Chapter 1
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Chapter 1 There's a saying that if life grows tedious, raise a son. This wisdom applied to me as well.
"My dear Lucian, why are you so unusually quiet today...?"
When raising a six-year-old child, the most dangerous moment is when the child falls silent. With a sinking feeling, I stepped into the child's room and gasped in horror.
"Lucian!"
The entire room was caked in flour. Covered head to toe in white powder, Lucian ignored my alarmed cry and continued painting the wall with flour. I rushed into the room and scooped up the flour-buried Lucian into my arms. As I did, clouds of fine white powder cascaded down from his small body.
"This is maddening. Where on earth did you get all this flour?"
There was no way this tiny child could have made it all the way to the kitchen and retrieved flour on his own. And surely the kitchen servants wouldn't have stood idly by and watched.
"Where is your nanny? Where has Grace gone?"
"The nanny left. I pretended to be asleep!"
"What?"
Lucian puffed out his chest proudly as if he'd accomplished something remarkable, and I found myself at a loss for words.
"You pretended to be asleep?"
"Yes."
"But why?"
"To surprise Aunt!"
Lucian laughed with innocent delight. Watching the child beam so brightly, I couldn't muster the energy to scold him.
"I see.... My dutiful Lucian.... Training your aunt's heart to be stronger, I suppose...."
"What?"
Lucian looked at me with an expression of displeasure. But I had no capacity to worry about the child's feelings at that moment. As I tried to stand, I stepped directly on the flour sack lying on the floor and slipped.
"Ah!"
A sharp cry escaped me, followed by a dull thud that echoed through my head.
"Hahaha! Aunt is silly! Falling down is so funny!"
Lucian's laughter, clutching his belly, grew increasingly distant.
"Lucella!"
Soon after, the servants heard the commotion and rushed into the room in a panic, and I lost consciousness. * * * While unconscious, countless scenes flashed through my mind. A dark-haired woman lying in bed reading a book, then closing it with tears streaming down her face. They say that just before death, memories of the past flash by like a lantern show, but thinking about it carefully, my life held no such memories. I realized belatedly. These were memories from my previous life, and my current existence was the world within the novel I had been reading in that previous life—"From Bastard to Patriarch."
Edwin, the protagonist of "From Bastard to Patriarch," is the illegitimate son of the Duke of Bellomen, master of the Roberta Empire's most prestigious noble house. After wandering through orphanages and enduring countless hardships, he enters the Bellomen Duchy at age nine—the place where he was always meant to belong. Yet life in the duchy proved far from easy. Lucian, the legitimate son of the Duke of Bellomen, torments the protagonist daily, and the retainers likewise resent the emergence of a new heir. Driven out to the Academy, he meets Violeta, the heroine. With her aid, Edwin defeats the villains and becomes the patriarch of House of Bellomen. And one of the villains punished by Edwin is none other than....
"My aunt is such a sleepyhead. How can you sleep all day long?"
My nephew and only blood relative, Lucian Bellomen. As I blinked my unfocused eyes repeatedly, the bright-faced Lucian came into view.
"Lucella, you've come to!"
"Are you alright?"
At the same moment, the maids rushed toward me, their faces etched with concern.
"What happened?"
I opened my mouth while rubbing my still-throbbing back of my head.
"You stepped on a flour sack that was on the floor and slipped."
"There happened to be a toy in that spot.... As you slipped, you hit your head on the toy."
"You've been unconscious for half a day."
"So that's why my head hurts so much."
When I touched the back of my head, I felt a lump the size of a fist protruding. It was fortunate that I hadn't suffered a concussion.
"Your stomach isn't feeling queasy, is it?"
"No."
"Your head isn't spinning?"
"No. I'm fine. But what about Lucian?"
"He's over there."
I turned my head in the direction the maid indicated. There was Lucian, playing while pulling out the stuffing from a cushion. Just moments ago he had been sitting right beside me. Truly, he was a child of mercurial moods.
"Lucian."
As I called to him in a soft voice, the little rascal approached me with his lips pouted.
"Are you going to lecture me again?"
Yes. Under normal circumstances, I would have scolded him—flour is for cooking, not for playing with; you shouldn't pull out the cushion stuffing—but.... I suddenly pulled him close.
"Huh?"
I simply embraced the child without a word.
"What is it, Aunt? Why are you suddenly doing this?"
It was an unexpected gesture, and Lucian rarely showed confusion. The child struggled to escape my embrace, but I held his small head firmly against me and refused to let go. Because I had learned that my little rascal would face a terrible future. * * * I was born into House of Rilprey and spent a carefree childhood. My family was wealthy, my parents were affectionate, and my sister, five years my senior, was kind. It was a happy life incomparable to the harsh existence I had lived before my rebirth. But that happiness was short-lived. When I turned twelve, my parents died in a carriage accident. Since both my sister and I were minors, the title naturally passed to Adolf Rilprey, my father's younger brother. And our uncle, now the Count of Rilprey, mistreated us. Our uncle, who viewed us as thorns in his side, eagerly pushed for my sister's marriage as soon as she came of age. Marriage was an excellent means to legally dispose of bloodlines he disliked. And so my sister was sent off to marry into House of Bellomen. Our uncle boasted about becoming in-laws with House of Bellomen, but my sister could not. The Duke of Bellomen had someone else he loved. My sister, who had nowhere else to turn, made me a proposal one day. 'Lucella, let's live together. If you stay in Rilprey County, you'll end up in an unhappy marriage just like me. I don't want you to be sold off into marriage like I was. I want you to meet a good person and live a truly happy life.' She meant she would protect me until I could support myself, even though I was still a minor. 'But I'm not part of House of Bellomen. I can't keep living with you, the Duchess, when I bear the name of Rilprey County.' 'I'll talk to Dehardt about it.' Dehardt Bellomen. The master of House of Bellomen and my sister's husband. I thought there was no way such an iron-willed man would allow a freeloader into his home. 'Do that.' Yet the permission came surprisingly easily. 'But in return, don't concern yourself with what I do or where I go from now on.' There was one condition attached. It was a hurtful thing to say, but my sister showed little reaction. She was simply overjoyed that I would be living with her. But I knew. I knew she was hiding the wounds in her heart. So I always tried to bring her smiles. We had no one to rely on but each other. When I heard the news that I had become an aunt, I was overjoyed. Someone else would now give my sister love besides me. I was overwhelmed by the fact that I finally had someone to whom I could return the love my sister had given me. But before I could repay all the debt I owed my sister, she contracted an incurable disease. 'Lucella, please protect my child.' 'Yes. I will. I'll definitely protect Lucian.' 'Thank you. And I'm sorry for asking this of you.' My sister left behind a brief final wish and departed from this world. At the young age of twenty-three. At merely eighteen years old, I was left alone in this world with my two-year-old nephew, Lucian. I lived with all my might to give Lucian the love my sister had been unable to provide. Some people cursed me for staying in the Duchy despite not sharing a drop of blood with the Duke, but I pretended not to hear them. I had to keep my promise to my sister no matter what. But raising Lucian proved to be quite difficult. Even with the help of nurses and servants, it was no easy task. Lucian was mischievous and strong for his age. When caring for Lucian became exhausting, I would sometimes cry quietly alone. But for the most part, I had more days to smile because of Lucian. Raising a child—especially one who looked exactly like my sister—was deeply joyful and rewarding. Watching him grow filled me with a sense of fulfillment I had never experienced before.
"But Lucian is supposed to be a villain."
And worse, he's cast in the role of being punished by the protagonist who becomes the head of House of Bellomen.
"How can this be?"
Lucian lost his mother at just two years old and had never received proper love from his father. Yet the ending given to such a child is death? Isn't that too cruel? 'Of course, Lucian did torment the protagonist Edwin quite a bit...' Lucian's bratty nature truly showed itself when he was tormenting the protagonist. Mixing worms into pasta, locking him in his room and bolting the door. As he grew older, he even ostracized him with calculated intelligence. 'I understand why Lucian hates Edwin.' Edwin was a bastard who suddenly rolled into their lives, unlike Lucian who was the legitimate heir. Yet Edwin monopolized the Duke's love—something Lucian had never once received. 'But that doesn't justify tormenting him.' Bullying and violence can never be justified under any circumstances. 'I have to raise Lucian to be a good child.' I was like a parent to Lucian. And no parent in this world wishes for their child to grow up wicked. Above all, to prevent the fate of death that has been decreed for Lucian, I had to raise him right no matter what it took. 'Protect my child.' For the sake of fulfilling my sister's final wish.
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