CH 2

Taleia was about to take a bite of the cake topped with blueberries, but she stared at Yurian. Royna quickly fell asleep, as if her crying had consumed a lot of her energy, so she was able to enjoy a quiet and leisurely snack time.

“By the way Dad, why are you here so early?”

“I came back early because I thought my Tilly would be bored.”

Taleia frowned, remembering that she had been interrupted during her precious nap earlier. She glared at him and gulped the cake straight to her mouth, then spoke.

“I’m not bored, so go back.”

“…Do you wish for Dad to be away?”

“It’s not like that, but Dad, you’ll get fired.”

“Well, I hope so.”

Taleia made a setting in the original work where Yurian wanted to run away from the chancellor position, but when the opportunity arose, she had to skip it, since it was very difficult.

After all, where in the world would there be a chancellor who leaves work early saying that he has to play house with his daughter?

“It’s okay. Today, His Majesty said it would be good to go back early.”

‘…He’s not a man who would do that for no reason.’

“Why?”

“I lay down in front of His Majesty to send me home early.”

Taleia looked at him in surprise but she knew that Yurian was really capable of that. As a baby, she had seen him lie down in front of Roxana and make a fuss a few times.

No matter how handsome and cute he is, it was a terrible sight to see a grown man acting like a child lying on the floor on a supermarket. Seeing Taleia’s serious gaze, Yurian corrected his words as if he was embarrassed.

“…No, I didn’t really lie down, I just begged.”

“Dad, you might not get fired, but you’ll be arrested for blasphemy.”

Of course, Yurian was a person who would not be caught even if he had a fistfight with the emperor. After all, the emperor and the duke are on a nearly equal footing in terms of the world view.

At her words, Yurian smiled and told her not to worry.

“It’s okay. His Majesty is…you know we’re childhood friends. It’s just a joke between friends.”

“Yeah.”

Taleia responded moderately with a plain expression. Normally, Yurian, who would have reacted in some way to her boredom, was looking at her with a bitter face for some reason.

“Tilly.”

“Yes?”

“My Tilly is going to live with Daddy forever, right?”

She crumpled her face at the sudden remark and stared at Yurian to understand his intentions. He wasn’t just asking his daughter out of nothing. There was clear sadness in his eyes.

“Are you going to do that?”

Forever, as she did, people cannot be with their families forever because they will die someday. Even Yurian knew that well, so why is he asking such a strange question all of a sudden? Unable to understand his intentions, Taleia just asked straight forwardly.

“Dad, what’s wrong?”

“……”

“Who bullied Dad? Shall I tell Mom to scold them?”

“No, it’s not like that. I’m just worried about what will happen if we don’t see Tilly anymore.”

***

When Roxana and Yurian got off from work, their time was only for Taleia. She usually like Roxana to sleep, but today it was Roxana who was in charge of putting her to sleep. As she lay on the bed, she told Roxana every detail of today’s events.

“That’s why I think dad is better off being cute than cool.”

Roxana nodded in agreement with her conclusion. The biggest reason she married Yurian was that his blushing face looked so cute when he confessed.

Of course, it was also backed up by the crazy beauty that penetrates everyone’s taste.

“Daddy is always cute.”

‘To the extent that the commander of the Devil Knights, who wasn’t even interested in men, accepted his confession.’

Roxana was the woman who stood by the Emperor and Yurian’s side during the long battle to steal the imperial power from the nobles.

When she first met the two, who were still the Crown prince and the Duke’s heir, Roxana heard of the two’s plan to change the rotting empire so she swore allegiance without hesitation.

In order to hold the military power, which can be said to be the most decisive power, she climbed to the position of knight commander, and after competing with her older brothers, eventually became the Countess of Enfield.

She had no intention of getting married, so she chose her successor from among her nephews early on and devoted herself only to the job of commander of knights.

And when the imperial power was stabilized, Yurian confessed to Roxana.

Although Yurian had been a pure virgin for over 10 years, which was from around the time she swore her allegiance, Roxana had never seen him as a man. She only thought of him as a superior and colleague who was just as obsessed with reforming the country as she was.

The sight of him confessing awkwardly to her as his face turned red really broke the door in Roxana’s heart.

In technical terms, it was a worthy accident. Of course, it was a story that only Roxana and her, the writer, knew.

“Did you get married because Dad is cute?”

“Sure, his cuteness is a factor, but your dad is also cool guy.”

“Cool? Dad?”

“And how wonderful your father is.”

“But Daddy is a crybaby and a fool.”

“That’s why he’s cool. It’s not easy being a crybaby and an idiot at the same time.”

“……”

“Tilly still doesn’t know what I mean?”

No, Tilly knows, but she swallowed the words and hurriedly changed the subject.

“Dad said something strange today.”

“Something strange?”

“If I want him to be away?”

“…Does Tilly wants to?”

The light of the candle shimmered, revealing Roxana’s face. She also had the same face as Yurian. Sometimes, people around Taleia looked at her with this expression. But she’d never been asked such a question.

‘As expected, something happened.’

“Tilly will live with Mom and Dad and Royna forever.”

Roxana’s low laugh echoed as Taleia deliberately switched to third-person speech and emphasized the word ‘forever’.

“Our Tilly sometimes seems to know how to look cute.”

‘It’s only natural for you to be this clever even just being four when your mental age is an adult, Miss Roxana.’

Still, Roxana’s expression became much brighter, so it was worthwhile to show off her charm despite her embarrassment.

“Why? Can’t we live together forever?”

“It won’t be forever, but we will live together for quite a while.”

“But why did Dad suddenly ask that?”

“Because the prince of the neighboring country has to stay away from the king for a long time.”

“……”

“I guess that’s why Dad thought of our Tilly.”

Roxana also had a similar expression to Yurian. But when Taleia heard her say that it was the prince from a neighboring country, she couldn’t comfort her even though Taleia knew she was sad. After all, the prince of the neighboring country is the male lead of this novel. Taleia looked up at the ceiling and remembered that it was around this time that he crossed over to the Empire.

＊＊＊

‘The male lead…’

She was lost in thought, rocking Royna’s cradle.

There are three families that protects the world from evil spirits.

The Asher Imperial Family of Protection,

the Celis Royal Family of Purification,

and the Remetio Duchy of Healing.

Children who will awaken their superpowers in this generation will become the last guardians.

The male lead, Rayan Celis.

The heroine, Royna Remetio.

The sub-male lead, Aegis Asher.

Originally, she was famous for making sad main characters.

The female lead and the sub-male lead in this novel were characters who did not had unfortunate childhoods. It can be seen how much of a loving parents Yurian and Roxana are for their children, and how good the environment Royna and Taleia are growing up in.

However, the male lead, Rayan, was not.

Rayan’s mother, the former Queen Celis, died shortly after giving birth to him. King Celis soon married his second wife, who had given birth to a son a year ago.

Rayan, just five years old, had his life threatened in his palace for over a year, driven by his stepmother who wants to make her own son the crown prince.

Of course, this fact wasn’t unknown to King Celis, the father of the male lead.

However, the three families are usually educated to be horribly moral and altruistic. Therefore, they were not suitable for rulers and the right-hand family of the King, took the real power. Hence, Celis wore a crown but only in name.

The problem is that the queen’s family, which currently holds the real power of the Celis royal family, is incompetent and greedy.

The Asher Empire also experienced something like this when Yurian and the Emperor were young. Unable to withstand the rotting of the empire, the two jumped directly into the political field and turned it all over by dipping their hands into dirty work, but the two were a very unusual case.

King Celis, however, was the simplest man out of the three families.

He knew that the queen was harassing Rayan, but he had no power to intervene in the power struggle, nor was he the one who would choose the successors out of the two young princes and let the other one die.

All he could do was make a suitable excuse to ask the other two families for help in order to protect the still young male lead from the threat of assassination.

In the end, Rayan was sent to the Empire under the pretext of studying abroad, and that’s how he grows up with Aegis and strengthens their bond.

The time the two grew up together was only about a year. But it was the only happy moment in the male lead’s unfortunate childhood.

Knowing the sweetness of happiness makes the male lead’s unhappiness feel more painful, and it was set that way for the bond between the male lead and the sub-male lead.

The outcome has already been decided, but Yurian, who had a choice, seemed to be worried in many ways. Considering the relationship between the three families, it would be difficult to refuse, but he don’t know what kind of disadvantages there would be if we took on a prince.

When Taleia sighed, Royna waved her hand and babbled.

She wiped Royna’s saliva again. To think that such a drooling baby would one day go to war. It was oddly heartbreaking.

Even though it was her who set it that way.

‘I’m going to go get some snacks.’

Taleia tried to take her hand away from Royna, but Royna grabbed her hand tightly.

“Abu!”

“……”

“Aww!”

Every time she tries to withdraw her hand, Royna will shout a babble that Taleia couldn’t understand, as if she was offended.

“I guess Miss Royna doesn’t want to be separated from her sister.”

“No way.”

“No. As a result of my observation over the past few days, Miss Royna really likes you. No doubt.”

“Uh!”

Roy smiled as if to agree with the nanny’s words. When she saw Taleia, a smile appeared on her lips. The nanny saw it and went to a corner for a moment to catch her breath.

“What’s wrong, nanny?”

“No, young miss. My heart suddenly hurts.”

‘Aegyo attack.’

Taleia watched the nanny bewildered with happiness, clicking her tongue in my mind.

Royna’s nanny appeared only occasionally in the story, so there was no detailed explanation. She wrote that she was just a person who was kind and cared for children, so it was only natural that she was the nanny of the heroine who was raised with love.

Surely, she had never imagined a nanny making such a fuss.