CHAPTER~53
Morris quickly sensed someone’s presence and instinctively turned his body.
Then, upon seeing the face of the person before him, his complexion turned deathly pale.
“M-M-Mother……”
It was Grimora.
His own mother.
Faced with the pitch-black shadow looming over him, Morris felt as though his feet were tightly bound, unable to move.
“My goodness…… so this is where you were, Morris.
I’ve been looking for you everywhere.
I thought something might have happened.”
“Hic! Ghk!”
“Who were you with?
You wouldn’t have left my control for no reason.”
Saying, “Let’s go for now,” Grimora forcefully grabbed Morris’s wrist and dragged him along.
Morris was so shocked that no words came out.
The place he was dragged to was another space right next to his own room.
“M-Mother.
I was wrong……”
Morris immediately dropped to his knees and desperately begged.
Grimora let out a long sigh, her face devoid of even a shred of affection.
“Haa…….
Your brother listens so well, so why are you like this?
Do I really have to raise my hand?”
“N-No!
I’m sorry!
I-I’ll do better from now on, Mother!”
“I even brought you here, calling you your brother’s own flesh and blood, when you’re good at nothing.
And yet you’re not even useful!”
Slap.
With the sharp sound, Morris staggered and collapsed to the floor.
“M-Mother……”
At the continued verbal abuse, Morris lowered his head and only tears fell drop by drop.
Seeing his weak 모습, merely begging for forgiveness, irritated Grimora once again.
Even when beaten the same way, the brothers’ reactions were complete opposites.
Lazar boldly promised that there would be no such mistakes again.
Morris only cried.
It was the same there.
Stealing money, bullying people.
Compared to Lazar, who carried everything out flawlessly, Morris required constant attention.
Uselessly so.
“……Morris, my lovely son.”
As if she had never been angry, Grimora softened her expression and gently stroked Morris’s reddened cheek.
It was the very spot she had mercilessly struck just moments ago.
“It hurts a lot, doesn’t it?
Mother doesn’t want to do this either.
If my son does well, Mother will be happy.”
“Y-Yes!
I’ll do well, Mother.”
“If something like this happens again……, I’ll send you back to Hwannagwon.
Just you alone.
I’ll leave your brother here.
Mm?”
“H-Hwannagwon?
No, no!
I don’t want to go there, never……!”
At the word Hwannagwon, Morris’s face turned pale with fear.
“Please, don’t abandon me……, Mother.
I’ll do anything.
I may not be good at anything, but……”
He never wanted to go back there.
A strange place where maggots swarmed every day and women’s laughter echoed at night.
Never again…….
Trembling violently, Morris desperately clung to Grimora’s hand.
“Can you really do anything?
Can you make Mother happy?”
Only after finally drawing out the answer she wanted from her son did Grimora smile in satisfaction.
“Your brother said he would too.
If you just wrap this matter up well, you’ll be able to live here forever.”
“Ghk, sob…….
Really?”
Grimora tenderly wiped away the tears at the corner of his eyes and pulled Morris into her embrace, patting him.
“Of course.
Mother will live here.
She will survive.”
Morris clung to his mother and cried loudly.
And through his tear-blurred vision, someone’s face flickered faintly.
‘Do you have a dream?
If not, then from now on, you’ll make one with me.’
There was one thing that child did not know.
That there existed someone whose dream was simply to survive.
I do have one, you know.
Mela.
* * *
Time steadily passed, and before long, the family banquet that the entire Decart family was anticipating was just around the corner.
“……Done, it’s complete!”
Two days before the banquet, the medicine was finally completed in its final form.
As the hardships of the past days flashed through my mind, tears nearly welled up.
The results of checking day and night for days on end were finally bearing fruit.
Barely suppressing my overwhelming emotions, I happily asked Loren, who had just arrived from Artemene’s estate.
“How is Reia’s condition, Loren?”
Loren, her face stiff from the cold, smiled brightly and answered without hesitation.
“Hehe, Miss Loren?
Don’t be surprised, Madam.
Her condition is improving day by day!”
“Really?
Then it seems giving her extremely small doses little by little worked.”
“Of course!
As expected of you, Madam, as expected of our guild master.
You’ve done it again this time!”
“Haha.
Don’t praise me too much.
Your salary isn’t going up.”
“……Tch.”
Ah, so it really was about the salary?
Either way, it couldn’t have been better news.
In truth, the medicine had been completed several days ago.
However, with neither time nor manpower for proper clinical testing, we had no choice but to administer only extremely small amounts to Reia over three days to observe the effects.
The first noticeable change was that the red rash-like spots on the back of her neck began to fade.
Not only that, her previously pale complexion had visibly improved.
Perhaps after taking this medicine up to the fourth dose, Reia would not suffer from illness for quite some time.
The problem was still her aphasia.
More precisely, it seemed closer to mutism than true aphasia.
Although her condition had improved, Reia still kept her lips tightly shut and did not speak.
With the family banquet only two days away, the elders would surely notice that Reia could not speak if this continued.
Was there nothing I could do to help?
For now, I set those thoughts aside, returned the medicine to its case, and stepped outside.
“By the way, what is Mela doing right now, Loren?
Is she still with Reia?”
“No!
She’s probably in her room.
Miss Reia went back in during her walk because of her dress fitting.”
“Ah…….
She must be preparing for the family banquet.”
“Yes.
For this banquet, Lady Artemene personally invited the most famous fashion designer from the capital.
The rumor spread all through the servants, you know?”
Hearing that, I thought, as expected of Artemene.
It showed her determination to flaunt her continued strength and to attend this banquet no matter what.
She knew all too well the influence of rumors, so it must have been a completely intentional move.
I hoped Reia would be able to attend the banquet without any trouble…….
……But why is Grimora’s side so quiet?
I had expected her to constantly look for opportunities and interfere whenever she could.
Yet Grimora took no action at all, even knowing that Mela visited Reia’s room every day.
According to what Mela said, Reia had not drunk the tea given by Nanny Quina since then.
She must have been angry.
So why did this uneasy feeling persist?
At that moment, Loren’s voice cut through my deepening thoughts.
“Come to think of it, Miss Mela looked a bit down.
It’s her first social event in the North, and she can’t attend, so she must be upset.”
“Mela?”
“Yes.
She didn’t show it, but her complexion wasn’t good.
Children that age like pretty, sparkling things, so it’s understandable.”
“…….”
So Mela had been looking forward to it.
With so many things to worry about lately, I felt nothing but guilt for not paying attention to her.
In truth, I felt just as conflicted.
‘What do you mean?
You can’t attend the family banquet?
Not even you, Duke?’
When I first learned that I wasn’t invited to the family banquet, I had expected it rather than feeling disappointed.
But I hadn’t known that even Frezen Decart would not be invited.
Above all, it weighed heavily on my heart that the existence of Mela and myself might have had a negative impact on him.
After that, I set my thoughts aside and moved my feet.
“I should go see Mela.”
As I was about to head to Mela’s room, someone came running toward us from the opposite end of the corridor.
When I looked closely, it was Fennel, the head butler.
“Huff, huff.
Madam, here you are, whew…….
I’ve been looking for you everywhere.”
“What’s wrong, Fennel?”
It was unexpected to see the head butler running like this.
After catching his breath for a while, Fennel took something out of his inner pocket and handed it to me.
“It’s nothing else…….
There’s something you need to check, Madam.”
