Chapter 4: 2.1 – The Nightshade mansion I

[Irene Nightshade's POV]

  While going through last month's documents, I came across a peculiar letter. It was from my closest friend - Karin Gray - whom I haven't heard from in years. That is to be expected. After all, nothing good ever came out of a commoner being close to a noble like me. 

If receiving a letter from her after years of silence hadn't convinced me that something was up, the content of the letter definitely did. She pleaded me to take care of her son.

I immediately cleared all my schedules and departed to the location the letter was sent from.

It took 2 days for me to get to her house. Upon entering, I was met with deathly silence. 

Warily making my way to the only presence in the house, I was surprised to see a child, perhaps the same age as Krista, lying on the floor. 

"Good." I muttered as I checked the boy's pulse. He was not dead, but unconscious. It didn't take long for me to find the thing responsible for knocking the him out.

It was the piece on paper that the boy clutched onto. Gently prying the paper off his hand, I observed the first few lines written in the piece of paper. The handwriting, it was definitely Karin's! Even after several years, her signature horrible handwriting hadn't change. However, all it took was a single sentence for all of my nostalgias to disperse into nothingness.

"Karin you IDIOT!" I roared with anger as I inspected the content. Karin had always been rash, taking actions before thinking thoroughly. But she had never been this rash. Her son was only 10 for fuck's sake. How could she abandon him and run away?

Well, she was this rash once. I thought as I recalled the time she ran away from her father and came to me for protection.

I calmed down and fell into deep thought. Karin was not the kind of person to do this out of the blue. I, of all people should know how much she cherished her son. Some problems must have came up, serious ones at that. Still, I'm angry with her. She did not ask me - her best friend - for help. Instead, she left her son for me to take care of and dealt with whatever problems there were alone. I'm a viscount for fuck's sake, not some nannies!

I sighed in frustration as I turned to the unconscious boy.

Well, he's definitely her son. I chucked as I observed the boy.

A cute face with jet black hair, he looked like a male version of Karin. Though I can imagine him looking like the devil's incarnate when he gets mad, just like Karin. I hoped that he didn't take after her rashness. 

It will be hard for him, I thought. After all, he was only 10 years old and his mom only left him a piece of paper before running off to god knows where. I fully expected him to throw a tantrum or lock himself in a room for several days after waking up.

I was a bit surprised when I realized that he had Magic eyes. People with Magic eyes were rare. During pregnancy, if a significant amount of Mana concentrates near a fetus' ocular regions, the child will have the potential to awaken his or her Magic eyes later in life. It seemed that his Magic eyes were the type that affect other people psychologically. These types of Magic eyes were very difficult to control and were highly unstable as they could spiral out of control if their users' emotions became strong enough. These were enough to make Magic eyes like his the most troublesome kinds.

When we got back to the mansion, I was surprised to see him still unconscious. Was the shock that big for him? I pondered as I made a mental note to my future self to scold Karin harshly if I ever see her again.

Placing him down on the guest room's bed, I was about to turn around and leave when a voice called out to me.

"Mom, who's he?"

The voice belonged to my daughter, Krista Nightshade.

"He's your brother from now on, be good to him." I told her the truth since I was already planning to register myself as his guardian the next day.

"Okay!", she said before she went into the room and sat on a chair, watching the unconscious boy.

I shook my head and left the room. Krista had always been a weird child. She was energetic and playful, so much so that I sometimes wondered if she was secretly Karin's child.

She must have been delighted to finally have a playmate her age. The poor boy though, he seemed like the quiet and reserved type, the exact opposite of Krista. I can already imagine how much trouble Krista will put him through once he wakes up.

---

[Theodore Gray's POV]

A few hours passed since I had woken up. Much to my delight, no one came into the room and bothered me except for the little girl from before that came in to give me my lunch. Unexpectedly, she left immediately after delivering the food.

I guess she wasn't the overly energetic type after all. I thought as I apologized to her in my heart for subconsciously grouping her with Raun.

I had wanted to write down all the main events since I was not confident that I could remember the details clearly after a few weeks. As much as I wanted to immediately get down to writing everything down though, there weren't anything in the room that I could use to write on. I decided to wait until dinner so that I could ask the the girl for a notebook and some pens. There was no way I was risking getting lost in this huge mansion just to look for her.

There were still a few hours left until dinner, however. Thus, I turned on the TV in the room and looked for something entertaining to watch. However boring and plain people think I was, spending several hours staring into empty space did not sound attractive to me.

Luckily, there was an interesting show airing. It was an anime adaptation of  a novel that Marcos had written. To be fair, the show was pretty entertaining despite its predictable plot. After watching it for a few hours and comparing the show to Marcos' memories, I realized that he did not plagiarize the novel. Instead, he copied it, word for word. Though his photographic memory slightly impressed me, his shamelessness when he claimed that it was inspired by the hardships he faced in life impressed me even more.

What could they do to him though? I mean, there are no laws about interdimensional plagiarism, right? As I was wondering whether an interdimensional police force existed or not, the little girl whose name I did not know came into my room with a plate of food. After receiving the dinner, I asked her for a notebook and pen, which she complied immediately by pulling my requested items out of god knows where.

Seriously, did she know I was going to ask for this?

That thought did not last for long though since I began to frantically write down all the events and locations of important items I could recall from Marcos' memories as soon as she left the room.

As I was writing down the important characters, I suddenly realized something. Viscount Nightshade's daughter - the little girl from before - was a heroine.

It really surprised me. The heroine, Krista Nightshade, was cold, uncaring and filled with grief, nothing like the girl that just left the room. It made a bit of sense though, considering what she would have to go through.

Around 2 years from now, viscount Nightshade would be killed by assassins hired by the Void fiends - the enemy of this world. As to why they were so fixated on killing her, it was because viscount Nightshade had a unique skill, [Extreme - Void manipulation]. The skill allowed her to hijack the control of void beasts from the Void fiends, even giving her direct control over the body of a Void fiend in special cases. Furthermore, she was able to manipulate the Void element that was supposed to be unique to the Void fiends into whatever shape she desired.

The protagonist, being the pushover he always was and will be, consoled the heroine, telling her that it was not her fault that her mother died (when it clearly was). The heroine somehow felt better because of this, eventually falling for the protagonist.

Well, that's not my problem. 

You are reading story Theodore ‘not the protagonist’ Gray at novel35.com

I could warn viscount Nightshade about the assassination, but I chose not to do so. Why? Because the heroine desperately trained for revenge after the death of her mother, and I could not risk interfering more with the story than I already had just to save the person I barely met for 5 minutes. After all, I lacked the thing every shounen protagonists had - the overflowing sense of justice.

---

I finished writing down everything and fell asleep almost immediately, only to be woken up by a loud shout 10 minutes later.

"Why are you shouting in the middle of the night?" I asked while trying not to let out my annoyance as the person responsible for separating me from my precious sleep was viscount Nightshade's daughter, the heroine.

She seemed a bit taken aback by my question. "What are you talking about? It's morning." 

Seriously? I thought as I peeked through the curtains of the guest room, only to realize that she was telling the truth.

Just as I was cursing myself for staying up all night, I noticed the heroine reaching for the notebook.

"Hey, what did you wri—" The heroine tried to ask but I didn't let her finish the sentence as I shoved her away and secured the notebook.

"Sorry..." I apologized as I calmed down, realizing that I pushed the viscount's daughter down onto the floor in her own mansion.

"That hurts" She pouted, before getting up and curving her lips into a wide grin. "My my, assaulting a noble, a very serious offense indeed!"

Thinking that she was serious, I prepared to kneel down and ask for forgiveness. Seemingly aware of what I was trying to do, she quickly stopped me from getting down on my knees and continued speaking.

"Well, you don't want anyone to find out about your blunder, correct?" 

"That is the case, my lady." I nodded, wanting this situation to end in the least troublesome way possible.

She broke out into an even winder grin before miserably failing to contain the excitement in her voice. "Then, help me with my pranks!"

I've been had. This kid, she was never serious. I really wasted my time conversing with her. I take it all back, I thought. I was correct to group her with Raun.

Not having any energy left to deal with a second Raun, especially after the all-nighter I pulled yesterday, I really wanted to refuse her.

However, it would be really troubling if this kid cried after her plan failed. Considering her personality, she would definitely do so, especially after getting too excited before I even gave my answer.

The viscount would definitely suspect me if she saw her daughter running out of my room, bawling her eyes out.

Thus, I complied to her request and braced myself for the annoyance that was sure to come. The only good thing about this situation is that I would get on the good side of the would-be heroine and future viscount if I played my cards right. She was only 10 after all. Her antics couldn't possibly be too troublesome.

That seemingly logical thought process led me to a very unpleasant predicament.

---

There we were, hiding inside viscount Nightshade's office, holding a bucket of water. Yes, splashing a bucket of water onto other people, a very childish prank, even for a 10-year-old kid's standards. But the heroine insisted on doing it, to the viscount of all people.

In contrast to the heroine, viscount Nightshade was barely mentioned in the novel. As such, I have absolutely no insights into her thought process and personality. That was what I hated the most, unpredictability. I accepted the heroine's request since her personality right now is very similar to the one she had during the middle parts of the novel. As such, I knew that if I complied with her request, she would look at me favorably.

Hence, my current predicament. Here I was, a commoner, ambushing a viscount, aiming to drench her in water. I had no idea how she would react to the prank. Worst case scenario, I would be locked in a dungeon or executed. Pinning the blame on the heroine wouldn't change anything either since I'm the only commoner involved.

This is not going to work, I thought. No, I was making sure it wouldn't work. I purposefully intensified my presence, alerting even the blindest of people to my current position. Viscount Nightshade was at B+ rank, there was absolutely no way she wouldn't notice something as obvious as a goblin's shit in the middle of the road. If, by some miracle, the prank did work, I was going to have a really hard time.

Was the heroine hating me already? Was this her way of getting back to me because I considered refusing to be her accomplice? If that so, it was a really solid plan, for this 10-year-old to think of killing me this way without dirtying her hands, I worry about the protagonist's future.

It was too late to pull back now as the viscount was already opening the door to her office. The heroine overlapped her hands with mine, jumped out of the corner and dumped water on her mother. Surprisingly enough, the prank worked.

That's impossible, I thought. The viscount was definitely aware of us being here. The only explanation was that she was playing along with her daughter pranks. Good, it looked like I wouldn't get into much trouble if that were the case since she allowed herself to be pranked.

However, I was absolutely horrified when I processed the information again. The viscount allowed herself to be the victim of the heroine's antics, which would mean that this was not the first time she had done so. I sighed, cursing my past self for accepting the heroine's proposal.

Now she will definitely drag me along every time she does her stupid pranks. 

She should really save her energy, I thought. After all, she will need it to even accept her mother's death. I grimaced.

Why was I worrying about that? I guess she started to grow on me, the same way I started to enjoy my time with Raun. After all, she was like a copy of him.

Although it had only been 2 days from my perspective, I really missed Raun. Now that I thought about it, wasn't Krista my second friend? At least, I considered her to be a friend.

No, I shouldn't have thought of that. She's a heroine, a lover of the protagonist, and a pawn that will help me reunite with my mother.

Just think of her as mere words on a book page. I thought as I reminded myself to not get too attached with anyone involved with the story.

---

The heroine was giggling uncontrollably before running out of the office, leaving me alone with viscount Nightshade. The viscount lets out a defeated sigh, before smiling apologetically.

"As you can see, my daughter can be a handful. Please take care of her from now on." 

What do you mean 'take care of'? I thought, before getting absolutely terrified at the implications. The viscount just indirectly ordered me to control that little troublemaker of hers and clean up after her mess. That's even more tiring than going along with her antics! I exclaimed in my heart.

Caught in a deadlock, I accepted the situation, albeit begrudgingly. I would be meeting the mother-daughter duo a lot of times from now on and I didn't exactly have a good reason to refuse, it would be for the best to accept her 'request' for now. Thus, my life at the Nightshade mansion officially started with a mop, a bucket and the longest sigh I have ever let out.

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