Chapter 7

It had been three days since Ilvareno was found by Cain in the Elgrandark family's garden.

The bruises and cuts had become much less noticeable, but with his leg still in a splint and unable to move around, he sat on the sofa in Cain's room, lost in thought.

Cain was currently having a piano lesson with a music tutor in the piano room.

Ilvareno had thought that noble children were pampered, eating sweets, playing, and napping all day, but Cain was far busier than he had imagined.

He woke up early in the morning to run around the perimeter of the estate, studied arithmetic, history, and foreign languages after breakfast, and learned practical skills like dance, violin, and piano after lunch. After tea time, he practiced basic magic, and then ran around the estate again until dinner.

In between these schedules, he made time for skinship with his sister and would come to check on Ilvareno, who was unable to move and had to stay in the room.

(What is he?)

Cain was so busy that Ilvareno had no chance to ask why he knew his name and that he was raised as an assassin. From their conversations, Ilvareno knew Cain was the same age as him, six years old, but he thought Cain was too mature for a noble child, considering his own special upbringing.

Cain had free time after dinner. Today, he had to interrogate Cain about various things. As he was organizing his thoughts on how to approach the conversation, the door to the room opened with a loud bang.

"Lord Il! I'll read a story for you!"

As usual, Dian came in without knocking. She walked straight to the sofa and started tapping Ilvareno's thigh from the side, pressuring him to move over. Even though the sofa was spacious enough for an adult, it was originally a single-seater, so it was cramped with two people, even if one was a child.

Even if he told her to sit somewhere else, Dian would keep tapping his thigh until he moved, so he sighed and shifted to the edge of the sofa.

Dian climbed onto the sofa, squeezed herself into the gap, and placed the book on her lap.

"Big brother is having piano lessons, so Lord Il must be free, right? I'll read a story for you."

It seemed difficult for Dian to call him "Ilvareno," so she started calling him "Lord Il" quite early on. The first time she called him that, Cain glared at her as if the end of the world had come a million times, saying, "Dian, you have a brother, and it's me!" Ilvareno told her to change the way she called him, but she wouldn't listen, so he let her do as she pleased.

Cain repeatedly called Dian "cute," but from Ilvareno's perspective, Cain and Dian looked almost identical, so he thought, "Is he a narcissist?" They both had bright blonde hair and blue eyes like the winter sky, with beautifully shaped features. Despite a three-year age difference, they looked very similar.

"Onc... onc... time... ago..."

Dian read from the book, but since she hadn't memorized all the basic characters yet, she skipped parts of the text, making it impossible to understand the story.

Still, her effort to trace the words with her finger and read them was somewhat endearing.

"Let me read it. I'll read it."

Ilvareno moved the book from Dian's lap to the middle of the two of them and started reading.

"Once upon a time, the rabbit's ears were short, the snake's body was short, and the horse's neck was short. One day, the rabbit went to the lake..."

Dian looked at the picture book seriously, pointing to the picture of a rabbit when he read "rabbit" and the picture of a snake when he read "snake."

Ilvareno noticed that she kept glancing at his face while pointing at the pictures of animals and flowers.

When Cain read stories to Dian, he praised her for pointing to the right picture. "Good job! That's the rabbit! Dian, you're so smart! You know the rabbit!" He praised her endlessly.

Ilvareno, who had watched Cain read to Dian, was frustrated by how slowly the story progressed.

Dian seemed to be waiting for similar praise, but Ilvareno had no intention of interrupting the story to praise her.

"... and that's how the rabbit's ears, the snake's body, and the horse's neck became long. The end."

He closed the book with a thud.

Dian looked a bit disappointed.

(He praises her too much...)

Feeling slightly awkward for having read the book so quickly without praising her, Ilvareno blamed Cain.

"Ah... Here's a question. Why did the rabbit's ears become long?"

"Huh?"

To cover his awkwardness, he turned the story into a quiz.

Dian looked confused by the sudden question.

"At first, the rabbit's ears were short, but in the end, they became long. Why?"

"Why?"

"Don't repeat the question."

(As I thought, she was too focused on matching words with pictures and didn't listen to the story...)

Ilvareno's frown made Dian look anxious, and she started fidgeting with her hands.

"I'll read it from the beginning again, so this time, listen to the story properly."

Sighing, he said this, and Dian nodded seriously.

"Once upon a time, the rabbit's ears were short..."

Realizing that stories had a narrative, Dian began to ask Ilvareno to read to her instead of Cain. Cain glared at Ilvareno as if a prophet had declared the end of the world and sulked, going to bed early, so Ilvareno couldn't get any information.

As Dian started to understand stories as sentences rather than just words, her studies progressed. Ilvareno was thanked by the nanny and mother and was even invited to work in the mansion, despite being a mysterious boy with an unknown background.