IWBAACTWITOS Chapter 17

When the three of us entered the nursery, Nanny greeted us with a gentle smile.

"My lady."

"Nanny, did Royna cry a lot today?"

"No, she didn't cry much at all today. Miss Tilly stayed by her side the whole time. The baby loves you so much, miss."

"That's right. Our Royna loves her big sister so much."

Roxana set us down and said she'd wash up and change clothes before coming back, then left the room.

Once Roxana was gone, Nanny gestured for me to come closer.

"Why?"

"Miss, I couldn't catch you earlier, but I've told you repeatedly—you mustn't run when you have food in your mouth. You're still young and could choke or vomit. You need to sit down and chew slowly, one bite at a time. Understand?"

"I got it."

At my obedient answer, Nanny made a complicated expression for a moment, then smiled when she saw Rayan staring intently at Royna.

"A pleasure to meet you, Your Highness. I'm Mia Harrison, nanny to the young ladies."

Rayan, who'd been absorbed watching Royna, snapped to attention at Nanny's introduction and hid behind me.

'What, that's adorable.'

When I stepped aside, Rayan looked at me with a panicked, helpless expression, as if begging for help. For a moment I nearly had a fangirl incident, but decades of fangirling experience from my past life helped me maintain my poker face.

'I really want to bite him and squeeze him.'

Later he'd become someone who didn't let his guard down easily around anyone, with an unpleasant personality—but that was because of an environment where he couldn't trust anyone.

But since he was still a little kid, his clumsy reactions were unbearably cute.

"Nanny, he just became my first Heavenly King! He's Demon Lord's subordinate number one."

"Oh my, then who are the other Heavenly Kings?"

"Chaemberg. The other two positions are currently recruiting."

"Then how about adding baby Royna to fill one of the empty Heavenly King spots?"

"Isn't that nepotism?"

At the mention of nepotism, Nanny burst into rare audible laughter.

Startled by Nanny's laughter, Royna's eyes went round as she stared up at her. Drool flowing from her improperly closed mouth was a standard feature.

I wiped the drool with the handkerchief around Royna's neck.

"So, miss. What will you do once you gather your Heavenly Kings? World domination?"

"Why would I do something that annoying?"

"Then why are you recruiting Heavenly Kings?"

At Nanny's question, I stared directly at Rayan. I couldn't exactly tell Nanny the truth—that I hated how Rayan couldn't even meet people's eyes, and hated the gazes that made a little kid bow his head—so I gave a vague answer.

"He said he didn't want to be my friend. So I told him to be a Heavenly King instead."

"N-no."

"Then?"

"It's not that I didn't want to be friends—I said anything was fine."

"Really? So friends are okay too?"

"...Yeah."

"But friend recruitment already closed."

"......"

"So next time......"

I was about to tell him to speak more clearly, but I shut my mouth.

'What am I doing, harassing a five-year-old?'

"You're my first Heavenly King now, so don't say 'anything's fine.' I care, even if you don't."

I wanted to tell him to lift his head, to meet people's eyes when talking—but that would just be another demand forced on Yan.

Swallowing a sigh, I smiled at him.

Rayan lifted his head, stared at me smiling, then slowly nodded.

'Are you the one I'm supposed to save?'

I didn't feel anything like I had when I realized through Asher why I'd come to this place.

And there was one problem: if I, knowing the future, saved him now, this world might end.

Setting aside my personal dilemma about not wanting to change the original story, that was the biggest issue.

The world ending.

I know it sounds absurd, but this was a world built on the premise of world destruction by evil spirits.

If I saved Rayan now, if I changed the original story, the evil spirit wouldn't be destroyed and the world would end.

If I let things flow according to the original story, in seventeen years Asher and Rona would save him from the evil spirit, and Rayan would destroy it.

If it followed the original, we could reach a happy ending without me needing to interfere at all.

'But that's seventeen years.'

So long.

Maybe it felt that way because I was in a child's body, but even the past four years had felt incredibly long—how much longer would seventeen years be?

Was I supposed to stand by and watch Rayan being abused for all that time?

As I stared at Rayan with my mouth pressed shut, Nanny inserted herself between us.

"Miss, shall we introduce baby Royna to our new Heavenly King?"

Only then did I notice Rayan watching me nervously. Belatedly I returned to being Thaleia-who-knows-nothing and smiled at Rayan.

"...Oh, right. That's why we came. Yan, come here and look at my little sister."

"...Yan?"

"Your name's hard to pronounce. So I'm just going to call you Yan."

The pronunciation difficulty was an excuse. At the nickname he'd just heard for the first time, he seemed pleased and shuffled closer to me.

I patted Yan's head and told him he was good.

"...She's small."

"She's still a baby. Only six months old."

"She looks just like you."

"What? I'm way prettier! Rona's still a baby so she's ugly."

"No, she's pretty."

"She looks pretty now because she's being quiet. When she starts crying......"

Yan stared intently no matter what I said beside him. Royna was also blinking her large eyes, gazing at him.

Watching them, I fell silent. An inexplicable sense of déjà vu washed over me.

"Miss? What's wrong?"

At Nanny's call I came to my senses and shook my head at Yan and Nanny, forcing a smile. The story hadn't even started yet.

This was a meeting that didn't exist in the original, yet it felt like the gears had begun turning exactly as they were meant to.

'Don't overthink it. They could just happen to meet in childhood. It's not like they'll even remember this.'

Children's memories are so fleeting. Even if Royna met Yan later, she wouldn't remember.

Royna observed the newly appeared Yan and tilted her head. Rayan likewise observed Royna and tilted his head the opposite direction.

Seeing that, Nanny and I both gasped sharply.

'Insane. Too cute.'

Dunggi-deok kung deo-reo-reo-reo, kunggi-deok kung deo-reo-reo-reo.

My heart shook wildly to the gutgeori rhythm holding a Korean soul. Nanny didn't know gutgeori rhythm, but she was clearly riding a similar beat.

'I want to put them in my mouth and go wah-rah-rah-rah.'

They were cute enough to bite. I vowed to secretly bite them both later when Nanny wasn't looking, temporarily forgetting my déjà vu and worries while savoring this happiness.

Today was the day I met both protagonists.

Roxana, soaking in water saturated with perfume oil, gazed up at the bathroom ceiling.

She'd washed and changed before coming home, but seeing Thaleia's smile made her think the smell of blood might still linger on her body, so she'd hurried to the bathroom.

As Thaleia had predicted, bringing Rayan to the ducal mansion had been Roxana's idea.

Though Philius and Julian were flustered when she suddenly changed plans, both saw Rayan's condition and agreed the ducal mansion would be better for the child than the palace.

The fact that Roxana had personally rescued Rayan helped, and they reached an agreement with the prince's attendants without much difficulty.

While Julian conducted negotiations bordering on threats, Roxana interrogated the captured attackers. She got nothing but statements that they knew nothing, and eventually it was processed as a random bandit attack.

If the result was obvious anyway, she regretted not leaving it to her adjutant and staying by Rayan's side under the pretext of protection.

'The more I think about it, the angrier I get. Too busy with negotiations to feed a child?'

She wanted to punch Matilda, but one hit would probably kill that emaciated woman.

Even if Roxana did as she pleased, Julian would handle the aftermath, but she had no intention of making things bigger unnecessarily.

'Damn those three families.'

"My lady, isn't the water too hot? Shall I add more cold water?"

The maid who'd noticed Roxana's killing intent thickening pointed out the lukewarm bathwater temperature.

She'd also been the one to add copious amounts of Thaleia's favorite perfume oil to the bath. Roxana sighed deeply and asked her to bring just one bucket of cold water.

As Roxana washed her face with cold water, she recalled holding Rayan and Thaleia together.

She hadn't noticed when holding only Rayan, but holding them both made it obvious—Rayan was far lighter.

And watching him glance around nervously while wolfing down bread as if someone might snatch it away, this clearly wasn't his first time going hungry.

"Tell the head chef to consult with the physician and change the meal plan. Tilly isn't picky so we just fed her whatever, but we don't know His Highness's preferences yet, so from now on chop up vegetables he might dislike and mix them in. And...... don't make just enough food—make plenty even if there's leftovers. He needs to learn he can eat as much as he wants without worrying."

"What about leftover food?"

"From now on, take leftover food to the annex. We shouldn't waste food."

"Yes, I'll relay that."

For now, Roxana's immediate task was to feed him well and fatten Rayan up to match Thaleia.