IWBAACTWITOS Chapter 2

I stared at Julian just as I was about to take a bite of cake piled high with blueberries. Royna had used up a lot of energy crying and had fallen asleep quickly, so I could enjoy snack time quietly and leisurely.

"But Papa, why did you come home so early?"

"I came early in case our Tilly was bored."

At that, I remembered my precious nap time had been interrupted earlier and frowned. I glared at him, swallowed the cake in my mouth, then spoke.

"I'm not bored, so go back."

"...You wish Papa wasn't here?"

"Not that, but Papa, you'll get fired doing this."

"I wish I would."

I'd written into the original that he wanted to escape from being Chancellor, and now whenever he got the chance he played hooky, which was quite troublesome.

Where in the world was there a Chancellor who left work early saying he had to play house with his daughter?

"It's fine. His Majesty said today I could go home early."

...He's not the type to do that for no reason.

"Why?"

"I lay down on the floor in front of His Majesty asking to be sent home early."

I looked at Julian in genuine shock, knowing he was actually the kind of person who would do that. I'd seen him throw himself on the floor and throw tantrums in front of Roxana a few times when I was a baby.

No matter how handsome and somewhat cute, a full-grown adult man acting like a toddler lying down on a supermarket floor was a horrific sight. At my serious look, Julian seemed embarrassed and corrected himself.

"...No, I didn't actually lay down, I just begged."

"Papa, doing that won't just get you fired—you'll get arrested for disrespecting the throne."

Of course, Julian was someone who wouldn't get arrested even if he got into a fistfight with the Emperor.

The Emperor and Duke were in equal positions according to the worldbuilding.

At my words, Julian chuckled and told me not to worry.

"It's fine. You know His Majesty is Papa's chi— childhood friend. It's just friends joking around."

"Hmm."

I responded half-heartedly with an indifferent expression. Julian, who normally would have reacted to my indifference, was looking at me with a bitter expression for some reason.

"Tilly."

"Yeah?"

"Our Tilly will live with Papa forever, right?"

At the out-of-the-blue question, I scrunched up my face and stared at him to understand his intent. He wasn't just asking his daughter random questions out of overwhelming happiness. His eyes held sadness.

"You'll do that, won't you?"

Forever—like I had, people die eventually, so you can't stay with family forever. Julian must know that too, so why was he suddenly asking this strange question? Unable to understand his intent, I just asked directly.

"Papa, what's wrong?"

"..."

"Did someone bully Papa? Should I tell Mama to scold them?"

"No, it's not that. I just got worried about what would happen if I couldn't see our Tilly anymore."

When Roxana and Julian got off work, their time was devoted solely to me. I generally preferred having Roxana put me to bed, and today's bedtime duty happened to be Roxana's. I lay in bed chattering to Roxana about what had happened today.

"So Papa is definitely better cute than cool."

At my conclusion, Roxana nodded in agreement. The biggest reason she'd married Julian was that his face when he confessed had looked so unbearably cute, all flushed red.

Of course, his insane beauty that pierced everyone's preferences had backed that up.

"Papa is pretty cute."

Cute enough that the Demon Knight Commander, who'd had zero interest in men, accepted his confession.

Roxana was someone who'd stayed by their side until the end in the long fight where the Emperor and Julian wrested real power away from the nobles.

When she first met the two—then still Crown Prince and young Duke—Roxana heard their plan to change the rotting Empire and pledged her loyalty without hesitation.

To seize military power, the most decisive element of authority, she clawed her way up to Knight Commander and inherited the Enfield County after competition with her older siblings.

Having run forward looking only ahead, she'd had no plans to marry, so she'd chosen a successor from among her nieces and nephews early and devoted herself solely to her work as Knight Commander.

Then, once imperial power stabilized, Julian confessed to Roxana.

Julian's feelings were pure and over ten years old, dating back to when she'd first pledged loyalty, but Roxana had never once seen Julian as a man. She'd only thought of him as a superior and colleague just as obsessed with reforming the country as she was.

Seeing him confess awkwardly with his face bright red properly smashed through the door to Roxana's heart.

In technical terms, it was moe overload. Of course, that was a story only the author—me—and Roxana knew.

"You married him because he was cute, right?"

"Well, cute was part of it, but your Papa is an incredibly cool person too."

"Cool? Papa?"

"Of course your Papa is cool."

"But Papa's a crybaby and a fool."

"That's why he's cool. Being a crybaby and a fool isn't easy."

"..."

"Tilly doesn't understand what that means yet, does she?"

No, I do. I swallowed those words and hurriedly changed the subject.

"Papa said something weird today."

"Something weird?"

"He asked if I'd live with Papa forever."

"...What does Tilly want to do?"

The candlelight flickered, and for a moment the flame revealed Roxana's face that the light hadn't fully shown. She had the exact same expression as Julian. Sometimes, the people around me looked at me with this expression. But no one had ever asked me this before.

Something's definitely going on.

"Tilly will live with Mama and Papa and Royna forever."

I deliberately switched to third-person speech and emphasized the word "forever," and Roxana's low laughter rang out.

"Our Tilly sometimes seems to know exactly how to look adorable."

When you're four years old with an adult's mental age, this level of cunning is natural, Madam Roxana.

Still, Roxana's expression had brightened considerably, so the embarrassment of pulling off third-person aegyo had been worth it.

"Why? Can't we live together forever?"

"Not forever, but we'll live together for quite a long time."

"But why did Papa suddenly say that?"

"A prince from a neighboring country has to be apart from that country's king for a long time."

"..."

"So Papa probably thought of our Tilly."

Roxana had a similar expression to Julian's. But at the mention of "prince from a neighboring country," I couldn't comfort her even though I knew she was sad. The prince from the neighboring country was this novel's villain and male lead. I stared at the ceiling and remembered that this was about when he'd come over to the Empire.

The male lead, huh...

I was lost in thought while rocking Royna's cradle.

Three families that protect the world from evil spirits.

The Aesir imperial family of Protection, the Celis royal family of Purification, and the Remetio ducal family of Healing.

Well, I'd given them fancy names, but simply put, it was a party play of tank-DPS-healer.

The children of this generation who would awaken their abilities and become the last Guardians.

The 'male lead,' Rayan Celis.

The 'female lead,' Royna Remetio.

The 'sub-male lead,' Aegis Aesir.

I was originally famous for making protagonists suffer miserably.

The female lead and sub-male lead in this novel were rare characters without unfortunate childhoods. Even standing on your head, you could tell how much Julian and Roxana loved their children, what a good environment Royna and I were growing up in.

But not the male lead, Rayan.

Rayan's mother, the former Celis Queen, had died not long after giving birth to him. The Celis King soon took a second queen, and that queen had given birth to a prince a year ago.

Because of a stepmother who wanted to make her own son crown prince, Rayan, who'd just turned five, had been having his life threatened in the royal palace for over a year.

Of course, the male lead's father, the Celis King, wasn't unaware of this.

But people from the three families with abilities were mostly educated to be terribly moral and altruistic. That's why they weren't suited to be rulers. So appropriate families or individuals under them held real power, and the heads of the three families with abilities wore crowns in name only in most cases.

The problem was that the Queen's family currently holding real power in the Celis royal family was greedy despite being incompetent.

The Aesir Empire had gone through the same thing when Julian and the Emperor were young. Unable to bear watching the country rot, the two had jumped directly into politics, getting their hands dirty with filthy work to overturn everything, but they were very exceptional cases.

But the Celis King was a typical person from the three families.

He knew the Queen was tormenting Rayan, but he had neither the power to get involved in the power struggle nor was he the kind of person to choose a successor between two young princes and let one die.

All he could do was create a suitable excuse to request help from the other two families to protect the still-young male lead from the threat of assassination.

In the end, Rayan would be sent to the Empire under the pretext of studying abroad, and grow up with Aegis, building their bond.

The time they spent growing up together was barely over a year.

The only happy year in the male lead's unfortunate childhood.

You have to know the sweetness of happiness for the male lead's misfortune to feel more painful, and I'd set it that way for the bond between the male lead and sub-male lead.

The outcome was already decided, but Julian, who had the choice, seemed troubled in many ways. Considering the relationship between the three families, it would be difficult to refuse, but he didn't know what disadvantages there might be if he took on the prince.

"Wah?"

When I sighed, Royna waved her hands at me and babbled.

I wiped Royna's drool again. To think this drooling baby would go to the battlefield someday. It felt strangely uncomfortable.

Even though I was the one who'd written it that way.

I should go eat a snack.

I tried to pull my hand away from Royna, but Royna grabbed my hand.

"Abuu!"

"..."

"Ah, wah!"

Every time I tried to pull my hand away, Royna shouted in incomprehensible babbling as if throwing a fit.

"The baby doesn't want to be apart from her big sister."

"No way."

"It's true. From watching these past few days, I'm certain the baby really likes Miss."

"Ooh!"

Seeing Royna laugh as if agreeing with the nanny's words, a smile automatically rose to my lips. Seeing that, the nanny hurried to a corner and gasped for breath.

"What's wrong, Nanny?"

"It's nothing, Miss. My heart suddenly started hurting."

Moe overload.

I clicked my tongue in my mind and watched the nanny who didn't know what to do with her happiness.

Royna's nanny appeared very occasionally in the story, so there wasn't much detailed description. I'd just written that she was kind and cared deeply for the children, but that was obvious—she was the nanny of a heroine who'd grown up loved.

I could say with certainty I'd never once imagined a nanny who made such a fuss.