Became the Hated Illegitimate Son of the Duke in Romance Fantasy

2 – Episode 2

“But what does bastard mean?”

“I don’t know.”

I was too lazy to explain, so I evasively said I didn’t know.

Then Belita puffed out her cheeks in a pout.

It happens sometimes.

Aristocrats looking for their children because their children died, or because they remembered the prostitute or concubine they abandoned.

People die just by falling backward while walking, but it was also people who tenaciously held on to their lifelines even in strangely poor conditions.

It sounds like I’m talking about my own experience, so it’s a bit sad.

I almost froze to death, but how are you still alive, eating moldy bread day after day and still not living?

“You know, but you don’t tell me because it’s annoying, you know?”

“You mean a child born to someone out of wedlock, okay?”

“Well, are you going to have a baby even if you don’t get married?”

“I guess so.”

Belita had a troubled look on her face that she didn’t understand.

He seemed confused, probably because he was still young.

Because she and she grew up in the orphanage she was loved relatively more than other children.

Not the love of the orphanage director, but the consideration given by peers and older people.

That’s right, Belita is a cute and smart child.

“Look, there’s an incredibly nice carriage coming!

Aren’t they the people who said they’d come today? Are you tall?”

“Yes, seniors.”

A nobleman in a carriage passes in front of an orphanage.

In other words, you are passing by the slums.

Of course, the nobles aren’t without their thoughts, so I had to put about six policemen next to the carriage, but I don’t know if that’s enough in a lawless place like this.

Since the Viscountess, who came to the slums with a large cloth of bread to do volunteer work, was slaughtered by someone, nobody came here like a cursed land.

But these days, I feel like I’ve been walking again.

There were aristocrats who sent people to find illegitimate children and to buy some high-class prostitutes from the brothel, but there were no people who personally brought their noble bodies to visit.

There were a lot of people who entered the slums and looked at that shiny carriage with greedy eyes, because all of them were the only ones who had thrown away common sense and concepts somewhere in their life at the end of their lives.

The pretentious bully who stays in the back alley seems to be enjoying obscenity, judging from the fact that he is giggling as he licks the small dagger he is wearing.

The director, whose face was flushed with the smell of alcohol coming up here, stood in front of the orphanage wearing relatively clean clothes.

I couldn’t even stand properly because I was swept away by the alcohol.

“Ugh .. Daughter! You guys ..

Wash your face at least.

As soon as the director finished speaking, a carriage started rolling in as if he had called from the other side.

The director was surprised to see it and took the water bottle he was wearing and drank cold water.

The redness starts to disappear from the face as if the spirit of drinking has gone away a little.

The wagon was a striking exterior indeed.

A wooden wheel with a white color and a hint of brown mixed in as if it was a rare wood.

Around the carriage are ornaments made of gold.

And the horses pulling the wagons also sported their shiny coats, as if to show that they were better fed and living better than those who lived in these slums.

If you look around, everyone in the slums is looking at the carriage, from back alley bullies, brothel prostitutes, guards, and all kinds of homeless people.

Or he was staring.

With hatred, perhaps with jealousy disguised as anger.

The carriage started to stop in front of the orphanage.

“Are these the kings who were looking for an illegitimate child today?”

“Well, I guess they haven’t come yet.”

The coachman answered that.

“Then these people…?”

“Those who are experiencing the new slum tour course for the first time.”

At that, the director frowned for a moment and thought of his thoughts.

Still, he asks the coachman if anything came to mind with his lack of brain.

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“It is said that it is a tour product that goes through the orphanage, looks around the slums, and sees the Changgwan, chicken coop-like houses, and collapsed buildings….

I just can’t understand the sensibilities of nobles.

The money is generous, so it’s good for me…”

I am a tourist product.

Well, how would you feel if you look at this place, which is not enough to say that it is really dirty after looking only at things that are clean, tidy and maintained since you were born?

Sympathy? Or contempt?

I don’t know, I’ve never been born into such a tidy aristocrat.

“Anyway, other nobles will be coming soon, so bow your head every time you pass by.

Those with a bad temper can get off and whip you for not being able to slap you on the cheek.”

Saying that, the coachman brandished a whip.

The horse neighed and began to walk forward again.

“Yes, then good work!”

“You work hard too.”

The children weren’t watching the wagon pull away.

In the carriage, wearing silk dresses, drinking tea and snacks, I watched as the women who had looked at them as spectacles walked away.

She was mesmerized by the carriage and the figure of the noblewoman, the Bellita whom she had just talked to and brought here.

It has to be.

After washing her, if you put her makeup on and dress her in silk, she’ll be a woman all the same, but that’s not the case.

“Eric, can I live that elegantly?”

And that’s what you ask me.

I didn’t answer.

Because I was confused about what to answer.

“Eric, you are incredibly smart.

Tell me. Can I be like that?”

It can’t be.

You, me, me.

Even if we put on neat clothes and show only the wonderful things in the world, this world is everything to us.

But I couldn’t sell a child’s heart, so I evaded it.

“I don’t know.”

“What is that?”

Bellita said she was no longer having fun and started walking toward the other children.

Or, this time I ran away because I didn’t want to hear an answer.

I lean my back against the wall of the shack that is falling down.

Because he was a small child, leaning on his back did not cause the walls to tilt.

Should I run away to somewhere right now?

There’s no way you’ll get any better by running away.

All I know is nothing other than the words used here.

I think it took me about half a year to learn that.

I didn’t know the letters, the amazing magic, or even the third-rate bully or useful swordsmanship.

That doesn’t mean I have good strength because I eat well and grow well, so a person like me was still useless in this world.

After about an hour of thinking, a wagon bigger than the one I just saw starts rolling in.

The people guarding the surroundings were not just policemen with black clubs, but probably were family enlisted men with swords at their waists.

The director bowed at a 90 degree angle and said hello.

I don’t know if it’s for the carriage, for the privates, or for the nobles riding in it.

He used to be a tyrant when standing in front of small and weak children, but he trembled in front of them and bowed down to greet them over and over again.

It must have been quite shocking to the children.

To them, the head of the orphanage was, in a way, the strongest human being.

Soon after, the carriage stopped right in front of the orphanage and the door opened.

One of the servants quickly lifts the stairs from the back compartment and sets it down right under the door of the carriage.

Her knight-looking figure held out her hand and a woman took it and began to come down her stairs.

The director asked the woman a question, rubbing her hands together as if he had studied what she looked like.

“Are you the man the minister said is coming to see the children today?”

She is a woman and does not answer directly.

As if the words of a commoner were not worthy of an answer.

She just shook her head once to give a signal to her knight who held her hand.

And then the knight opened her mouth.

“Put all the children in a line.

Let her hair fall over her forehead, and do not cover her eyes.”

The director quickly lines up the children.

Then he ordered her to lift her hair up with her hand so that her forehead could be seen.

And the children obey him obediently.

The woman carefully looked at each of the children’s faces.

I look at one child, then the next child, then the next child, beyond Belita, then the next child, and stare at my face right in front of me.

Then she pulled her glove once on her right hand, grabbed my chin, and began to look around.

“My dear, what is your name?”

“Eric.”

The woman frowns on her face.

As if she was asking if she dared to speak so rudely.

I was scared and added an afterword.

“This is Eric.”

“Then from today your name will be Eric Breslau.”

The woman looks at me with slightly hateful eyes.

Then she muttered something to herself, thinking she wouldn’t be heard.

“The ashes of my wife’s play with fire.

Even her face resembles that abominable b*tch.”

The woman grabs my chin and checks her face again and again,

“Butler, put this child in the carriage.”

An old man with a beard approaches me and holds me around his waist as if carrying a load.

Then they began to take her to the carriage.

The director and the children of the orphanage look at me with jealous eyes beyond envy.

And as if she remembered her own situation, the feeling immediately began to change to dejection.

They meet eyes with Belita.

Strangely, the child’s eyes looked sad.