Chapter 2

In the Allegro Kingdom, a person became an adult at sixteen.

 

With only a year left before Sephiel entered adulthood, Sephiel became seriously ill with an unidentified disease.

 

‘It hurts. I’ll die soon. Anyone, please save me.’

 

When she was about to die, the doctors came reluctantly.

 

They all said that Sephiel wouldn’t make it.

 

 

[Seems like she won’t make it through the night.]

 

 

With those words, Wittegar went to see Sephiel. It was then that–

 

 

[Haa, haa.]

 

 

Wittegar discovered a shocking sight.

 

The wall was entirely jam-packed with notes and papers she had written.

 

 

[You said you wrote this? This formula. And this paper?]

 

 

A child who had been locked up all her life. The only thing she could do was read and read old books again until she was sick of them.

 

What would it be like if such an existence survived?

 

‘It’s probably a genius, if not, it would be a monster.’

 

It was what a scholar said when he saw Sephiel, who had become an adult.

 

‘Surprisingly, I was a genius.’

 

Years of learning to write while being abused by the private tutor stimulated Sephiel. She wrote calculation after calculation and the papers she wrote down quickly formed a mountain in the room.

 

Wittegar saw her figure and gulped. He said,

 

 

[Bring her to me if she gets through the night. This kid is going to be useful.]

 

 

That was the last thing she heard that night.

 

 

***

 

 

Fifteen years old.

 

In the end, Sephiel barely survived her near-death fever and soon after countless scholars came to find Sephiel.

 

 

[Try to solve this, starting from this problem.]

 

[This essay, was it really written by you?]

 

 

Sephiel did as she was told to while trembling. The scholars who saw the results scrambled, saying that Sephiel was a genius.

 

Witteger smiled widely.

 

 

[Right, they said you were the Kingdom’s calamity, but it turns out you are not an ordinary child.]

 

 

The thing that she yearned for even in her dreams, her father’s smile.

 

A gentle look that looked benevolent.

 

Sephiel felt like she was dreaming.

 

 

[As expected, it’s  just like the legend.]

 

 

Although Wittegar kept a straight face when he mumbled like that—

 

She was still happy.

 

‘At that moment, it was like….’

 

A family novel in which the girl was the main character. It was at that moment when she felt like she became the main character of such a novel.

 

‘I, the nuisance of the family, am being favored by my father?’

 

Even though she didn’t expect such a dream to come true…

 

‘I didn’t know that in terms of novels, the genre of my life after that moment would soon become horror and betrayal.’

 

A small sigh escaped her mouth. Every time she thought about her past, she felt so frustrated.

 

“Huft, I’m rweally angwy….” [Huft, I’m really angry.]

 

Father Wittegar, who had discovered Sephiel’s genius, said,

 

 

[From now on, if you’re good at what I tell you to do, I’ll let you out of prison when you become an adult. You simply have to behave.]

 

 

‘It was impossible for the things he told me to do…’

 

…to be good things.

 

For generations, there were people called ‘Shadows’ in the Allegro Royal Family.

 

These shadows worked and dealt with all of the Allegro Royal Family’s secrets in the background.

 

It was a role where they were treated like consumable items. If something big happened, a Shadow would be charged with the crime and executed.

 

Clearly, Witteger was a genius at discovering human use.

 

Since he made Sephiel, who was only 15, become a ‘Shadow’.

 

That’s how Sephiel started making secret ledgers.

 

And it turned out that…

 

 

[You’re really a genius.]

 

[You are practically an artist in making ledgers, even if it’s just an ornamental ledger. I can’t believe you can connect something like this!]

 

 

That’s what the secretaries said when they saw the ledger that was made by Sephiel.

 

Making secret ledgers was not a simple accounting job.

 

It was a job that computed income and expenditure by summing up what happened in the family and then reorganized by skillfully putting in false details.

 

One had to memorize the family’s flow of money, and not a single thing could be wrong.

 

‘And, I managed everything. Time and time again.’

 

Sephiel did whatever she was told to and she learned whatever she was taught.

 

Magic, mathematics, accounting, and even literature. There was nothing that she couldn’t do.

 

Her father sometimes praised her.

 

 

[You’re the smartest among your siblings.]

 

 

Sephiel was genuinely proud and happy.

 

‘Nevertheless, Father still kept his promise. Since he took me out of the prison when I became an adult.’

 

Sephiel was moved to a small solitary room located inside the secretariat, one that passed through Witteger’s office.

 

In that unusually cold storage room, Sepiel blew at her hands and did everything she was told.

 

She was also made to use a magical tool that changed the color of her eyes and hair, so she could go outside often.

 

‘Even though father only let me out so that I could do the things that I was told to do easily.’

 

She only went out for a walk in the back garden because it was a place no one came to due to its gloomy and shady atmosphere.

 

She was also able to get all the books she wanted, and read the newspaper as she liked.

 

As if in a rush to eat up their generosity, once a month, they gave her the food that she wanted to eat.

 

‘Although I had never once received warm food.’

 

Even so, at that time, even if it was just a small thing, she was happy.

 

‘And it turns out that that happiness was all but an illusion.’

 

 

***

 

 

When Sephiel became twenty-one years old,

 

 

[Hm, you’ve worked really hard so far. Let’s go to a nice place together today.]

 

 

Her father said that to her one day, all the while giving her new clothes.

 

Her father said he would buy her the sweet snacks that Sephiel had always drooled over. Even offering to show her around the palace.

 

It was truly a dream-like moment.

 

Or so she thought. When she finally saw the place where she was being taken to…

 

It was a terrifying magic lab.

 

‘Yes. I was taken to a lab and became a lab rat.’

 

It was a terrible end.

 

It turned out that this was the truth.

 

‘In the Royal Family, it was said that a child with white hair and red eyes was rarely born.’

 

Sephiel wasn’t the first ‘child of calamity’.

 

The beginning of the Allegro Family was the source of their freakish desire to hide the children.

 

It started with a lowly family of sorcerers.

 

‘Yes. In fact, Allegro was an old sorcerer family in a land, where marriages with Demons often occurred.’

 

Demons were evil beings that previously ruled over the Union of Kingdoms.

 

But, that was hundreds of years ago.

 

Now, it had been a long time since the Demons were driven away to the abyss after the [United of Kingdoms Liberation War].

 

‘Red eyes, silvery-white hair, pale skin with black nails, and a tall physique.’

 

All of that was a demon’s distinct characteristics.

 

‘But, fortunately, I was an ordinary human.’

 

The blood of the Demons had become completely diluted, but occasionally, every few decades, a child with hair and eye color similar to a demon would be born.

 

‘It was like a curse that didn’t go away even after generations had passed. Or, was it a type of mutancy?’

 

Although the current Demons were now but a story-like existence that would never be encountered by ordinary people of the Union of Kingdoms.

 

Either way a child with the appearance of Sephiel was a pain in the neck for the Allegro Royal Family.

 

‘After all, their marriage with the Demons was the Allegro Royal Family’s dark past.’

 

That’s why children with ‘white hair and red eyes’ were confined.

 

They were loathed, abused and treated lower than animals.

 

That was the Allegro Royal Family’s tradition.

 

‘Because of the large number of children unfairly confined like me, it had already become an unstoppable matter.’

 

The legend that was passed down to the family was actually just an excuse to deal with children like Sephiel.

 

‘Then how do kids like me usually handle it?’

 

Having only minimal education. Having to put their life on the line and….

 

‘After a lifetime of confinement, when we became adults, we would be killed by poison.’

 

 

[Since we fed you, and allowed you to study. Don’t have any lingering regrets and die. May you never be born into our family again.]

 

 

That was the end of the children’s terrible lives.

 

When she recalled that, Sephiel became even more bitter.

 

‘However, my fate was a little different from the ones who were born before me.’

 

 

***

 

 

At first, Wittegar was planning to do everything like tradition. He would confine Sephiel and after she had all grown up, he would kill her.

 

However, after he saw Sephiel’s genius, his heart changed.

 

‘There were two reasons, he kept me alive until I passed adulthood.’

 

‘Shadow’.

 

It was the name of those who had the job of dealing with the disgusting secrets of the Allegro Royal Family, and after all, they would be purged and abandoned once every few years.

 

Sephiel was the right person for the job because she was about to die anyway.

 

And now that Sephiel was all used up, Witteger even dared to use Sephiel as his last experimental subject.

 

 

***

 

 

“Phew.” [Phew.]

 

Sephiel could feel her body trembling just thinking about it.

 

‘The day I was taken to the lab, the memory of that day is still vivid.’

 

She was even wearing a new dress and new shoes.

 

 

[You’ll now live in this lab and work to help your brothers.]

 

 

At her father’s words, it was impossible for Sephiel to obediently say, [Yes, I’ll do it.] 

 

Sephiel wailed and tried to run away.

 

Of course, she was caught in no time.

 

 

[F-Father, I’m also father’s… daughter. But why do you… hate me like this? I’ll be nicer. I’ll behave. So, please…]

 

 

That day was the first day in her entire life that Sephiel had called Wittegar ‘Father’.

 

Wittegar looked at Sephiel as if she was but an insect and said,

 

 

[Sephiel, you were born useless.  You should be honored that you’re sacrificing your life for our family. How can you be so selfish?]

 

[What are you talking about…. Save me, please save me….!]

 

[You sure are shameless. Did you actually believe that I would take care of you and love you just because you’re my daughter?]

 

[Please….]

 

[If you’re not loved, then you should apologize for not being loveable. There is no one-sided victim in this world.]

 

 

In her father’s mind, for a child like Sephiel…

 

There was not even a single affection for a ‘white haired and red eyed monster’.

 

The only exception was Sephiel’s endless talent and genius. He was genuinely pleased with that.

 

 

[How great would it be if my sons had those talents.]

 

 

Her father had long been thinking about it.

 

So, her father started his research in order to take away Sepiel’s talent and give it to her older brothers.

 

‘My first older brother was stupid, the second older brother’s physique was weak, and the third older brother had talent in magic, but lacked in spells. The experiment was made in order to fill in those deficiencies.’

 

The goal was to turn Sephiel into a spirit.

 

‘Looks like he’s afraid that if I died and became a ghost, I’ll curse the family just like the legend. So, was he going to turn me into a spirit altogether?’

 

It was an experiment that used all sorts of technical skills from the Magic Kingdom as well as withdrawal curses from the family’s lowly sorcerer days.

 

They would tear her soul into pieces, then turn her into a spirit.

 

‘Those pieces of me would then be given to my older brothers as their own personal slave. A work spirit, whose only purpose was to make up for my older brother’s incompetencies.’

 

That was her father’s crazy plan.

 

‘Fortunately, I was under the influence of drugs and anesthesia most of the time, so the pain wasn’t severe.’

 

Just like that, the experiment continued….

 

Her last memory was of her floating in life-sustaining fluid, locked up inside a giant test tube made of magical stones.

 

Tears wouldn’t come out inside that test tube. Every time she cried, there were only bubbles.

 

Sephiel prayed.

 

‘I want to run away. Anywhere is fine. Please, just let me leave.’

 

That wouldn’t work.

 

‘Rather, please kill me. Please.’

 

That’s when she came to her senses.

 

‘I’m five years old?’

 

She said she wanted to go to another world. Who said that she wanted to go back to the past?

 

How could you simply turn back time?

 

‘It hasn’t changed the fact that I’ll be locked up…’

 

Sephiel groaned.

 

 

***

 

 

It was that time. She heard the boys’ footsteps.

 

“So, you’re saying that at the Grand Duke of Remdragon’s territory, a banquet will be held? Isn’t that the place mentioned in the legends?”

 

“Hey, then what’s the point? The point is, they’re going to choose a fiance for the handsome five-year-old Little Young Lord. Boys can’t go, even for sightseeing.”

 

“I’m so jealous.”

 

“He’s putting on airs since he has the blood of the dragons. I’ve heard that all Remdragons are unlucky. Although they haven’t appeared to the outside world in a hundred years.”

 

“But, Older Brother, we’re forbidden from going here. If father finds out, we’ll get a big scolding….”

 

“It’ll be fine. She can’t tell on us because she can’t even speak properly yet. It’s also our job, as members of the Royal Family, to give a scolding to the ‘Calamity’ of the Kingdom.”

 

It was Sephiel’s second older brother, Heron’s voice.

 

The one that followed was Third Prince, Huron.

 

‘The bastards are here.’

 

Just by hearing their voices, Sephiel’s hairs stood tall.

 

Around the age of five.

 

Originally, Witteger strictly banned the princes from approaching Sephiel.

 

But, Heron used to sneak into the prison.

 

‘On days like this, he would always beat and torment me for as long as he could.’

 

And today….

 

‘He came with a sword.’

 

He would certainly use that wooden sword to hit her.

 

‘I hate being hit with a sword!’

 

Sephiel looked around her surroundings. Then, she took something and threw it.

 

“Hey! You, come here. You’re not coming?!”

 

Sephiel ignored those words and hid her body under her bed.

 

“Hey! You stupid thing. Nothing’s going to change even if you hide there. Even a bird brain is smarter than you!”

 

Heron entered the prison triumphantly.

 

The prison guard familiarly handed over the keys to Heron.

 

“You’re not coming? Then, today I’ll hit you twice as much.”

 

At that moment, Heron stepped on something and fell onto the floor. It was an ink bottle.

 

“Ouch!”

 

Heron gritted his teeth. He then found Sephiel who was hiding under the low bed.

 

Sephiel wasn’t shaking like she usually did.

 

She was looking straight at Heron, rolling her big red ruby eyes.

 

“Hick!”

 

Heron was secretly surprised. However, he was conscious of his younger brother behind his back, so he gritted his teeth.

 

“It looks like you need a beating so you can come to your senses! How dare you do this!? You’re just begging to be killed.”

 

Heron shouted loudly.

 

“Ywou are dwead.” [You are dead.]

 

“Huh?”

 

Heron doubted his ears.

 

“You know how to speak?”

 

It was at that moment.

 

Gugh!

 

Something stabbed the back of Heron’s hand.

 

“Huaaack! Mom!”

 

It was the sharp tip of a pen.

 

“B-blood!”

 

Heron grabbed the back of his hand and crawled back.

 

Sephiel held the pen and looked at Heron blankly.

 

“Hey! This damn thing!! You wanna die? How dare you!”

 

Heron shouted in a loud voice. Sephiel, who wasn’t afraid of him at all, looked at Heron and said.

 

“…A faywure swowdsman.” [A failure swordsman.]

 

“What?”

 

At this time, Sephiel still couldn’t grasp words properly.

 

It was only after she was six years old when her private tutor came, that she began to speak properly.

 

Before that, she used to copy parts of the words of the people who came and went,

 

So she could only speak words such as ‘eat, no, ok.’

 

‘To think that my tongue is this short!’

 

It was a baby’s way of learning to repeat the same word for a long time in order to get used to it.

 

‘However, I hardly ever spoke.’

 

Sephiel decided to use an ancient language that was easier to pronounce.

 

“Ra mucketo ma, mu mara.”

 

If those words were translated, it would say,

 

‘Do you want to brag to Father, saying that you had beaten me up? This is one failure of a swordsman.’

 

The double left-footed Heron was one who always failed at swordsmanship class, which often led to him being scolded by Father.

 

‘He’s already an inferior student, but what would Father say if he knew that he was beaten and even hurt by me, a five-year-old child?’

 

The look in Sephiel’s eyes contained that meaning.

 

“Shuuena mi myuuara, mu. Mya. Maara yoo ellotya?” [Coming here is forbidden. Do you really want me to tell Father about what you have done every day as you went in and out until now?]

 

‘Then, it will be difficult for you, too.’

 

Sephiel’s chubby cheeks twitched as she looked at Heron as if criticizing him.

 

“You, what did you say just now….”

 

As if he saw a ghost, Heron looked at Sephiel, his hands shaking.

 

“Stwupid.” [Stupid.]

 

Sephiel said.

 

“Shuu ara mu. Mara.” [How are you going to use your sword with such shaking hands? A failure of a swordsman.]

 

“How can you…. How can you know ancient language…”

 

“Mura e myamya.” [A ghost taught me, you bastard.]

 

“Gasp! You…! This Witch!”

 

“Dwo you want to twaste pen agwain?” [Do you want to taste the pen again?]

 

Sephiel showed the bloody pen that she used.

 

“Oh my God!”

 

Heron stepped back.

 

“What is the matter, Older Brother? By any chance, are you being beaten by that child?”

 

Heron hurriedly hid his hand.

 

“I-it’s nothing!”

 

Heron tightly pressed and held it back. He even had tears in the corner of his eyes.

 

“Aish, it hurts. You! Do you think I’ll forget this? Just wait and see later.”

 

Sephiel silently looked at Heron and said,

 

“Whetwer youwe just swaying it or not, I dwon’t cware.” [Whether you’re just saying it or not, I don’t care.]

 

“Hic!”

 

Heron left the prison in anger, looking as if he was about to go crazy.

 

Sephiel wanted to laugh.

 

‘It’s so easy.’

 

In her previous life, Sephiel was like her family’s personal slave, she crawled as she was cautious about everything.

 

This is what the King, her Father from the previous life, said,

 

 

[You want me to love you just because you’re my daughter?]

 

 

Right. She didn’t know that not all children could enjoy such rights.

 

‘From now on, I’ll pave my path by myself.’

 

She had been longing for affection all her life, and she had wanted to get out of her loneliness, but now, those things didn’t mean anything anymore.

 

‘What? If I behave nicely, you’ll give me a chance?’

 

They said it would become easier if she gave up.

 

Sephiel had already given everything up.

 

At that moment, peace of mind came.

 

Filling her empty mind with…

 

Revenge. As well as a sense of freedom.

 

‘I hate all of you.’

 

Sephiel raised one corner of her mouth to make the vilest look she could.

 

The look on her face, mixed with her chubby cheeks and tiny lips was….

 

Like a quiet growl of a cute little dog who had just learned anger.

 

Now, I….\n‘Won’t hold back.’

 

Sephiel thought.

 

‘First of all, escape, then revenge.’