The Youngest Is Hiding a Lot

On a blood-soaked battlefield, Rubian remembers that this world is the war novel *Sword Planted on the Ruins*.

At this rate, Duke Leviathan Zevert, the hero of the continent, will die, and that miserable war will begin all over again...!

"It’s already bad enough to rot on the battlefield—now I have to get a mass-slaughter ending too?!"

I want to live! I’m sick of war already!

The only way to escape the mass-slaughter ending is to stick close to that "hero" old man and watch him so he won’t die.

So...

"Old man, does your house maybe need a youngest child?"

I’ll stay right by your side and protect you.

So please save this world!

✿

By some twist of fate, I end up hiding many things from the people of the ducal house that has become my new family.

From the flashy title of "a boy soldier-turned-mage who fled the Demon Magic Kingdom"

all the way to, unintentionally, my gender...?

"What kind of cold old man are you? Just call me grandpa!"

"...Can fairies become younger siblings too?"

My family loves me without knowing my secrets.

But at some point, unease begins to creep in.

'If they find out that everything about me is fake,

will they still cherish me the same way?'

The heart that tingled with the affection I was receiving for the first time now begins to sting.

✿

'Could Rubi be hiding something?'

That thought, which Leviathan desperately hopes is untrue, fills his mind.

The precious child I now have to protect.

Yet a darkness that can’t be covered keeps descending on Rubian.

My beloved jewel, Rubi.

What exactly are you hiding?