There are no historic buildings, no sea, and no mountains. The central town of the territory is somewhat prosperous, with a fair number of people, but if you go just a little further, fields stretch out as far as the eye can see. Nate grew up in the central town of such a boring rural area, the territory of Viscount Mills.

From the moment he was born, Nate had no father. It was just him and his mother, who worked as a maid for the Mills family. When his mother was out working, young Nate was left in the care of an elderly woman in the neighborhood. It was from her words that Nate first became aware of the existence of a “father,” but he couldn’t bring himself to ask his mother who his father was.

When Nate was six years old, his mother’s family, a baronial house, apparently renounced their title. As a result, his mother’s younger sister, who had dropped out of the noble academy, stayed with Nate and his mother for half a year before entering a magic academy.

One late night, when Nate got up to use the bathroom, he overheard his mother and aunt talking about his father in the next room. Listening in secretly, Nate learned that he was not a child his mother had wanted to have.

After graduating from the magic academy, his mother had worked as a maid for a marquis’s family. While working there, she was forced into a mistress relationship by the marquis’s eldest son. When she tried to quit, the eldest son threatened her, saying he wouldn’t write her a recommendation letter and would make it seem like she was fired for cause if she didn’t become his mistress. So, she became his mistress.

The marquis’s eldest son, who had a fiancée from a young age, was caught cheating with another young lady and got her pregnant. As a result, he was stripped of his position as the heir. Later, he inherited the Viscount Mills title from the marquis’s wife and married the woman he had cheated with, but it wasn’t Nate’s mother. In other words, Viscount Mills had cheated on his fiancée and forced Nate’s mother into a mistress relationship while also having another affair.

That scumbag was Nate’s father.

Amid the chaos of the marquis’s eldest son becoming Viscount Mills and moving from the capital to the Mills territory, Nate’s mother realized she was pregnant and gave birth to Nate. Shortly after arriving in the Mills territory, the viscount found another mistress, and Nate’s mother was finally discarded.

Even after being released from her role as a mistress, Nate’s mother couldn’t quit her job as a maid for the viscount’s family because Nate was a boy. Now, she works resignedly, receiving a separate allowance for Nate’s upbringing in addition to her maid’s salary.

The woman who married that scumbag, Viscount Mills, has managed to restore her reputation as if the fact that she stole the marquis’s eldest son from his fiancée never happened. But at her core, she’s still the wife of a scumbag. She puts on a kind facade in public, but behind the scenes, she relentlessly bullies maids she dislikes. She’s a beautiful woman with a rotten soul, exceptionally skilled at maintaining appearances. The viscount is said to be terrified of her retaliation, so he goes to great lengths to hide the existence of his mistresses.

Viscountess Mills has only given birth to one daughter. Since Nate’s mother is no longer a mistress, there’s no fear of her relationship with the viscount being exposed. But Nate’s existence as a male illegitimate child must be hidden from the viscountess at all costs. That’s how his mother’s story ended.

After hearing the story, Nate’s aunt cried and apologized to his mother, blaming herself for not being able to leave the marquis’s household. Nate’s mother’s family, the baronial house, was so poor that they had to renounce their title due to unpaid taxes. There must have been issues with sending money or his aunt’s enrollment in the noble academy, which likely had something to do with her tears. Nate secretly watched through the crack in the door as his mother and aunt comforted each other, saying it wasn’t her fault.

Nate looks nothing like his mother. She told him to hide his face with long bangs and never show it to anyone, but after hearing his mother and aunt’s conversation, Nate realized his face must resemble Viscount Mills. He had been tempted to cut off the annoying bangs, but he decided to endure it for his mother’s sake.

Nate’s mother is a shadowy beauty outside, but at home, she kicks open doors, sings off-key, and has a playful, lovable, and kind side. Nate adores her. But he wasn’t a child she had wanted, and his face apparently resembles that scumbag. The thought that his beloved mother might not love him made his chest ache with anxiety.

In the year Nate turned seven, his aunt entered the magic academy and moved into the dormitory, while Nate started attending a commoner’s school. The school only ran in the mornings, teaching writing and arithmetic. In the afternoons, he used to go to the elderly woman’s house where he had been cared for since he was little, but shortly after Nate started school, she moved to live with her son and his wife in a distant place.

It was then that the couple from the cake shop reached out to him. The couple, who were around the same age as his mother and had a married daughter who had left home, hired Nate for a small allowance and lunch. There wasn’t much a seven-year-old could do, but they found tasks for him, like stamping boxes and bags or running simple errands.

Nate was fascinated by the cake shop owner’s large, rugged hands creating delicate pastries, and he enjoyed the couple’s lively banter. Every night, he would tell his mother about the cake shop. She always listened with a smile, and whenever something small but happy happened—like a plant blooming or Nate’s shoes getting too small—she would buy a cake from the shop, and they would celebrate together.

By the time Nate turned ten, his allowance from the cake shop had increased slightly, and he was given the additional task of baking cookies once a week. The first customer for Nate’s cookies was, of course, his mother.

One day, the cake shop’s wife asked Nate to run an errand.

“Nate, could you go to the liquor store and order the usual brandy? One cask.”

“We’re also running low on rum.”

“Then get one cask of rum too.”

Nate headed to the familiar liquor store, a bit further from the town center. The store would deliver the ordered liquor later, so Nate didn’t have to carry the heavy casks back himself.

When he arrived at the store, a girl around his age was talking to the owner, so Nate stood behind her, waiting for their conversation to end.

“This strong liquor is a good recommendation. It’s quite heavy, but can you carry it, miss?”

The owner handed the girl a large bottle of brandy.

“…I’ll be fine. I’ll take this.”

Standing behind her, Nate felt a strange sense of unease. After a moment, he realized the girl was his half-sister.

Her brown hair was a wig. It was well-worn, but it seemed a bit too large for her, and upon closer inspection, there was no natural part. The wig covered her eyes, revealing only her nose and mouth, which looked exactly like his own—the mouth he always hid behind his long bangs.

And more than anything, she smelled different from commoners.

Though she wore old, worn-out commoner clothes, she had a pleasant scent—the faint, noble fragrance that sometimes wafted from his mother when she returned from work. It wasn’t that commoners smelled bad, but such a refined scent was unmistakably noble.

The only noble child in the area was the daughter of Viscount Mills—Nate’s half-sister.

If it weren’t for the scent, Nate might not have noticed the slight oddity of the wig. His half-sister, whose name he didn’t even know, had disguised herself cleverly as a commoner girl. But her mouth, so similar to his, made him think that if she saw him, she might recognize him as her half-brother.

At that moment, Nate felt a small desire to talk to his half-sister and become friends. But he remembered how hard his mother was working to hide his existence from Viscountess Mills, and he quietly hid behind a nearby shelf to avoid being noticed.

“I’m sure your father will be pleased. Shall I tie a ribbon around it as a gift? Red, perhaps?”

“Any color would make me happy.”

“Here, I’ll throw in this chocolate for you, miss.”

“Thank you.”

After finishing the transaction, his half-sister left the store, carrying the large, heavy bottle of brandy. There were no guards around—she was truly alone, walking back toward the mansion.

His half-sister, disguised as a commoner, had come to this out-of-the-way liquor store to buy brandy as a gift for Viscount Mills. Was she planning to surprise him? From his mother’s stories, Nate had thought his father was a despicable man, but seeing that he was at least being a father to his half-sister gave him a small sense of relief. He didn’t wish any misfortune on her.

As Nate walked back to the cake shop, lost in thought, something red caught the corner of his eye. It was sticking out of a vegetable scrap box in front of a greengrocer’s shop. Curious, he peeked inside and saw the red ribbon the liquor store owner had tied around the brandy bottle, along with the chocolate he had given as a bonus, discarded in the trash.

Some time after that encounter with his half-sister, in mid-spring when the cake shop’s display was filled with strawberry cakes, the day came when Nate’s ordinary, happy life came to an end.

That day, Nate happened to wake up early and had breakfast with his mother, who was on an early shift and had to leave for work at dawn.

Nate noticed a glass bead on his mother’s hairpin that he had never seen before.

“Since when did you have that hairpin?”

“This large glass bead is made by melting glass with a flame magic tool. The young lady at the mansion is obsessed with it and makes decorations and hairpins with these beads, then gives them to the servants. Each one has a different color or pattern, and she puts a lot of thought into them.”

After eavesdropping on his mother and aunt’s conversation, Nate had learned that his father was Viscount Mills, though his mother didn’t realize he knew. She probably had no idea that Nate also knew the “young lady at the mansion” was his half-sister.

“Hmm. But isn’t it a bit too big for an ornament?”

“That’s what I thought too. Well, it was made by a 9-year-old girl, so it can’t be helped. It’s heavy, so I wasn’t wearing it, but she found out and begged me to wear it today.”

The blue glass bead, perhaps chosen to match her mother’s eye color, had a dark core that made the blue appear murky. Nate thought that his mother’s blue eyes were much more beautiful.

Today was his mother’s early shift day. They had planned to meet at the park between the mansion where his mother worked and the bakery where Nate helped out, and then go shopping together on their way home.

“Today’s my early shift, so let’s meet at the usual park.”

“Okay. Take care.”

His mother gently patted Nate’s head before leaving the house. At that time, Nate had no idea that this would be the last time he would see her.

Nate finished his work at the bakery earlier than usual and was walking toward the park where he was supposed to meet his mother when he noticed the commotion around him.

“I heard the viscount’s mansion is on fire, and the large fire-extinguishing magic tool is broken. It’s a mess.”

Hearing this, Nate didn’t head to the park but instead ran straight toward the mansion where his mother worked. His mother had always hidden Nate from the viscountess and strictly told him never to come to the mansion where she worked, just as she hid her face. But Nate couldn’t help but run there, ignoring her warnings.

A crowd had gathered around the mansion, but Nate, using his small frame, pushed through the onlookers. Ignoring the shouts to stop, he entered the mansion and ran toward the source of the thick smoke. He didn’t know if his mother was there, but a terrible premonition wouldn’t leave him.

Once inside, he saw no one. Everyone must have already fled.

As the flames engulfed the surroundings, Nate saw a blue fire.

Working at the bakery, Nate knew that brandy used to finish dried fruits would burn blue. Could this fire be caused by alcohol?

Strong alcohol, a noble buying a gift from a commoner’s shop, a perfect disguise with no guards, a gift with its ribbon discarded, the glass bead on the hairpin she insisted on wearing, the burning mansion.

All these small inconsistencies piled up, subconsciously alerting Nate to his mother’s danger and driving him to run here. He ran toward the blue fire, not even noticing how hard it was to breathe.

The room was engulfed in blue flames, and three people lay unconscious.

Two of them, a man and a woman, were likely the Viscount Mills and his wife, judging by their clothes. Their clothes were barely burned, and there were no burn marks on their bodies, yet they were unconscious. Nate never thought he’d see his father for the first time like this. The fact that no servants came to help was probably due to their usual behavior.

The third person was his mother.

Even though her head and upper body were burned black, Nate knew it was his beloved mother. Her worn-out shoes were still on her feet. Near her head, where the hairpin had been, there was a ball of fire that wouldn’t go out, even as her head and surroundings were charred.

It was the glass bead from that hairpin.

Without thinking, Nate grabbed the ball of fire. Unconsciously, he clenched it in both hands, pressed it to his face, and somehow extinguished the flames. From his scorched hands, a small magical tool emerged.

Later, when the tool was examined, it was said that if Nate had just looked at it, the tool would have burned up and disappeared.

Nate gave up on rescuing his mother and left the unconscious Viscount Mills and his wife behind, running out of the mansion. On his way out, he saw some shady people who hadn’t been there when he entered. Later, he realized they must have been looters.

As he searched for an exit in the burning mansion, he looked out through a large, blazing window and saw a girl standing in the garden with a few servants, looking up at the mansion. Perhaps because everyone was focused on the burning building, no one paid attention to the girl.

With blonde hair and red eyes, the girl looked just like Nate. She was smiling as she watched the mansion burn.

Nate, with his burned hands, touched the magical tool in his pocket and realized that this fire was set by his half-sister, and that his mother had been caught up in her plan to kill the Viscount Mills and his wife.

All of this was based on Nate’s memories and impressions, with no concrete evidence. The encounter at the liquor store might have been a coincidence, and the blue flames could have been accidental. Even the magical tool that became the fireball might not have been the cause of the fire.

Still, Nate was convinced it was his half-sister’s doing.

With such a vague account, Nate, a commoner, couldn’t accuse a noble girl, his half-sister, of such a crime. Moreover, she was only 9 years old. Who would believe that a 9-year-old girl could plan and kill her own parents?

Nate had magical abilities. His half-sister, born to noble parents, must also have magical abilities. He would meet her at the magic academy when they turned 16. That’s when he would take his revenge. He would set her head on fire and burn her, just like his mother.

With severe burns on his face and hands, Nate returned home without his mother. Night fell, then morning, but of course, his mother never returned. By noon, the landlord barged in, ignoring Nate’s burns, and told him to go to the orphanage immediately because his mother’s burned body had been found at the mansion. The landlord kicked Nate out to seize the family’s belongings and property

As he was forced out, Nate only had his savings box from the bakery. He couldn’t take any of his mother’s cherished possessions.

Hurt by the landlord’s sudden change in attitude, Nate couldn’t bring himself to go to the bakery, fearing the kind couple there might also turn on him. He decided to go to his aunt’s place and, without proper treatment, headed to the Reeves border territory. He was worried about what had happened to his mother’s body, but as a child, there was nothing he could do.

Time passed, and at 12 years old, Nate was forcibly taken by his half-sister, whom he had suddenly reunited with in Lawton, and was now heading to the capital in a carriage.

There were many hints. The cousin of the same age who had been taken in, the blonde hair and red eyes, the cunning that deceived everyone and trapped Melissa, the eerie lack of humanity in such a young child. Nate clenched his fists, regretting his carelessness in not realizing that Amelia, the cousin Melissa feared, was his half-sister.

Lately, he had even imagined giving up on revenge and attending the empire’s magic academy with Melissa. His own softness had led to this mistake.

He had encountered the person he had planned to kill at the magic academy. He was closer to his goal. But he couldn’t understand why Amelia was so gleefully kidnapping a boy who looked just like him, and it made him uneasy. Forced to write a farewell letter to Melissa in the carriage, Nate had his bangs pushed up by a servant sitting next to him, and Amelia observed his face.

“Yesterday, I was visiting your relatives in Reeves. With these eye colors and this face, are you the border count’s illegitimate child?”

Caught off guard by the unexpected question, Nate couldn’t respond.

“…Well, never mind. Can you investigate all of the Reeves border count’s children for me?”

Ignoring Nate’s lack of response, Amelia gave instructions to the servant sitting next to Nate. Apparently, she mistakenly thought Nate was one of the Reeves border count’s children, not the child of Viscount Mills.

“Nate, from now on, you’re my servant. Keep your bangs down and don’t let anyone see your face. Just work as a servant and keep your face hidden. Understand that everything you do is transparent to me. If you care about Melissa or those people in Lawton, don’t do anything unnecessary. …This wasn’t what I expected, but I’ve made a good find.”

After saying this to Nate, Amelia started reading a book. She seemed to have lost interest in him.

Amelia, who had not only killed Nate’s mother but also taken Melissa’s place and hurt her. Thinking of the emotional scars Melissa had suffered, Nate wondered if simply killing Amelia would be enough. He wanted to expose Amelia’s hidden dark side to everyone she had deceived.

A week after being brought to the Johnston Duke’s household and starting work as Amelia’s servant, Nate saw Josh in the hallway. Josh, always with a gentle smile and kind demeanor. If the kind bakery owner was like a father to him, Josh felt like a grandfather. Nate wanted to run up to him but remembered Amelia’s words and his own goal, forcing himself to pretend not to notice.

Josh, looking worried, eventually left after finishing his business with the duke. Nate watched his retreating figure until it disappeared.

Later, Nate secretly read a report from a servant to Amelia. From the noble yearbook, he learned that Viscount Mills’ mother and the Reeves border count’s mother were sisters, and that the sisters and the border count had blue-green eyes.

It seemed the Reeves border count, Viscount Mills’ cousin, had ten illegitimate children. Nate could feel the same scum-like blood in them. The handwriting of the person investigating in the borderlands was messy, but among the ten, there was a boy with the initials “N●●●.” The writing was so bad that only the “N” was clear. It could be Nate, Neil, Nick, Noel, or Noah. According to the report, this boy was the same age as Nate and had relatives working in the border count’s household.

Thanks to the poorly written report and the border count’s illegitimate child, Amelia mistakenly thought Nate was that distant cousin. Nate’s identity as Amelia’s half-brother remained hidden.