IFAHWIPUTML Chapter 5

"Look at this black hair and red eyes! This is definitely the child Your Grace has been searching for!"

A weasel-faced man with brown hair shoved forward the child cowering beside him, launching into an impassioned speech.

He puffed out his chest with confidence, not forgetting to arrange his features into an expression of absolute certainty.

"I see. Black hair and red eyes. That does match the child I'm looking for."

The vast reception room was decorated lavishly with expensive ornaments.

It was excessive to the point where one might wonder if they'd gone this far just to intimidate visitors and display the ducal family's prestige.

In that reception room, beneath an enormous chandelier, sat Duke Chayston on a high-quality leather sofa, legs crossed.

Duke Chayston Halos.

The current Duke Halos, who had inherited the ducal title after Ion Halos's death.

A cravat wrapped around Chayston's neck above his impeccable attire.

At the cravat's center sat an emerald as green as a dense forest, surrounded by a frame made of gold.

Everything was real—a one-of-a-kind piece made by the most popular jewelry designer of the day.

If one were to put a price on that jewel, it would equal several months' living expenses for an ordinary noble family.

"Yes! This is definitely the child Your Grace has been searching for!"

The man stole a glance at the jewel adorning the Duke's cravat.

His eyes glinted with greed as he tried to determine whether that jewel flaunting its noble bearing was real or fake.

Yes, he'd definitely made the right choice coming here.

"Is that so."

Duke Chayston looked over the child standing there hesitantly. Sharp red eyes scrutinized the child thoroughly.

He was certainly a small-framed boy with black hair and red eyes, just as the flyer had described.

However, the black hair that somehow had an ashen tint and the red eyes as murky as a dead fish's were artificial.

Still, he couldn't jump to conclusions yet. That child might actually be Raphaleon.

Chayston had never once seen his nephew Raphaleon.

He'd only written down on the flyer the child's appearance as his brother had always described it to him.

The appearance of a child who supposedly looked exactly like his brother—the same eye and hair color.

"Where did you find the child?"

Having finished his observation, Chayston stared at the man who couldn't tear his eyes away from his jewel.

"Ah, yes! I found him at the western orphanage and brought him here. They said they'd taken in a child wandering the streets three months ago and had been caring for him."

The man, who'd been salivating over the jewel with divided attention, snapped back to his senses and answered quickly.

Then he began getting excited by Duke Chayston's apparent interest in the child.

He thought the Duke believed his words and would take the child in.

Soon, 100 million shillings would fall into his hands.

The greedy man was already thrilled at the thought of rushing straight to the gambling den once he received the shillings.

He planned to flatten the noses of those bastards who'd mocked and kicked him out for having no money to bet.

"Rohan."

The Duke, who had been watching all this with cold eyes, gestured to Rohan standing behind him.

"Yes, my lord."

"Are we just going to leave Raphaleon standing there?"

At the Duke's words, the weasel-faced man flashed a triumphant smile.

The Duke clearly believed his words and was accepting the child as Raphaleon.

Finally, he was going to get his hands on 100 million shillings.

"My apologies. Young Master Raphaleon, aren't your legs tired? Would you like to sit here?"

Rohan pulled over a small velvet sofa and addressed the child.

The child, frightened by the unexpected kindness and burdensome treatment, hesitated and grabbed the man's pants.

"F-Father... Ow!"

"Young Master Raphaleon must be very nervous!"

The man turned pale and hastily pinched the child's arm while shouting. If he hadn't cut off the child's words, everything would have been ruined.

After coming this far, he absolutely couldn't let them discover this was his son.

While drowning in debt, he'd managed to acquire an intermediate-level magic potion with difficulty and fed it to his son to change his hair and eye color—that alone had cost a whopping 10,000 shillings.

That money could have fed their family of three for a month.

"Raphel, don't be nervous. I'm your uncle."

Chayston's face contorted sharply as he caught the man pinching the child.

However, he smoothed his expression as if nothing had happened, smiling gently as he met the child's eyes.

"I-I, um..."

The child flinched backward at the smile from this stranger, looking up at his father.

Then his father's face—looking ready to explode in anger any second—registered in those murky red eyes.

"Young master, it's all right."

"Ha ha ha. He must have become quite shy after living in unfamiliar places for so long."

The man glared threateningly at the child with his expression while gesturing with his eyes.

Hurry up and go sit on that sofa.

"Y-yesh..."

In the end, the child moved his small feet reluctantly under his father's coercion.

As he walked that distance of barely a meter, the child looked back at his father countless times in fear.

But his father only rejected the child with a resolute expression.

The child sat in the chair with a face that looked ready to burst into tears at any moment.

"Raphel. It's all right."

Chayston patted the child's small shoulder.

Rohan excused himself briefly to bring something to drink, leaving the reception room.

"S-so, the money..."

The man cautiously glanced around as he opened his mouth toward Duke Chayston.

He wanted to receive the money and escape this place as quickly as possible.

When buying the magic potion, he'd definitely been told that as long as the child didn't consume the antidote, there would be no chance of discovery for life, but he couldn't help feeling anxious that he might somehow be caught.

"Ah, right. I should reward you."

Snap.

When the Duke snapped his fingers, the reception room door opened and two large men entered. Carrying a large chest.

Soon Rohan also entered the reception room carrying a beverage children would enjoy.

"It's best to be precise, so let me show you."

The men set down the chest they'd brought in front of the man.

The chest was so heavy that a solid thud echoed through the reception room.

"N-no! Your Grace wouldn't deceive me, so I'll just take it as is."

Despite the man's protests, the large men opened the chest.

Tens of thousands of gold coins filled the chest to the brim, glittering.

"You must be thirsty, so please drink, young master."

Rohan held out the beverage he'd brought to the child.

As the child smacked his lips at the orange-colored drink and immediately took a sip, Chayston stared intently at the child.

"T-this is really 100 million shillings..."

The man touched the shillings in the chest with trembling hands.

The smell of money wafted over, and even when he scooped up handfuls, the shillings in the chest didn't seem to diminish at all.

Watching the man, whose attention was completely captured by the shillings, Chayston clicked his tongue and rose from his seat.

With his long legs, he crossed the distance with large strides and stood before the man in an instant.

As he looked down at the man practically drooling while sniffing the money, Chayston's face filled with murderous intent.

A vicious killing intent that looked ready to cut him down at any moment.

"You're the child's father."

"Yes, yes, that's right... What?!"

At the voice that rumbled low like a cave, the man answered thoughtlessly, then looked up in shock.

"What do you mean by that? Me, a father?"

Rohan picked up the child who'd been sitting on the sofa and appeared before the man.

In that moment, the man's eyes widened enormously.

"H-how... T-this can't be."

The man was so shocked he froze in place.

"Brown eyes and brown hair, exactly like yours."

The child, who'd been sipping his drink in Rohan's arms, was smiling brightly at the delicious beverage he was tasting for the first time in his life.

The child's ashen hair and red eyes had already changed to brown.

"Y-Your Grace, spare me!"

He was ruined. Everything had been discovered.

The man immediately fell to his knees before Duke Chayston, lowering his body.

At Chayston's signal, Rohan took the child and left the reception room.

"Do you think you're the only one who tried this pathetic trick?"

Eyes as cold as ice fixed directly on the man.

"P-please show mercy..."

The man grabbed Chayston's pant leg with trembling hands, wrinkling the knife-sharp crease with his touch.

Chayston's eyebrow twitched for a moment. He kicked the man's hand away mercilessly and said:

"Dispose of him."

His tone was icy, without a shred of mercy.

His gaze was as sharp as a well-honed blade, murderous enough to pierce straight through the man's heart.

At the Duke's order, the two large men grabbed the man's arms on both sides and dragged him away.

"Y-Your Grace! Please! Please! Spare me!"

The anguished voice rang loudly through the vast reception room, but there was no mercy.

After the man was dragged away, Chayston, left alone in the reception room, buried himself back in the sofa.

He stretched out his long legs and placed them on the table, pressing firmly at his irritably furrowed brow.

"Vermin."

His husky voice was like a beast's warning.

This was already the eleventh time he'd encountered such a scam since he'd started searching for Raphaleon.

Ion had kept his beloved woman and Raphaleon carefully hidden.

Because Ruipater, his father and the Duke two generations prior, had tried to kill Raphaleon and his mother.

The logic was that he couldn't accept a mere commoner woman as his son's partner and duchess, and a child who inherited common blood couldn't become the ducal heir, so the problem had to be cut off at its root.

That's why Chayston didn't know Raphaleon's face either.

But somehow, this fact had leaked out quietly.

No one in the ducal household had seen Raphaleon directly, so no one knew what he looked like.

After that, people blinded by the reward money came to the ducal estate.

With children taken from orphanages or orphans wandering the streets, or like today, claiming their own children were Raphaleon.

Every single one with hair and eyes changed by magic potions.

"To be so obsessed with money that you'd even sell your son."

Having anticipated this situation, Chayston had prepared antidotes in advance and mixed them into beverages for the children.

Then, before long, their original hair and eye colors would return.

The victims of these greed-blinded fraudsters' schemes were always children.

Young children who didn't understand anything were forcibly dragged in by the hands of selfish adults.

His head was pounding. Chayston roughly ran his hand through his hair and let out a deep sigh.

Knock knock.

At the sound of knocking, Chayston answered to come in, and Rohan stood before him.

"My lord."

"The child."

"Fortunately, his mother came crying to take him back, so I returned him."

"I see."

Chayston rubbed his face wearily and lowered his tired eyelids.

Raphaleon, whom he'd been searching for day and night, still had no news whatsoever.

Even though he was searching everywhere this desperately, he couldn't even know if the boy was alive or dead, and Chayston was growing increasingly anxious.

'Please, he has to be alive...'

"You may go."

"Yes, then."

After Rohan left, the reception room enveloped in silence was quiet.

Chayston was exhausted.

And he was disgusted by the people mad with greed who tried to deceive him.

If anyone else tried to pull off such a scam for money, he would absolutely show no mercy.

Behind Chayston, already renowned in high society as coldhearted, the red sunset painted the sky.