Became the Hated Illegitimate Son of the Duke in Romance Fantasy

32 – Episode 32

“Eric, you know what?

When you tell a lie, think first before you say it.

And never make eye contact. Are you still there?”

“Did I ever have that habit?”

When I asked back in bewilderment, Belita stretched out one, two, three of her fingers and gave her example.

Imitating what I was doing when I was talking.

“Yeah, when the kids disappeared, when I said they weren’t dead, but went somewhere else, when a noble’s carriage passed by watching us, when I asked if I could be like them, you either avoided answering or answered without looking at me. Did.”

Yeah, how could you lie while looking into the eyes of a small child full of dreams?

It must have been because he thought there was nothing more painful than spitting out despair in a hopeless situation.

That’s right, there was nothing around them other than debris, let alone innocence.

The director of the orphanage is a drunkard who eats on subsidies and refuses to even feed him properly.

A spooky back alley with a large window that will overflow with a floating population in the early morning even if you walk just one block.

On the streets, gangsters giggling and stealing money from passers-by who look easygoing, and gangsters sitting behind them drinking.

All of them were full of terrible things, but they didn’t say it out loud.

Well, Bellita, no, I think the children in her orphanage tended to ignore whatever they said to each other.

But I kept my mouth shut and tucked away in a corner while the children were talking nonsense and dreaming.

So it wasn’t that I didn’t open my mouth to Belita’s question, or that I just brought up a vague story.

And sometimes I told the children stories that were absurd but full of hope.

“Was it a lie?”

“It was a lie, a lie that everyone knows.

I bet there wasn’t a single kid I didn’t know among the kids I was with.”

That’s the first time I’ve known that.

I didn’t know there was such a thing as a habit.

Apart from Louise-sensei, none of the etiquette teachers who taught me pointed out that I had a particular habit or anything like that.

“I feel dizzy here because the smell of alcohol is mixed with the smell of blood.

If it were my divine power, I would have restored my body, which was about to collapse from exhaustion. Do you want to get out of here?”

Certainly, my body felt much lighter.

It feels like my physical strength has returned to normal as if I had just woken up.

“To where?”

“Anyway, as long as it’s not here, it’s okay!”

Belita takes my hand and drags me out of her health room.

We ran up the stairs, stepping on the cold marble floor with bare feet and no shoes on.

Then she goes up to the highest floor and heads straight down the hallway.

“What do you know of a good place?”

As Belita hands her a question, she hears a sound echo through the long, empty hallway.

I shook my head.

The only good place I know is the veranda of my room.

I can’t even take him to my dorm.

“Well, there are always good places in the cathedral, but there are more people here, so maybe there aren’t any.”

“Cathedral?”

“Yes, I live in a cathedral. See my clothes Is this a little higher than you thought?”

“That’s great.”

“Isn’t it? I studied and practiced incredibly hard.”

Belita grabbed the ends of her clothes and circled her around once, as if to ask for compliments.

She then glanced at her face, her mouth smiling, but her eyes felt slightly angry.

She walked all the way down the hallway and leaned against her window frame, sticking her face out just like that.

She and she keep looking around.

“Are there any stairs to go up to the roof here?”

I’ve seen a couple on the roof the other day, but I’ve never been there myself.

I can’t even see the stairs around, so how did I get up there?

I must have used magic.

“I don’t know, I’ve never been in this building except when I was hurt.”

Anyway, it’s early morning. Is it okay to walk around like this?

“Then we should talk while looking out the window here.

It’s better than I thought to be in the woods rather than a stinky city outside, isn’t it?”

Belita said that and opened the window.

The tightly closed window opened and there was a crackling sound of something breaking, but it must be okay.

The eerie air of dawn began to cool the warm hallway.

“Looks like the cathedral is in the middle of the city.”

“Oh, you haven’t been here before? As long as there is money, nobles and commoners usually come to be baptized when they turn 10.”

Of course not.

At dinner, the duke brought up the story, but the duchess said absolutely no.

Maybe the story you brought up at that time said that getting baptized when you don’t even know exactly how old you are is tantamount to an insult to God.

“It’s not that I didn’t go, it’s that I didn’t.”

“…Well, I feel like I’m missing something.”

“No. You didn’t know.”

Belita smiled with an embarrassed expression and gently scratched her cheek with her index finger.

At some point the slightly rising sun shines on her Belita’s face.

A mole under her left eye on slightly reddish skin.

A slim nose and smooth chin.

She has cat-like slanted eyes and thick lips that would make it hard to think of her as a priest if it weren’t for the clothes she’s wearing.

“Once upon a time, a very picky-looking woman took you.”

Are you referring to the duchess?

“It’s a bit embarrassing, but did I cry that day?”

“You cried?”

“Yeah, I don’t think I’ll ever see you again.

I feel like I’ll be stuck there for the rest of my life.

Because I’m ashamed of myself for being jealous of you out of here.

And I thought you might come back like those kids.”

At least I’m lucky that I didn’t come back missing an arm or a leg after being dragged away by a nobleman.

Because he had such a dark face that it wouldn’t be strange if he died at any time.

“What happened to them?”

“Ah, about two years after you left, he fell off a very tall building and died.”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

I feel like I’m back in the moment.

A shocking and terrible story here, but a story that always flowed like everyday life there.

I talk about things like that naturally, don’t show my emotions, and ask questions lightly.

One way or another, we lived there.

I grew up there, saw and learned there.

Mysteriously, they face each other as human beings from aristocratic families, even though they are not back alley gangsters and prostitutes at the window, but church women and illegitimate children.

“But there are no tall buildings around the orphanage.”

“Oh, should I have told you this first?”

She sits on the window sill.

If he fell backwards, he would shake his body dangerously, not knowing that he might fall.

“Has it been about a week or two since you left?

The orphanage director was beaten to death in front of his eyes by a terrifying old man in a black military uniform!

Just punch it with your fist! Puck! Just since he.”

Belita seemed to imitate the human she was wearing that military uniform as she punched her.

He laughs and says it cheerfully, but it’s a pity that I wasn’t very pleasant to hear.

“And he thought he was going to kill us too, so he just ran away screaming?

How did he know that he came looking for me!? Then he put them all in a wagon and took them to a much bigger and better place!”

I think the story will be long, so as usual, lean against the wall and smoke in your arms….

Ah, I took out the f*cking cigarette pack that was all soaked in blood, checked the inside, and closed my eyes to see the reddish tobacco.

The matches must have been wet, too.

“So?”

“So everyone liked it at first.

I went to school, learned to write, and somehow, it felt like I just got my dream life.

And I must have been the smartest of the kids.”

Saying so, Belita makes a gesture that seems to show off her own clothes.

Spreading her chest, she held her cane high and waved it.

“What was that at first..?

Yes, he asked me if I would like to join a male writer and work as her maid. She

She went to technical school and said she would raise her as a maid who repairs things like clothes.

I refused. Because she didn’t want to wait on anyone.

Aww, the attendant is sure to make a fuss about asking for a night attendant later.”

It wouldn’t have been too bad if I had accepted.

Even if commoners do the making of clothes, as long as they are good at it, they are recognized.

“In the meantime, the two of them went outside holding hands?

I wanted to go somewhere when neither of them had arms.

I was wondering if he would take a walk in the front yard and come back.

There is a theater in front of where we were staying?

They were talking about something up there.”

Belita is expressionless. She

She’s not, she tries to pretend to be expressionless.

“I went and shouted. Come down, it’s dangerous!

They shook their heads. You won’t understand us, saying the same thing.

And the air took her feet, like a bird before it flies away.”

Kwajik. Made the same noise and shook her head.

As if trying to get the thought out of her head.

That scene won’t get out of her head, though.

And as if it was no big deal, we move on to the next topic.

“Well, this is it, and I have been repeatedly invited to go to my school and work in my family from many places.

The grades were good, and the hand technique was good too! Maybe even if I had gone to Changgwan, I wouldn’t have won first place.”

She stuck out her tongue in disgust.

As if the invitation to work for the baron family and the work at Changgwan are synonymous.

“But since such suggestions kept coming, you became isolated among the kids?

The kids who used to be kind started ostracizing me without even talking to me.

So as soon as the next decent offer came, I took it right away.”

I take out a fancy badge from my bosom.

“And this is the result! You say I’m taller than you think?

I just received a blessing or something.”

“Awesome.”

Belita makes her eyes shine.

“Yeah, they say I’m super amazing. I could have someone to take care of me by my side, but I didn’t have one because it was burdensome.

And then Belita jumped behind the window… Uh..?

I spur her feet and run to Belita.

And when I grabbed him by the collar, he smiled wickedly and was half-floating in the air with only his legs hanging over the window sill.

“Hmm, and you can do this too?”

I blew a beetle on Belita’s forehead.

This is a bit outrageous.

“Let’s go back soon. The sun has risen in the morning and I think people will come.”

“Yeah, okay!”

We went back to the infirmary and I passed the time in bed.

Belita covered her nose and sat in her chair with a bored expression on her face.

And soon after, people start entering the room.