Adopting the Male Protagonist Changed the Genre - Chapter 29

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 29

Flower petals scattered by people fluttered from the sky like snowflakes, and the laughter of people was so loud it was deafening.

Though I had lived in the Royal Capital all this time, this was my first time coming out to the streets during a midday festival.

There were so many people it seemed like everyone in the world had gathered here.

“A chance to see strange people and monsters! Come to the Moon Circus!”

“Only available once a year! Come see rare items brought from the East!”

Leo’s head moved busily. Everything around was a wonderland.

Then, a flashy sword caught the child’s eye.

‘If I had something like that, wouldn’t I become stronger?’

Lost in such thoughts for a moment, his steps slowed.

And when he looked ahead again.

“Huh…?”

Belinda and Sir Penandel had disappeared.

The surroundings were packed with walls of people, so even Sir Penandel’s tall masked figure couldn’t be seen from Leo’s view.

Panicked, Leo stood there hesitating for a while, then was about to push through the crowd and run off blindly.

Suddenly, an arm emerged from among the people and grabbed Leo’s shoulder.

“There you are.”

“K-Knight sir!”

It was Sir Penandel. He gently held the child’s shoulder to prevent Leo from being pushed around by people and murmured in a low voice.

“Well done. When you’re lost, staying in place is the best method.”

Belinda, who had caught up late, looked down at Leo with a terrifying expression.

Having run through the crowd, her carefully braided hair was disheveled.

“Jui-bam-tol!”

“I-I’m sorry…”

Frightened Leo flinched and spoke. Sir Penandel, that is Cesar, gently patted the child’s back.

“The child didn’t leave his spot, so we could find him quickly.”

Even at Cesar’s words, Belinda’s expression wouldn’t soften.

She took a deep breath as if controlling her anger, then pronounced in a cold voice.

“I’ll have to put a leash on you.”

A leash…? Putting a leash on a child just for getting lost.

It was when Cesar, unable to watch anymore, was about to step forward.

“Hand!”

“H-hand.”

Belinda firmly grasped Leo’s hand that he had reflexively extended.

Then she smiled satisfactorily and shook their joined hands back and forth.

After that, she gestured with her chin to Cesar who was standing awkwardly behind them.

“Sir, lead the way?”

“…Yes.”

So they were walking the path leading to the town square for a while, sipping lemonade filled with honey-soaked lemons.

Leo’s eyes, which had been moving busily, became fixed on something and his head was drawn along.

“Jui-bam-tol, what are you staring at so stupidly?”

“Lady Belinda, look over there. People are eating something like clouds!”

Leo exclaimed excitedly in what was somehow a whispered voice.

What the child was pointing at was a cotton candy stall.

Belinda answered coldly.

“How stupid. That’s called cloud cake.”

“Cloud cake…”

Leo couldn’t take his eyes off the cloud cake as if mesmerized. He couldn’t even imagine what it might taste like.

Then, Belinda suddenly let go of Leo’s hand.

As he fidgeted with his right hand that felt strangely empty, several glinting copper coins were pressed into his small palm.

“Come to think of it, I forgot to give you your wages.”

“Wages…?”

“Money you can spend however you want.”

Normally he would have hesitated to accept money.

But the sweet smell of cloud cake vibrating from all directions made him forget his patience.

Leo ran over at once and bought two white, fluffy cloud cakes.

He offered one to Belinda, but when she declined, he offered it to Cesar.

Then he took a big bite of the tip of the cloud cake in his hand.

“…!”

As the cotton-soft thing literally melted away like snow, joy and emotion exploded like fireworks on Leo’s face.

“The cloud cake… is like a cloud!”

“Obviously.”

A menacing smile appeared on Belinda’s face as she looked down at Leo, but fortunately Leo was too absorbed in the cloud cake to notice.

Bite by bite, he ate carefully and sparingly, but like snow melting in rain, the cloud cake disappeared all too futilely.

With the last bite remaining, Leo’s gaze suddenly turned to the lemonade in his other hand.

‘Something delicious plus something delicious should be even more delicious, right?’

Leo carefully dipped the cloud cake, which was exactly one bite’s worth, into the lemonade.

And he opened his mouth wide to eat it all.

“…?”

The cloud cake had disappeared like an illusion.

Leo looked back and forth between the empty wooden stick and the lemonade with his mouth still open, then muttered in dismay.

“C-cloud cake. My cloud cake…”

Belinda, who had been watching the whole time, quietly opened her fan to cover her face while her shoulders trembled.

“Ahem, hmm. Jui-bam-tol.”

“Yes…”

“Here’s Sir Penandel’s…”

Belinda, who was patting Leo’s back and turning to look at Cesar, stopped.

“Sir, why are your hands empty?”

“Ah…”

“Don’t tell me you actually ate it? You really ate what Jui-bam-tol bought with his first wages?”

Cesar couldn’t even make excuses.

Belinda glared at Cesar with a murderous gaze behind Leo’s back, then finally took out a few more copper coins and pressed them into the child’s hand.

“This is your allowance. Go buy another one.”

“But…”

“Don’t make me say it twice.”

“Y-yes!”

Leo’s steps were light as he ran off with the coins.

Fortunately, the cloud cake stall wasn’t far.

Leo was just about to purchase cloud cake.

“What, isn’t that the rat kid?”

Leo froze in place at the familiar voice.

No way, he thought as he turned around, and there stood a plump, burly child of the same age.

“H-Heiron…”

It was Heiron, the son of the orphanage director where Leo had lived.

The mischievous boy’s gaze, followed by his cronies, turned to the coins in Leo’s hand.

“You stole that money, didn’t you.”

“N-no! It’s my allowance.”

“Liar. You don’t even have parents. So who would give allowance to a beggar kid?”

“Master is….”

“Hmm, so it was true that you were sold as a slave?”

The words spoken by the child who wielded innocence as a weapon were sharp beyond measure.

“I’m not a slave, I’m….”

Leo’s voice grew smaller and smaller.

Come to think of it, he wasn’t even a proper servant. Since he hadn’t become an adult yet.

In the end, Leo fled from that spot.

Belinda, who had been watching from the beginning, asked Leo when he returned.

“Do you know that little pig?”

“He’s not a little pig, his name is Heiron… He’s the son of the Orphanage Director.”

“What did that little pig Heiron say to make you come back empty-handed like a loser?”

Not wanting to answer, Leo hung his head and mumbled.

“Just… the same thing he always says.”

“What does he usually say.”

“…That I’m a beggar… with no mom or dad….”

Leo, who had been mumbling his answer, glanced at Belinda and was startled, shrinking his shoulders.

“How dare he….”

Belinda wore an expression filled with rage that he had never seen before.

“Why don’t you have parents? You might get some later! No wait, tell him you just got them right now.”

“I got some? How?”

“Here.”

Belinda tapped her chest with her index finger.

“And there.”

She pointed at Cesar.

“B-but that would be a lie….”

With an unusually gentle face, Belinda knelt down to meet Leo’s eye level.

“Jui-bam-tol, listen carefully.”

Belinda’s hands wrapped around Leo’s shoulders as she met the child’s eyes.

“Among the speech patterns nobles use, there’s something called bluffing and exaggeration. It’s just inflating the facts a little, it’s never a lie. If you’re going to be my servant, you need to know how to bluff and exaggerate at least this much.”

“Bluffing and exaggeration….”

“Now, repeat after me.”

Belinda stood up and crossed her arms. Then with a gaze that thoroughly looked down on her opponent, she said haughtily.

“Your family doesn’t have a pretty mom like this and a devil-like dad, do they?”

“Y-your family doesn’t have a p-p-p-pretty m-m-m-mom like this and a d-d-d-devil-like d-d-d-dad, do they?”

“Good. Let’s go right now. Gyeong, hold the leash.”

And so Leo headed toward the Cloud Cake Stall where Heiron was lurking, holding Belinda’s hand in one of his and Cesar’s in the other.

“H-Heiron!”

“What, why did you come back…. Guk.”

Heiron, who spotted Cesar next to Leo, made a sound like he was truly being strangled.

Leo felt the firm warmth from both his hands, squeezed his eyes shut, and shouted.

“Y-your family doesn’t have a pretty dad like this and a devil-like mom, do they?”

From somewhere came the sound of deflating laughter.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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