from a commoner background like Callisto was not someone who should be treated equally to the count’s son.
Not because he hated him personally, but because in his worldview, that was simply the correct order of things.
But that wasn’t the case in my world.
Regardless of how I had to treat Callisto carefully to survive, I could not let a child live in conditions like this.
“Cliff. Why is Callisto’s room so cold? The cold air is seeping through the walls. There isn’t even a proper fireplace, and the furniture is in poor condition. Was this your instruction?”
