A Warm Bowl of Soup

The interior of the palace was deserted. Ordinarily, maids and servants should have been standing by, but it seemed everyone had fled the moment the palace’s mistress was branded a criminal and her son’s downfall became imminent.

They likely feared being swept up in the aftermath. Harm directed at any royal was grave, but targeting the Crown Prince—the one chosen by God—was a crime tantamount to high treason. It was the kind of sin where one’s entire extended family could be put to the sword without a single word of protest.

I walked down the hallway toward the protagonist’s room. Having spent my time as a scoundrel frequently tormenting him in front of his mother, I knew the layout of the Concubine’s Palace like the back of my hand.

Standing before the door, I gave a polite knock. Normally, I would have kicked it open, but with the memories of my past life intact, I didn’t want to needlessly terrify the child.

However, there was no sound from within. After knocking a few more times, I lost my patience and swung the door open.

“Eek!”

Chase, the protagonist, had been sobbing quietly under his covers. He jumped in fright the moment I entered. Seeing a crowd of people and knights looming behind me, his face turned deathly pale—he clearly thought I had come to execute him.

At this age, he wasn’t so much “beautiful” or “dashing” as he was simply cute. If I had married in my past life, I might have had a child this age…

Seeing such a small thing trembling in sheer terror made my heart ache.

“Chase.”

“Y-Your Highness…”

Chase practically rolled off the bed and scrambled to prostrate himself flat on the floor. Despite being the highest-ranking person in the room next to me, he didn’t hesitate to grovel.

Through the gaps in his clothes, I could see faint bruises and scars. They were all marks I had left. Since I was also just a child, I hadn’t used weapons, but they were the result of my pushing, shoving, and hitting.

It was I who had made him this way. It was “past me,” but I couldn’t deny that it was still me.

“Get up.”

At those words, Chase lifted his head in shock before slamming it back down against the floor. He seemed to think he had misheard. When I told him to get up a second time, he hesitantly rose to his feet.

“Come here.”

When I reached out, Chase flinched reflexively, but he cautiously took my hand. I led him gently to the sofa in the corner of the room. Once I sat him down beside me, he couldn’t meet my eyes and kept his gaze fixed on the floor.

Looking closely, his complexion was sallow, and his cheeks—which should have been plump with baby fat—were hollowed out. No matter how much I had bullied him, he was still a Prince; surely his mother wouldn’t have let him starve?

Then, it clicked. The empty palace. With his mother in the dungeon, there was no one left here to look after him.

“You.”

“Y-yes?”

“Have you eaten?”

“N-no…”

Chase shook his head timidly. Yesterday? The day before? Each time I asked, he shook his head vigorously.

‘Has he been starving since the moment I collapsed?’

It likely wasn’t that they stopped feeding him immediately. They probably started by cutting back, watching the atmosphere, and then gradually abandoned their duties until he was left with nothing. I turned to the servants standing at attention.

“Bring some food. Something thin and easy to digest.”

Everyone looked bewildered by the order, but since they dared not defy me, several scrambled out of the room.

I wasn’t sure how to treat him. For someone like me, with past and present memories tangled together, this was difficult.

In this life, I hated Chase because I felt his lack of ability brought shame to the Imperial Family. It’s embarrassingly cringeworthy now, but I truly believed my existence was synonymous with the Empire itself. Therefore, Chase, who lowered the “prestige” of the royals, was an insult to me personally. I had bullied him relentlessly for it.

The only “mercy” in my previous behavior was that I was young enough to believe the lies about him being royalty. I truly believed he was my brother, which made his “lack of talent” even more offensive to my pride.

‘What an idiot…’

I was incredibly self-centered, but what could I do? That was my reality. Right now, the memories of my current life—which told me this arrogance was natural—were at war with the memories of my past life, which told me I was being a fool.

The “older” version of me from the past life was particularly furious that I had used such petty excuses to abuse a child.

“Sigh.”

Chase flinched at my sigh. Of course he was scared. To him, I was a person who used to torment him for no reason, and now, I was the man who held his very life in my hands.

‘Should I just kill him?’

A fleeting murderous intent rose within me. If I just killed him now, the world would likely spin on without issue. But because of who he was, I hesitated.

This was the protagonist I had cherished so much… My feelings for him now were a mess of love and hate. I felt the affection for a fictional character I had loved in my past life, mixed with the resentment fueled by the secrets I now knew because of those memories.

Chase must have sensed my dark thoughts, as his face turned even more ashen. He simply kept his head down, walking on eggshells.

‘…Let’s not bully a kid.’

The common sense of a modern person from my past life acted as a brake. I was technically a child too, but I didn’t feel like one. There was a “path of least resistance” right in front of me, but my modern ethics kept tripping me up.

Thinking back, the Concubine was quite clever. Or perhaps it was just maternal instinct? She realized that if the Crown Prince, who bullied her son even now, grew up and learned the truth, her son’s life would be like a candle in the wind. So, she tried to poison me.

If she had succeeded, Chase would have become the next Emperor instead of me. Regardless of ability, we were the only two children the Emperor had.

But that wouldn’t have lasted long. Because I was the only one who actually carried the Emperor’s blood.

‘Some kind of divine punishment would have fallen.’

This was a world where God actually existed. I was living proof of that, so I couldn’t deny it. Though not everyone worshipped the Main God—there were black mages who worshipped evil deities, and priestesses in the Great Forest who served dragons.

Anyway, perhaps because she wasn’t a native of the Empire, the Concubine did something incredibly reckless. In trying to avoid a future danger, she shoved her head into a tiger’s mouth. It was actually a relief for her that it ended in a “failure.”

“Your Highness.”

“Put it here.”

The maids I had sent out returned, carrying a tray with steaming soup. It was finely puréed and looked easy to swallow. I told them to put it on the table in front of the sofa, and they set the spoon down before bowing out.

Chase stopped watching me and fixed his eyes on the soup. He didn’t lung for it—he clearly thought it was mine—but he couldn’t stop gulping down his saliva.

“Eat.”

“…Pardon?”

“I said, eat.”

Even though I gave him permission, Chase hesitated. He seemed worried I might have done something to it. But when I glared at him once, he jumped in surprise and began shoveling the soup into his mouth.

He ate with such desperation that it looked like he might try to swallow the bowl whole. I spoke up.

“Eat slowly.”

“…Y-yes.”

“Chew it thoroughly.”

Startled again, Chase did exactly as I said—chewing slowly and carefully, even though the soup was a liquid that required no chewing at all. I had said it because I was worried he’d get indigestion, but Chase seemed to take it as a threat.

I leaned back on the sofa. Watching him eat made me hungry too. I asked a maid:

“Is there any left?”

“Yes, Your Highness. There is more.”

“Bring some for me as well.”

The maid hurried out and returned. By the time I took my first spoonful, Chase had already finished his bowl. He was still staring at mine, drooling slightly, so I told the maid to bring another portion if there was more.

“Eat this.”

“B-but…”

I pushed my bowl toward him since the maid was bringing me a fresh one. He started hesitating again, but after I clicked my tongue once, he snatched it up and ate. I found myself wondering irritably if the kids here were incapable of understanding things the first time they were told.

A new bowl arrived for me, and I finally took a bite. Since my stomach had been empty for so long, the warm soup felt like a godsend. The dizziness in my head cleared as my stomach filled.

After he finished his second bowl, Chase looked at me tentatively. He didn’t seem as terrified as he had been moments ago.

‘What should I do with him?’

If I did nothing, everything would happen exactly like the original story. Chase, having lost his mother, would become a s*ave and be sold to someone who would use him, tasting the depths of despair.

Chase was a year younger than me—only eleven years old. All of that was too much for an eleven-year-old to endure. Honestly, when he was just a character in a book, I could stomach his suffering because I knew it would be the “fertilizer” for his future growth and eventual triumph.

But not anymore.

Chase was real. He was a living, breathing person. I loved the original novel, but I didn’t want to see the eleven-year-old child in front of me suffer.

I hesitated for a moment, then asked:

“Do you want to live?”