Rather Than The Son, I’ll Take The Father

The secret behind Gilbert and Rehan’s birth – that was the part I hadn’t read about yet. They were abandoned by their parents; that was the only explanation provided.

Ughh, I should’ve read till the end and not just to the scene where Gilbert died.

If I had known I’d reincarnate as one of the characters in this novel, I wouldn’t have missed out a single part.

I, as well as many other readers, found the novel rather simple. The brothers’ biological parents were human trash that didn’t deserve to have light shed on them; that was all.

When they were abandoned, Gilbert was already twelve, but Rehan was still a baby whose umbilical cord had only just been removed.

Normal parents wouldn’t have abandoned their children in the middle of some desert.

But even in such circumstances, Rehan was able to resist death before Aedis came and rescued him.

It’s indeed amazing, but that might stem from the fact that he’s naturally amazing because he’s the male lead.

“Hmm.”

“……”

“Uum.”

How many secrets were hidden from me?

I stared at Aedis’ face and thought about the contents of the novel.

The title of the novel I entered was 〈Esmeralda’s Crescent Moon〉.

‘Esmeralda’ was yet another name from the North, and the ‘crescent moon’ part referenced Luna, the heroine of the story.

Luna was the daughter of a small, commoner lord from the frontier. Her childhood consisted of her being raised normally and with love, therefore it was barely mentioned in comparison to Rehan’s childhood story.

This is just a brief summary of 〈Esmeralda’s Crescent Moon〉 to describe the Kallakis family’s current situation.

After Gilbert and Rehan were abandoned in the desert at the respective ages of twelve and a newborn fresh from the womb, Grand Duke Kallakis seemed like their saviour when he appeared.

He adopted them as his sons and made them nobles of the Ravenna Empire.

How Rehan survived as an abandoned newborn was incomprehensible, but there were no special explanations provided.

At any rate, as time went on, their brotherly relationship deteriorated.

Gilbert felt annoyed by Rehan, who followed him everywhere. The fact that Rehan missed his biological parents – that he’d never even known – was hilarious to Gilbert.

He also knew that his younger brother was born with the qualifications to become an archmage. And so, hoping to ruin him before his awakening, Gilbert never shared any information about their parents with him.

After Rehan started seeing the Grand Duke as his biological father, Gilbert started displaying violent behaviour towards Rehan. It started off as light beatings, but over time the intensity grew and grew.

The first person to notice his violent behaviour was Rehan’s nanny. Soon after, the servants also found out. At first, no one dared to speak about it, but as it became more serious, everyone started avoiding Gilbert.

Conscious of everyone, Gilbert left the Grand Duke’s territory, claiming everyone there only ever took Rehan’s side.

By the age of twenty, he made his way to the capital and paraded his abilities to his heart’s content. Unlike the people in the North, the people of the capital favoured Gilbert.

Obviously, it was because they didn’t know of his true nature.

Then, Gilbert married Maevia Morgana without problem under the pretense of a marriage contract written by their ancestors. Following that, Maevia moved up to the North all by herself to greet the people there and get a feel of the weather. At that time, Gilbert didn’t go with Aedis, saying he didn’t want to see Rehan.

She stays there for a month and forms a close relationship with Rehan. Once in a while, he would even call her ‘big sister’.

Those were the times she felt the most stable and happy after her marriage.

After her return to the capital, Gilbert locked her up in her room saying that she was weak and vulnerable to illness, so she was unable to get in contact with Rehan.

It was only three years later that Rehan came to know that she was being abused.

And he learned through no one else but the Grand Duke.

Unlike now, Grand Duke Kallakis had no interest in external affairs, though he still had a guilty conscience.

At first, he tried to help her escape.

But Aedis was anything but a normal person.

Maevia seemed to have an extreme fear of him, so he attempted to get someone else to help. That was when Rehan overheard.

He rushed to the capital, but Gilbert had already become Emperor. Everyone else stayed silent about Maevia’s predicament.

Rehan visited Gilbert and pleaded him to return Maevia, however, Gilbert didn’t heed his request. Rehan proceeded to provoke him by saying he’d bring her back by force.

It was then that Gilbert genuinely tried to kill Rehan for the first time.

Facing such different levels of bloodlust and violence, Rehan realized that their relationship would never recover again.

He decided that, even with his severe injuries, he needed to save Maevia. Determined to stand against Gilbert, he developed his strength.

And over the course of the years, he met Luna, who healed his wounds… and then they fell in love.

I didn’t read that part properly since I just wanted to see Gilbert get punished as soon as possible.

Yepp, I regret it.

Moving on, the role Maevia played in 〈Esmeralda’s Crescent Moon〉 was the cause of his trauma and awakening.

Except for the time where Rehan nearly died and the time when he found out that Maevia was locked away, Grand Duke Kallakis was but a mere bystander.

No, well, there were many things to say when it came to how Maevia was treated.

“I’ll ask you one last time to check. Do you really not have any biological children?”

I looked at his face carefully, but unfortunately, I wasn’t able to find any resemblance because I never took the time to observe Gilbert’s face.

Traits I remembered of him were silver hair, used sneaky tricks, and other unfortunate features. That was all.

“Never happened.”

Aedis denied it right away. He looked insulted.

I had a gut feeling.

I knew it. There was an important secret I didn’t know of.

Gilbert was twelve years old when he was abandoned by his biological parents.

He was still young, and he wasn’t old enough to know anything yet.

Even in the novel, he kept silent about his biological parents until his end.

“Did Mr. Aedis kill their biological…….”

“Leaving witnesses usually isn’t in my interest.”

He wore a cynical smile. Basically, if he was the one who killed their biological parents, Gilbert and Rehan would’ve also been killed.

“You could’ve just given them away.”

“Oh, I don’t believe it’s all that simple.”

Humming lightly, I realized something.

Gilbert wasn’t abandoned.

Even though Gilbert’s personality became trash after he grew up, there must’ve been a reason why Aedis didn’t take further measures against him.

Was he threatened?

But who would do that to Aedis?

Seeing me think hard, he tapped the table with his fingers.

“Let’s get back on track. How do you wish to deal with Gilbert?”

“……I’ll do it myself, but I wonder if you can do me a favour.”

“It’ll be difficult to get rid of him. I’d much rather just kill him. But anything other than that, I am capable of doing.”

So you can kill him but not cut ties with him…… didn’t know that.

What a vague remark.

What’s the story behind that?

“Can I really?”

“You have the right to, my wife.”

I nodded.

“Well, disciplining a grown-up will require a good beating. Cancel all other plans, we need to take shelter.”

I wonder what state the Grand Duke’s territory is in right now. The feeling of becoming the step-mother to a man one year older than you felt nice.

I hope Gilbert vomits.

I really want him to vomit.

Meanwhile, Kallen was in a dilemma.

Gilbert ordered him to kill Maevia’s maid, but Kallen was scared of the consequences.

He wished he could’ve just ignored Gilbert. But then it’d lead to a grudge, and Gilbert was the best swordsman in the Ravenna empire.

That’s why he made himself Gilbert’s pawn.

‘Damn it. I should’ve stepped out of this earlier.’

As he spat out those curses, the face of the maid in front of him turned deathly pale. He heard her breath go uneven, and he saw her tears fall down, as if she knew what was going to happen to her.

Her expression said she knew that the hooded figure was Gilbert’s subordinate, Kallen.

“Please spare me! I………I just followed the lady’s orders!”

Sarah begged him. Thanks to her, he didn’t have the time to continue thinking.

Kallen hadn’t been able to do what he wanted yet. Even Kallen’s subordinates were used to following Gilbert’s orders that Kallen ‘passed on’ to them.

Gilbert would often give him the dirty work, and naturally, he passed on to his subordinates.

Back then, Kallen had only asked for Sarah’s location, but his men had decided to interpret that in their own way.

Since Gilbert had only told him to ‘appropriately omit her’, Kallen used his own judgement. They didn’t just tail Sarah; they also drove her into a desolate corner.

‘You useless bastards who can’t even follow your master’s order correctly!’

“I’m serious! I swear! I’m just a maid! My payday is only on the fifteenth! The tenth was too early and the twentieth seemed too late so we decided on the fifteenth!”

Her random remarks distracted Kallen.

Sarah shook her head and raised her voice to distract him on purpose.

“Please have mercy on me. I-I’ll do whatever you want me to! I’ll spill everything about the Lady!”

Her acting was so good that even Maevia would applaud if she saw it.

Maevia’s order was to put her life on the line first and sacrifice Maevia, so she faithfully obeyed her orders.

She begged with her hands as Kallen lifted his head.

“….Everything?”

His tone was doubtful, but she answered eagerly,

“Yes! I’m the closest person to her. I know plenty about her weaknesses!”

He pondered for a while before looking around.

Around them were old warehouses, filled to the brim with trash. Since it was a filthy area, not many people passed by, so they had plenty of time to spare.

“Speak.”

Sarah glanced over to the hooded Kallen and shut her eyes.

“My……My Lady can’t whistle!”

“………What?”