After the two married, Lippert and his mother were confined to the annex, practically cut off from the rest of the world.
As time passed, the duchess gave birth to the male lead and established herself as mistress of the household. Meanwhile, Lippert's mother fell gravely ill. Isolated in the annex, young Lippert could do nothing but watch his mother grow weaker with each passing day.
That must have been when he'd written the diary.
One day, Lippert's mother decided to leave the ducal estate with her son. They moved to a distant territory, far from the capital, and began a new life.
Their new home was small, nowhere near as grand as the annex at the ducal estate, but mother and son managed to live happily enough.
The duke never visited them. Well, not that he would have had the nerve to show his face. Instead, he sent them a fixed monthly allowance and expensive medicine.
Or at least, he thought he did. He had no idea the duchess was interfering behind his back.
Naturally, neither Lippert nor his mother knew the truth. They could only believe that their father and husband had abandoned them completely.
Young Lippert tried desperately to obtain the medicine himself, but its ingredients were so expensive that he had no hope of affording them.
And so, just a few months after leaving the ducal estate, Lippert's mother's condition worsened, and she died.
Despite his resentment toward his father, Lippert went to the ducal estate to deliver his mother's dying words. With the help of adults he didn't know, he somehow managed to reach the estate, only for the duchess to turn him away without a shred of compassion.
And she didn't stop there.
She paid a criminal to kidnap Lippert and dispose of him without a trace.
But Lippert was a remarkably intelligent child.
Even after being kidnapped and finding himself in mortal danger, he refused to submit. Instead, he revealed his identity and threatened his captor, warning him that he wouldn't get away with harming him.
The criminal hesitated. There was something extraordinary about the boy's bearing and appearance.
He'd been paid a considerable sum, but if it ever came to light that he'd murdered a noble, he would lose his own head.
So he decided not to kill Lippert.
Instead, he sold the boy to a slave trader from another country and lied to the duchess, telling her he'd carried out her orders.
Lippert was put aboard a ship and taken to a distant foreign land, where he was sold into slavery and endured a living hell.
Despite his young age, Lippert had received a nobleman's education and understood the dignity of his station. For an entire year, he resisted and fought back, even as he was beaten to within an inch of his life.
Eventually, the slave trader decided that the boy's proud, unyielding nature made him too difficult to handle as a slave and sold him off somewhere for a pittance.
And where did he end up?
As a human sacrifice in the Holy Kingdom.
At the time, the Holy Kingdom's leadership had become so thoroughly corrupt that there was hardly a decent person among them. They worshipped God in public while secretly offering sacrifices to an evil god to maintain their power.
At just ten years old, Lippert was offered up as a living sacrifice.
His stomach was cut open as he lay upon the altar.
Ironically, however, Lippert survived.
He had caught the evil god's fancy and been granted its power.
Having miraculously risen from sacrificial victim to priest, Lippert lived for nothing but revenge.
And, well, that was how he became the Lippert of today.
Lippert was a villain whose past and ultimate fate were equally tragic.
In the later part of the story, he became a villain who would stop at nothing, no matter how cruel, to exact his revenge.
Well, after everything he'd suffered, of course he'd want to make them pay. If I'd gone through something like that, I'd want revenge too, whether I had to become a killer myself or hire one to do the job.
But Lippert didn't stop at killing the duke and duchess. Even after murdering them, he tried to kill all their children and the heroine as well.
That was where I had trouble understanding him.
Objectively speaking, neither the male lead nor his younger brother had done anything wrong. They didn't even know they had an older half-brother in the first place.
Their parents had committed terrible crimes, so their children had to die too...?
That seemed a bit excessive to me.
But Lippert intended to wipe out every last member of the ducal family.
His revenge went beyond merciless into outright cruelty. No wonder his tragic past was overshadowed by his actions, leaving him remembered as nothing more than a ruthless villain.
If Lippert knew when to stop and walked away, he wouldn't have to die either...
The thought suddenly occurred to me.
But was such a thing even possible?
Lippert had spent half his life consumed by hatred and a desire for revenge.
The author had deliberately stuffed his backstory with every imaginable misfortune to make him the final villain. Unless Lippert suffered a head injury and lost all his memories, I doubted anything would change.
Ugh...
I stopped dwelling on it. There was no point giving myself a headache over something I couldn't change by worrying about it alone.
I picked up the diary with my front paws and placed it back in the box. Then I closed the lid and pushed the box back into its original position.
Perfect.
Luiden would never know anyone had opened it.
I silently shut the wardrobe door and turned around to head back to bed.
"...!"
Luiden was sitting on the bed, staring straight at me.
How long had he been watching?
...Calm down. Stay calm. All I have to do is act like a cat.
I had been standing on my hind legs, so I casually lowered my front paws to the floor and meowed.
"Roro? Why were you standing like a person?"
But there was no fooling Luiden.
He gazed at me with wide, alert eyes before making a thoughtful little humming sound.
Judging by the deep concentration on his face, he'd probably seen everything I'd done.
Finally, the boy spoke, his voice cautious.
"Roro... are you actually a person?"
I'm fucked.
******
I'd hoped Luiden would dismiss what he'd seen as a dream in the middle of the night, but the boy had an excellent memory.
Damn it.
Early the next morning, Raymon came to collect me.
Luiden looked terribly sad to see me go, but he didn't throw a tantrum or cry.
"Brother, may I say goodbye to Roro?"
Raymon nodded.
Luiden approached me with remarkable composure, cupped a hand around my ear, and whispered,
"...I promise I'll keep your secret."
I turned my head away, pretending I hadn't heard a thing.
Unlike me, who was shamelessly playing dumb like an immature little brat, Luiden took a step back, clasped his hands behind his back, and smiled brightly.
He looked like a boy thrilled to have a secret that only he knew....
And so, feeling fucking uneasy about the whole thing, I returned to the teahouse.
"Raymon! You're back early. Roro, did you have a nice trip?"
I let out a happy "Maong" as the heroine welcomed us warmly and gathered me into her arms.
"His examination revealed no health problems. As his fur grows and sheds, it should eventually return to normal."
Raymon gave Aria a full account of the examination results.
Aria thanked him and treated him to breakfast.
After sitting on a chair and having my own meal, I made myself scarce so I wouldn't get in the way of the two of them.
While I sat by the window, the sound of their cheerful conversation continued behind me.
I could hear how much Aria liked Raymon in her laughter.
The romantic tension between them was so sweet it was practically giving me a sugar rush.
Just start dating already!
I was sitting in a loaf, leisurely watching the clouds drift by, when—
[ต^._.^ต Rohun! Can you see me???]
A small pink holographic window appeared before my eyes.
"Myaaak?"
Kkami?
I sprang to my feet and answered.
To talk with Kkami, I hopped out through the open window.
[ต^._.^ต I can finally get through to youㅠㅠ! I'm sorry it took me so long to contact you!!ㅠㅠㅠㅠ]
[ต^._.^ต I heard you went through something dangerous! Are you okay?]
Ding! Ding!
Pink windows popped up one after another, and I told Kkami I was fine.
"Myaaaang. Myaaak, maaaooong?"
Actually, there's something I've been meaning to ask you. About danger detection. It alerts me when other people are in danger too?
[ต^._.^ต Yes! It automatically updated to a new version this time, so now it includes living beings who have a personal connection with you!]
"Myaaang? Aeyaow. Myaaaang!"
Oh, I see! But it's a little inconvenient because I can't tell exactly who's in danger. Of course, it's still a really great feature!
[ต^._.^ต Oh! I see what you mean! I'll improve that part and update it for you later! But, Rohunㅠㅠㅠㅠ... I have some bad news.]
"Myaang? Myaa?"
Huh? What is it?
[ต^._.^ต Your whiskers got completely burned off... so you won't be able to use danger detection for a while. ㅠㅠ]
Ah.
Come to think of it, that made sense.
The warning came through my whiskers tingling and vibrating, but now that they'd been burned to a crisp, there was no way for them to send me a signal.
[ต^._.^ต There are also two more things I need to tell you. First, I'm thinking of upgrading your Ground-Shrinking Technique feature to make it even more useful!]
An upgrade?
I stared at the messages, making no attempt to hide my excitement.
[ต^._.^ต The existing Ground-Shrinking Technique can't be used indoors, and nearby living beings can get swept up in it... so I think those restrictions make it difficult to use immediately when you're in danger.]
[ต^._.^ต That's why I've decided to remove those two restrictions and focus on improving the feature itself. I'll update it right now!]
Oh.
My tail shot straight up in anticipation.