My Arrogant and Insolent Shadow - Chapter 1

Ten years.
Enough time for dozens of seasons to come and go.
Enough time to forget someone’s face or even their name.

So why are you standing here in front of me?
Why are you calling my name?

With a body that’s nothing like the one I remember…
Yet your face is exactly the same.

Imperial Year 1215. March 1st.

That was ten years ago, when I first met Cassian Blanchet.

Alphonse was a small town far from the capital. Only a handful of people lived there.
To put it nicely, it was peaceful. To put it plainly, it was dull.

Just like the sky that always looked the same, every day in that town passed in the same, predictable way.

Still, it was a place known for its beautiful scenery full of things to see, even if the locals didn’t have the time or energy to enjoy them.

Most of the townspeople were busy working.
They spent their days under the blazing sun, clearing land and farming as ordered by the lord.
Their skin would darken and burn, but that was their daily life.

The few immigrants who settled there were better off.
Some owned fishing boats and could go out to sea to observe and catch fish.
They were admired by many.
Others had good connections with the lord and earned a spot on the merchant guild list, something of a status symbol.

But even they weren’t all that different.
In the end, everyone still paid heavy taxes to the lord and worked nonstop just to make it through each day.

I was just one of those people too.

The only difference was that my mother had to work twice as hard because she was raising me alone.

She came to this village with me when I was just a child, hoping to start over.

There were other immigrants here, but my mother stood out.
She looked… noble.

Her pale skin was unlike anyone else’s in the village.
Her hands were soft, as if they’d never touched dirty water.
Her smooth hair and delicate features made her look like a noblewoman straight out of a fairy tale.

People couldn’t help but notice her.

Sometimes, the more curious villagers would ask about my father.
Her cheeks would flush slightly, and she’d always give the same answer—like a well-rehearsed line:

“The child’s father was a knight of common birth. He loved me dearly.
He went off to war to protect the Empire and died bravely.”

She repeated that story many times.
And each time, the same thing happened.

Middle-aged men would leer at her and ask crude questions.
Later, their wives would visit us, digging into her story and pressing her about my father.

Whenever that happened, she’d give the same answer.

But I could see her eyes tremble and grow red every time.

They looked at her as if expecting a new twist in the same old tale.
Their curiosity felt cruel.

I hated those villagers for it.

Because whenever they brought up my father, my mother would grow sad.

She tried to hide it from me, but in our tiny house, it was impossible not to notice.

To my young eyes, it seemed like she truly missed him.

So I would quietly hide by the door, waiting for the sadness to pass—just as she wanted me to.
That was all I could do at the time.

And still, their unwanted attention continued for years.

My mother, delicate and graceful like a foreign princess, had a beauty that drew the wrong kind of attention.
I knew what would happen whenever those men looked at her—and I would often get in their way.

Even as a child, I would say things like,

“We don’t need someone like you. Go away.”

People quickly labeled me as a rude and ill-mannered kid.

But that was fine with me.
After that, my mother cried less.
She started to grow stronger.

She threw herself into village life, determined to protect me.

A few people, moved by her situation, would bring her work.

Because she had to provide for both of us, she worked from dawn until late at night.

There was never a break—she did everything: odd jobs for the merchant guild, helping with farming, even washing dishes in restaurants.

Her soft hands became rough.
Her pale skin turned dark.

The elegant woman who had arrived in the village slowly became one of its people.

And yet, her noble air never quite faded.
Even after all that, among the villagers, she still looked like a noblewoman from the capital.

As I grew up, I started to understand why her voice would tremble whenever she talked about my father.

Her eyes always shook when she was lying.

Which meant… that story about my father probably wasn’t true.

But even so, I never asked her about it.

If someone could leave us so easily, then the answer was obvious.
To me, he was someone who had never existed.

Just like it had been since the day I was born.

I never really missed my father.

It seemed ridiculous to miss someone I had never even seen.
Besides, I doubted he had been a good person.

If he truly was, he never would have abandoned someone as kind as my mother.
Especially not a woman carrying his child.

My mother would often try to hide the growing wrinkles on her hands while treating me to small things or reading me books.

But raising a child alone while working every day was incredibly difficult for her.

When I turned thirteen, she started to fall ill.

Even the few villagers who had shown her sympathy before couldn’t keep helping once she was too sick to work properly.

Medicine was extremely expensive, and my mother tried to save money by hiding how much pain she was in.

She worked without rest until the moment she collapsed.

Only after she became too weak to get out of bed did she finally stop working.

After that, I began taking on any job I could find.

I did the small tasks my mother used to do and sometimes got work from other villagers.

Once people started saying that I might be rude but I worked hard, I began to get more offers.

In the capital, it would have been unthinkable for someone my age to work like that.
But in Alphonse, far away from the capital, age didn’t matter.
If you didn’t want to go hungry, you worked. That was how life was.

My daily routine became washing dishes until my hands hurt, collecting herbs, and finishing copying work with what little writing skill I had.
After all that, I would walk home under the deep night sky.

Sometimes, when I was especially exhausted, my anger—without direction or purpose—would turn toward the father I had never met.

But even that kind of emotion was a luxury I could only afford when I had time to feel it.

I didn’t even have time to look up at the sky.
For me, emotions were just another burden that made surviving harder.

That day was no different.

It was the beginning of spring, when the cold was still sharp but a hint of warmth had started to return.
I was in a hurry, moving as quickly as I could.

I had taken a part-time job.

Cleonleaf Alphonse, Number 13.

The sign marked the entrance to a massive estate.
It was the home of the local lord, and the grounds stretched on so far it felt endless.

This mansion was usually closed to outsiders.
It was the first time I had ever been allowed to go inside.

I had taken on all sorts of jobs before, but noble houses were different.
Even their servants had to pass strict background checks.
Someone like me didn’t stand a chance.

My mother had warned me over and over again not to let anyone find out about our background.

Maybe my father really was a criminal.
Or maybe, just maybe, my mother truly was a fallen princess from a ruined kingdom.

I decided to believe the second one.
That story made me feel better.

As I stepped forward, the grass brushed softly against my feet.
It was a comforting feeling.

I had to do well this time.

The pay for this job was greater than anything I had earned before.
I couldn’t afford to mess it up.

If I succeeded and got hired as a regular worker, I could finally help with the cost of my mother’s medicine.

I suddenly remembered what Aunt Mary had said when she wrote my recommendation letter.

“You’ve heard, haven’t you? That young master who’s barely hanging on. He came here to recover.”

Cassian de Blanchet.

The noble guest staying at the estate had a name that already sounded elegant and refined.

The whole village had been buzzing ever since the heir of the Blanchet family arrived.

Even someone like me, who never paid attention to other people’s business, had heard about it.

A man with so much power, they say his name alone could bring others to their knees.

Even the local lord—someone so high above us we can’t even look him in the eye—was nothing more than an ant in front of him.

All it took was a single word from Blanchet, saying he wanted to visit Alphonse for rest, and the mansion staff went into a complete frenzy.

They spent an entire month polishing the path he would walk, making sure not even a speck of dust remained.

I can still picture Aunt Mary’s worried face as she complained, asking why someone like that would leave the comfort of the capital just to come here and make everyone’s lives harder.

“They say he doesn’t have much time left. Maybe that’s why he’s in such a foul mood. He just got here, and he’s already fired every servant.”

What good is having so much if you’re only living on borrowed time?

Aunt Mary’s muttering still echoed in my ears.

Even though she spoke with a touch of pity, her voice made it clear she didn’t truly care. It was someone else’s problem.

I, too, briefly wondered if maybe that man was more pitiful than I was.

“No one’s lasted more than a day. The lady of the house keeps saying it might be different if someone closer to his age is brought in… El, do you think you could just last one day?”

The foul-tempered lady Mary spoke of apparently had a habit of throwing things when upset.

If she didn’t find a replacement this time, Aunt Mary might be the one in trouble.

From the perspective of the lady of the house, this was a golden opportunity.

Her husband, the lord of this region, had worked for years trying to rise through the ranks of the central government.

Getting in Blanchet’s good graces was the perfect chance to finally succeed.

Of course, that meant the lady had to make sure everything went perfectly.
If the difficult heir so much as opened his mouth the wrong way, it could all fall apart.

She likely saw it as her duty—as the wife of an ambitious man—to do everything she could to assist his success, even if that meant pushing the servants harder than ever.

I had refused many times, even when Aunt Mary used a soft tone and called me by my nickname.

But the moment she told me how much the job paid, I accepted without hesitation.

Call me shallow, but I couldn’t afford to be picky.

For someone like me, who lived with urgency day by day, nothing mattered more than what I could earn.

To be honest, I wasn’t any different from Aunt Mary, speaking as though it wasn’t my concern.
I didn’t care about some dying nobleman’s fate.

And yet, just for a moment, I felt something close to sympathy.

Pathetic, really.

Even as she pushed me forward, Aunt Mary clearly didn’t expect me to last long.

But I wasn’t worried. I thought handling one spoiled nobleman would be easy.

I was used to bending myself to fit whatever a job required as long as it paid.

But then, the moment I stepped through the estate gates and faced the grand mansion before me, I felt completely overwhelmed by its sheer presence.

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