Dante swung his small legs while resting his arms on the table, his gaze completely lost in the void.
A year and a half had passed since he cured his mother. He still remembered perfectly the tremendous uproar that caused within the mansion. His father, who had maintained practically no interaction with him throughout his short life, decided to summon him to a rare and tense private meeting. He demanded that he explain in detail what that potion was, how he had made it, and where he had gotten the recipe from.
Faced with the interrogation, Dante decided the safest thing to do was play dumb. He feigned innocence and whined that he had simply mixed those things together while playing, driven by the desperate desire to save his mom. His father merely fixed him with a cold stare and let out a curt "I see" with no intention of digging deeper.
Of course, the man wasted no time. He immediately patented, began promoting, and put the new potion up for sale, advertising it as the ultimate remedy capable of expelling monstrous energy from the body.
As soon as it hit the market, the product became an absolute success. For the vast majority of adventurers, that brew was a genuine lifesaver. Most of the guild was made up of aura warriors who, after a couple of missions, ended up with traces of contaminating energy rooted in their bodies; to heal themselves, they were forced to spend small fortunes hiring a mage to help purify them. Even low-level mages themselves bought the potion in bulk; for them, meditating and expelling that residual energy required monumental effort and time, and since they did not possess sufficient mana reserves, they also depended on expensive high-ranking mages.
Clearly, the business faced some difficulties at first. The high-level mages who controlled the purification monopoly attempted to boycott the product. However, the resistance never escalated too far; after all, powerful spellcasters did not rely exclusively on that niche to survive. Their complaints were more about wounded pride and the annoyance of losing a few easy gold coins.
Now, thanks to the mass trade of the potions, the family had amassed a colossal fortune. In theory, that was something magnificent... but Dante could not help being in an awful mood.
The child let out a long and heavy sigh. Something deeply bothered him in the pit of his stomach: despite the enormous change he had caused in the timeline, he could not prevent his father from remarrying.
That had completely caught him off guard. In his naivety, he had come to think that by keeping his mother alive, the marriage would remain intact and the story would completely diverge. But he underestimated his progenitor's greed. Even though his mother's health was perfect, his father did not hesitate to take a second wife, and not just anyone: he had married the second daughter of the "Barbarian King."
His new stepmother was not even human; she belonged to the proud barbarian race.
Dante let out another sigh full of frustration. A few meters away, the servants cleaning the hall glanced at him from the corners of their eyes, holding back laughter at the sight of a five-and-a-half-year-old child sighing with the exhaustion of an eighty-year-old man. The employees assumed the boy was depressed because his father was getting married again, which was not too far from reality.
Dante was bitter about the wedding, yes, but what truly terrified him was that he had failed to prevent the imminent birth of a certain villain.
'Even though I thought my actions would change the course of things, I completely forgot that polygamy isn't rare at all in this world,' he lamented mentally, clenching his fists atop the tablecloth. 'Besides, the barbarian territory is dangerously close. It's perfectly understandable for a businessman...'
Soon, someone's presence snapped Dante out of his thoughts.
It was an imposing woman nearly one meter ninety tall. She possessed deeply bronze-toned skin, intensely yellow hair, and red eyes that shone with savagery. Her body was extremely toned; in fact, because of the short leather clothing she wore, her defined abs could be seen perfectly.
Dante could not help swallowing nervously.
'It still surprises me seeing her... She's freaking huge. She's even taller than my father,' he thought, intimidated by her figure.
However, a second later, the child's lips twitched as he remembered a crucial detail from the novel. Her son, the future minor villain. Dante had wanted to prevent his birth at all costs, and not because that half-brother would become a ruthless tyrant or a bloodthirsty monster. No, the reality was much worse: he was destined to become a "trap."
Yes, a character with an entirely feminine appearance. While other antagonists sought to ruin the protagonist's life or steal his heroines, this younger brother would be different; his twisted goal in the original story would be to steal the very heart of the MC himself.
Dante could not help trembling in horror at the thought.
Suddenly, he felt his rear lifting off the chair. Looking up, he discovered that the imposing woman had grabbed him by the back of his clothes like a helpless puppy. Without the slightest restraint, Marla dropped him onto her lap and began roughly ruffling his hair.
"What's wrong, little one? Why are you so nervous? Wow, your hair is so soft... Listen, brat, I'm your stepmother now, but if you want, you can call me mommy," she said with a teasing smile while playing with his strands.
Dante looked at her with absolute helplessness. Ever since the very day that woman set foot in the mansion, she had not stopped pulling pranks on him and treating him like a toy.
Just then, Lux entered the great dining hall accompanied by a woman. It was Lucía, Dante's mother. Unlike a year ago, she looked radiant and beautiful. Although her skin retained a delicate paleness, it was no longer that sickly and dying tone, but rather a porcelain complexion that highlighted her heavenly features.
Marla fixed her red eyes on the head of the household and let out a defiant laugh.
"Hey, Lux, don't think that just because you're my husband I'm going to be some submissive wife like human women. Don't think I'm going to cook, clean, and obediently wait for you at home. I'll go out and fight whenever I'm bored and have fun however I please. I won't stay locked up here, and if you treat me badly, I'll beat you up!"
Lux did not even flinch at the threat. Completely calm, he settled himself at the end of the table while the servants hurried to serve him a steaming plate of food. The man glanced sideways at Marla, then at the child still trapped on her lap, and finally picked up his fork.
"Whatever..." he replied indifferently.
Dante watched the scene and felt a sting of internal amusement.
'Cook? Clean? What nonsense,' the child thought, suppressing a grimace. 'We have dozens of servants for that, my father would never ask her to touch a broom. And regarding going out to fight, he couldn't care less. As long as she gives him a strong heir to strengthen the military alliance with the barbarians, she could go hunt dragons every single day for all he cares.'
Before taking a seat, Lucía stared fixedly at her son and the gigantic warrior woman. Marla noticed the look and, completely carefree, lifted Dante and tossed him toward his mother as though he were a simple sack of supplies. Fortunately, Lucía was already accustomed to the barbarian's roughness and cleanly caught him in the air with total delicacy.
Dante rolled his eyes, settling himself on his real mother's lap while glaring at Marla with deep annoyance.
However, he decided to bite his tongue. He sighed silently and mentally prepared himself to survive another chaotic "family breakfast."