I Live With My Villain Uncle Chapter 3

1. The Mad Dog and the Little Pup of House Vallier

Perhaps the most peaceful country on the continent at present was the Wapford Empire.

Before the previous emperor took his place on the throne, Wapford had fought countless wars, including the Continental War and the Ancient Relic War, and was known as a land that had buried countless amounts of blood and bones.

Amid the hard-won peace, four ducal houses shared the greatest amount of power after the Sun of the Empire, Seledore, supporting Wapford like its four pillars.

Vallier, Cadier, Deslin, and Notium.

Among them, Vallier, which was also my bloodline, was the youngest of the four families in terms of history.

However, despite its short history, it had accumulated an impressive number of honors and titles.

That was because our grandfather was the great contributor who had placed the previous emperor on the throne and helped the current emperor establish himself firmly as well.

The family was also famous for accumulating the greatest amount of wealth in the shortest period of time.

Even excluding the family’s territory and land owned by the Imperial Family, more than a third of the capital belonged to Vallier, so it wasn’t an exaggeration.

There were also two things that made Vallier famous. One was my mother, the greatest ability user, and the other was my uncle.

……Go, Mom!

Mom’s story is precious, so I’ll talk about her a little later.

My uncle was the strongest swordsman in the Empire. His swordsmanship was so extraordinary that people said he was practically a weapon himself.

However, there was also an opinion that he had poured all his ability points into his looks and swordsmanship, leaving his personality and character in a rather severely broken state.

Because of his utterly disastrous personality, even the current emperor had trouble handling him and was rumored to be so busy placating him instead.

It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that stories about my uncle probably made up the largest portion of all the countless rumors surrounding the Vallier family.

Mom told me all of this.

But then, why was I acting so recklessly in front of that uncle of mine, as if I didn’t care about my own life……?

 

***

 

“Uncle! No!”

“Let go.”

Grind. Once again, I heard the sound of his teeth grinding.

“I said no! Don’t gooo!”

I clung tightly to my uncle’s long leg like a cicada, wrapping my arms around it and even hugging it with my legs.

If I did this, he’d be too heavy to walk, right?

He might even end up crushing one of his legs.

I felt sorry for my uncle who would be in pain, but that would still be better.

Going there right now was practically the same as going to his death, you stupid uncle!

“Huh, huh?”

But this monster didn’t seem to find me heavy at all. He simply started walking along as if nothing was attached to him.

Afraid I was about to fall from the momentum, I even bit down on my uncle’s pants with my mouth.

“Geh, mff! (Don’t go, please!)”

At that, my uncle suddenly stopped.

Then, from directly above my head, I heard a low sigh deep enough to make the earth itself seem to sink.

I flinched.

That low sigh had the power to weigh down even the air around us.

It also had the power to freeze my entire body.

‘I have a lot to say, too.’

But secrets were things you had to protect no matter how frustrating and suffocating it became.

That was one of the lessons Mom had engraved deeply in my heart.

And above all, it was a precious secret between Mom and me.

Mom was no longer in this world, but I didn’t want to break my promise.

Because I could no longer make any more secrets with Mom.

This was my final secret promise with her.

“Hey, Peanut.”

At my uncle’s call, I took my mouth off his pants and quickly lifted my head.

My arms were tingling, and the corners of my mouth were damp with saliva.

“I’m not Peanut!”

First, I had to correct what he called me.

“Get down.”

“No. You’ll leave if I get down.”

I rebelled a little, too.

Still clinging to him, I discreetly wiped the saliva around my mouth onto my uncle’s pants.

How about that? His pants are dirty now, so he can’t go out, right?

My uncle glanced at the saliva on his pants and scrunched up his face.

“If you know that, get down.”

“……Are you going to throw me if I don’t?”

And then I tried making a pitiful face.

“Phew, this is driving me crazy. Why do you pick a fight over everything? I told you not to make yourself noticeable.”

Pick a fight? I was doing all this to save him.

If Uncle weren’t related to Mom, I wouldn’t even care!

It was unfair, but he wasn’t the kind of person who would believe me even if I explained, so I swallowed my frustration once again.

“……”

His fiercely crumpled expression relaxed slightly, as though he had half given up.

“You’re stubborn as hell, just like your mother.”

“My mom wasn’t stubborn.”

“You never give in even an inch.”

“Uncle.”

“What.”

At least he answered me properly.

Though his eyes still looked like they could devour me alive at any moment.

“Uncle, I’ll give you all my snacks. Don’t go. Okay?”

My uncle looked utterly dumbfounded.

“Wow, this is driving me insane. Did the old man bribe you into coming here?”

“Bribe? What’s that?”

“Get down before I throw you.”

The way he spat out each word, one by one, made me shrink instinctively.

But I couldn’t give up here.

I tightened my grip and stubbornly held on to my uncle’s leg.

My fingers hurt so badly that they felt like they were burning and stiffening.

If Uncle kept doing this, I had no choice but to use that method.

If I couldn’t stop Uncle today, he would encounter someone from House Hendel, one of Vallier’s hostile families.

“……”

“I told you to get down.”

No, to be more precise, it wouldn’t end with merely encountering them. The heir of House Hendel would pick a fight with my uncle.

Then Uncle would be in a terrible mood and hit the heir of House Hendel……

And then?

Things would escalate further and further until House Hendel was turned into a sea of blood.

Even now, Uncle was dealing with the people who had poor relations with Vallier, one by one.

Grandfather had ordered him to find the people behind the attack after discovering that the carriage accident had not been an accident at all, but an assault.

Uncle thought I didn’t know, but I had heard everything when I was about to fall asleep at the funeral, including his conversation with Grandfather.

I wanted to investigate and find them myself, too, but I couldn’t remember most of what happened because I had hit my head during the carriage accident, so I couldn’t be of any help.

Anyway, if things continued like this, Uncle would eventually be unable to escape death.

This was a spark I could put out.

‘The Hendel family weren’t the people who killed Mom in my dream.’

So I had to stop Uncle somehow.

“Uncle, I miss Mom……”

Unable to hold on any longer, I loosened my grip while still clinging to his leg.

I slid down and landed on the floor with a soft thump.

The moment the word “Mom” left my mouth, Uncle became quiet as if someone had flipped a switch.

And at that moment.

“Eek?”

Suddenly, I was grabbed by the back of my neck.

More precisely, it was my clothes that were being roughly grabbed.

Dangling like a doll in my uncle’s grip, I was forced to meet his terrifying golden eyes.

“Then go look in the mirror.”

Seeing that his eyes had calmed down slightly from his anger, I shook my head.

“I don’t look that much like Mom. Uncle looks more like her! You look exactly like Mom!”

I smiled sweetly.

Besides, my hair wasn’t red like Mom’s and Uncle’s!

People said my golden eyes were exactly like Mom’s, as though they had been stamped from the same mold, but unlike Mom, my hair was pitch-black.

That was why Mom always told me that my hair was beautiful, like the night sky that her hands could never reach.

“Argh!”

Uncle, who had been staring at me intently, suddenly roughly raked a hand through his own hair as if he were about to tear it out.

Then, still holding me, he headed somewhere.

Afraid that he might actually throw me out the hallway window if I said anything more, I firmly shut my mouth and quietly dangled from his hand.

Thankfully, the place Uncle brought me to was my room.

After throwing me onto the bed almost as if he were tossing away a piece of luggage, Uncle sat down carelessly and glared at me as if he wanted to kill me.

Ugh, isn’t he cold without even wearing a shirt?

Afraid that Uncle might run away, I quickly crawled across the bed and grabbed his pants.

“Hey, Peanut.”