I Became the Master of the Villain

The woman’s and Kian’s eyes met.

She stared at him, forgetting even to pick cotton.
Her gaze didn’t seem like it would let go of him.
But then, with a fierce sound slicing through the wind, the whip struck down.

“Where do you think you’re staring off to!”
“Hrk!”
“How do you expect to meet today’s quota like this!”

Scarlet blood splattered across the white cotton field.
The slaves lowered their gazes in silence.
As if the best thing they could do was wait for the moment to pass.

“Lazy things like you need to be beaten to come to your senses!”
Just as the overseer raised the hand holding the whip high, Kian appeared in an instant and grabbed his arm.
“Stop it.”

“What—who dares…!”
The overseer’s eyebrows twisted into a scowl.
He looked Kian up and down.

Unusual silver hair and a beautiful face. A face he hadn’t seen around here.
Was he a noble from somewhere?
The overseer lowered the whip with a reluctant expression.

In the meantime, Kian knelt down on one knee to check the woman’s wounds.
Blue light gathered in both of Kian’s hands. And then, the woman’s wounds began to heal.
The overseer’s eyes widened at the sight.
“You’re a mage?”

Instead of answering the question, Kian extended his hand and helped the woman up. She stammered.
“Th-thank you for your kindness, my lord.”
There was something Kian wanted to ask her.

But this wasn’t the right place to talk.
“Would you speak with me for a moment?”
“Th-that is…”

The woman hesitated, glancing nervously at the overseer.
Kian took out his identification plaque and tossed it at the overseer.
“I have business with this woman. I’ll be taking her briefly.”

The overseer caught the plaque.
‘Commander of the Seventh Royal Mage Corps… Top-grade mage…!’
Upon confirming Kian’s identity, the overseer’s jaw dropped.

This was not someone he could argue with.
The overseer, no longer acting like he was dealing with a slave, bowed his head obsequiously.
“Y-yes, of course, sir.”

Since the overseer had quickly backed down, Kian brought the woman to a quiet location.
He pushed open the door of an inn at the village outskirts and found a peaceful interior.
A short while later, Kian sat across from the woman, gazing at her in silence.

Up close, the resemblance was even stronger.
She had aged, but her face was very similar to the one in Count Douglas’s memories.
The woman fiddled with the glass in front of her and stole a glance at Kian.

Kian pulled out an old document from his inner pocket and spoke abruptly.
“I’m looking for someone.”
It was the sale certificate passed to him by Aulos’s son.

Written on it was the personal information of the woman he was seeking.
The woman who had called him “young master” when he was a baby.
If the woman in front of him was the same person—

Kian handed the certificate to her.
Watching her take the worn, tattered document, he opened his mouth.
“Marcia Smith.”

Then he continued softly.
“Age forty.”
“……”

“Originally from Inest, western Empire.”
The woman reading through the document looked up with a dazed expression as he recited the information in a flat voice.
Eyes dulled from harsh labor and sunken cheeks. But the chestnut brown eyes were strikingly similar to those in his memory.

Looking into those eyes, Kian spoke.
“When you were sold into slavery, you had an infant with you.”
At those words, the woman’s eyes quivered slightly.

“How do you…”
“Silver-haired, blue-eyed child. Right?”
Kian spoke again. Though he hadn’t heard any answer yet, he felt a vague certainty just by looking at her face.

He parted his lips several times before finally speaking slowly.
“That child’s name… was Kian, wasn’t it?”
At those words, the subtle tremble in her face turned into a great wave.

Silver hair and blue eyes. The face of the small child that had come to mind the moment she saw this man.
No way, it couldn’t be, how…
Her hand trembled as she held the glass. Her heart pounded like it would burst.

A name she had never once forgotten, not even in her dreams. Her lady’s final plea.
—There’s no time, go!
—What about you, my lady! If you don’t go, then I…!

—You must survive, and protect this child… protect Kian.
An orphan who had lived scrounging from the trash on the streets. A kind woman had taken her in.
That woman’s final order and plea—one she had failed to fulfill.

Remembering the promise she hadn’t kept, it felt like someone was tearing her chest apart.
At the very least, before she died, she had wished to know whether the young master was alive.
And yet—could it really be…

“Ah…”
Staggering forward, the woman reached out a trembling hand toward Kian.
Looking at that pitifully shaking hand, which didn’t dare to touch him, Kian asked,

“Do you recognize me?”
At that moment, the woman’s trembling face completely collapsed. She dropped to her knees before him.
“A-ahhh…”

She clung to him and cried out in a sobbing voice.
“Young master!”
—Young master!

The voice that had called to him in his memories. The arms that had held the young him so tenderly.
A warmth he had never felt when watching those barren memories now reached him.
He still didn’t know what she was to him, but Kian let himself be held in her arms.

Maybe it was just a feeling. But still, it seemed he saw something very precious in her.
He didn’t push away her arms as they wrapped tightly around him and simply closed his eyes.
***

The woman calmed down only long after that.
She held the handkerchief Kian had given her tightly, her eyes still red.
Kian asked, now that she had finally stopped crying and composed herself,

“Have you calmed down a little?”
“Yes…”
She replied in a choked voice.

She looked exhausted, probably from the intense emotions.
Still, there was something Kian needed to ask her.
He decided to continue the conversation he hadn’t finished earlier.

“Why did you call me ‘young master’ earlier?”
“I was the maid of Countess Rishtain, and the nanny who took care of you, young master.”
“Rishtain…”

It was a name he had never heard before. As he murmured it, the nanny spoke.
“The Count and Countess of Rishtain were your parents.”
Even though she was right in front of him, her words sounded distant.

He couldn’t quite make sense of what she was saying.
Then that meant… he had been born a noble?
But why—if his parents had been nobles, why had he lived as a slave?

As if reading his thoughts, the nanny answered through her tears.
“Twenty years ago, they were falsely accused of treason and died unjustly.”
Treason. False accusation. Unjust death.

Those words tangled chaotically in his mind.
It was all so sudden, it didn’t feel real.
It felt like hearing someone else’s life story.

As if some mischievous storyteller was now revealing the protagonist’s secret birth… and waiting to see his reaction.
But this was real. It had actually happened to him.
Kian bit his lower lip hard.

Who had killed his parents, and why?
And why had his magical power been sealed?
Kian clenched his fist so tightly it hurt.

He would uncover the answers to [N O V E L I G H T] all of it—no matter what.
He raised his gaze and looked at the nanny.
“First… can you tell me more about my parents?”

When Kian asked, the nanny replied, “Of course,” and wiped away her tears.
Thinking of the count and countess who had passed before her, her eyes reddened again.
She composed herself and spoke.

“They were both mages. And they worked at the Imperial Magic Research Institute.”
“Imperial mages…?”
Kian reflexively repeated the unexpected statement.

It was just then that the inn door burst open and a man walked in.
He was tall and slender, with a pale face.
“So this is where you were.”

He walked straight toward the table where Kian and the nanny sat.
The moment she saw his face, the nanny’s turned pale with fear.
“M-my lord…”

Then the man roughly yanked on the chain around her neck.
With a twisted smile, he said to Kian,
“Even if you’re a royal mage, you can’t just take someone else’s property without permission.”

“Ugh!”
As the collar pulled tight, the nanny let out a pained moan, struggling to breathe.
Kian’s eyes turned cold as ice. He warned in a low voice.

“Let go of her.”
Still gripping the chain, the man replied,
“And why should I follow that order? I’m this slave’s owner—Hugo Gelt.”

Viscount Gelt. That name had been on the nanny’s slave certificate, if he remembered right.
It didn’t seem like a lie that he was her master.
In that case, it was actually convenient. No need to go looking for him.

Just as Kian was thinking that, Viscount Gelt looked him up and down with disdain and said,
“I heard you used to be one of those night-serving slaves… Is that why you’re siding with this one?”