§ Chapter 7 §
You’re so pretty!
“Good heavens, good heavens, good heavens!”
Lancel either had the audacity to lie so shamelessly without even moistening his lips, or his eyesight was so poor that he couldn’t make out human facial features.
“He said I’m ugly!”
Lancel’s judgment of me was completely off.
Or maybe it was because he disliked me so much over Camille’s incident?
Little Anissa Euclid was such an unbelievably cute and charming baby that it seemed impossible for another child like her to exist in the world. Her features were already those of a miniature beauty.
Her soft, pale skin looked so sweet that it seemed like sugar dust would scatter if you poked it. And her pink, slightly tousled baby hair sticking up made her look irresistibly adorable.
“Insane cuteness!!!”
I banged my little feet in frustration while letting out an inner scream that would make anyone think I was a hopelessly spoiled princess fan.
“Eek!” (So cute!)
Even the way she kicked her feet was adorable. From head to toe, she was perfectly dressed in pink baby overalls that suited her immensely.
Seeing my own face for the first time in this life, it was still hard to believe that the baby in the mirror was me, so I could assess things more objectively.
Even though I had never cared for babies in my previous life, I couldn’t help but go into a frenzy over this appearance.
“If YouTube existed in this world, just one look at this face could make me famous… sniff.”
Even as a baby, her features were astonishingly distinct. I tilted my head while examining my eyes, framed with thick, beautiful lashes.
The baby in the mirror tilted her head in the same way.
“Ah, so this is why they said I was cursed.” My eyes were red, inherited from Euclid’s bloodline. Among the children of Lagrange, many Northern-blooded kids had reddish eyes.
In contrast, children with strong Southern blood, like the Euclids, usually had gray eyes, and in the South, red eyes were believed to be a sign of a curse.
“No wonder my mother tried to press my face into a pillow the moment she saw my eyes.”
“Red eyes” were exactly the kind of trait that would be shunned in the South.
Now I understood why Anissa’s biological mother hated a newborn who couldn’t even speak yet so much.
“A cursed baby! This child is cursed!”
I recalled my mother’s face, tearfully trying to kill me.
Sure, a red-eyed baby might be born by chance, so it wasn’t that big a deal—but for her, my eyes were quite shocking.
However, although my eyes were red, they sparkled like rubies, not at all like cursed eyes.
“Aah.”
“So pretty, so pretty.”
Well, it was fine. I liked my eyes very much.
Red eyes didn’t matter when I was this adorable.
I clapped my hands and praised myself.
Objectively, Dietrich might have been prettier than me at this age, but as a baby, I was much cuter, so I decided to have some pride until I grew a little.
“Oh, right!” Suddenly remembering Dietrich’s face, I realized the baby bottle I had tucked inside my overalls. Luckily, the milk had warmed slightly against my body, so it was lukewarm.
“Since it’s a long way, I need to recharge a bit.”
“Sluurp… slurp.”
Before heading into the corridor, I took a sip—or rather, two—of milk, then hurriedly left the room. Because of my injured hand, I couldn’t dash as I did last time, so I tried walking instead.
“Byah… (Not working.)”
The corridor had nothing to hold onto, and my legs weren’t strong enough, so I ended up crawling halfway.
I hadn’t even passed through the corridor yet when my breaths began coming out in ragged gasps.
“Hah, feeding my brother is such hard work.”
Still, I soon arrived at the Withered Rose Forest.
As expected, Dietrich was sitting near the fountain in the middle of the garden.
“He’s pretty too, almost as pretty as me.”
I slowly approached him, blinking my eyes. His black hair sparkled in the sunlight and looked so soft I wanted to touch it.
“Byah—byah!” (Brother, hello!)
Hearing me, he lifted his head from the marble railing he had been perched on.
“What is it?”
The fountain, like all furniture in Dahlia Palace, had been completely neglected. As I approached, dust from the cracked marble fell around me, making it hard to breathe.
“Ke, byah.”
Dietrich quickly picked me up and sat me beside him to keep me away from the falling dust.
“Why?”
“Byah.” (Brother!)
“Meh.”
Fortunately, he remembered that I called him “Byah.”
I clapped my hands in delight that he neither avoided me nor ignored me.
Babies don’t have many ways to express themselves, but when happy, they clap.
“…I don’t understand why you’re laughing.”
Dietrich furrowed his brows slightly, clearly confused. I quickly retrieved the baby bottle from inside my overalls to achieve my goal.
“What’s that?”
“It’s a bottle, can’t you see?”
I held it out with both hands, but Dietrich just stared at me, showing no intention of taking it.
“Byah!” (Drink!)
“What do you want me to do?”
“Byah—byah!”
Drink it!
“Stop saying ‘byah,’ speak properly.”
‘I want to speak too, you idiot!’
Frustrated that he didn’t understand me, I set the bottle down and thumped my chest.
Why give a bottle if not to drink from it?
“Byah!” (Look closely!)
I tapped the back of his hand and held the bottle up again.
“Slurp.” (This is how you drink.)
Dietrich had apparently forgotten how to drink from a bottle, so I demonstrated for him and returned it to him.
“…Hah.”
“Byah—byah?”
Dietrich wasn’t too dense to understand me, yet he still wouldn’t drink.
“Do you want me to drink it?”
“Byah!”
“Yes! Go ahead and drink.”
I wanted him to drink and like me.
It hurt a little to share my precious milk, but I couldn’t ignore a six-year-old going hungry. Plus, I needed to make a good impression.
“Byah!” (Drink, Talley!)
“No.”
I shook the bottle in front of the refusing Dietrich.
Was it because he thought it tasted bad? It was fine, actually.
“Teh-ah?”
The slightly sweet and salty flavor was fine even for a grown child. Sweet and salty—eternal truth.
I got up, intending to feed him myself. As I toddled toward him, he visibly panicked. His usually calm gray aura trembled like reeds in the wind.
“Byah!” (Open your mouth.)
“What’s wrong?”
“Byah—byah!” (Bottle coming!)
I lifted the bottle high, and it touched the corner of Dietrich’s mouth.
“I said no!”
Pfft.
Even if he tried once, he would change his mind—but Dietrich firmly rejected my milk. When he batted the bottle away, I tumbled backward.
“Ah!”
The bottle rolled across the ground.
“Byah…”
I had worked so hard to carry this bottle all the way here! Even though it was small, it was heavy for a baby like me.
Thinking of the long, difficult journey from the room to the garden, my heart sank.
“Would it hurt to pretend to drink?” His stubbornness was unbelievable.
“…I told you I didn’t want it.”
Ignoring Dietrich’s quiet murmur, I crawled toward the fallen bottle. Seeing it lying among the grass made me feel pitiful, as if it reflected my own plight.
“Couldn’t even take care of it, and it’s just weeds around here!”
“Ow—my injured palm hurts again.”
“Ugh.”
Don’t cry, it’s okay!
I held back the rising tears and clutched the milk bottle, smeared with dirt and grass, to my chest.
“Of course he wouldn’t like me just for giving him a bottle.”
But Dietrich needed to like me if my life was to be smooth. Honestly, I had to make a good impression on someone to survive in this terrifying household.
“If only I had studied more back then.”
In my previous life, I died from illness right after entering university without even attending an orientation trip.
In the lonely hospital room, the book I read to pass time was The Rose Wars of Those Men, but my illness prevented me from concentrating.
My previous life wasn’t particularly happy, but being born as Anissa was even harder than happiness could describe.
From the moment I was born, there were far too many humans trying to kill me.
“Couldn’t someone at least tell me how to survive!”
I felt a kinship with the abandoned bottle. But Dietrich hated the sound of a crying baby.
In the novel, he even destroyed a whole village because a crying baby was too noisy.
I curled around the bottle, afraid that his aura might turn red.
“Hey.”
‘Why call me, you brat?’ I thought, curling even tighter behind the bottle to hide my face—but suddenly my vision changed.
Dietrich grabbed the back of my neck.
“You crying?”
