Three days had passed since Cain brought Ilvalino in from the Elgrandark manor's back yard.
His bruises and cuts had healed to the point of being mostly unnoticeable, but his broken leg was still on a splint, and so he still couldn't move around on his own. Ilvalino sat out on the sofa in Cain's room, zoning out.
Cain was currently in the piano room, taking lessons from his music tutor.
Ilvalino had thought that kids in noble families were spoiled – that they ate snacks, played, and took naps all day, but Cain kept so busy that Ilvalino's preconceptions had been completely overturned.
Cain woke up early to run laps around the manor grounds, then after eating breakfast, he studied arithmetic, history, foreign languages, and other subjects. He then ate lunch, followed by lessons in dance or playing musical instruments like violin or piano. Teatime was next on the schedule, and then foundational training in magic. He would then run laps around the grounds again until dinner.
Whenever he had a spare moment between items in his schedule, he would make time for skipping with his little sister or coming to check on Ilvalino and talking to him while he was unable to move.
What the hell is with this guy?
Cain kept so busy that Ilvalino couldn't find any opportunities at all to investigate how Cain knew his name and that he was raised as an assassin.
He had found out early on that Cain was six years old like himself, but while Ilvalino could explain his own strange personality with his peculiar upbringing, Cain was simply the son of a nobleman. Ilvalino was puzzled at why Cain seemed too adult for his age.
Cain had time to do what he wanted after dinner. Ilvalino was thinking that he would have to press Cain for answers today. He was putting together a plan in his head on what he should ask Cain and how, when the door to the room he was in opened with a loud slam.
"Bwother Ilu! I shall read a book for you!"
As usual, Diana had barged in suddenly, without knocking. She stomped over to the sofa and began lightly slapping the side of Ilvalino's thigh, urging him to make some room for her to sit.
It was a spacious adult-size sofa, but it was made for one person, and so when two people sat on it (albeit, two children), it was quite cramped.
Even after he told her to sit on the other couch, she continued to slap his thigh until he relented. Ilvalino sighed and moved his butt over to the edge of the sofa.
After crawling up onto the sofa, she wiggled her butt into the space opened up for her and placed the book that she had brought with her on her knees.
"Bwother is busy with piano, and Bwother Ilu's not doing anything right now, right? Di will read you a book," said Diana.
Perhaps it was too hard for her to pronounce "Ilvalino". She started calling him "Bwother Ilu" very soon after meeting him. The first time he called her that, Cain looked on with an expression like the destruction of the world had happened a million times over and said, "But I'm Diana's older brother…" He told Diana to call Ilvalino something else, but it went in one ear and out the other, so he left her alone about it after that.
Cain was constantly calling Diana adorable, but from Ilvalino's point of view, Cain and Diana looked almost identical. Ilvalino would often think to himself while watching Cain, "What are you a narcissist?"
"Or… or… the time… is… was."[Read this novel and other amazing translated novels from the original source at the "Novel Multiverse dot com" website @ novelmultiverse.com]
Diana was reading the book for Ilvalino, but she hadn't learned all of her basic words yet, and so she was skipping over words she didn't know, and it ended up making no sense whatsoever.
Still, as he watched her do her best with the sentences, tracing the words with her finger, Ilvalino couldn't help thinking she looked sweet and innocent.
"Give it here," Ilvalino told her, "I'll read it."
"Long, long ago, rabbits had short ears, snakes had short bodies, and horses had short necks. One day, a rabbit went to a lake…"
Diana gazed at the book seriously, and when Ilvalino said, "Rabbit", she pointed at the rabbit's picture, and when he said, "Snake", she pointed at the snake.
As she pointed at the flowers and animals, Ilvalino noticed she kept glancing over at his face. He sighed softly.
Whenever Cain read a book for Diana and she pointed at the pictures corresponding to the words he said, Cain would praise her. "That's right! That's Mr. Rabbit! Diana, you're so smart. You know which one is Mr. Rabbit, don't you? So clever!" He would praise her endlessly.
When Ilvalino had watched Cain read a book for Diana, he was exasperated at how slowly the story progressed.
Ilvalino knew that she expected him to praise her, and kept looking over at him to see his reactions, but Ilvalino had no intention of interrupting the story to praise her.
"…And so, that is how rabbits' ears, snakes' bodies, and horses' necks ended up so long. The End."
Ilvalino clapped the book shut.
Diana appeared somewhat dejected.
It's his fault for praising her way too much
Ilvalino had stubbornly read through the entire book in one go, without stopping to talk to Diana for a single moment. He felt a little bad about it, and so he convinced himself that the blame should fall upon Cain.
"Uhh… Here's a question for you. Why do rabbits have long ears, now?"
"Huh?"
Ilvalino quizzed her on the contents of the book to distract her from her dismay.
"Rabbits had short ears at the beginning of the story, but at the end, their ears had gotten longer, right? Why is that?"
"Why?"
"Don't just repeat the question back to me."
Just as I thought, she's so focused on pointing out the vocabulary that she isn't even listening to the story…
Ilvalino frowned, and Diana got a worried look on her face. She began raising and lowering her arms in front of her body, in a fluster.
Ilvalino sighed and said, "I'll read it again from the beginning, so this time, listen carefully to the story." Diana's face took on a grave expression and she nodded her head up and down vigorously.
He reopened the book that he had just shut and started reading again, from the beginning.
"Long, long ago, rabbits had short ears…"
Diana realized that her picture books had plots to them, and after that, she begged not Cain, but Ilvalino to read books to her. When Cain realized what had happened, he stared at Ilvalino with an expression like an oracle had just prophesized the end of the world to him. He got sulky and went to bed early, and Ilvalino missed his chance to interrogate him.
Diana began trying to understand the plot rather than identify single words whenever she read, and she started making progress in her studies. Diana's wet nurse and her mother thanked Ilvalino, and despite him being a mysterious boy with an unidentified past, they offered him a job at the manor.