Hated Boy

That day as well, Rudel had been running since early morning. Now ten years old, Rudel freely manipulated the mana throughout his body and ran at an unbelievable speed. Since his parents and the servants complained whenever he ran through the gardens, he had taken to leaving the castle and running along the city’s outer walls instead. …More precisely, he ran vertically along the walls. That was how fast he had become.

After running until it was time to stop, he naturally grew hungry, and when he trusted his internal clock and returned to the castle, breakfast had been prepared at just the right time. Then he ate breakfast alone in an empty room… Rudel’s life had remained unchanged for five years.

He ate properly and observed table manners, always saying,

“Thank you for the meal!”

The servants who saw him thought Rudel was unsettling. They thought he was talking to himself in an empty room… Yes, even after five years, the way Rudel was treated had not changed.

Even so, Rudel was not sad. He dreamed of becoming a Dragoon as soon as possible, leaving him no time to worry about anything else, and he had never known what it was like to be treated kindly in the first place. The only ways Rudel had learned about kindness were through books and study.

Recently, he had also begun asking his private tutor fewer questions. The tutor assumed Rudel had finally given up on trying. In reality, however, Rudel had already seen the limits of his tutor’s abilities. More and more often, the man failed to provide worthwhile answers even when asked, so Rudel had switched to studying on his own.

He had asked his parents several times to replace his tutor, but they ignored him. The reason was that the tutor constantly praised Rudel’s younger brother, “Chlust.” His parents liked the tutor because he flattered them by saying how promising Chlust-sama’s future looked…

Still, there was one person Rudel respected. It was his swordsmanship instructor, a former mercenary. The man had nothing to do with his younger brother Chlust, since Chlust was being taught by a different, famous swordsman.

The former mercenary’s practical swordsmanship and martial arts steadily honed Rudel’s abilities. Rudel could feel himself improving, which was why he respected the soldier. …Though the man still looked down on him…

Then a turning point arrived in Rudel’s life: the birth of his younger sisters. The “two younger sisters,” who would turn three that year, were certainly not twins. Rudel’s father had simply sown his seed elsewhere.

One was “Erselica,” who had been born to the same mother as Rudel, while the other was “Lena,” whom the family had taken in. The way the two were treated could not have been more different. Erselica was showered with affection. Meanwhile, Lena received only the bare minimum of care.

In Courtois, where blond hair and blue eyes were the norm, Lena was an unusual girl with black hair and black eyes. She spent much of her time alone in her room. Rudel and Lena repeatedly encountered each other in an unexpected way. Rudel’s room was on the second floor, and Lena’s room was directly beneath it.

Rudel began moving the moment the sun rose every morning, and eventually he found going all the way to the front entrance too troublesome… so he started entering and leaving through his window. When Lena first spotted him doing so, she thought he was some suspicious stranger. After that, she began waking up at the same time every morning to observe the suspicious figure.

He woke the moment the sun rose, left, and returned at exactly the same time every day. It was only some time later that she learned the strange person was actually her half-brother.

Lena’s impression of Rudel was,

“He’s so cool…”

This girl was a little odd herself. Lena’s personality was somewhat similar to Rudel’s. She was the type whose body moved before she stopped to think, and she was a girl who ate heartily and slept soundly… Lena became interested in Rudel. Every day, she followed him around and watched his back.

Because of that, the mansion’s nickname for Lena became “Rudel’s Shadow.” The peculiar combination of eccentric Rudel and his equally eccentric little sister continued without drawing much concern from the servants.

“…What are you doing over there?”

“Eek!”

One day, after finishing his sword training, Rudel turned toward Lena before returning to his room. He had noticed her all along but deliberately ignored her. Yet after she kept it up every single day, even Rudel finally gave in…

When he turned around, there was a girl he had never seen before. …That was Rudel’s impression of her. Rudel had essentially no interest in the relationships among the people in the mansion, so he had not even known his younger sisters existed.

“H-Hey!”

Lena gave what seemed to be a greeting and watched his reaction. Rudel hesitated. He had not expected her to greet him like that. Then his curiosity was piqued.

“…Hey?”

From that day onward, Lena openly stayed close to Rudel. Rudel was curious about the little girl who constantly scurried after him, so he allowed it.

They also began eating breakfast together.

“Big Bro, this is bitter…”

After taking a bite of a vegetable, Lena complained to Rudel. Rudel had been eating the same food for five years and no longer cared, but fundamentally, Rudel’s meals tasted terrible.

“It’s nutritious, so eat it properly… Chew it well… No, I said chew it instead of swallowing it!”

The vegetables were bitter, but Lena was hungry, so she swallowed them before she had time to taste them. Rudel was astonished. …There was a way to do that?! Rudel and Lena really were two idiots cut from the same cloth.

He taught her as well. By now, the private tutor was little more than a warm body in the room and said nothing even when Lena was present.

“One, two, three… lots.”

“…Four.”

At first, Rudel thought she might be a nuisance. But he realized just how significant Lena’s presence had become when she caught a cold and was bedridden. Without the little figure who was always following him around, he could not stop thinking about her.

Then, when Lena was back to following him the very next day, Rudel felt relieved. Upon realizing that…

“Was I lonely?”

“What?”

“Nothing. Come on, don’t be picky, and chew your food properly… I said don’t swallow it whole!”

For the first time, Rudel felt grateful that he could have breakfast with someone while exchanging conversations like that.

Then one day, Chlust and an unfamiliar girl came walking toward them from the other end of a corridor. Rudel and Lena had business farther ahead as well, so naturally, they kept walking. Chlust and the girl, however, were coming straight down the center of the corridor.

Rudel was the legitimate heir. Because of that, he rarely yielded way to others when walking through the halls. And so he came face-to-face with Chlust… Several servants stood behind Chlust, watching the situation unfold.

“Brother, would you move aside?”

“Chlust, I’m your older brother, and I believe my position is above yours.”

The brothers were only a year apart, yet everyone around them believed Rudel was an idiot while his younger brother Chlust was talented.

“Rudel-sama, Chlust-sama is very busy, so you need to move aside immediately…”

One servant said that, but Rudel did not move. He simply stood there expressionlessly, waiting for the other side to yield. The one who became angry at that was Chlust. Everyone around Chlust had always told him,

“If only Rudel weren’t here… Chlust is the one truly fit to become the head of the family.”

Because of that, Rudel’s attitude irritated him all the more. And there was no way he would consider yielding the path to Rudel in front of his beloved little sister. Erselica held Chlust’s hand while “glaring at Rudel,” the older brother with whom she had barely interacted.

The servants present realized things would turn ugly if this continued. So they suggested to Chlust that, although it would mean taking the long way around, they should use another route. Chlust turned his back on Rudel and began walking away…

To her older brother, Erselica said,

“You should’ve just beaten him up…”

A massive wall had already formed between these siblings by blood… Rudel and Chlust would clash many more times in the years to come.