The Nerd Turned Out To Be The Tyrant - Chapter 28

“Uwbbhh—”

 

“Since when have you been awake?”

 

She’s my Mom, but she’s so scary when she comes out like this. 

 

Luce, who quickly organized her thoughts, drooped her eyebrows.

 

“Hngg. Ung.”

 

“Mom, can you let this go?”

 

“Hng.”

 

Chelsea’s hand, which was making Luce’s lips like a crucian carp, has moved away.

 

How did she understand this? Luce, who moistened her dry lips, hugged Chelsea as she secretly acted cute.

 

The smell of well-dried cloth under the sun and the smell of the apple wine she was drinking. It was cozy.

 

“Noo, honestly.”

 

“Honestly?”

 

“I fell asleep and woke up when my mom shook me.”

 

Luce murmured, with her face buried in Chelsea’s chest.

 

“I stayed still because my Mom loved to hug me like a princess.” 

 

“….”

 

“Because if you knew I was awake, the two-legged guy would ask why I’m making my Mom suffer.”

 

Chelsea is a good mother and a good person, so anything she does is fine.

 

The food she prepares is delicious, she’s grateful that she does everything while pretending she doesn’t like it when she asks for something, and she’s proud that she is busy looking for her own work. 

 

So, what Luce said was half true. She was very happy in the short time she went up the stairs hugging her.

 

Slowly, a hand moved up to Luce’s back, where she was hugging her without saying anything.

 

“Sometimes when I listen to what you say, I don’t know if my daughter is four or fourteen or twenty-four. Who taught you this natural attitude?”

 

Instead of hitting her on the back, Chelsea seemed to believe what Luce was saying.

 

It was a strangely sharp comment, but it’s fortunate anyway.

 

Luce, who sighed secretly with relief, giggled like a mischievous child.

 

“Of course, I learned it from my Mom because I’m your daughter.”

 

“I was a daughter without aegyo even when I was young.” (T/n: aegyo is like acting cutely.) 

 

“Then I must have learned it from Dad.”

 

“I’m not sure, was your Dad a cute son—”

 

Chelsea’s voice subsided a little as she uttered the word “your Dad.”

 

“Well. Your Dad was famous for being a very decent man. When I first saw him, I thought he was just a stone-like person.”

 

Luce, who quietly raised her head, looked at Chelsea.

 

She patted Luce on the back and muttered softly. Rather than talking to Luce, she seemed to be recalling the past.

 

Did Dahlia’s words trigger her? Luce lightly put her hand on Chelsea’s waist.

 

“But it turned out that he wasn’t just a decent and quiet man. He was a person who knew how to tell a pretty funny joke, and he had a sneaky side. He looked weak, but he was strong, and he had the guts to cause accidents that other people wouldn’t even imagine.”

 

A soft Chelsea voice followed.

 

“I’ve thought about why he’s wearing that kind of mask because it’s so different from my first impression. Perhaps he was used to it because he was weak and his family was strict, so he learned how to endure it first, let alone act cute or grumpy.”

 

So Dad was that kind of person. 

 

She felt like her father, who had only existed as a person in an old portrait, had somehow become a little closer to her. For some reason, she thought of someone while listening to this story.

 

“From what you’ve said, it’s clear that you resemble Lawrence.”

 

After going to the Lord’s castle in the morning and being hit by the heavy rain, her tired body gradually became hazy. 

 

Luce muttered as she struggled to keep her eyes open while being held limp like dough.

 

“Because I’m cheerful, cute, and strong?”

 

“No, but the troublemaker point.”

 

“Whaat?”

 

“What? Are you serious?”

 

“Yes. Let’s go somewhere no one knows us.”

 

“Anyway Mom, about Dad.”

 

“Do you hate it, Chelsea?”

 

“No, I don’t… I don’t hate it. Do you really mean it?”

 

“Have I ever lied to you, Chelsea?”

 

“I didn’t know, but I think he was kind of a cool person… Hoam.”

 

“Your Dad is a bit like that.”

 

“But, but. I can’t believe it. Mr. Lawrence, oh, I know you hate this title, but I have to tell you. Young Master Lawrence has work to do in Menelik!”

 

“Mmhm, I know.”

 

“You’re going to throw it all away because of me? Just because of a maid?”

 

“Why would I throw everything away if I left this place with you?”

 

“Then I should be a person like my Dad, Hoam. That’s right… then Mom will like it.”

 

“That’s, of course!”

 

“I get you. Chelsea, nothing is more important to me than that.”

 

Lawrence’s face, smiling brightly, and the child’s sleeping face, which resembles the two, slowly overlapped. 

 

Chelsea closed her eyes slowly.

 

“No.”

 

And she murmured.

 

“Don’t be like your Dad.”

 

“….”

 

“Don’t be a person like me, too.”

 

Don’t be like me, ruining everything with a half-ripe heart like a green apple that says love will solve everything.

 

Chelsea whispered in prayer in a small voice that she wouldn’t even hear herself.

 

Those were words that the sleeping Luce couldn’t hear. 

 

*****

 

“Like that, they lived happily ever after.”

 

Diana, covering the fairy tale book, looked at the bed.

 

The Prince’s golden hair, covered with blankets to the tip of his head, was shaking slightly.

 

Even though she read a total of three children’s books, the child couldn’t fall asleep. 

 

She sat by Delmar’s bedside and sighed a little.

 

“Delmar, can’t you sleep?”

 

“Yes.”

 

Eleven years old.

 

The age when children’s books in bed are no longer suitable.

 

But there is only one reason for being so childish.

 

“Brother Aurelio… No, I always slept well when Aurelio read it to me. What’s wrong with me, mother?”

 

Aurelio. 

 

Delmar often disappeared. And he was often in that child’s room.

 

The gray room of the northern tower, without a comfortable bed, a cozy blanket, or colored toys, was said to be good for Delmar.

 

He can sleep well and feel comfortable there. He snores to sleep.

 

When she woke Delmar up, half asleep on a bed no bigger than a straw, she saw the room’s owner far away.

 

A child who had been sitting in a hard chair the whole time because Delmar, who had taken over the bed, asked him to read a book.

 

So what she said. 

 

“Why didn’t you tell him to go back?”

 

She said it without any particular meaning.

 

“I apologize, Your Highness Empress Consort.”

 

Nevertheless, it was an apology that came back.

 

The boy, who had a habit of thinking badly, bowed his head, showing his low cheek. 

 

Diana thought as she came out with her young son, who didn’t know that his good night’s sleep would affect other people’s sleep.

 

About her stepson.

 

Diana was the right person for anything, so her motherhood isn’t so much directed at the child she didn’t give birth to. 

 

But to abuse and treat poorly a child who seems to have lost all emotions due to being quiet?

 

Not even that. It is an aspect of humanity and cognition. 

 

Even a person who hates animals feels pity for a moment when a small cat that seems completely unwilling to attack is trembling.

 

Even if she couldn’t take him and raise him, it was just enough to keep him out of the rain for a while. No more, no less, just that much.

 

Diana ordered to change Aurelio’s bed that day.

 

The child and others would think she changed it because it was a bed where Delmar put his head on, and 90% of it was right, but 10% of it, she was a little worried about the gray room. 

 

“I miss Aurelio, mother. Can you tell His Majesty for me?”

 

“….”

 

“It’s a pity Aurelio is in such a country town. Yes?”

 

But it was a different story when there was a child who would touch the cat without knowing it. 

 

Diana suddenly pulled back the blanket. The weeping blue eyes turned to him. 

 

“M, mother?”

 

“What do you mean country town? Delmar, are you—”

 

“Hiik.”

 

The Emperor, Radanum, and she are the only ones who know where Aurelio is now. Delmar shouldn’t have known.

 

Delmar closed his mouth when he realized what he had said, but it was too late.

 

“Why on earth did you go there? How did you know where Aurelio was?”

 

“About that.’

 

Tears welled up in the eyes of the lovely Prince, who couldn’t be wiped away by everyone.

 

The zipper on his clothes itches, it keeps scratching his back. And at that one word, the maid who was serving clothes disappeared.

 

Isn’t the sunset so pretty? With that one word, the tree that covered one side of the prince’s window was cut down. It was a tree that lived well for a hundred years.

 

That’s why no one questioned the prince when he cried and muttered like this.

 

“Don’t tell me, did you meet Aurelio?”

 

But his mother was an exception.

 

Her eyes, which always drew lines as if smiling, fiercely urged her son.

 

Delmar wasn’t immune to this sort of thing.

 

‘I shouldn’t say it. I heard Brother is going to get punished.’

 

But the naive child’s thoughts often run their own way.

 

‘However, there is no way that Brother will be punished. Brother is a Prince even though he’s somewhere else. So like people are kind to me, they will be kind to Brother. My Brother was trying to scare me. He told me not to come because the country town is dangerous.’

 

Radanum’s cloak, which said that a return magic circle would be activated when danger was detected, and Aurelio’s eyes, which had been very focused, came to mind, but Delmar shook his head.

 

His weak Brother gets sick sometimes—because he used to act like a complete stranger on sick days.

 

He thought that maybe he was sick that day and that’s why he was so sensitive.

 

His self-justification made the way. He opened his mouth with a trembling chin.

 

“I only went to see my brother once.”

 

“Delmar!”

 

“It was just once. I’m just curious because no one’s telling me… I just had a short conversation. “

 

“How did you know where the child was when no one told you?”

 

“…Radanum told me….”

 

Diana let out a long sigh at the words. 

 

Then, Delmar thought hard with his little head.

 

The one who asked and begged for it was himself, but in the end it was Radanum who informed and sent him. 

 

There were times when the long-lived wizard’s eyes were frightening, but isn’t he a servant of the imperial family anyway? 

 

He must absolutely follow the words of the people of the imperial family, and he would be a chamberlain who could use magic.

 

So, he can tell Radanum who told him. Tell his mother that he sent him.

 

He couldn’t believe there was such a way!

 

“I missed Brother and wanted to talk to him, so I went to Radanum, and wouldn’t he let me go? If it wasn’t for Radanum, how could I have gone all the way to a remote rural village? So—”

 

“Delmar.”

 

“Yes, mother.”

 

Diana’s face showed for a moment that she was tired and exhaustion.

 

“Let’s keep this a secret.”

 

Huh. Delmar, who had wiped away tears, asked in a small voice.

 

“Secret? Then…”

 

“Yes, let’s keep it a secret. Don’t talk about this.”

 

“Yes, I will!”

 

As expected, it wasn’t a big deal because his mother covered it up for him. 

 

She says it in the same tone as when she told him not to eat too many puddings, right?

 

Leaving Delmar’s eyes sparkling behind, Diana left the room. She got a headache.