IHYRM l CH 14

Chapter 14

Knock, knock.

Someone knocks on his office door again. Buried in his sheets, Noctum slowly opens his eyes.

He groans and sits up in bed.

He thinks he had a strange dream.

“A long-haired me…?”

Like a play shown in pieces, he vaguely remembers a small girl and a long-haired version of himself.
There was also a painting… maybe in the annex?

“I don’t get it.”

He could just call it a silly dream and forget it, but his head keeps replaying it.

“Your Grace?”

The thought breaks. Tei’s voice comes from outside.

“Come in,” Noctum says with a small sigh.

Tei sees him rubbing his eyes and shuts his mouth, nervous—he must have woken the duke. He keeps peeking to check if Noctum is angry, but Noctum only looks dazed, like he’s still half asleep.

Tei quickly reports that a morning meeting is set with Baron Hansen.

“Okay,” Noctum answers, voice lower than usual.

A chill runs over Tei. He turns fast toward the door. This is thin ice—time to leave.

“Tei.”

His hand on the door stops. Noctum’s voice sounds even lower.

“Yes?”

“Is there… a painting in the annex? No, forget it.”

The question dies. Tei tilts his head.

“The annex is used as an armory now. There are no paintings there, Your Grace.”

“I know.”

Then why ask?

Tei wonders if this is some new way to mess with a subordinate, but he only slips out and closes the door.

“Haa…”

Noctum sighs heavily. He splashes his face and drops back onto the bed.

Even while Tei talked, the dream kept floating around his mind.

“I’m sure the lady was in it…”

He remembers a gentle voice he’d never used, calling “Charlotte, Charlotte,” and speaking about her like she was holy.

“Am I… losing it?”

It makes no sense to be this taken with a woman he barely met—plus these tender feelings in his chest.

He stares at the ceiling and decides:

“I should ignore the lady for a while.”

A week. No, a month.

He won’t see her until these weird feelings fade.

But that resolve breaks the very next day.

After meeting Baron Hansen, he stops by yesterday’s field to clear his head—and sees Charlotte again.

And there’s a surprise guest.

“Why is Kai there?”

Kai, the fox he’s raised for fourteen years, is curled in Charlotte’s arms, tail wagging hard.

***

Earlier that morning

Charlotte wakes early and reads the gossip paper Anna brought.

Then she starts sorting the piles of luxury items still filling her room.

She must have spent a huge amount over twenty years; even after sending one batch of jewels to Adrian, there’s still a lot left.

She looks over the things she’s organized these past weeks.

“Even a third of this would feed me for life.”

Good for her now: after she said she would “leave,” the duke slashed her allowance, so cash has been tight.

She does the math for a house and living costs, then splits the jewels in half:

One half is for living. The other half will buy mana stones and mana paper.

She won’t need those if she really moves south for a quiet life.
But she’s buying a lot anyway because—

“Even if I didn’t choose those sins, I should atone a little. And I can wipe out the duke’s secret funds at the same time.”

On the way south, she plans to steal the duke’s illegal slush money and hand it all out to the people—her last, satisfying revenge.

Thinking of the future makes her work fast.

She can’t move everything in one go, so she bags a quarter and takes it to Adrian.

He converts the jewels to cash cleanly, leaving no trace. She returns home.

That ends her morning.

She doesn’t feel hungry, so she almost skips lunch. Then a thought comes, and she tells Anna to prepare a picnic meal.

“Going out? Shall I choose a dress?” Anna asks—bolder now that the lady has been quiet for a month.

“No. I’ll eat here. Just pack it like a picnic, in a basket.”

“…Yes, my lady.”

Anna’s courage vanishes. She hurries out, thinking the lady is even stranger than a month ago.

Charlotte knows what Anna thinks but says nothing.

In under thirty minutes Anna brings the basket, bows quickly, and flees—as if staying longer would be dangerous.

Charlotte’s mood dips, but she calms herself.

“I’ll leave soon anyway. Getting close will only hurt Anna.”

She turns to the wall and opens the secret passage.

Cool air brushes her skin. She rubs her arm and walks to the end.

She pushes the basket up through the ground first, then plants both hands and jumps.

Her body pops out of a hollow in an old tree.

She dusts her dress and smiles at the field—still beautiful.

She leans against the tree. It’s always quiet here, untouched by people.

Animal sounds echo here and there. She looks toward the spot where Noctum’s “grave” would be.

Should she go? Yesterday’s weeds gave her a rash, and she might meet the duke again.

“It’s fine to go in a few days.”

She silently apologizes to Noctum, then takes out sandwiches and fruit.

Rustle—something small moves through the grass.

A rabbit? She looks—and freezes.

“Kyuu… kiiing!”

“…Kai?”

It’s Kai, the fox she saved at age six in her other life.

Charlotte stares, stunned. Kai yelps happily and rushes into her arms, tail spinning like he’s greeting an old friend.

“Uh…”

He hops into her lap, panting with a grin. Charlotte is still dazed.

“Does he know me? How…?”

In this world, Charlotte never came here and never saved him. She knows that from the vivid twenty years of the “other Charlotte’s” memories.

“Kiiing…”

He whines when she doesn’t pet him. She slips him a piece of fruit and rubs his face.

He makes a pleased sound.

Charlotte looks down, sure now.

“You… remember me, don’t you?”

“Yip!”

He answers like he understands. She laughs through filling tears.

“It’s really been a long time, Kai.”

It’s been four or five years. In her last life, Kai lived about two years longer than a fox’s usual fifteen, then died—at the grand duke’s estate.

“Noctum was very thoughtful then,” she recalls. He somehow knew she had saved a fox and told her about Kai right after the wedding. She was amazed.

She never regretted it, but like any pet owner, she wished he could have stayed forever. When he died, she cried in Noctum’s arms.

“Ah…”

The memory stings; tears gather. She wipes them away with her thumb, strokes Kai’s head, and whispers:

“I’m glad we can meet again like this.”

Even if she’ll see him die again and grieve again, seeing him now is a gift.

She smiles at him. A cool breeze blows. She tucks her fluttering hair behind an ear.

Kai bats at the golden strands with his paw.

“Woof!”

He catches a lock of hair and tilts his head. Charlotte bursts out laughing.

Her clear laughter spreads over the field—the first carefree laugh in a long time.

The birds don’t fly away; they draw closer.

She feeds Kai an apple slice and watches him play for a long while.

Rustle—this time a larger animal moves.

Maybe a deer smelling fruit? She looks around but sees nothing.

Maybe she misheard. She looks back down at the fox tugging her skirt.

That was her mistake.

From a spot she didn’t check well, a human shadow watches.

The wind tosses his silver hair. Noctum stands like a statue, unable to leave at the sight of her first true smile.

“She really is impossible to read.”

How does she know the name “Kai”? And what is this feeling…?

A strange warmth spreads in his chest; the back of his neck grows hot.

He keeps staring at the place she sat until evening, when she slips into the tree’s hollow and disappears.