CH 2

I looked at Julian intently as I tried to take a bite of the cake loaded with blueberries. Royina must have expended a lot of energy during the day, as she fell asleep quickly, leaving me to enjoy snack time peacefully.

“By the way, Dad, why did you come so early?”

“I came early because I thought Tilly might be bored.”

At his words, I frowned, realizing that he had interrupted my precious nap time. After glaring at him, I swallowed the cake in my mouth and spoke up.

“If you’re not bored, then go back.”

“…Would it be better if I weren’t here?”

“It’s not that, but you’re going to get in the way.”

“I wish you would.”

I had created a setting in the original work where I wanted to escape from my job as a CEO, but now that I had the chance, I was having a hard time avoiding it because I kept making excuses.

Where in the world can you find a CEO who leaves work early to play with his daughter?

“It’s okay. The king said it was okay to leave early today.”

“…He wouldn’t say that for no reason.”

“Why?”

Translate to English:

“She lay down in front of the emperor and asked to be sent home early.”

I was surprised because I knew that Julian was the type of person who could really do that. When he was a baby, I saw him throw a tantrum in front of Roxanne a few times.

No matter how handsome and cute he may be, it was a terrible sight to see a grown man lying on the floor of a mart begging like a child. Julian seemed confused by my serious expression and corrected himself.

“No, I didn’t really lie down. I was just tired.”

“Daddy, you won’t get arrested for blasphemy, will you?”

Of course, Julian was a person who would not be arrested even if he fought with the emperor and the duke. Because the emperor and the duke were equal in terms of the setting of the world.

Julian chuckled at my words and said reassuringly, “It’s okay. You know that the emperor and Daddy are childhood friends. It’s just a joke between friends.”

“Hmm.”

I responded with a sullen expression. If it were a normal day, Julian would have reacted to my sullenness, but for some reason, he was looking at me with a bitter face.

“Tilly.”

“Yeah?”

“Will our Tilly live with Daddy forever?”

I rolled my eyes at the sudden question and stared at Urien to figure out his intention. It wasn’t just a meaningless question asked out of happiness. There was sadness in his eyes.

“Will you do that for me?”

Forever? As I did, people cannot live together with their family forever because everyone eventually dies. Urien must know that too, so why is he asking such a strange question all of a sudden? Unable to understand his intention, I just asked him in a straightforward way.

“Daddy, why are you asking that?”

“….”

“Did someone bother Daddy? Shall I tell Mom to scold them?”

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

******

When Roxana and Yulian came home, their time was solely for me. I usually liked it when Roxana put me to bed, and today happened to be her turn. I lay on the bed and told her everything that happened today.

“So, Daddy thinks that cute is better than cool.”

Roxana nodded in agreement, as if to say that Daddy was right. The biggest reason why she married Yulian was because his blushing face during his confession was too cute to resist. Of course, it was also backed by their crazy good looks that everyone was into.

“Daddy has always been a little cute.”

“Well, to the point where even the devil knight commander, who never had any interest in men, accepted his confession.”

Roxana had been with the emperor and Yulian throughout the long fight to take away the real power of the empire from the nobles. When she first met the two when they were still prince and marquis, Roxana pledged her loyalty without hesitation after hearing their plans to change the decaying empire.

To grasp the most decisive military power in power, she climbed up to the position of knight commander and eventually inherited the Enfield Viscount after a competition with the Sunwi brothers.

She constantly ran forward, focused only on her duties as a knight commander and had no thoughts of getting married, as she had long ago chosen her successor among her nephews.

And when the imperial power stabilized, Yuri confessed to Roxana.

Yuri’s pure love for over 10 years, which he had since she pledged her loyalty, but Roxana had never seen him as a man. She only thought of him as a superior and colleague who was equally passionate about reforming the country.

But his blushing face and awkward confession broke down the door to Roxana’s heart.

In technical terms, it was a virtue crisis. Of course, it was a story that only I and Roxana, the writer, knew.

“So, you married Dad because he was cute?”

“Of course, he’s cute, but your dad is also a very impressive person.”

“Impressive? Dad?”

“Then how impressive must your dad be?”

“But Dad’s a crybaby and a fool.”

“That’s why he’s impressive. Being a crybaby and a fool is not an easy thing to be.”

“….”

“Tilly still doesn’t know what we’re talking about, do you?”

No, I do. I swallowed those words and quickly changed the subject.

2 / 2

“Today my dad said something strange.”

“Something strange?”

“He asked if we were going to live together forever.”

“…What does Tilly want to do?”

The light of the candle flickered, revealing Rock Sana’s face, which had not been fully visible until now. She also had the same expression as Yuri-an. Sometimes, people around me looked at me with that expression, but no one had asked me that question before.

“As for Tilly, she’s going to live with Mom, Dad, and Luna forever.”

Rock Sana laughed softly, emphasizing the word “forever.”

“Our Tilly knows how to look pretty sometimes.”

“Of course, at the age of four, when your mental age is that of an adult, this level of wickedness is to be expected, Miss Rock Sana.”

Still, Rock Sana’s expression brightened, so it was worth being teased and speaking in third person.

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

“Not forever, but we’ll live together for quite a long time.”

“But why did dad suddenly say that?”

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

“….”

“So I think dad thought of our Tilly.”

Roxana also had a similar expression to Julian’s. However, even though she knew that Roxana was saddened by the mention of the prince of the neighboring country, I couldn’t comfort her. The prince of the neighboring country was the villain and protagonist of this novel. I remembered looking up at the ceiling, thinking that this was the time when he would come over to the empire.

****

‘Protagonist…’

Lost in thought, she rocked Royina’s cradle.

Three noble families that protect the world from evil spirits.

The Aselius royal family, the Celis royal family that purifies, and the Lemetio ducal family that heals.

Well, they had given them names that sounded plausible, but if you thought about it easily, it was like a tank-healer party play.

Children who awaken their abilities in this generation and become the last protectors.

The male lead, Ryan Celis.

The female lead, Royina Lemetio.

The sub-male lead, Aegis Aselius.

I am known for making protagonists that are strong and impressive.

The female lead and sub-male lead of this novel were rare characters who had no unfortunate childhood. Even if you just watched them as toddlers, you could see how much Yulian and Roxana loved their children, and how good an environment Nora and Royina grew up in.

However, Ryan was not the male lead.

Former Queen Selis, who was the mother of Ryan, died shortly after giving birth to him. King Selis then married a second queen, who gave birth to a prince a year ago.

Due to the stepmother’s desire to make her own children the crown prince, Ryan, who was just five years old, had been threatened for over a year at the palace.

Of course, King Selis, who was the father of the protagonist, knew about this.

However, most people with abilities from the three families are educated to become moral and altruistic individuals to a terrible extent. Therefore, they were not suitable for rulers. As a result, a suitable family or individual under the jurisdiction took control instead of the family with abilities, and most of the family members of the three families with abilities were just names wearing the crown.

The problem is that the family of the queen who currently holds the real power of the Selis royal family is incompetent and greedy.

The Aser Empire also experienced such a thing when Emperor Julian was young. Although the two of them couldn’t stand the country rotting away, they were very unusual cases who jumped into politics themselves and turned everything upside down with dirty hands.

However, King Selis was a typical person from the three families.

Translation:

Although he knew that the queen was tormenting Ryan, he had no power to intervene in the power struggle, nor was he someone who would choose one of his two young princes to be killed.

All he could do was create a suitable excuse to request help from the other two families to protect the young prince from the threat of assassination.

In the end, Ryan was sent to the empire as a pretext for studying abroad, and he and Asa grew up together, forming a bond.

They only spent about a year together.

It was the only happy year of Ryan’s unfortunate childhood.

I set it up this way so that the pain of the prince’s misfortune would be felt more acutely after experiencing the sweetness of happiness, and for the sake of the bond between the prince and his sub-prince.

Although the outcome was already determined, Urien, who had the power of choice, seemed to have many concerns. It would be difficult to refuse when considering the three families, but he did not know what disadvantages he might face if he adopted the prince.

“Uh?”

After I let out a sigh, Royina waved her hand towards me and let out a whimper.

I wiped away Royina’s drool. It was strange that even a baby who drooled like this would eventually go to the battlefield. It made me feel uneasy.

It was me who set it up that way.

“I should go get a snack.”

I tried to take my hand off Royina, but she grabbed onto my hand.

“Abu!”

“……”

“Ah-oo, ooh!”

Whenever I tried to pull my hand away, Royina shouted in an incomprehensible whimper as if she were protesting.

“Maybe the baby doesn’t want to be separated from you, miss.”

“No way.”

“No, really. From what I’ve observed for a few days, the baby definitely likes you very much.”

“Uh!”

When I saw Royina laughing like a drum in response to the nanny’s words, a smile came to my lips involuntarily. The nanny saw her and hurriedly went to a corner to catch her breath.

“What’s wrong, Yumo?”

“No, miss. My heart suddenly started hurting.”

‘I think she got emotional.’

I inwardly clicked my tongue and watched Yumo, who didn’t know what to do with her happiness.

The nanny Yumo didn’t appear very often in the story, so there wasn’t a detailed description of her. She was just described as a kind person who loved children very much, but that was to be expected since she was the protagonist’s nanny who had grown up being loved.

I can confidently say that I had never imagined a nanny acting so exuberantly before.