Chapter 115 …

Flip.

Scratch, scratch.

As Cyrus flipped through the pages and wrote something with a quill pen, the soft light of a small chandelier settled gently over his face.

Deep shadows fell across his beautiful features, revealing the familiar chill that seemed almost like a habit.

But the uneasy expression that used to appear whenever he entered the secret library was gone.

It was because of the conversation he had with the housekeeper, Bernadette Ward, the previous night.

—There’s no way the former Duke wouldn’t have noticed something that a mere head maid noticed. That man was doomed to die from the start.

Of course, that brief conversation didn’t completely erase the guilt he had long carried toward that man, nor the fear he had felt toward his father.

But now Cyrus knew.

Everything that happened had been inevitable.

And that there had been nothing his younger self could have done to change it.

His father would have killed his aide eventually.

After all, the reason he had suddenly returned that day was to find an excuse to kill him.

What Mrs. Ward—then the head maid—had desperately tried to prevent wasn’t the man’s death.

It had been Cyrus’s.

“……”

After a brief silence, Cyrus set down his quill and picked up the silver cup on the table.

Cold water sloshed inside.

Mrs. Ward had brought it to him that morning when she visited the study.

Before Cyrus opened the secret library, Mrs. Ward had walked out of the study with her usual silent, brisk steps and said:

—I have no desire to learn more useless secrets. So please make sure you don’t get caught either, Your Grace.

Remembering her dry and indifferent voice, just like when he was young, Cyrus drank the water.

Aside from the medicine Liz Atkins made, he still felt uncomfortable drinking anything with a scent.

But drinking water that Mrs. Ward had brought him felt acceptable now.

Perhaps because he could now understand, at least a little, the feelings of Mrs. Ward, who had once grabbed his arm so tightly she couldn’t control her strength.

Clink.

After setting down the silver cup, Cyrus picked up the quill again and wrote something on the paper.

He then removed the portrait attached to the book and slowly copied the letters written behind it.

After staring at the unfamiliar characters he had copied—almost like tracing a drawing—Cyrus instinctively separated them into pieces.

Once again, a strange sense of familiarity flickered through his mind.

Frowning slightly, Cyrus wrote something else.

<O>

And beside it, he wrote another unknown character.

<O>

“……”

After thinking for a moment, Cyrus reached out toward the bookshelf while still seated.

He pulled out a book with practiced ease.

It appeared to be a plant encyclopedia, with small flower illustrations lined across the pages.

Beneath each flower were three short sentences describing it.

Flip, flip.

As if searching for something, Cyrus flipped through the pages while scanning the flower illustrations.

Then suddenly—

His finger stopped.

It was the deep blue flower Liz had planted in the garden.

—…What flower is this?

—This? Orsia! The color is bold so it stands out, but it’s great for adding variety to a flowerbed.

Looking at the first letter of the first sentence written under the flower, Cyrus copied it onto his paper.

Even though he still didn’t know what the language was, how to read it, or how to write it properly, the language written in the book somehow felt strangely familiar.

Above the page, the crow-approved violet eyes blinked slowly.

At first glance, his gaze looked indifferent to everything.

But as he lightly tapped the paper with his quill—

tap, tap—

Cyrus had realized something.

“Hmm.”

From here on…

the real beginning started.

* * *

“……”

Even after sitting for quite a long time, Cyrus’s posture hadn’t collapsed in the slightest as he lifted his head.

Brushing back the hair that had fallen over his forehead, he looked at the papers scattered across the desk.

They were filled densely with writing.

Some were written in the imperial language.

Others were in the unknown language.

As Cyrus stared down at them with the quill still in his hand and frowned out of habit—

Bang! Crash!

The sound of someone running loudly echoed, followed by the study door bursting open beyond the bookshelf.

“Bu—! No, Your Grace…!”

It was Niles Honeycutt.

After apparently confirming the study was empty, the door soon shut again.

He must have headed to the office.

Cyrus glanced at the clock and confirmed it was still morning, then let out a short sigh.

Even though the butler must have told him to report in the afternoon, if he had come all the way here, it certainly wasn’t a trivial matter.

Click.

Leaving the secret library, Cyrus headed into the hallway.

And before Niles could follow the usual routine—checking the office, the bedroom, the bathroom, then wandering around the fourth floor like a ghost searching for his vanished employer—Cyrus opened the door.

Bang.

“Gah!”

“What is it?”

“W-Why are you coming out of the s-study…? Y-You definitely weren’t there…!”

“……”

“D-Don’t tell me… were you hiding under the desk?!”

“……”

Do you really think so?

“…No.”

After that brief exchange conveyed through warm silence, Niles finally snapped back to his senses and raised his head.

Right. It didn’t matter where the Duke had been.

What mattered far more was what he was holding right now.

Realizing that, Niles spoke in an emotional voice.

“M-More importantly, Your Grace… I got it…!”

In Niles’s outstretched hand was a round bulb, held carefully.

“It’s a purple Tulisa bulb…!”

“……”

He had expected to hear praise this time.

But strangely, the Duke said nothing.

“…Your Grace?”

Curious, Niles cautiously looked up at his face.

Then he froze in shock.

Because Cyrus was covering his mouth with his large hand, unable to hide the bright joy spreading across his face.

“Wow.”

It was an expression Niles had never seen before—not even when delivering important documents perfectly.

The Duke’s usual gloomy and dark aura had vanished completely.

Instead, his face was filled with bright vitality.

Seeing that, Niles trembled.

Because he suddenly understood the emotion rising from deep within his heart.

This is… so… so satisfying!

At that moment, Niles Honeycutt made a vow.

He would never give up the title of “The capable secretary of Duke Blanchard.”

Compared to this indescribable sense of accomplishment, the terrible mornings when he woke up thinking “bulbs, bulbs” every day were absolutely nothing.

* * *

Liz finally finished making all of today’s medicine.

She ripped off her sticky apron and threw it onto the floor.

“Ahhh— I’m done! I can’t make any more!”

“‘Can’t make any more’? Isn’t it a bit late to say that now, Liz?”

Garrett, stretched out neatly on the table, replied calmly.

His gaze rested on the glass bottles of medicine of various colors lined up on the table.

All of them had been made over several sleepless nights by Liz, the birds, and the mouse for the Founding Anniversary Banquet.

“I think my wings fell off.”

Garrett’s slightly lifted black wing drooped again.

It was because he had flown everywhere gathering medicinal ingredients.

“This body will never leave the territory again…”

Next to him lay Edward, flattened against the table.

With his wings spread out and his body squished like melted rice cake, Edward said with his head pressed against the table:

“I won’t be able to fly… for one… um… three-set days…”

“You mean three days, not ‘three-set days.’”

“What’s ‘three’?”

“I know! Isn’t that ginseng? The one that tastes good in stew!”

“In that case, I won’t be able to fly for ‘ginseng-in-stew’ days.”

“……”

Too exhausted to correct the misinformation, Garrett simply closed his beak.

Meanwhile, the mouse—Robin—busily ran back and forth between the boiling pot and the cutting board.

While Liz made medicine, Robin had been slicing vegetables with a knife bigger than his body.

Now he had just started making stew.

“Aren’t you tired?”

Liz asked weakly from the chair.

The mouse shrugged his tiny shoulders.

“I only stirred the ladle!”

“You stirred it about six thousand times.”

“No problem. I gain strength every time I stir!”

“You’re truly a born chef.”

“Of course! Even though I couldn’t cook for a while because you abandoned me.”

“……”

Liz silently considered writing to Quarterly Druid Issue 16048:

Q. How do you reconcile with an upset mouse?
Note: He’s incredibly good at cooking.

Of course, considering the past Q&A sections, the reply probably wouldn’t be very practical.

A. Please share where you found a mouse that cooks well.

Still, it might make her feel better.

In the half-collapsed cabin, only the mouse’s sounds filled the air.

Splash.

Robin dropped the chopped vegetables into the pot, then ran back to drag seasoning powders with his entire body.

Seeing this, Liz eventually moved the spice containers beside the stove for him.

Robin politely said, “Thank you!” and began cooking in earnest.

Shake shake.

Sprinkle sprinkle.

Without measuring anything, Robin added red and white powders and dried herbs into the large pot by instinct while humming happily.

“Pepper pepper~ salt salt~
The cooking mouse is a happy mouse~”

To ordinary people, it would sound like simple squeaking.

But the druid and birds inside the cabin listened to the song and smiled.

“……”

And the moment Liz realized that—

her dark green eyes sank slightly.

Ah… I forgot again.

That this kind of thing was actually strange.

Sometimes Liz completely forgot her past as Yoon Seol and found herself living purely as a druid.

When that happened, she felt uneasy.

At first, she had thought it was fortunate.

That she had gained the druid’s memories.

Without them, she wouldn’t have been able to save Cyrus—she might not even have survived in this world.

But at some point, Liz suddenly realized something.

She was thinking and acting too much like a druid.

The humanity inside her was gradually fading.

Meanwhile, the instincts of a druid—who wasn’t very familiar with human society—were growing stronger.

If time kept passing like this…

Would she eventually become like the druids who, after healing Cyrus with their blood, simply went on with their lives without caring how his story ended?

Then what would happen to me?

Bubble bubble.

The rich, savory smell of the mouse’s stew filled the cabin.

But Liz, tapping her chin while lost in thought, didn’t notice.

Nor did she realize that the tapping sound behind her wasn’t her chin.

Knock knock.

Outside the cabin—where exhausted birds lay on the table, a mouse cooked, and a druid was lost in thought—someone’s voice called out.

“Liz?”

“……”

“You’re there, right? I’m coming in.”

Bang.

The cabin door opened, revealing a red-haired man.