My beloved mother lived her life like the epitome of royalty.

Born a princess, she always maintained a lofty dignity, with a pride that seemed unbreakable. While she never openly displayed it, she possessed a cruel nature. Despite the old naysayers clucking their tongues, wondering who would ever join hands with such a princess, my mother remained undeniably royal.

The king, who had a deep bond with her, didn’t use her for his political gains. Instead, my mother turned the world upside down by marrying my genetically beautiful father, Cedric O’Hamua, a legend among minstrels.

However, like most humans whose lives are shaped by their circumstances at birth, their marriage didn’t last long due to the stark differences in their lifestyles and values.

My mother was always lofty, while my father was always humble. If my mother naturally possessed things that made everyone gape in awe, my father was content just admiring them without any desire to possess them.

This might have been what drew them together, but it also became the decisive reason for their separation. As the gap between them widened over time, they fought frequently, and eventually, my mother divorced. Not long after the divorce, I was born.

“Ah, how beautiful you are. Your name is Oscar, Oscar.”

I remember my own birth, not because I was a prodigy, but because I retained the memories of my past life in a place called South Korea, where I had lived for over twenty years.

Yes, I remember my past life.

I don’t recall how I died, but I remember quite vividly what my family and friends were like, my name, my interests, and more.

“Nice to meet you, Oscar.”

But memories of a past life are just that – a thing of the past.

The image of my mother holding me in her arms and smiling like the sun is still vivid in my mind. Even though she couldn’t have known that I understood every word from birth, she chose only the most beautiful and precious words to speak to me, her voice full of love.

The short nose, faint freckles, warmly amber eyes close to golden, bending like a crescent moon, her graceful fingertips contrasting her modest appearance, and her warm brick-colored hair adorned with priceless jewels even during childbirth.

However, my birth could not be a blessing.

Things took a strange turn after I was born. The king and queen, having been childless for nearly a decade, started to view me with suspicion due to my mother’s divorce, as I was born bearing the royal surname, not my father’s.

They probably feared I would become a threat to any future offspring.

The king’s unease did not stop at mere worry.

The whispers around me were so malevolent that the king’s anxiety began to gnaw at him. To preserve his position, he was willing to cast aside both kinship and affection.

The king sought to marry off my mother again, to remove me from the royal household. But in reality, it was a futile attempt. If the king and queen continued to be childless, I, being the direct royal descendant through my mother, would eventually inherit the throne.

So, the king personally chose a suitor for my mother’s remarriage.

Around the age of three, my mother prepared to remarry the Duke of Serpentine, a widower with a child. By the age of five, the wedding was held, and preparations were made for us to move into the duke’s residence.

In the kingdom, there were several noble houses, but the reason why the king specifically chose the Serpentine family was…

‘Because of their dark nature.’

The Serpentine Ducal family, adept in handling sorcery and possessing tremendous power, obediently served the king, cleaning up his dirty work as a shadowy household.

The king’s grand plan was that if I grew up in a family no different from loyal hunting dogs, I would likely never aspire to the throne. Thus, holding my mother’s hand, I toddled into the Serpentine family’s domain.

My first impression of the Serpentine estate was more comfortable than I expected.

Yes, more than I thought.

It was still a place where people lived, and being one of only three ducal families in the kingdom, everything from the main gate to the grand exterior of the mansion was well-maintained. At first glance, the building materials were all top-notch. However, that wasn’t the issue.

Most of the estate’s servants who greeted us had strange symbols on pieces of cloth tied over their eyes. Moreover, their attitude towards my mother suggested they had no consideration for their own rights… they groveled before her.

‘Groveled’ was an understatement. From the moment my mother stepped out of the carriage, they ensured her feet never touched the ground, even by mistake.

And their attitude. It was as if they were serving a deity, bowing their heads in a submissive manner. I looked at my mother, expecting her to be unnerved by their bizarre behavior, but she seemed accustomed to it, as if she had visited a few times before.

“Adelheid. You’ve arrived.”

Then, amidst the spine-chilling crowd of servants, who parted like the Red Sea, a man appeared.

“So you are Oscar.”

As he approached, all the servants stepped back as if waiting for the moment, ensuring they wouldn’t accidentally touch him.

Curious about their cautious distancing, I looked around, and he greeted me.

“I am the head of the Serpentine family, and the man who will become your father. It was a great pity that you couldn’t attend the wedding due to a cold.”

Ah. That’s when I understood why the servants couldn’t even look at this man’s face.

How could they lift their heads and stand beside someone who had cast a spell on them?

Rumor had it that while some joined the Serpentine household through legitimate means, most were criminals ‘educated’ to become servants here. This ‘education’ was not simple training but involved the unique sorcery and torture of the Serpentine family, breaking their spirits and ensuring their obedience.

These trained servants would become fiercely loyal to the duke, even to the point of risking their lives, and fear him greatly.

‘He doesn’t seem like the type to enjoy torture himself.’

Given all the rumors I had heard about the Serpentine family, I had imagined the duke to be devil-like, but in reality, he looked quite ordinary.

Grayy hair, gray eyes, and slightly reddish, dark circles under his eyes gave him a somewhat gloomy and depressive appearance. Yet, he was quite handsome. Our eyes met as I thought this.

“You are just as I’ve heard, very…”

It seemed the duke was observing me just as I was him.

He stared at me, momentarily lost for words with an expression of disbelief.

As I blinked, his expression grew more peculiar. Feeling uncomfortable, I whimpered and hid behind my mother’s legs, which prompted him to finally regain his composure and carefully pick me up.

“Oh, my goodness. How could such a young child be so…”

His words trailed off as he lifted me, his actions awkward as if he had never held a child before.

But I couldn’t pay more attention to the duke because of the servants lined up behind him.

‘Are all these people criminals?’

I closely observed the cloth covering the eyes of the servants standing behind him. The cloth, hollowed out as if their eyes had been gouged out, was marked with bright red letters.

Moreover, it seemed like they could see me through the cloth. As I was held by the duke, their gazes slowly moved up to me, fixating on me as if trying to memorize my face, like a doll. Their gaze was so eerily bizarre that I buried my face in the duke’s shoulder, feeling creeped out. He flinched for a moment, then gently patted my back.

“Adelheid, was your journey here too arduous?”

“It was challenging, but not so much that I couldn’t come.”

The duke, despite his cold and gloomy appearance, made a visible effort to speak kindly.

In contrast, my mother, perhaps due to the forced nature of their union, was cold. Yet, her movements in accepting his escort, like removing her glove and extending her hand, were fluid and beautiful, beyond reproach.

The duke watched her, momentarily lost in thought, before eagerly taking her hand, to which my mother grimaced.

‘She doesn’t find him that unattractive.’

My mother always appreciated beauty. My biological father was famous for his beauty, not just in the kingdom but across the empire. So, even if the duke wasn’t particularly handsome, wouldn’t he still appeal to my mother’s taste?

‘But to grimace that much…?’

Though the duke’s actions might appear slow and gloomy, there was nothing else particularly objectionable about him.

Was there something between them that I wasn’t aware of?

While pondering this, I noticed my mother’s ears turning slightly red. Unaware of my mother’s state, the duke awkwardly escorted her into the mansion.

So, the conclusion was this.

They were both nervous and unaware of each other’s embarrassment.