TVRP 03

Chapter 3

“Forget it. Anyway, how on earth did you end up getting caught by my father?”

“Someone is always getting kidnapped in the slums.”

Eden answered sharply.

“People like you nobles wouldn’t know.”

The eyes shining fiercely at me looked less like a human’s and more like an animal’s.

A wild cat with its fur standing on end, forced into wearing a collar.

“So, what kind of ‘playing house’ are you going to play with me?”

The boy’s golden eyes flashed like metal for an instant.

“Are you going to break my arms like you’d tear the wings off a dragonfly? Or hang me upside down and watch me get hunted by monsters?”

“W-What?”

I was so dumbfounded that my mouth fell open.

Did he really think I was some mentally deranged psycho who would do something like that to a child like him?

“Hey. You…… listen carefully.”

I pulled Eden closer and whispered under my breath.

“I’m not going to play with you. I was only pretending to humor my father earlier! Listen carefully. I’m going to!”

“…….”

“You. I’m going to get you out of this castle.”

I whispered each word slowly and clearly, as if engraving them into his ear.

Eden’s eyes widened for a moment.

A moment later, the boy’s eyes sank into darkness and became dull.

“……You’re going to throw me away. In the end.”

His low murmur was so faint that it was almost impossible to hear, like a whisper carried by the wind.

“What?”

“Fine. I didn’t expect much from the whims of nobles anyway.”

His sneering voice was far too cynical for a child.

Eden closed his eyes tightly for a moment.

The tips of his black eyelashes trembled ever so slightly for the briefest instant.

But soon, as though nothing had happened, Eden opened his eyes wide again.

“Throw me away. I never thought I’d be able to stay in such a magnificent place for long anyway.”

Those were not the eyes of a child.

Resignation and despair.

There wasn’t the slightest trace of a will to live in the boy’s gaze.

He was alive, but his eyes looked half-dead.

‘What kind of life did you live out there?’

I never imagined that the psycho male lead had experienced a childhood like this.

Then again, the world really was hell.

Unlike this fortress protected by my father and brothers, I had heard that outside, monsters ate people almost every day.

For a child with not a single protector to rely on, simply surviving each day must have been a miracle.

‘I can understand why his personality ended up so broken in the original story.’

My mouth tasted bitter as I sighed.

“Who said I was going to throw you away without a plan? I said I was going to help you escape somewhere safe.”

“Somewhere safe?”

Eden frowned as though he were hearing those words for the first time.

“Yeah. Somewhere that isn’t the slums and isn’t our castle, either. Somewhere you won’t have to keep running from monsters.”

The inner parts of the Empire weren’t nearly as bad as these border regions.

Thanks to House Sergegnev, which served as a shield for the borderlands, I had heard that the inland regions, including the capital, were relatively peaceful.

“Don’t make me laugh. Where is there such a place?”

Eden wrinkled his forehead sharply as he argued back.

My patience wearing thin, I crossed my arms and glared at him.

“Stop nitpicking everything. I already have enough of a headache as it is, so if I tell you I’m going to save your life, just bow your head and say, ‘Yes, thank you, Big Sis!’”

This castle might look magnificent on the outside, but in reality, it was a pit of evil crawling with lunatics.

Not only my father, who was monstrously strong and had a twisted personality, but my brothers, who shared his blood, were far from normal either.

If my brothers got their hands on this pretty little ‘human doll,’ they would bite, tear, chew, taste, and enjoy him until he was completely battered and worn out.

‘Before that happens, I have to get him out of this crazy household!’

The problem was that I still didn’t know how.

I had never even left the territory myself.

“Argh! This is giving me a headache!”

It had been much easier to live when I was still an immature little troublemaker!

Thump.

I banged my head against the wall, and then I heard a familiar voice from somewhere.

“Oh my, cough, Lily?”

The soft voice, gentle as flower petals, made me whip my head around.

At the same time, my heart dropped with a thud.

“Si, Sis.”

A girl with lush, dark-brown hair flowing down her back was walking toward us.

Eloise Sergegnev.

My half-sister and the heroine of this world.

The loveliness radiating from her widened eyes made her look every bit the protagonist of this world.

And it wasn’t just her appearance.

The warmth and kindness filling her brown eyes drew people toward her simply by looking at her.

Anyone would have their heart melt upon seeing a sister like her.

Yes.

Anyone.

‘Oh, no.’

I instinctively stepped in front of Eden.

The first meeting between the two people I had desperately wanted to keep apart was about to happen.

“Don’t come over!”

I shouted, and my sister’s eyes widened like a rabbit’s.

“Lily?”

The male protagonist’s rule.

It was simple.

The moment he met the heroine, he would fall in love with her at first sight.

Even if he initially entered the denial stage and snorted disdainfully while pretending to ignore the heroine, that first love he wasn’t yet aware of would begin from the very moment they met.

‘I’ll never let that happen, even if I have to have dirt thrown into my eyes!’

“Lily, you shouldn’t be walking around already. You were very sick, remember?”

There was genuine concern in my sister’s voice.

She was sincerely worried about the half-sister who did nothing but bully her every day.

‘My foolishly kind sister.’

There had been a time when I hated that kindness of hers.

Until very recently, in fact.

I thought it was all an act.

I hated her even more because it seemed like her kindness was what allowed her to monopolize our brothers’ attention.

‘……But it wasn’t an act.’

Now that I remembered my previous life, I knew.

My sister hadn’t been pretending.

She had genuinely loved me as her younger sister.

In the original story, despite all the verbal abuse I had hurled at her throughout her life, my sister couldn’t bring herself to leave me alone in a territory crawling with monsters.

She even took me with her to the Imperial Palace.

Even though my years of jealousy and bullying had worn her mental strength down to the very limit.

“Let’s go back to bed together. I’ll take you there. But who’s that little boy behind you?”

“H-He, he’s……”

He’s the trash who will eventually imprison you and keep you from seeing sunlight!

I obviously couldn’t say that, so I could only fidget anxiously.

“Lily? What’s wrong? Your face has gone completely pale.”

My sister approached me, her face filled with concern.

One more step, and she would come face-to-face with Eden.

Flustered, I suddenly wrapped both arms around Eden’s head.

“W-What are you doing?!”

I could feel Eden struggling in my arms.

“Ugh, let go of me!”

Ignoring him, I hugged Eden even tighter.

Since he was a boy and his physical development was slower than mine, it wasn’t too difficult to overpower him with brute force.

“Lily?”

My sister looked at me in confusion.

“He’s my doll!”

“What? A doll? But he’s a person…….”

As expected of my sensible sister.

How had someone like her been born under that father of ours?

“Can you move aside for a moment?”

“N-No. Father really did give me this doll! He’s mine. He’s my doll!”

Eden thumped my arms repeatedly.

He must have been so underfed that it didn’t hurt at all.

“So go away! He’s mine!”

Being unreasonable and throwing tantrums was something I had done to my sister on an almost daily basis.

My sister’s eyes widened, but she didn’t seem all that surprised.

‘I’m sorry, Sis.’

I’m doing all of this for your sake……

This is an emergency, so let’s be a bad little sister just one more time.

With that resolve, I threw an even bigger tantrum.

“You’re trying to steal Lily’s things again, aren’t you?! He’s mine! I’m the only one who gets to play with him!”

“Waaaaah!”

My cheeks burned red as I created another humiliating memory in real time.

Pretending nothing was wrong, I quickly carried Eden away.

“Don’t follow me! I’m going to play house with my doll all by myself!”

Perhaps my tantrum had been convincing enough, because my sister seemed too flustered to stop me.

“Li, Lily!”

Leaving her belated call behind me, I hurriedly climbed the stairs.

“What are you doing?! Ugh, let go of me!”

Even as he was dragged along, Eden continued struggling without a break.

At last, I reached the door to my room.

I hurriedly shut it behind us and only then released Eden.

“Damn it!”

Eden immediately shoved me away.

“Huff, huff…….”

Perhaps he had been unable to breathe properly while being pressed against my chest, because Eden was panting heavily.

There were even faint tears clinging to the corners of his eyes.

It was surprisingly refreshing to see.

For the first time, he actually looked like a living child.

“What the hell was that?! You! Have you suddenly gone crazy or something?”