Chapter 45
“You there.”
It was then. Just as I was about to leave, the Grand Duchess stopped me.
Wondering what she wanted to say at the end, I halted my steps—I had been about to walk straight out—and looked at her.
“Yes!”
“It would be best if you don’t tell the twins what I said.”
“Why?”
“Because knowing it won’t do them any good. If, by any chance, you do tell them, I will use all of my power to make sure you do not leave the ducal house in one piece.”
A threat.
This time she seemed quite serious; her face was twisted with anger. Her once pretty features were contorted. The agreeable impression she had given changed in an instant into something sharp.
She must have threatened the twins with that face. With that face, with that expression.
When someone who had worn a kind face—someone who had seemed pleasant—changed like that, it looked quite frightening.
Frightening enough for children.
“Then does that mean I won’t be kicked out of the ducal house?”
“Don’t say something so stupid—!”
“Your Grace, your face was so scary I just said it on impulse. Don’t worry. This might be my last chance, you know—I wouldn’t go around telling it to everyone.”
I smiled brightly and met her eyes. She still looked like someone who didn’t know what to do with me, letting out only a hollow laugh.
“Then I’ll be going.”
Before she could even give her permission, I turned my back on the dumbfounded Grand Duchess and left just like that.
From behind, I heard her call my name in a very small voice, but I deliberately ignored it.
When I looked back after putting some distance between us, her expression seemed thoroughly irritated.
After all, I could intermittently hear the sharp clinking sound of a teacup being slammed down.
Perhaps she realized I was looking at her, because the Grand Duchess was trembling as she glared at me.
I feel like I may have shortened my lifespan.
But it felt like this was the only way. From now on, the Grand Duchess probably wouldn’t harass the twins or do anything to drive me out.
That alone was enough. She would think that I might become someone on her side. Her harassment would be directed at me alone.
So it’s fine. As long as you can be happy.
As long as the same things don’t repeat themselves like in the past.
I don’t even know why I’m so obsessed with the twins’ happiness. In truth, the twins are people who will become memories. If I’m driven out of here, they’ll just be children from the past.
Children who lived pitiful lives in the novel, whose emotions never stabilized due to the frequent abuse they suffered in childhood.
But does that really matter to the me who is living this time? Even if I stay here, I won’t be happy.
I’ll still be an orphanage kid, unable to live an ordinary life.
Am I expecting to get some scraps just by being with the children?
I shook my head. Even as I said it to myself, I could feel that wasn’t it.
As if I couldn’t understand my own heart.
“Ha… I don’t know. I don’t know why I’m this obsessed. Really… is it just because I feel sorry for them, or is there something else….”
My head started to ache. All the more so because of that strange voice that kept rising in my mind—a voice that didn’t feel like my own.
“For now, I should head back.”
After thinking and overthinking, I started walking again to return to my room.
Unlike on the way here, there was naturally no one to guide me on the way back. The ducal residence was vast beyond measure. And there wasn’t a single adult who was kind to me.
Most of the people in the grand ducal household served as the Grand Duchess’s eyes and ears.
So there was no way they’d treat someone like me—someone she disliked—well. In the end, I tried to make my way back by recalling my memories as best I could.
“Ha… why is this place so huge?”
I’d think I was there, but I wasn’t. Then I’d think it was here—but again, no.
“Lari and Rohen must be waiting….”
I’d told them I’d save my pudding and wait. If I didn’t come back like this, the kids would worry that something had happened to me at the hands of the Grand Duchess. With an anxious heart, I looked around.
I even felt like I’d wandered into a particularly gloomy place.
It seemed to be where the knights trained; wooden posts were neatly arranged all around. A space that felt like it should be filled with bamboo. And inside it, only one person was diligently training.
“Um… I think I came to the wrong place… how do I get out of here?”
I looked around in every direction. It would be best to go back the way I came, but… with my terrible sense of direction, I’d completely forgotten which way that was.
I couldn’t even remember the path I’d entered just moments ago. I really am… hopelessly directionally challenged.
There was no one passing by, and the only person around was the one swinging a sword in the middle, so there wasn’t exactly anyone I felt comfortable asking.
“I guess… I should ask that person.”
What kind of training ground is a maze, anyway—a maze.
In the end, I walked toward the person training. No matter how disliked I was in the ducal house, surely they could at least tell me the way out.
But the one there was none other than the Grand Duke himself. A man wholly focused on his sword, his expression unchanged.
Each time he moved, a sharp sound rang out from the blade, and it felt as though some unknown force was being emitted from it.
As if entranced, I slowly stepped closer.
Before I knew it, the Grand Duke filled my vision. He had taken off his upper garments. Heat radiated from his body, sweat beading and running down his skin.
“Haa….”
He really was born with that body. I wonder if Rohen will have a body like that someday. He’d need to be that strong to beat all the bad guys and live well on his own.
“When will he get healthy, I wonder.”
At the sudden voice, I stared at him blankly. It was after he shifted his gaze toward me as he spoke. I wondered if he was talking to me.
“Ah.”
“No, it’s not.”
The Grand Duke tilted his head, as if the words had been meant for me after all.
“For a moment, I thought you were Lari.”
“Ah. I’m sorry. There were circumstances, so I’ve been dressed like this—ah, but how did you know I was here?”
“I sensed a person’s presence. That’s why I found it strange. You look like Lari, but the aura you give off is different.”
“An aura… what kind of aura do I have?”
My earlier fluster quickly faded. Just as always, the Grand Duke continued speaking, picked up a towel from a nearby table, and wiped his forehead.
“It closely resembles the aura of a place I don’t particularly like.”
“A place you don’t like? What does that mean?”
“There are such things. So why are you wandering around? If you came all the way here… then you really are….”
That was when it happened.
From the Grand Duke’s body—which until just moments ago had given off no particular atmosphere—something dangerous began to flow out.
Killing intent, perhaps.
Ah, this really is the perfect situation to be misunderstood.
Only then did I look around. I had come here purely because I was lost, but from his perspective, it wouldn’t be strange to conclude: ‘An assassin took advantage of the moment when the Grand Duke was training alone.’
“Ah!! N-no, that’s not it!”
“What exactly is ‘not it’?”
“I absolutely wasn’t going around snooping! I wasn’t trying to do anything to Your Grace either, and honestly! I got lost…… I didn’t particularly want to come to a sweaty training ground either. If I were going anywhere, I’d want to go to a pretty flower garden, and if I were going somewhere, I’d want to go with the kids…….”
What was I even saying right now? As I rambled on, afraid of being misunderstood, I ended up saying something strange.
“Well, that is—”
“Pfft.”
“…Yes…?”
“My apologies. Since it’s open, I didn’t realize the sweat smell would be so overwhelming. I also suspected you for a moment, but it seems there’s no need to.”
“Ah….”
Thank goodness. Though, I do feel a little hurt. Is it because I supposedly smell like sweat?
He suddenly grabbed several towels and began wiping his body here and there.
“Hehe….”
“Come to think of it, if you were an assassin or someone who’d taken such a commission, you wouldn’t be so boldly staring at me. Especially not while saying such clumsy things.”
“Ah! Right!”
“Yes. If you were here to observe me, you wouldn’t behave like that.”
I nodded vigorously.
“That’s right. I definitely wasn’t checking out your body—no, I mean, that’s not it.”
Was it because I was tired from walking all this way? Or because I was mentally exhausted after dealing with the Grand Duchess? Or maybe I just wanted to look like an ordinary child in front of him—either way, my mouth was moving on its own, unlike usual.
“Interesting.”
Thank goodness. At least he didn’t say something like I want to kill you.
“So you got lost?”
“Yes. If you just tell me which way leads out, I’ll leave right away.”
“No. I’ll escort you myself.”
“Ah, yes.”
It was completely unexpected. He roughly threw on the clothes that had been set aside and looked at me. I hurried over to his side, trotting along like a puppy following its owner.
It seemed there was another exit besides the one I had entered through; the Grand Duke headed somewhere else. When we emerged, his knights were lined up in neat rows.
“You’re coming out early today.”
“Yes.”
“And the one beside you is… what is it? You entered alone.”
“They came in.”
“My apologies. It seems another entrance was left open. We will check it again.”
Ah. So they had blocked it off in their own way.
No wonder the entrance here felt a bit different from the others. The sliding door had a large padlock on it, and aside from a groove at the bottom that only a child’s body could pass through, it was firmly shut.
That’s why I thought this was the way.
When something looks suspicious like that, it’s always a door.
That was when it happened
