CH 13

It was understandable since I’m the only daughter of the Winchester family.

That… … By the way, wasn’t the tone a little strange just now?

How dare you? My daughter? ….. Duke Recardo had only seen me three or four times in my lifetime, so those were improper words to utter.

When Duke Recardo hugged me, I blinked and held onto him with all my might.

“What do you mean, Father?”

Othello raised his eyebrows in surprise, and Jin also hardened his eyebrows.

“You said Sasha got some kind of invitation?”

Recardo gave Othello a cold wink, as if telling him to stay still, and Othello kept his mouth shut, but clenched his fists.

Duke Chenoa looked at me with a frown on his face.

“Ha, daughter.”

Just by making eye contact, I felt a sharp energy, so I pressed my body close to Duke Recardo.

As if responding to Chenoa’s words, I could see that the black aura was getting thicker behind Duke Recardo.

“Are you talking about the child you’re carrying with you?”

From a while ago, the description that didn’t suit him kept following him.

Well, I had to admit this as well.

“The leader of the attackers had the same cursed mark as those who attacked this child, behind his ears.”

Recardo responded.

The head in the sack must have belonged to an ally of the people who attacked me earlier. For example, a point of contact to report the success or failure of the work.

“Check it.”

As the Duke of Chenoa chinned, one of the enlisted men checked what was in the sack.

Then he looked at the duke and nodded.

Duke Chenoa looked at Recardo with a distorted expression.

Recardo asked in a firm tone. “Can you recognize the shape of the stigma?” Recardo moved his lips with cold eyes and continued, “…… Kaisa’s Curse.”

The hall started to stir up loudly.

I couldn’t remember what Kaisa’s curse was, so I just listened to people’s words.

At the mention of the term, Chenoa’s face turned red and he immediately argued.

“This is a conspiracy! Kaisa’s Curse is a spell that has already disappeared 100 years ago. How dare you attempt to slander the Taylors by inscribing the brand of that curse on my enlisted men….!”

And only then did I recall the word ‘Kaisa’ I had read about in <Taylor’s Home>.

The four families did not always have equal power, and more than 100 years ago, the Winchesters of Darkness were originally persecuted.

While the ‘Taylors of Light’ gained support from the other two families, the Winchesters were on the brink of extinction.

It is inevitable that humans are instinctively drawn to light rather than darkness.

Evil and darkness were just objects of fear that humans had to overcome.

However, Kaisa, the head of the Taylors, went mad with a lust for power and made a contract with something unknown, bringing a great disaster to the country.

Because of that, people realized that ‘Taylors of Light’ did not automatically mean ‘good’.

Darkness restrains light, and light restrains darkness.

‘Kaisa’ was a dark history for the Taylors and an opportunity for the Winchesters.

A spell that enslaves people with the mark of a curse and turns them into ashes after accomplishing their purpose. Since one of the seven people of the empire was swept away in the war that resulted from this and died, people could not help but murmur at the word that the curse appeared again.

“It’s manipulation… … This stigma, too! Recardo, how dare you try to frame me!”

A vein stood on Chenoa’s neck, and the blue and black flames surrounding them both showed their energy, as if they both wanted to seize the other at the same time.

Just when it seemed that war would break out at any moment.

“This is why you called me, Your Excellency, the Duke of Winchester.”

The voice that came in at that time was lively and did not match the atmosphere.

A strange hand moved under my armpit.

“……?”

Floating in the air, I suddenly met the eyes of the woman holding me.

“No, why are you holding the child so uncomfortably? Like a person who has never hugged a child.”

A woman with bobbed blue hair and sky blue eyes raised the corners of her mouth.

“Are you feeling comfortable now? Woo-jju-jju.”

And right away, I knew who she was.

Vanessa Halo. I’d read about her.

Between her outspoken personality and fiery brute force, as well as being the head of the Halo family, she was rumored for many things.

There were even rumors that in her younger days, Vanessa Halo defeated Chenoa Taylors in a fistfight. 

As Vanessa arrived, you could see Chenoa licking his lips.

Water is the source of all life. The energy that came out of her was the powerful ability of Halo, one of the four major families.

It felt like a warm stream of water wrapped around me, but strangely, I didn’t get wet at all.

“You look alike on the outside – the most of the three.”

Recardo furrowed his eyebrows as Vanessa pursed her lips, seemingly amused at seeing me.

“But inside…… you are very different? It is not my judgment, it is the message of the water.”

She added her words in a voice that could only be heard in my ears.

Soon, the stream of water that had been crawling through my body was sucked back into Vanessa, and it came to life as a mist in the shape of a large water dragon behind her.

Vanessa put me down from her embrace and winked at me.

“Then let’s see the truth and go on our own way quickly.”

Surprisingly, the form of water mist illuminated the scene where the men had attacked.

Is it a form of recreating the memories she read from me?

The scene of Winchester’s knights and servants collapsing was then vividly relayed.

All the people who were buzzing were looking at this scene with astonished eyes.

The Winchesters, the dark Winchesters, the infamous Winchesters.

Anyone who dares to attack the wagon with that symbol…… Taylors would be the only ones.

“Nonsense.”

Chenoa Taylor’s eyebrows hardened.

The men in black masks and black clothes were clearly attacking the Winchester carriage.

It was obviously a shock to him, who thought that Recardo’s words were lies.

Soon, the side of the carriage was pierced, and I saw Maya being thrown to the ground holding me.

“Oh my God.”

People’s startled voices awoke my spirit.

Wow, I thought I was really dying back then.

Soon I saw a man approaching me with a sword.

I looked up at the man with wide eyes.

People obviously know I’m alive, but what can I do… … I was covering my mouth and feeling sad.

And when the sword the man was holding stopped, silence fell.

Maybe that is when the ‘skill’ was manifested.

“… … Have you stopped the replaying?”

“No, I don’t think it’s stopped.”

“Huh?”

By the way, what about the system?

I didn’t know it would all be exposed like this.

Jin and Othello looked at me at the same time. Both of them had their eyebrows hardened.

I kept my eyes open pretending not to know anything.

“Ppyappya?” 

Othello looked again at the mist screen.

“Oppyappya,” I babbled more incoherently. 

I’m a baby. I’m just an ordinary baby. 

A cold sweat broke out on my back.

On the screen, I was in the middle of a snowball fight with a man, and the man’s sword was still not moving.

― If I don’t break the key, he …

When I heard the man’s desperate voice, I was suddenly taken aback.

Key. What the heck does that mean?

Could it be related to the legendary-grade fate of the “Key to Mechius” that forcibly granted me skills?

It’s an area that we need to investigate someday, but we need to be able to do something with this body.

Anyway, Duke Chenoa Taylors and Recardo Winchester were also slowly looking back at me.

Even Vanessa Halo, who played the video, gave me a strange look.

Everyone’s eyes turned to me.

“Baby, you?”

“….. How did you do it?”

I heard Vanessa and Othello’s voices.

Recardo was looking down at me intently, his eyes squinting.

“My God……! As expected, the baby of the Winchester family……”

“But that is nonsense. Even if she is from one of the four major families, it is only a two-year-old baby..…”

The murmur of the people grew louder and louder.

It was an absurd situation where an adult man couldn’t come to me as if he was blocked by something, even though he was anxious to stab me like that.

“If that’s true.…”

“Prince Jin is already the heir to the Duke of Winchester.”

Oh, that is a dangerous statement. It’s no different from a kind of cliché remark about dying to a brother.

I didn’t mean to do this…

“Hah…….hah…..”

I took a couple of deep breaths while avoiding Jin’s gaze.

This was just as desperate a skill as the one I used earlier. Whoa.

And when I started the engine quite a bit, I burst into tears with grace.

“Wuuaahhhh!!”

As I started to cry out loud, the words about me died down and everyone’s eyes turned to me.

Unlike when Maya was around, no one soothed me for a few seconds before Vanessa hugged me again after a while.

” Woo-jju-jju. Were you scared?”

“Wuah… … hig… … hig… … .”

“Yeah, the baby doesn’t know. Shh -”

I had no choice but to rely on her to look at me with pity.

After a while, Recardo appeared in the video, and what followed was intense enough that everyone finally turned their attention away from me.

Dozens of black stems rising from the ground, ruinous scenery and men disappearing as ashes….

Watching it again, it was to the point where I naturally said, “Wow, isn’t that crazy?”

His eyes were filled with rage that seemed like he was about to destroy the world.

If I had died, anyone would know that the future situation would have been more dire.

When the scene cut off with a pop, I could see Chenoa’s hardened face.

‘Kaisa’ can only be cast by Taylors.

“This…… this is…… Nonsense.”

Chenoa Taylors pursed/licked his lips.

“This is incomprehensible! I can’t understand this! That’s what I mean! The Taylors no longer deal with Kaisa!”

Soon he pointed a finger at me.

“Surely this baby did something strange!”

In Chenoa’s shameless denial, the black flame of Recardo’s murderousness deepened even more.

“You have an unnecessarily shameless tongue until the very end, Chenoa.”

The sound of thin glass shattering was heard in the waves of anger.

“Hey, Duke of Winchester. I know you’re upset, but….. the baby is fine, so let’s talk about it later.”

In the mood that felt like the ballroom would be destroyed sooner or later, Vanessa was struggling to mediate.

People were looking at me, as well as Recardo, as if they were scared…… It was a moment of chaos.

And then I noticed Chenoa’s robe moved at his back.

Then, suddenly, my eyes met with a boy. The gaze was so intense that I couldn’t help but notice it.

I wonder if he was about the same age as Jin and Othello. They are definitely children….children….

The child’s blue eyes contained an abyss thicker than darkness.

It was an awkward darkness for a child’s face to contain.

The child stopped for a moment, looked at me, and then disappeared again.

And at that moment, something appeared in front of my eyes.

[Evan Tayl…… Encounter achieved $%#@!!]