Chapter : 08
I didn’t really want to let her know, so I took a spot right next to the baby swan. Then, as carefully as possible, pressing down on my thumping heart, I opened my mouth.
“……Then what about your mommy?”
“Mommy is here!”
Oh, for heaven’s sake.
The baby swan burrowed right under my wing and popped her head out; the heart I had tried so hard to suppress practically leaped out of my chest again.
Happy about something, she stomped her little feet and even shivered her tiny head.
“They said Mommy was in the Lake Kingdom, and she weally was in the Lake Kingdom!”
“Th-that’s not it……”
“It’s twue! Liam Oppa told me so!”
“……Liam Oppa?”
My touched emotion lasted only a split second. My wing, which had been about to cover the swan, faltered.
“Who is Liam Oppa?”
“My fifth Oppa!”
“…….”
Well, they certainly did their duty for the country.
It was a relief that an orphaned child at least had many brothers, but from that exact moment, a corner of my heart began to feel uncomfortably anxious.
“I-I see. A fifth brother. Haha.”
“Liam Oppa is gweat!”
“Mhm……”
But why does that sound familiar?
Even while thinking it couldn’t be, I felt the back of my neck slowly stiffen. For a moment, a passage from a novel flashed through my mind, but nothing was certain yet.
“Y-you must have other brothers too, then?”
“Yes! I have so many Oppas!”
Drip. I could vividly feel sweat trickling through my black feathers. My heart began to beat even more violently. The feeling of a ‘vaguely familiar’ story was becoming more concrete.
‘No. Think about how hard I looked into this!’
For months, I had done everything in my power to figure out which novel this was. I had asked around about the names of the leads, and just in case, I’d pried into every major figure—emperors, empresses, concubines, you name it. But as I’ve said repeatedly, most protagonist names are so similar that unless there’s a truly shocking setting, I wouldn’t remember them.
For example, if the male lead had been married thirteen times and killed twelve of his wives with his own hands, or if the female lead had nothing but a swarm of older brothers……
“N-no!”
I stopped my train of thought right there and snatched up the baby swan.
“I see. Th-then by any chance, don’t you have an older sister? If you have that many brothers, surely there’s a sister or two……”
“Nope. No unnies!”
“…….”
Talk about a firm little baby swan.
Seeing the baby swan shake her beak with such finality—more decisively than ever before—my heartbeat became even more unstable.
“Just how many brothers do you have?”
“Umm…… one, two……”
Please, please stop there!
Every time those dainty webbed feet waved in front of my eyes, a wave of nausea rose. No matter how many brothers someone has, five is more than enough; unless it’s ‘that story’ I know, any more than that would be……
“Seven!”
“……How many?”
“Seven! Haniel has seven Oppas!”
“…….”
Thud. I collapsed right there, panting for breath.
Now that I’d even heard that lovely name, there was no way to deny reality anymore.
“……Your name is really Haniel?”
“Yes. I’m Haniel. My Oppas are—”
“No, never mind their names.”
What does it matter if I hear names I won’t recognize?
A hollow laugh escaped me involuntarily, and I buried my head deep. Perhaps because I was covered in black feathers, my future looked just as pitch-black—a distinct disadvantage.
“Mommy? Mommy, what’s wrong?”
“So, Haniel. Is your eldest brother, by any chance……”
Looking at the purely innocent baby swan—no, the Little Princess—I swallowed hard.
“…….”
Is he that famous tyrant?
The Little Princess of the Cabin.
It was a novel released back when “family regret” stories were all the rage.
As the title suggests, the protagonist is definitely the baby princess. Like a proper tragic lead, her father died in battle while she was in the womb, and her mother, bedridden from the shock, passed away immediately after giving birth.
Thus, she was raised under seven older brothers from the moment she was born, but that was just the beginning of the tragedy.
There were seven brothers, yet the number of them interested in their newborn sister was exactly zero.
Every single one of them was either currently crazy about war or planned to be. Consequently, our little princess grew up as an unwanted child amidst everyone’s neglect, eventually getting kicked out of the imperial palace due to someone’s conspiracy. Stripped of everything she owned, she eventually drifted to a neighboring country and barely managed to nest in a small cabin.
She cut her hair and took a new name to hide from her wicked brothers.
The process of her growing up while enduring harsh trials and persecution thereafter was so sad it was hard to watch without tears.
“…….”
That’s why I didn’t read it.
For someone like me who loves babies, a story about a baby suffering was the ultimate dealbreaker.
The baby princess on the cover was so dainty and pretty that I immediately shouted “Jackpot” and paid for every volume despite my meager finances. But just as I was about to immerse myself as a “digital mom,” the baby suddenly became an orphan.
……Huh? What kind of luck is this?
Being an orphan myself was sorrowful enough, but to have the baby in the book be an orphan too?
I held out hope for some “pampered little sister” action since she had seven brothers, but they were worse than having no brothers at all.
Releasing dogs in front of a newborn, picking up and shaking a baby who couldn’t even hold her head up—those were common occurrences. They didn’t even hesitate to kill people in front of the child.
“……This isn’t right. This is just wrong.”
I already experienced more than enough of this cold reality in real life; I didn’t want to see it in a book too.
I suppose it was a relief that I at least checked the general plot and the ending. Eventually, having grown up strong despite the hardships, the baby princess happens to save a prince from the neighboring kingdom.
I guess that’s what you call “female lead buffs.”
Even living in a rural cabin, she manages to pick out a prince to meet. Honestly, she couldn’t even take care of herself, yet of all people, she saves a prince.
Anyway, the baby princess captures the prince’s heart by radiating her unique loveliness and bright energy. While they steadily grow their “friendship-disguised-as-love,” she is eventually discovered by her brothers from her home country. She’s dragged back under some false accusation, and the story concludes with the prince rescuing her.
“Sigh……”
The content itself was plain as can be, but there were a few reasons why I still remembered that story I never finished.
First, there are seven brothers. It seemed the author gathered as many brothers as possible to show just how severely the baby princess was neglected, and from what I remember, they were all people who only cared about themselves.
Second, the eldest brother in particular was insane.
“……Ugh.”
I covered my eyes while recalling the beginning of the novel. The biggest reason I dropped the book back then was that eldest brother.
While the other brothers simply had no interest in the child, the eldest brother—who was supposed to take the father’s place—was a full-blown crazy tyrant.
A war maniac, cold-blooded, and a ruler of darkness. Every word that is bad for a child’s education was attached to him. Calling him a tyrant was the nice way to put it; simply put, he wasn’t sane.
A man whose sword was faster than his words and whose footsteps left pools of blood. It was a bit of a “chunibyo” setting, but every time that man appeared, he really did have a silver sword in his hand.
They said he’d cut you down just for making eye contact. That formidable temper was no exception even for the fragile baby princess. As the primary culprit who kept the young baby in constant anxiety and loneliness, he played a definitive role in her eventually being driven out of the palace.
“I hate it, I really do.”
And finally, third…… the ending was devastating.
The author, whose name I can’t even remember, completely shattered the expectation of “how dark can a child-rearing story really get?” The male lead’s rage upon learning that the baby princess had been neglected and abused by her brothers eventually overturned the entire continent.
I suppose if it’s a token of love worthy of a romance-fantasy male lead, he ought to at least split a continent in half.
In the Great War started to rescue the female lead, the princess’s home country, the Rohan Empire, is engulfed in a massive inferno. Not only the seven brothers—including the Emperor/eldest brother—but even the nobles who followed them are torn to shreds as outlets for the male lead’s anger.
“No…… this is a bit much.”
Of course, it ends with the protagonist, the baby princess, receiving the prince’s devoted love, but in my eyes, it didn’t look all that happy. No matter how much it was for her revenge, if your family home is destroyed like that, it’s a bit weird to be perfectly happy.
Furthermore, due to excessive overprotection, the princess-turned-empress can’t even go outside and is relegated to being a “bird in a cage” kept by the male lead.
“……Mommy? Mommy?”
Right. Just like a bird like this.
“…….”
My heart was beyond complicated as I watched the baby swan chirping in front of me. To think that that bird was this bird.
And she’s already a bird at this age?
The story is still a long way from progressing, yet my heart sank for the princess who had already become a swan.
“How did you end up like this……”
“Huh? Mommy?”
“M-Mommy?!”
Startled, I snapped back to my senses and stumbled back a step. The baby swan’s eyes, staring blankly at me, slumped sadly.
“Ah……”
Was I too harsh? But why am I your mom!
While I held my breath, not knowing what to do, the baby swan straightened her tilted head. Then, she stepped forward three paces—exactly the distance I had retreated.
“Mommy?”
Tap, tap, tap.
As she ran up and snuggled into my arms, the breath I had been holding burst out of me.
What is she thinking, being this cute?
I turned my head sharply, trying my best not to look at her. If there was one good thing about being cursed, it was that a black swan’s neck could turn 180 degrees. It was the perfect body for when you didn’t want to see something.
“S-stop it!”
I even squeezed my eyes shut tight, trying to harden my heart.
End Of Chapter : 08
