In This Life, I Will Be The Lord - Chapter 86

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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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This Life, I Will Become the Clan Head Episode 86

I crushed the cookie crumbs with my fingertips and muttered.

“Men are…”

“Cough!”

Peres, who heard my muttering, choked and coughed beside me.

I had come to the Imperial Palace after a long time to fulfill my role as a companion that I hadn’t been able to do.

However, the place where I met Peres wasn’t Poirak Palace.

It was the Central Palace Garden, which was open to all visitors to the Imperial Palace.

I hadn’t committed any crime, and there was no reason I had to be stuck in Poirak Palace all the time.

Kaitlin and Kaileus had set up a table and chairs in a good spot near the fountain where the sunlight was best.

Once again, the cakes I had bought from ‘Caramel Avenue’ were placed on pretty plates.

For drinks, since neither I nor Peres particularly liked tea and we were both still growing, white milk was served instead.

But right now, I wasn’t really in the mood to eat cake.

I found another bread crumb to glare at and flicked it far away with my fingertip.

“…Tia?”

Peres called my name with a slightly bewildered face, but I didn’t answer.

Really, Bestian was making me lose trust in men.

Cheating with that bright smiling face of his.

“Hmm.”

Peres looked at me in my low mood and pondered for a moment, then suddenly looked around.

Then he got up from his seat and walked leisurely to a flower bed a little distance away, picked some flowers, and came back.

It was a flower with soft, small white petals that bloomed like a round bouquet.

And he gently placed it in my hand.

“…”

I couldn’t stay sulky like this anymore.

He was just too kind-hearted.

Peres, who was staring intently into my eyes from close up as if trying to gauge my reaction to receiving the flower, was literally ‘insanely handsome enough to make anger melt away.’

I sighed softly with a half-surrendering feeling and smelled the flower’s fragrance.

As I inhaled the sweet yet lingering floral scent, my boiling anger seemed to calm down a little.

“Thank you, Peres.”

“Are you feeling a little better now?”

I felt a little sorry.

It seemed like I had taken out my anger on Peres for no reason.

I explained with an embarrassed heart.

“I wasn’t angry at you from the beginning.”

“I know.”

“Then why did you give me the flower?”

“If sweet things couldn’t cheer you up, I thought maybe pretty flowers would make you feel better.”

“Ah.”

“Because Tia likes flowers.”

Hmm, that’s true.

It felt a little strange that Peres seemed to read my mind.

Especially when those red eyes looked at me without the slightest movement, I felt like all my secrets would be discovered.

And my feelings became somewhat peculiar.

I subtly avoided his gaze and sipped my milk.

While glancing sideways, I saw Peres brushing off the grass stains on his clothes from picking the flowers, and Kaitlin was helping him.

Some people say that the magical age of 16 is a turbulent period where appearance deteriorates during the growth phase.

Far from that, Peres was becoming more and more handsome.

Even now, he seemed to just be brushing off his clothes, but somehow his melancholy eyes, sculpted nose, and sharp jawline kept catching people’s attention.

Watching that sight, I spoke half-impulsively as if throwing out the words.

“Peres, you shouldn’t cheat later on.”

Stop.

Peres and Kaitlin’s movements froze.

Kaileus, who had been cleaning up the finished cake plates beside us, was the same.

The three people looked at me silently.

Why, what.

Kaileus was the first to react.

He bit his lower lip tightly, suppressed his laughter with emoticon-like eyes, then hid his face.

Kaitlin blinked her wide-open eyes several times and looked back and forth between me and Peres with a surprised face.

And Peres was.

“Are you… okay?”

I asked while tapping the back of his hand.

Then his face, which had been frozen like ice, instantly caught fire.

It really seemed like it would make a whooshing sound.

His pale skin turned red from below his neck and eventually even his ear tips became red.

“Ah, y-yes…”

Peres slowly nodded his head.

Why is everyone reacting like this?

Did I say something I shouldn’t have?

“Your face is… really red. You’re not catching a cold, are you?”

Is it too cold to be sitting outside?

“N-no. I’m fine.”

Peres answered while covering his face with both hands.

His hands were so big that his face fit right in.

“I was just, surprised.”

“By me telling you not to cheat?”

“…Yes.”

Why though?

“But Peres is also gradually reaching that age, right?”

“That… age?”

“Hmm. The age when you’d be interested in girls?”

Since he’s gradually entering puberty.

Peres slowly lowered his hands that had been covering his face and asked me.

“So?”

“So if you ever get a girlfriend, you absolutely must never cheat.”

“…That’s what you meant.”

Peres muttered in a low voice.

“Phew.”

“Hah.”

Kaileus and Kaitlin behind us also sighed simultaneously.

“Why is everyone acting like this?”

I asked, but Kaitlin and Kaileus avoided my eyes.

Peres, who seemed to have regained his composure, asked me instead.

“Was your bad mood today also because of that kind of reason?”

“Yes, something happened.”

“A man?”

Well, Bestian is a man.

I nodded my head.

But Peres asked again.

“…A man?”

Ah, that’s why he’s reacting like that.

I nodded again.

But Peres’s atmosphere was strange.

It seemed to have turned coldly frigid, yet also blazing hot.

Even the gentle, pleasant breeze that had been blowing stopped, making the air heavy.

“Tia.”

“Yeah?”

“Do you have… a boyfriend?”

What is this kid talking about.

“What would I have?”

“A man.”

“No? I don’t have one yet.”

I’m only eleven years old, you know?

“Then what was that you said just now?”

“Ah, not me. Someone I know.”

It felt awkward to talk about family matters to someone outside the Lombardi Family, so I gave a vague answer.

“Ahh.”

Peres wiped his face with one hand and gulped down his milk.

I watched Peres and said,

“Just because you’re handsome doesn’t mean you should hurt women’s hearts. You understand, right Peres?”

Peres eventually finished his entire glass of milk and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

Then he answered in a slightly sulky voice.

“I don’t think you need to worry about that.”

“I know, I know. You’re not that kind of bad person.”

Of course, of course.

You can’t even be compared to someone like Bestian.

Before Peres could misunderstand, I quickly explained.

“But…”

“But?”

“Just in case, I’m giving you advice as a friend. Since you’ve been growing so much lately.”

Thinking back to when we first met, Peres had changed so much it was hard to believe he was the same child.

Now he had the proper bearing of a Crown Prince.

I wasn’t just talking about his height or appearance.

“At the Pellet Trading Company’s banquet, I heard a lot of talk about you.”

Being young was convenient.

Unlike the Lombardi adults who had people’s gazes persistently following them wherever they went, I was still relatively free as a child.

So I could listen to conversations people had in small groups at the banquet.

Among the nobles, Astana and Peres were frequently discussed topics.

“Most people cited you as the reason why Astana hasn’t officially received the Crown Prince appointment yet.”

“…Me?”

Peres seemed a little surprised.

Well, of course.

Peres still didn’t really have the self-awareness that he was a Crown Prince.

“The previous Aura incident and your academic achievements seem to be leaking out quite a bit.”

I didn’t know if it was leaking out or if someone was deliberately spreading it.

Besides Grandfather who was supporting Peres, there were several people who could benefit from such rumors.

For example, people like the Emperor who was gaining many things from Angenas while weighing Astana and Peres against each other.

“And it can’t be helped given your birth. Anyway, besides Astana, you’re the only Crown Prince who has survived and grown up so far.”

The Emperor simply didn’t take in an imperial consort, but he had consistently had lovers.

But there couldn’t have been only Astana and Peres as children.

However, only Peres had ‘survived.’

The Empress was that thorough and ruthless a person.

Someone who would do anything to make her son the next Emperor.

To such an Empress, Peres was an unbearable thorn in her side.

“Isn’t the Empress pressuring you more to go to the Academy?”

“…The Empress summoned me recently. And told me to go to the Academy.”

Peres’s voice was particularly low as he spoke.

“That happened?”

I glanced at Kaitlin and Kaileus.

Seeing how their expressions noticeably hardened, there must have been more to it than that.

Peres didn’t say anything more.

He seemed quite reluctant to mention it again.

Well then, it can’t be helped.

I sighed and nodded as I spoke to Peres.

“Probably such incidents will happen more frequently from now on. Until you leave the Imperial Palace for the Academy yourself.”

“But I don’t want to go to the Academy.”

“Right, that’s entirely your choice. No matter how much of an Empress she is, she can’t forcibly drag you to enroll in the Academy.”

It was a law created to prevent those pushed out of family succession from being forcibly handed over to the Academy like prisoners.

Academy enrollment must be done entirely by ‘one’s own will.’

If it weren’t for that, the Empress would have thrown Peres into the Academy long ago.

“So she’s trying hard to persuade you.”

“…Then it doesn’t matter.”

Peres answered quietly.

“If she won’t drag me away by force, then I’ll never enroll in the Academy.”

It was an uncharacteristically firm attitude from him.

The conversation paused for a moment.

Peres fell into thought, wondering what he was contemplating.

I was thinking if there was a way to cheer Peres up when I suddenly remembered the gift in my bag.

It was something I had brought to give to Peres.

I took out a palm-sized black box, placed it in front of him, and casually sipped my milk.

“What’s… this?”

Peres asked in bewilderment.

I answered nonchalantly.

“I picked it up on the way here.”

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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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