Without realizing it, I had been captivated by the prince’s face and ended up staring blankly.
Until then, I had intentionally averted my gaze slightly, worried I might scare him.
It was just as I hurriedly tried to cast my eyes down.
“Hehe…”
“…?”
The protagonist beamed at me.
Which meant, he smiled at his kidnapper.
Did I… hit him on the head when I kidnapped him?
No.
That couldn’t be right.
Peeking at his head just in case, nothing but a full view of fine honey-blond hair met my eyes.
I distinctly recalled Enoch treating the injuries he inflicted the moment he brought him here… but no bandages or anything of the sort were visible on his head.
So… his head was perfectly fine, even if other places weren’t.
‘Then…’
Is he… a bit slow?
There was no way. This kid was none other than the protagonist.
Caelus del Catanian.
The Second Prince of the Great Catan Empire, and the only legitimate son born to the Empress.
Of course, the Empress had passed away after being falsely accused, so his current standing was utterly disastrous in many ways.
‘They said he’s a crazy genius who manifests an aura at fourteen and becomes a sword master at eighteen, with a brilliant mind that grasps ten things when taught just one!’
The Caelus described in the novel was practically hero-class.
A special birth, childhood misfortunes, innate talent, and effort that would eventually lead him to the throne.
Though it was said that during his childhood, he was isolated in the imperial palace and received basic education rather than proper care…
“Ah. Crazy! It’s because he hasn’t learned anything yet! No, but even so…”
Isn’t being uneducated a bit different from being completely cheerful right in front of a kidnapper?
For a second, I thought I had found the answer, but it felt like it drifted a million years away again.
While I was lost in my own thoughts, Caelus continued to look up at me silently with a bright face.
Then, my eyes caught his two small hands resting on his tiny stomach.
I didn’t know if he did it unconsciously because he was hungry, but the sight snapped me out of it.
I needed to feed him first.
“Have you rested well, Your Highness? Please, eat your meal first.”
“Yes!”
A thoroughly bright response came back.
The smile spreading across his face grew even deeper.
It was so radiant that it gave the illusion of lighting up the surroundings, even though this was an underground bunker where no sunlight could enter.
Hopping down from the bed, Caelus walked with quick, short steps toward the table.
‘Hopping?’
The bed was meant for adults, but it shouldn’t have been that high for a twelve-year-old boy entering his growth spurt.
Without realizing it, I scanned Caelus’s entire body.
He was incredibly small and thin, to the point where it was hard to believe he was twelve.
The quality of the clothes he wore wasn’t bad, but they were far too big for Caelus.
‘The nobility and royalty of this world usually wear tailored clothes.’
Ready-made clothes were the absolute worst option, chosen only in unavoidable situations.
Yet, despite being the legitimate son of the imperial family, he was wearing clothes that didn’t even fit his frame.
‘Oh dear…’
It was a childhood that had been described in a mere few lines in the novel.
But seeing it with my own eyes, it was far more wretched than I had imagined.
Granted… my own situation was desperate enough as it was.
‘It doesn’t feel great to use a child.’
But ultimately, this was a good thing for him too.
Because I intended to return Caelus as safely as possible.
I had no intention of doing anything that would inflict unnecessary trauma on him either.
Sitting at the table, Caelus began to eat on his own, as if he were used to it.
I could see his two feet dangling beneath the chair.
Putting aside whether the food suited his palate, it certainly wasn’t of satisfactory quality, yet he was swinging his toes back and forth as if something made him incredibly happy.
Beyond his round back of the head, the empty seat across from him came into view.
‘Eating alone must be a bit lonely.’
Inevitably, my Korean self poked its head out.
At least, that was how it was for me.
While eating alone wasn’t embarrassing or awkward, looking at the constantly empty seat across from me would sometimes leave me feeling surprisingly sorrowful.
By the time I snapped out of it, I had already taken a seat directly opposite Caelus.
Spotting me, the protagonist paused before opening his mouth wide.
“Uh? Uh-uh?”
Ah, what.
Do people not eat together like this in the imperial palace?
It’s not like I knew imperial etiquette.
Feeling a pang of guilt, I was about to stand up when Caelus’s face brightened up completely once more.
“Hehe…”
Don’t smile, kid.
At any rate, it didn’t seem like he showed that reaction because he disliked it or because it defied his common sense.
“B-B-B-Big brother, a-a-a-aren’t you eating?”
I was momentarily lost for words.
‘He stutters?’
For the prince of this great empire to stutter.
It touched something deep within my heart, making me completely forget about Caelus’s small stature or his oversized clothes.
Because it meant there was a definitive reason why he had ended up stuttering, moving past the fact that he was deprived of proper care both materially and mentally.
I could immediately guess whose doing it was.
It must have been the work of the Imperial Consort, who wanted to raise the First Prince to Crown Prince, and the Grand Duke, who egged her on while pretending to be on her side.
Fortunately, there were forces that supported Caelus too.
Ever since he was a child.
[“It feels wrong to say this, but it seems it was rather fortunate that His Highness was kidnapped back then.”
“To be honest, it’s not wrong. Until then, we couldn’t meet His Highness to verify anything ourselves… We just had to trust the words of the imperial palace claiming that His Highness was doing well.”
A thin crack appeared on the old man’s face as he recalled that time.
After the Empress’s passing, the forces supporting the Second Prince rapidly lost power.
Driven by the sheer determination to keep the Second Prince alive, the Empress’s family—specifically, Count Bellman, his grandfather—proved the family’s innocence by severing all ties with the Empress. That period alone lasted a staggering two years.
During that time, the Count could not meet the Second Prince due to suspicions that the Bellman Count family might have conspired in the assassination of the Empress and the First Prince.
When he finally qualified and sought to meet the Second Prince, the Imperial Consort, who claimed herself to be his mother, turned him away, stating that the prince did not wish to see him. The only response that returned was that he was doing well, so there was no need to worry.
However, due to the Second Prince’s kidnapping incident, Count Bellman finally gained an excuse to meet his grandson.
Not only that, but at the same time, the atrocious environment the Second Prince had been subjected to was entirely exposed to the world.]
Suddenly, a scene from the novel surfaced vividly.
It felt as though someone were typing the words directly into my brain, yet simultaneously, it felt as though I had witnessed the scene firsthand. It was an incredibly bizarre sensation.
‘Was Caelus’s kidnapping bound to happen inevitably?’
Ironically, because of the kidnapping incident, Caelus would go on to receive proper care.
As I slowly chewed over my thoughts, a dejected voice reached my ears.
“Uh… I-I-I’m sorry.”
“…For what, Your Highness?”
“M-M-My stuttering.”
“B-B-B-Because I’m u-u-useless.”
‘You absolute pieces of trash. What is power anyway, that you would break a small child like this? Go to hell, seriously.’
Suppressing my boiling rage, I chose my words carefully.
Neither I nor Enoch, whom I transmigrated as, knew how to speak prettily.
Let alone how to comfort someone.
Even so, telling him the plain truth wasn’t that difficult.
“Your Highness is not useless. Rather, you are so noble that it is a problem.”
His luminous amethyst eyes slowly grew wide.
Then, they blinked slowly.
“N-N-N-Noble…”
Muttering softly under his breath, the kid beamed.
It didn’t seem like he was ignorant of the word’s meaning.
‘But… does that sound a bit like I’m dividing ranks?’
Somehow, it could come across as sycophancy.
He might like it right now, but there was no guarantee how Caelus would view this time after he was rescued.
A better word than that—
“You are precious.”
“Your Highness is a precious person.”
In an instant, fat tears welled up in his violet eyes.
Eventually, large teardrops came tumbling down.
“T-T-Thank you.”
Was it because of the tears?
His low voice muddled the pronunciation, making it sound closer to ‘Thank u.’
However, it was a remarkably clear voice.
‘Is this… right?’
Still, it seemed I had managed to build up some favorability somehow.
Well, even if I did end up making him cry in the end.
