Upon entering the <Square>, Evan Taylor paused for a moment.
A slightly crooked chair caught his eye.
This was his space, built with special artifacts, and no one else was allowed to enter.
He straightened the chair nonchalantly and picked up the desk clock that sat on the dresser.
It displayed the time by year, month, day, and hour.
Evan tiredly fiddled with it, set it back, and sat down on the couch.
Right now, the Taylor family was facing an unexpected threat.
‘Public opinion in the Empire is not favorable. Sending an emissary to apologize would be…….’
Chenoa Taylors sent his well-spoken lieutenant to prison.
‘There’s a message that they’re going to demand a hostage. You need to start preparing.’
It was a situation Evan had never been in before, and he was curious to see what happened next.
The odds were always in Taylors’ favor, but this time it was strangely different.
Due to internal issues, Recardo Winchester even removed the Afinizu.
Winchester had come close to winning in the past, but the Afinizu had always been there to hold them back.
To get rid of it so quickly is incredible…….
“…….”
Evan leaned his head back and closed his eyes.
The exhaustion was wearing away at his mind.
These days, even the briefest glimmer of hope felt meaningless.
Whether or not he received a manifestation, Chenoa would gnaw at him. The position would be his, regardless of his free will.
If the outcome is the same no matter what the process, then…….
“…….”
He opened his eyes after a moment, listening to the tick, tick, tick of the clock.
Then he stood up to go back.
The next thing he saw was the book on his desk, open and torn.
Evan’s brow furrowed.
He’d overlooked the slight crookedness of the chair, but this was unmistakable evidence of an intrusion.
This was a place where no one was supposed to be, except for him.
“Ha…….”
A low sound escaped his lips at the succession of variables that had never happened before.
* * *
“How…… did you even get here?”
Othello turned to me.
I stared at him in surprise, as taken aback as he was.
Then he bent down and locked eyes with me.
“Are you here alone? Where’s Maya?”
I opened my mouth to speak, but no words came out.
When I stopped staring in amazement, Othello raised his eyebrows in a vague understanding.
“I don’t know how she looks after you, but here you are, wandering around alone. I’m going to have to tell her off.”
“…….”
“And do you know how many dangers there are in the mansion, you little fearless kid.”
I wanted to defend Maya, but I was still too much of a baby for that.
But in the mansion…… Are there many dangerous things? That was absurd.
I wondered if the doors and rooms that had been moved earlier were of the same kind.
I stared at him for a moment, then glanced at his shoulder, which he had been disinfecting earlier.
It looked like a cut from something sharp.
Where did he get hurt and why is he disinfecting himself like this?
Is it a secret wound that he can’t tell others about?
“Uhhhh……….”
I pointed my finger at Othello’s wound.
“What?”
He said nonchalantly.
“This? I cut myself while playing.”
What does a kid have to be playing with to hurt himself like that?
“Hoya, hoya.”
Listening to my babbling, Othello twisted the corner of his lips into a pout.
“On the subject of kids, are you worried?”
“Mhh. Opyapya.”
The Winchester brothers in the original story I’d seen were epic villains and dangerous men, but the ones I was facing were still children.
As much as I’d like to avoid them,…… I’d still be worried if they got hurt.
“Hoya!”
I clenched my fist and sent him a glare that demanded proper treatment.
“…….”
After staring at me for a long moment, Othello rubbed his forehead as if he had a headache.
“Damn, maybe I should have put it in a real rabbit cage.”
He mumbled something unintelligible, mixed with a bitter laugh, then pushed himself up and began to put on his top.
“……. a rabbit would resemble you.”
He walked back over to me, grabbed my hand, and frowned.
“Come with me, troublemaker. I’ll take you back.”
His words were full of coldness, but his hand was warm.
I could barely grasp his index and middle fingers, instead of the hands holding mine.
Soon I was out of the room, still holding his hand.
* * *
The pale-faced maid, nervously looking around the nearby corridor, spotted me standing in the corner.
She sighed and called for the other maid.
“She’s here, ha. It’s been a while.”
The other maid came over with an angry look on her face and stopped in front of me.
“Miss, where the hell have you been running around like that?”
The tips of her eyebrows arched upward.
“I’ve been looking for you for ages. Annoying!”
She rolled her eyes at me as if to say that she was condescending.
“You don’t even understand, and all you do is run your mouth.”
The maid who first spotted me arched an eyebrow.
“If you get out of line one more time, I’m going to spank you, just like this.”
She arched an eyebrow as she mimed a spanking in front of me. I felt very bad, even for a baby who couldn’t speak.
“Ha, really. What is this because of one unlucky kid? I almost lost my liver.”
“What are you doing? Miss. Go back to your room and stop being such a nuisance.”
They both seem to have similarly nasty personalities.
When I refused to go in, the maid forcefully grabbed my arm and tried to lead me.
But the moment she grabbed my arm, a serpent of black smoke struck her arm.
(T/N: Muhaha …Yes. Burn them ≖‿≖)
“Ack!!!”
The maid who grabbed my arm fell backwards in shock, and the other maid opened her eyes wide in surprise.
She stiffened in surprise at the sight of Othello.
“Yo…… young master…….”
“……Heuk…….”
There was a darkness in his eyes that betrayed his age.
“……such a bunch of rubbish.”
His eyes flashed.
He was furious at the presumptuous behavior of the maids who had found me.
“How dare you.”
There were strict class distinctions in this world, and I was probably pretty low down on the Winchester ladder.
But that’s just the Winchesters.
To Jin Winchester or Othello Winchester, a mere commoner like a maid was nothing more than an object.
“You insult a Winchester child?”
The maids turned pale at the sound of Othello’s piercing, low voice.
Othello Winchester.
A monster who could easily take their lives, though not as easily as Jin Winchester, the heir to the family name.
A decent position, and the vision of the black snake that appears when he unleashes the power of the black flame.
They struck a visceral chord of great fear.
“Young master…… I have committed a mortal sin.”
The maid fell to her knees.
“Please forgive me. I was in a panic because the lady…… had disappeared, and I made a great mistake in speaking……..”
The other maid fell to her knees as well, trembling like an aspen tree.
“A mistake?”
Unlike Jin and Othello, who would be at the center of the family’s power, the children’s half-sister, Sasha Winchester, was thought to be unimportant and out of place in the background…….
Right now, Othello was displaying a frosty anger, as if he had been insulted.
The black flame opened its mouth to reveal its fangs.
“I was wrong!”
“Miss …….I committed a sin worthy of death. Please, just once!”
The maids looked as if they might faint at any moment as the snakes of black smoke swirled through the air, threatening to bite their throats in an instant.
Their crass, bothered expressions from earlier were nowhere to be seen.
But Othello’s lips formed a cold line.
“Shut up and die, if you deserve it.”
