I Won't Clear Up the Misunderstanding. I Don't Mind Being the Villainess. - Chapter 4

Ah, Lily Avenius, the former Duchess.
She’d been weak since she was born, and her body just couldn’t handle the birth of her second child.
And that child, born in front of me now, is Ron Avenius.
He never got to see his mother’s face while she was alive. That alone makes him such an unfortunate little boy.
And yet, his older brother, Leo, treats Ron like he’s his mother’s murderer—he absolutely hates him. Leo’s only ten. It must be sad and painful to have lost his mother, of course. In my previous life, I was middle-aged when I saw my own parents off, and I was lonely even then.
But Ron lost his mother, too, and more than anything, he did nothing wrong.
“Children are born because their parents chose them. You are not to blame for anything.”
At least, that’s the case for the Avenius Ducal House. Lily knew her body was fragile. She knew childbirth would be a massive strain, yet she still chose to have Ron. I don’t have the right to question whether that decision was correct or not.
However, if anyone should be held accountable for that choice—right or wrong—it’s his father, Kevin, and his mother, Lily. To put that burden on Ron is simply wrong.
“You… you know how I was born, don’t you?” Ron asked, his face twisted in pain.
I hesitated slightly, then nodded.
The original Erica hadn’t known until someone in the Ducal House told her, but the cause of the former Duchess Avenius’s death isn’t exactly classified information. It wouldn’t be strange for me to already know it, considering I married into the Avenius family. If anyone pushes, I’ll just say I researched my future in-laws beforehand.
“But you shouldn’t be nice to me. You’ll just end up being hated too…”
“Don’t worry,” I declared, puffing out my chest. “I’m already hated.”
Right after that declaration, my stomach let out an impressively loud rumble. Since this body is young, it was an incredibly spirited sound.
“Ah.”
“Are you hungry?”
“J-just a little, yes…”
He looked puzzled, and I flushed crimson as I nodded. That was honestly embarrassing. As a second, equally loud rumble threatened to sound, I pressed my hands to my tummy.
Ron then nervously dug around in his pocket.
He held out a small palm to me.
“Here… It might not be enough to fill up an adult.”
He handed me something like a large sweet. Judging by the plain wrapper, it might have been homemade.
“Fudge… it’s sweet and tasty. I’m sorry if you don’t like sweets, though.”
“Thank you. I absolutely love sweets.”
I smiled and thanked him. Fudge, I recalled, was a sugary confection similar to toffee or caramel, but soft enough to chew right away. Made with butter and sugar, it was a pure block of calories and sugar—perfect for fighting off hunger pangs.
“Yes, that’s incredibly delicious!”
Ron looked deeply relieved as I started eating it straight away.
“That’s good. The last time my brother’s tummy rumbled and I offered him the same thing… he threw it away and said he didn’t need charity.”
“Throwing away food? If someone did that in my house, they’d be skipping dinner.”
“He won’t be punished, though. My brother is the King of this house.”
“The King?”
“Yes, and I’m the slave. So I can never, ever disobey him.”
Such utterly bizarre words coming from an eight-year-old. If the younger brother were merely the older brother’s subordinate, I could almost understand it—that sort of dynamic exists, like in a family business.
But for that level of hierarchy to be ingrained since childhood—a brother being a King and the other a Slave—is deeply unhealthy. Furthermore, Ron isn’t the only one who believes this. Leo, who just left after yelling, probably believes it too.
Anger rose in me, immediately followed by a question: Who installed such a warped power dynamic in these young brothers? A ten-year-old and an eight-year-old couldn’t possibly come up with a King and Slave relationship all on their own.
I swallowed the piece of fudge I was chewing and looked at Ron.
“Who taught you such terrible, wrong ideas—that you’re a King and a slave?”
“That is…”
Just as he was about to answer, a sharp, interrupting voice cut him off violently.
“Master Ron, how long do you intend to idle away your time playing?”
The voice belonged to an elderly woman. She wore a high-collared, conservative dress that revealed no skin, and her gold-rimmed spectacles glinted harshly in the sunlight.
“Marvella, Madam…”
“You have no time for games!”
The old woman ranted, aggressively snapping her fan shut as if that lent her authority. She was aiming for dignity, but she just looked hysterical and unpleasant. Still, a quiet child shrinks immediately when shouted at by an older person. Sure enough, Ron hunched his back and was trembling.
“I-I’m sorry.”
“You are already of poor birth, so you must exert yourself to be of even the slightest use to your Elder Brother!”
Ah, now I remember, I thought to myself.
Madam Marvella, Leo and Ron’s first governess. This elderly woman, who had served as a tutor since Kevin’s generation, was the one who implanted these warped ideologies in the two boys, which was covered in the original story, ‘A Single Flower Melts the Ice’.
In short, she was an enemy who needed to be taken out of the children’s lives immediately. Forgetting my hunger, I glared at Marvella.