The Tyrant’s Guardian is an Evil Witch
Chapter 4

“Wanting the boy to forget his old world, the Snow Queen kissed him so he would no longer feel the cold. Then she shattered the ice mirror and inserted the shards into the boy’s eyes and chest. The shard showed the boy false things, and his heart became as cold as the queen’s. Now the boy could think of no one but the queen and could only obey her words.”

As if kidnapping wasn’t enough, illegal procedures and brainwashing? Unlike me, the Snow Queen in the story didn’t seem to have the slightest hint of a moral compass. I clicked my tongue.

“Meanwhile, a girl who loved the boy was very sad when he disappeared. Wanting to see him, the girl gathered her courage and went to look for him. Finally, she arrived at the Kingdom of Ice after a long time. There she discovered the boy, who was in the clutches of the Snow Queen. While he could not recognize the girl at first, her deep love restored the boy’s frozen heart and false eyes.

“After realizing everything had been a lie, the boy grew angry. He immediately ran to the Snow Queen and pierced her chest with a sword of ice. The queen realized that the boy had been freed from her magic, and though she tried to put him back under her spell, the sword had already gone through her heart. Bleeding clear blood, she died slowly. After defeating the Snow Queen, the boy and the girl left the Kingdom of Ice and lived happily ever after.”

Even though the story had a happy ending, it left a bad taste in my mouth.

“What a boring story.”

“I feel sorry for the Snow Queen,” said Tita.

“Why would you pity her? What a wicked person. The worst people in the world are those who abuse children.”

“But the Snow Queen really liked the boy. She just didn’t know how to express it because she’d spent her long life all alone.”

“Love that doesn’t consider the other person’s feelings will only be hurtful. The Snow Queen inappropriately forced her feelings on the boy, so she had to suffer the consequences.”

Blinking his large eyes, Tita looked at me.

“But the boy knows how the queen feels.”

“Why do you think that?”

“Because the boy saw what the queen did, and her… thoughts…”

As if unable to come up with the right words, Tita frowned.

“Because he followed her way of thinking?” I tried asking.

“Yes! That’s right. There’s no way the boy didn’t know that the queen liked him very much.”

“Then why did he kill her?”

“Hmm… I don’t know why.”

Huh.

I began to see Tita in a new light. While I thought he was just an idiot because of the fuss he’d made about frogs, like a true protagonist, he seemed to have several hidden sides. I had never guessed we would have this kind of conversation over a storybook. This was the longest conversation I’d had with him since he’d come to the castle.

“Do you like storybooks?”

“Yes, I do.”

“There are many storybooks in the library. You can read them if you’re bored.”

Tita mumbled, “I don’t know how to read…”

“What? You don’t know how to read?”

“No, I don’t. I never learned how to.”

At this point, I could only wonder what the emperor had been up to. Normally, the children of nobles would start learning to read at the age of five. I couldn’t understand how a child of royal blood—neglected or not—had never been taught how to read. I couldn’t blame Tita’s mother, a commoner who had died early, but the Emperor was a different story. The fact that the emperor had chosen to neglect his child despite having plenty of time made me want to curse.

“Then I’ll teach you.”

Wait, what am I saying?

I couldn’t believe what had just come out of my mouth. Tita, also surprised, looked at me wide-eyed.

“Really?”

There had to be something wrong with those eyes because they kept making me spew nonsense. Feeling like my pride had been hurt, I frantically tried to think of an excuse. It wasn’t long before I had an acceptable reason—I was only doing this to determine the intelligence of my future enemy. It wasn’t in any way for the child’s sake. After all, there was no way I’d be affected just by gazing into his eyes.

“What, do you think I’m joking? Come to the workshop first thing tomorrow morning.”

“Okay!” Tita said excitedly.

“Foolish child. You’re going to be studying, not playing. It isn’t something to be happy about.”

While I couldn’t understand why he seemed so happy to study, Tita was over the moon. I left the room, thinking of how indecipherable children were.

***

The next morning, Tita was at the workshop as soon as the sun rose. I was surprised, expecting him to come on his own time, perhaps around noon.

“Sit over there.”

I gestured to a chair with my chin, and Tita carefully climbed on it. As the chair was made for my height, his legs were far from the ground, dangling in the air. The desk was also large in comparison.

That won’t be good for his posture or his concentration.

With a flick of a finger, the chair and table shrunk to fit him.

“Wow!”

Tita’s jaw dropped, his face full of amazement. For a clueless child, even basic magic like this would be incredible.

Were you surprised? Shall I surprise you even more?

Preening, I started to write the letters of the alphabet in the air. The light rays rippled along the path of my finger. While my handwriting wasn’t great, the shine and sparkle more than made up for it. Tita’s eyes fixed on the floating alphabet of light, and he looked like he might faint any second.

“Is that… magic?”

His dumbfounded expression was so foolish it nearly made me laugh out loud. I quickly controlled my expression and made myself sound serious.

“Memorize these letters while I make potions. There will be a test later. You can also press them to hear what they sound like.”

Tita nodded as if bewitched.

I bet there’s never been such a gracious guardian!

“You’ll be in trouble if you slack off.”

After checking that Tita was memorizing the letters like he’d been told, I placed several ingredients inside a cast iron cauldron full of water and started boiling it to make a potion. After about an hour, I felt a pair of eyes on me and turned, only to find that Tita had come nearby while I wasn’t looking and was watching me and the cauldron with curious eyes. I was so surprised I nearly dropped the ladle.

“What are you doing? It’s dangerous! Go over there!”

Startled by the shout, Tita flinched.

“It’s just that… I finished memorizing what you told me to…”

“What? Already?”

I looked down at the boy, my face full of disbelief. While he seemed scared, it didn’t seem like he was lying.

“I’m going to test you now. If you’re not telling the truth, there will be consequences.”

“I understand.”

I erased the letters in the air and placed a pen and paper in front of Tita, who wrote the letters of the alphabet with his small hand. While the letters were very crooked because he was not used to holding a pen, I found no errors. His intelligence was astonishing, especially considering he was seven and had never been educated before.

I guess he has main character energy after all.

“Not bad.”

It was amazing. I was a little taken aback, as I had planned to have him memorize the alphabet for at least four days.

What do I assign him now?

“Excuse me, Your Highness,” Tita called out in a small voice.

“What?”

He seemed hesitant.

“Talk. Spit it out.”

At my blunt urging, he hesitantly began speaking.

“Could you teach me how to write your name, Your Highness?”

“Why my name all of a sudden?”

“Since I memorized the alphabet, I would like to learn your name, Your Highness.”

I tilted my head. While I had no idea why he wanted to learn my name first when there were countless other words, it wasn’t a problem. So, I wrote in the air like before.

“C-l-e-t-e. It’s pronounced Clete.”

With a bit of difficulty, Tita sounded out my name. He even traced the letters with his finger, copying it.

What a strange child. Don’t most children want to learn their own names first?

“Here, this is your name. T-i-t-a.”

“Clete. Tita.”

For a good while, Tita sounded out my name and his, one after the other. Leaving him to memorize the names, I focused my attention back on the cauldron.

“Your Highness.”

“What now?”

“Thank you.”

“There’s no need to thank me.” I feigned indifference, keeping my eyes fixed on the cauldron.

“Your Highness, do you remember what you said when I first came here?”

“What?”

“You said I seemed cold.”

“What about it?”

“Your Highness was the first person to speak to me like that.”

I raised my head. Like the first day we had met, Tita gazed at me with his honest, clear purple eyes. I didn’t know what to say under that kind of gaze. Eventually, I ended up looking away first.

“If I had left you standing out there, a child like you would have quickly frozen to death.”

“I wanted to thank you. I’m also thankful for the way you took me in. That’s why the first thing I wanted to know was your name, Your Highness.”

Since I still couldn’t come up with something to say, I decided to change the topic.

“All right. If you’ve said everything you need to, you can go back to your room. Don’t forget to review what you memorized today.”

“I will, Your Highness.”

Tita obediently left the workshop, but for some reason his words stuck with me, making it impossible to focus. I shook my head, chasing away the useless thoughts.

As I thought, children are bothersome.

And the emperor, who had dumped such a child on me, was a rascal.

***

When Tita could clumsily write a few short words, I ordered Edmund to start teaching him. My goal was to raise the boy into an adult with refinement and intelligence. On the other hand, I resolved to teach him nothing related to violence, like swordsmanship or martial arts. I was always worried that he would reveal his violent side. On the bright side, until now he’d been nothing but gentle and kind.

“Master Tita is extraordinary. Even though it hasn’t been long since he learned the alphabet, he’s already able to read thick history books.”

“Protagonist privilege is indeed pretty great.”

“Pardon me, Your Highness?”

“It’s nothing. And he isn’t showing any strange signs?”

“What do you mean, ‘strange signs?’”

“For example, doing something incomprehensible, or spewing rough insults.”

Edmund made a face like he was hearing the least interesting joke in the world.

“What are you saying, Your Highness? As if you don’t know that Master Tita is gentle to a fault.”

“Is that so?”

I let out a sigh of relief.

I guess he’s obedient so far.