Episode 5
According to what the woman went on to say, that was the situation.
She too had suffered because of that incident, but as the host who had held the party, she felt responsible and wished to settle the matter through mediation.
And considering how sensitive their world was to rumors, would it not be best for Isaac as well to handle things amicably?
She said that as soon as Isaac offered Robert an apology, she intended to contact the reporters and ask them to issue corrections.
Since the party had been made a laughingstock anyway, she meant to turn that on its head and smooth it over casually with something like, “In the end, the two gentlemen coolly made up!”
‘They’re all idiots.’
Yes.
She was openly insincere.
‘I wonder if those bastards know they ended up like that because of you.’
Also, just as he had no interest in her, she had no interest in him.
She did not seem inclined from the start to hear why that absurd fistfight had even happened.
An apology and mediation to salvage appearances for the time being. That was all she demanded.
Isaac was offended at that point. Though he himself had been thinking of getting rid of her with an insincere apology, he was offended when she demanded an apology from him one-sidedly without even hearing both sides of the story.
So Isaac answered on the spot.
“That will be difficult.”
＊＊＊
Wasn’t it far too brazen, when he ought to have been the one to apologize first?
Well, yes. That was true. Which was why Isaac found her unexpected attitude all the more unwelcome.
She could at least have threatened to sue him or demanded compensation like all the other people who had suffered misfortune at his hands. But to force an apology under the pretense of some half-baked mediation?
Of course, if one were to examine the matter, he knew perfectly well that since he had been the first to resort to violence, he had no right whatsoever to demand fair mediation.
……In any case, he refused even that single demand of hers.
What had her expression been like when she heard his answer then? Even after hearing Isaac’s refusal, she did not look particularly displeased.
Rather, she merely smiled elegantly, as if she had expected it, and said, “I see.”
……I see.
And from the very next day, she began stamping her attendance at the regiment every single day.
The 4th Infantry Regiment was stationed in Lance Field, a place so wide and bountiful it was nothing short of tedious. It was an exceedingly dull place, where the biggest issue of the week might be that the son of a local notable had gotten caught up in a fight at a tavern in one of the tiny villages that could hardly even be called small towns.
The people here, already starved for gossip, all spoke with one voice about the wealthy heiress when she appeared. If the people of Lance Field were like that, the officers of the 4th Infantry Regiment, who saw her in person, were even worse.
In particular, the unmarried officers openly timed themselves to when she came to visit the regiment, making a fuss like peacocks as they polished their boots and carefully combed their hair.
For men like Isaac, whose prospects were bleak, it was too obvious to even bother mentioning.
In any case, she had come looking for Isaac on Monday, then again on Tuesday, and again on Wednesday.
Thanks to that, when a certain hour came, the headquarters building that received visit applications from outsiders became crowded with those desperate unmarried officers.
On Monday, after a brief visit with Isaac, she drank tea with the regimental commander, exchanged a short conversation with him, and left.
On Tuesday, she walked once around the training grounds with Isaac’s superior, Major Wells, while they talked.
Objectively speaking, the woman was beautiful. Not only her appearance, but simply everything visible about her.
Her dress was luxurious, her gait was elegant, and she was always smiling at whomever she looked at. Also, in that clear, ringing voice of hers, she spoke in a manner that showed she had been well educated and treated everyone kindly.
So everyone who spoke with her even briefly praised her to the skies.
Except Isaac, of course.
Only Isaac found her uncomfortable.
I see. She had answered ambiguously, then stubbornly come to see him again the next day, and from that alone it felt as if she were saying, I’ll torment you until you break. So Isaac grew irritated at the mere sight of her from a distance.
When the other officers saw her from afar, they hurriedly slicked their hair with spit and hovered nearby, but Isaac turned around and went back the way he had come. Even if he avoided her like that, she always found him in the middle of it anyway. In the end, Isaac had no choice but to see her.
The woman, Miss Sasha Grayson, had requested visits with him continuously from Monday to Tuesday, and then today, Wednesday.
Ordinarily, visit requests made to officers required the approval of each regimental commander.
The commander of the 4th Infantry Regiment, who already looked at Isaac askance, was surely displeased that Isaac had received what, by his standards, was an absurdly light punishment.
Otherwise, how could he have approved every single one of that woman’s visit requests despite Isaac’s protests, tormenting him like this?
On top of that, Isaac was temporarily confined under the major’s orders. In other words, he could not even refuse her request for a visit by using the excuse of the trifling post he had been assigned, such as having to train the recruits.
“What is this?”
“I don’t know. My predecessor left it here.”
Just yesterday, Tuesday. Under the major’s orders, Isaac was forced to accompany her around the training grounds and show her the area.
Since that astounding conversation had taken place only the day before, he had worried she might try to persuade him again, but his concerns proved pointless; she was busy looking around.
Like someone who had truly come for sightseeing, she diligently nodded along and followed him even when Isaac said without any sincerity, “That’s just a hill,” or “Don’t try to find out what that is.”
“There are so many hunting competition trophies.”
And today, Wednesday.
The woman had finally entered his office carrying a paper bearing the major’s signature.
“Those were left by my predecessor’s predecessor. I despise killing for amusement.”
Isaac’s office was cramped. The space itself was large. However, because all sorts of plaques and crude ornaments left on display by his predecessor and his predecessor’s predecessor filled it, there was not much room actually allotted to people.
At least his work desk was intact, but the area by the coffee table for receiving guests was especially serious.
When Isaac roughly cleared away the musty-smelling pile of clothes occupying the sofa, the woman, Sasha Grayson, silently stared at the empty spot for a moment.
At a glance, the surface of the sofa looked sticky. When on earth had it last been cleaned?
“I’m sorry, but might there be another seat?”
“Yes. I’m sorry, but there isn’t.”
Isaac answered curtly without even looking at her.
Sasha looked back and forth once between the dress she was wearing and the sofa. Isaac, indifferent to that, cleared away the unidentified objects piled across from her and sat down.
The woman quietly took a handkerchief from her breast, rubbed and wiped the place where she was to sit, then, as if truly reluctant, took hold of her skirt and gently sat there.
This place is truly the worst. The woman said it with her expression.
Isaac ignored her.
Once seated, the woman continued looking over the hunting competition trophies that decorated the wall almost oppressively.
“Do you like animals?”
“No.”
“Then was the drawing of the puppy on your desk left by your predecessor?”
“……No. That’s mine.”
A strange silence flowed between them.
When did she even see that? Isaac quickly turned around and placed the small frame on his desk face down on the floor. Far too late.
In any case, just as she had the day before, the woman went on asking useless questions. What is over there? The walking path is well kept. The medals are truly wonderful. Something about hunting competition trophies.
……Really. So what?
“……Miss Greta.”
Isaac called her with an irritated expression, sighing.
He was unusually shy around strangers to begin with, so the mere situation of being alone with an unfamiliar person was causing him no small amount of suffering. That woman had surely seen through it.
“Will you come tomorrow as well?”
His hand on the armrest clenched tightly, defensively. With his chin tucked in, Isaac glared up at her with blue eyes that anyone could see were mixed with irritation and nervousness.
The little social grace he had scraped together for the sake of appearances was showing its bottom.
The woman did not answer.
Just as she had shown no particular regret at Isaac’s refusal and merely said, “I see,” she only looked at him quietly with an unreadable face.
The woman merely looked at him with that unreadable face, waiting for his next words.
Infuriatingly.
“Even if you come tomorrow, it will be useless.”
Even if you come looking for me, I won’t change my mind, so don’t come. Isaac had been about to spit it out like that, but he chose a relatively roundabout method. Admirably enough.
“I’m scheduled to go out tomorrow, so I won’t be here. Even if you apply for a visit tomorrow, you won’t be able to see me.”
“……I see.”
The woman answered quite calmly.
Once he had said it, heat needlessly rushed to his face. Perhaps she would not come after today anyway, and he had gone and driven in a wedge based on his own premature assumption.
Without a word, the woman took a sip of the tea Isaac had poured her, then paused and set the teacup back down where it was.
“Even if it isn’t tomorrow, even if you keep coming, you won’t gain anything.”
Isaac, indifferent to that, simply muttered what he wanted to say in a voice low enough to be gloomy.
After several days of the woman indirectly tormenting him, even what little guilt he had was on the verge of disappearing.
“I will never apologize to that son of a bitch……”
I won’t apologize. I will never yield, so stop bothering me. Disappear.
Disappear.
“Ow.”
At the low groan that came from across from him, the muttering that had been devouring his mind abruptly stopped.
Isaac raised his head reflexively.
“……What on earth.”
What the hell.
“Why on earth are you touching that?”
One of the woman’s gloved fingers was being stained red with blood.
The woman apologized calmly.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know the tip was this sharp.”
Regardless of whether Isaac was speaking or not, the woman, who had not paid attention to him in the least and had instead been fiddling with a model sword until she finally drew blood, apologized shamelessly.
Modest and composed? Isaac snorted as he recalled the brief evaluation the major had given of her the day before.
The woman was being deliberately distracted. She was deliberately being rude to him.
As if punishing him in her own way.
“Thank you.”
Isaac rummaged through his pocket, took out the small ointment he always carried, and handed it to her.
He was so irritated that he did not even realize he had leaned far too close to that unfamiliar woman and taken her hand.
Isaac returned to his seat and irritably drank the tea he had brewed.
Fuck. It tastes awful.
“Um, but yesterday I unintentionally heard something from the major.”
Without even glancing at the woman, Isaac gulped down the tea, which had grown cold and tasted even worse.
“I heard you have a matchmaking meeting tomorrow with the young lady of the Quinty family. Is that true, Captain?”
Isaac’s large body sprang up from the sofa like a coil. Then he continued coughing, trembling in small spasms.
The woman, Sasha Grayson, paid him no mind and smiled at him brightly.
“I do hope you have good results.”
You’re going to a matchmaking meeting without even resolving my matter?
Do your best. Truly.
“…….”
That was how it sounded.
That had probably been her intention.