Volume 10 - CH 8

As I stumbled, Kirch and the middle-aged woman quickly came up to me and held me back.

“Ho-ho, I’m sorry that my child is very mischievous. Are you really thinking of marrying Kirch?”

In a moment I was hardened.

‘So she is the mother.’

Even if it was just a one-night stand, what would they think of me as the daughter of the man they had a crush on?

Seeing a middle-aged woman carefully tidying up my skirt and messy hair, I couldn’t easily open my mouth.

“I’ve never seen such a pretty person with pretty hair like you. Your eyes are like jewels, and your nose is so cute that it made me want to bite it. Your lips are so……”

“I heard that Zachary and Kirch are the sons of my father.”

As I spoke solemnly, there was a cold silence inside as if cold water had been poured.

“…… Is that true, Mother?”

Kirch asked the middle-aged woman with a serious face.

Perhaps it was the first time in his life that he had heard the secret of his birth, and Zachary’s bewildered gaze was also directed at their mother.

“Well, it was a long time ago, so I don’t remember……”

She alternately stared between her sons with an embarrassing smile.

“Ho-ho, how can I know about everything? There was a time when I didn’t care about anything.”

Kirch, who was standing beside me, was looking distorted as if he was really unhappy.

“Let’s see. You said you are the daughter of Count Kayden Crawford, didn’t you?”

She looked at me and examined my face closely.

“Well…… now I see some resemblance. Though I think you look more alike with my second son……?”

As soon as he tilted his head, Kirch shouted like a child playing hooky.

“No! Never! I’m going to marry this pretty girl!”

Then Zakari’s fierce gaze flew in.

“Shut up.”

Even his stern voice scared me.

As he pulled the sling line, the servant who had rushed to him prostrated himself.

“Yes, Zachary-nim! Did you call for me?”

Zachary said without taking his eyes off me.

“Bring the kin reader.”

I poked my ears up.

‘I guessed that it was some kind of magic tool.’

I would have been embarrassed if I hadn’t heard from Valhail that there was a strange tool that could read someone’s purity.

The Principality across the West used magic actively. As it was close to the Principality, the barbarians seemed to be familiar with magic tools.

“I brought it!”

The servant, kneeling on both knees, offered the kin reader with both hands.

‘The servant is really polite.’

Well, Zachary has a pose where the servant had no choice but to do so.

Zachary then lifted up a shiny white stone.

It was square and straight, and the front was like a mirror.

“Hair.”

Zachary, who was looking down at the kin reader, spoke quietly.

‘Who are you talking to? No way! Is it me?’

I was taken aback for a moment, then blinked my eyes and spoke cautiously.

“Do…… Do you want my hair?”

He turned to me and nodded his head politely. Then he held out a hand the size of the lid of the pot.

“Five.”

Yes, Sir.

I quickly untied the laces and ran through my hair. My hair was so long that one or two were caught just by scanning.

“Woah, such pretty blonde hair……”

Next to me, their mother swept my hair in admiration.

“Here.”

When I offered five strands of my hair, Zachary took it cautiously, unlike him, and placed my hair on the side of the mirror.

Then an amazing thing happened.

The mirror turned into a mercury-like material and swallowed my hair. It was just like magic.

When I looked at it with a startled eye, the middle-aged woman next to me naturally crossed her arm with mine and explained it to me carefully.

“That’s a magic tool that calculates blood ties, but only up to the 4th degree comes out.”

The degree of the lines showed gene-relatedness. Two lines show the relationship between parents and children, three lines show the relationship between grandparents or uncle-aunt, and four lines show the relationship between cousins.

“If the three of you are really half-siblings then three lines will show up.”

Zachary pulled out a handful of his own hair and placed it on the mirror.

The mirror swallowed even his black hair.

Before long, four red lines appeared on the hardened mirror again.

“Oh my! you are cousins!”

The middle-aged woman shouted cheerfully, and Kirch, who sat down on the floor, looked up at me with a devastated face.

Zachary threw the kin reader with a stern face.

Clank!

I flinched at the cracking sound.

He strolled up on me.

‘Wha-what? There’s no way he’s going to kill me for lying, right?’

I couldn’t understand why four lines showed up there.

It was supposed to show three lines there.

As he looked down at me, an excuse flowed out of my mouth.

“Maybe there’s something wrong with the magic tool……”

But before I could finish my words, I was pulled into Zachary’s hand.

‘Ugh-!’

And my face was rubbed violently as if I had been slapped by his rugged abdominal muscles.

“My family.”

“……”

“Nice to meet you! My sister!”

My mind wandered as the hand rubbed the back of my head roughly.

Was…… was I just welcomed?