There was a moment of silence.
Hugo jumped, as if he was a chameleon, his face had turned to red.
“What on earth do you mean?”
“Look, Father. This is why rebellion is not worth thinking about.”
The brothers’ opinions, which were clashing all this while, were miraculously united.
Restless, Hugo kicked his seat and approached me. His blue eyes were desperate as if begging.
“Lily. Even though I’m in favor of the rebellion, you don’t have to do this. What do you mean to use you in a war? How can you say such cruel words…?!”
“It can only be successful if you utilize the power of the demons to the maximum.”
Alan blocked Hugo’s words which had been pouring like a flood.
He looked straight at me, leaving Hugo gasping as if he was about to blacken.
“There’s no way you won’t be involved in the war four years later anyway. If you side with the Emperor, you will have to marry to strengthen the alliance, and if you side with the Crown Prince, you will have to go to war.”
Alan raised his hand and stopped Pedro and Hugo, who kept trying to intervene, and asked me.
“Is that what you want to say?”
I tried to calm my beating heart and nodded. That’s what I was saying.
“I’m scared to go to war. But…”
There was one thing that I had been acutely aware of over the past four years.
It was impossible to live in this world with only the best choices.
‘In life, the best option rarely exists.’
Even if you think it’s not a perfect road, you have to choose a bad idea if you’re in a corner.
If you hesitate, you won’t be able to choose even that.
‘So even if I’m not prepared to get hurt or die, I have to stand at the forefront of the rebels.’
“…I don’t think I’ll be as strong as Benny.”
I glanced sideways at Benny standing far away.
Benny watched the situation without blinking even when I made shocking statements.
As if he would follow whatever choice I made.
That calm attitude encouraged me.
“But I could stop the spirits near me from using magic.”
My determination wasn’t just immature. My existence alone was well worth the use.
‘If I block the magical powers of the spirit wizards, the beast knights will win a landslide victory based on their physical abilities.’
Noticing that fact, Hugo didn’t refute and just shuffled his feet.
I took advantage of the silence of the princes and added quickly.
“I also want to protect Bauner Duchy.”
Pedro and Hugo grabbed their chests as if moved by this.
“…Everyone, could you please step aside for a moment?”
Alan’s gaze passed through his two sons, to Benny, and then back to me.
“Let’s talk.”
***
“Do you even clean this mansion?”
Michael couldn’t help but sigh as he looked around the dusty mansion.
The mansion that the duke gave Benimus as a gift was large and grand, but it was not maintained properly and became nothing more than ruins.
Ivy vines on the outer walls seemed to devour the building, and the collapsed roof and peeled paint were left unattended until the water stained.
“I don’t think the employees took care of it either…”
The sight seen when the gaze was lowered was even more spectacular.
None of the employees that could be seen worked properly.
Under the shade of the tree, young maids were playing around, throwing brooms and barrels.
All the guards on patrol stumbled like puppets, perhaps drunk due to drinking during the day.
In other words, it was a mess. To put it bluntly, the duke’s castle from four years ago looked cleaner than this mansion.
“Why are there so many weeds?”
The front yard, where the owner of the mansion often went for a walk, was full of dry weeds like wild fields.
Michael sighed and strode across the garden without a single green sprout.
He was in a situation where he secretly hid in a mansion where a war hero lived, but somehow there seemed to be no need to hide.
The employees of this mansion were those who didn’t even need to pretend to not know if there were uninvited assassins because they were sunbathing.
“Lily, you’ll have a hard time getting married to the owner of a house like this.”
No matter how much he thought about it, it was not a good thing to be the wife of this mansion’s owner.
When he got back to the Duke’s Castle, he should let Lily know about it. He couldn’t wait to see her expression.
Michael stopped thinking about that and suddenly stopped in place. He scratched his blond hair with a complicated feeling.
“I don’t think she’s going to give up the marriage if it’s this much…”
Lily’s marriage was something he couldn’t have imagined when he first met her.
It would have been useless if he stopped her.
There was an irreversible will in her who had announced that she would marry Benimus.
So Michael changed his route. To follow her instead of stopping her.
“This is the family that I will serve in the future… Tsk.”
Michael grumbled faithfully and looked around.
In the midst of his busy schedule, there was no time to fall into restless depression.
The boy wanted to be by Lily’s side.
He wanted to spend his whole life with the girl who trusted him for the first time.
He didn’t even want to have a special relationship. It was enough to leave him in the corner of the house, as in the Bauner family.
When he lived in Bauner’s shadows, he was choked by his earnest heart, but the thought of living in Lily’s shadow somehow made him feel better.
For the first time, he even had a hunch that he would be happy.
He would follow Lily.
He wouldn’t let her husband, who couldn’t even manage his house properly, interfere with his plan.
That’s why he hid in this mansion.
Lily said she would discuss with Benimus whether to take Michael or not.
Therefore, Benimus’ weaknesses had to be gathered in advance.
“If he says no, I’ll threaten him.”
As he muttered his insidious plan and walked, there was a metal ringing from the floor.
Michael took a step back and cleared the spot he had just stepped on.
Fine sand was removed and a metal lid was revealed; enough space for one person to enter and exit.
It seemed like a door going down to the basement.
“What’s this?””
The basement door itself was normal, but the location was a little strange.
This was in the middle of a garden where no one would come.
“…Is there anything I can get?”
Michael pulled the handle that had been buried. The door without a lock opened easily.
He grabbed the ladder and descended at once.
A mouse that was resting under the ladder squeaked and scampered away.
The passage was not deep. The sunlight that poured from above his head lit up the basement below.
Just looking at the angular structure, it was like a warehouse for storing groceries.
It was a little unusual that the wall was black, but there was nothing else that stood out.
“There’s nothing much.”
It was foggy. Just as he was about to go up to the ground, a faint groan caught Michael’s ankle.
“Ughh…”
Mihael looked slowly to the side. Something wriggled in the shadows, out of reach from the sunlight.
“…Who is it?”
Taking out the magic stone he brought from the Duke’s Castle, he approached the side where he heard the sound.
The shining stone lit up the darkness. At the next moment, Michael’s eyes widened.
“This is…”
Rattle, rattle. The man tied to the chair twisted his whole body.
There was a tight gag over his eyelids and around the skull.
“Ugh! Uck!”
The man groaned as if he was begging to be released quickly, with a cloth over his eyes.
Michael held the magic stone tightly and tried to grasp the situation in front of him.
It was not surprising that there were one or two people tied up in the basement of the mansion.
After all, there were also torture chambers and dungeons in the Duke’s Castle.
However, the location of the basement was bothering him.
This place was somewhere that not only employees, but also outsiders, could pass by without knowing.
Judging from the situation, it seemed that the man in front of him was secretly kidnapped rather than imprisoned for a valid reason.
Thud, thud.
At that time, he could feel a presence over the door of the ceiling.
Regular footsteps continued to approach the basement where Michael was currently in.
***
“Why are you doing this?”
Alan asked as soon as it was only the two of us left.
“What?”
“War is not a children’s game.”
Alan spoke sternly and added.
“Even if you’re a demon, it’s going to be hard to hold out. In fact, Benimus also crossed the threshold of death several times.”
For some reason, Alan’s face was more flushed than usual.
‘Is he angry?’
Alan sighed quietly as he put his hands together and looked around.
“You are no longer obliged to protect our family. No, actually, there was no such thing from the beginning.”
“……”
“Do you want official proof that you will continue to be treated as a princess?”
“…No.”
I didn’t even want that to be recognized as family.
As I shook my head, Alan’s expression became harsher.
“You’re still trying to please me.”
“Yes…”
“Why? I don’t think you need to impersonate Lily anymore.”
Impersonating Lily. The words became a pointed awl and poked my heart.
As I lowered my head, Alan knocked on the round table while he was deliberating.
“I can’t do you any harm anyway.”
I really appreciated that.
“If I were to let you go, I thought you would leave happily…”
Alan gave me an incomprehensible look.
“Why are you staying with me?”
I was as confused as Alan.
‘What do you mean why? The answer is set.’
“That, I…”
Words leaked out like water. It was instinctive behavior rather than reason.
“Dad…”
The name used only in front of people who didn’t know the situation popped up.
I had to correct it quickly, but unfortunately, my tongue continued to move.
“Because I love you.”
As soon as I spit out those words, Alan’s eyes trembled greatly.
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