I Just Wanted Revenge, But Everyone Loves Me - Chapter 18

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 18
“Yes, sir!”
I answered brightly, dunking the hard, stale bread deep into my soup.
As I forced the soggy food into my mouth, the Duke called out to me again.
“Little one.”
“Yes?”
“How did you eat where you came from?”
I tilted my head at the sudden question. I swallowed the bread in my mouth before speaking.
When he asked how I ate,
“I just went hungry, mostly.”
I don’t really remember eating anything in particular.
“……You starved?”
“Yes.”
It would have been nice if I could have at least scrounged through garbage in the streets.
The Count was constantly worried that I—his meal ticket—might run away.
That’s why I couldn’t even take a simple walk.
The only way to see the outside world was through a window where I could barely poke my head through.
Whatever food I ate in such circumstances…
“Fish heads, maybe? Bread? Fruit? But they tasted strange.”
They had a sour, peculiar flavor, I’d say.
Just the fact that it tasted that way told me it wasn’t in a normal state.
Well. The reason he gave me such food was obvious enough.
‘I have to suffer for the gems to appear.’
The Diamond came out only when I was happy, while the Ruby, Sapphire, and Emerald all appeared when I was in pain.
But the Count, unable to properly distinguish even that much, drove me to my absolute limit.
After all that hardship, both my tears and the gems eventually ran dry.
‘I never want to go back.’
So saying this might sound strange, but I was quite satisfied with my life here in Izutail.
‘But why is he asking something like that?’
I glanced down at my plate, now more than half empty.
‘Did I eat too desperately?’
Surely… he’s not worried that I have a huge appetite and it’ll cost him a lot, is he?
My thoughts spiraled.
Just to be safe, I added,
“I’m really easy to keep, sir! I get full quickly even eating just a little, and I can even wash my own dishes.”
I’ve never actually done it myself, but I could. I would have to.
And yet,
“What are you saying.”
It wasn’t the reaction I expected.
When I tilted my head, the Duke narrowed his brow and asked back,
“Why would you say something like that?”
“Uh, um.”
I squeezed the remaining bread in my hands nervously.
“Even though you protecting me is part of our contract, I still don’t want to be a burden.”
“A burden how.”
“Me eating a lot?”
“How does your eating harm Bancadium.”
“Well, it costs money. And time to make the food.”
I really only needed the bare minimum. Everything else didn’t matter. I didn’t mind sleeping in a shabby attic or a warehouse.
“We made a deal, didn’t we?”
I’d read in books that a contract is an exchange made between equals.
The protection I mentioned was simply to shield me from external threats. I wasn’t asking for my daily life to be lavish.
“I was worried you might feel burdened later……”
“Burdened?”
The Duke let out a scoff upon hearing my words.
It was a laugh tinged with something like wounded pride, an odd discomfort.
But I found no reason to feel that way, so I opened my eyes wide.
“Why would you—”
“Little one.”
The Duke suddenly fixed his gaze on me directly.
“Whether you eat a lot, or even if you ate nothing but expensive things gilded in gold,”
“……”
“Bancadium won’t collapse from that.”
“……Pardon?”
“We have enough wealth that you could eat nothing but gold nuggets your whole life. Do you think we’ve wasted a thousand years for nothing?”
“??”
At the rapid-fire words, I blinked blankly.
‘What?’
It was as if,
he was saying that because Bancadium has so much money, I shouldn’t worry about food.
‘That’s what it sounds like.’
Was I mistaken? I turned his words over in my mind again, but this manner of speech was so unfamiliar that I wasn’t sure I understood correctly.
Just then, a piece of bread poked through the iron bars of his cell.
“!”
The bread passed through the bars of the Duke’s room and landed directly on my plate.
The Duke had given me his own bread.
“Aren’t you going to eat, sir?”
“It’s tasteless.”
“It’s delicious though, this……”
“Bancadium has plenty of things more delicious than this.”
The Duke spoke without interest and turned away.
Without touching his plate at all.
“Aren’t you hungry? If you don’t eat now, you’ll have to go without until dinner.”
“Skipping one meal won’t kill me.”
“That’s true, but……”
Still, today was an important day.
Even if it tasted bad, he needed to eat well.
‘The Duke’s body is so much larger than mine.’
Surely he needed more strength for that, so I tore the bread I was holding forcefully in half.
“Duke!”
“?”
At my call, the Duke’s eyes shifted toward me.
I crawled quickly toward the bars and stretched my hand out through them. Of course, along with the bread he’d given me.
“What are you doing?”
The Duke’s voice suddenly turned harsh.
But I couldn’t back down either.
“Eat this.”
“I said it’s tasteless.”
“Still! How will you move around later!”
“I move fine without your bread.”
Stubborn Duke! The words caught in my throat.
I swallowed them instead.
“This is necessary for the plan too. What if you get hungry later? I did bite off some of mine, but not much.”
I wish I could send it to you with Magic.
It was frustrating that I couldn’t.
“……Sigh.”
Perhaps giving in to my insistence, the Duke flicked his finger once. The bread in my hand whooshed back to him.
“Wow.”
No matter how many times I saw it, it was genuinely amazing.
‘I can’t use Magic at all.’
I could draw out gems infused with Magical Power, but I couldn’t channel my own strength like that.
It was incredible.
‘If I had been a Mage……’
Maybe my life would have been different somehow.
The thought came suddenly, and I lowered my head.
‘No. It would have been the same.’
Mages were rare even within the Empire. The Count would have certainly exploited me in some other way.
As his money-making tool.
“A rat probably ate less than this.”
At that moment, the Duke, gazing at the bread I’d given him, made a brief comment. I pouted despite myself.
“I bit it off thinking of you, sir.”
“Mind yourself. Specks like that. That’s why you don’t grow.”
“I-I’ll grow soon!”
“When.”
“……Soon enough?”
Truth be told, I don’t look that different from when I was ten, which worries me a little…… but I’ll grow eventually.
I won’t stay small like dust my whole life.
But even at my words, the Duke wore an expression of utter dismissal.
“Go ahead and try.”
“You never know. Maybe I’ll grow as big as you, sir……!”
“That won’t happen. Stop dreaming.”
“……”
There was no room for rebuttal—his answer was final.
‘That’s so mean!’
For once, the Duke was utterly infuriating.
.
.
.
Time passed like that,
and before long, night fell.

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