An ill-fated bond.
I thought it applied only to me.
But it didn’t.
I, too.
I was someone who brought misfortune to her.
We were, after all.
Not meant.
To meet.
&
After hardening my heart, I did not see her for a day.
And the next day.
Just as I was about to call for her again, Valterk came to see me first.
“Thank you. Truly... truly, thank you.”
He took my hand in his trembling hands.
The face I saw up close was barely holding itself from collapsing.
Something gathered at the corners of his eyes, as if it might spill over at any moment,
but in the end, he held it back.
A moment later, Valterk turned away without another word.
I could not see his face.
Even so, I knew.
I knew what emotion was spreading across his back.
A rage that seemed ready to destroy everything at any moment
had sunk heavily into him.
As soon as he left, Eileen came in.
The sound of the door closing was strangely distinct.
“Are you feeling a little better now?”
“Yes. But I’m worried about your father.”
Eileen’s gaze sank slightly.
There was no need to explain at length
what I meant by that.
“Father will try to dig into this no matter what. Since there’s no guarantee this sort of danger won’t happen again, he’ll probably try to find the one behind it.”
He would.
I could not even dare imagine what would happen from now on because of this incident.
After all, things would now change greatly from what I had known.
A brief silence settled over us.
I let out a low breath.
“It seems things will get busy from now on.”
“Yes.”
Eileen answered calmly.
“For now, on the surface, it will look as though nothing happened. That matters more right now.”
She paused for a moment, then looked at me and continued quietly.
“I’m truly sorry to you, Mr. Rayon, but to the public, we intend to settle it as you having been attacked by a beast while passing by, and that you fought alone to protect me.”
I shook my head.
“That’s fine. Just please make sure I don’t draw too much attention.”
“Pardon?”
Eileen’s eyes widened ever so slightly.
A reaction of surprise.
“But if you receive attention, Mr. Rayon, it would be a great help to the Signal family as well.”
Her face already showed that she was drawing the next picture.
“Besides, we were on our way to promote the product, and since it wasn’t a dangerous place, we hadn’t brought knights with us.
If we make use of the fact that we escaped danger thanks to Serena’s armor, it will be an even greater help for publicity. Most people don’t know whether you’re skilled or not, Mr. Rayon. Rumors that you are brave will spread too, which will be good for your image.”
She really was remarkable.
Even in this situation, she was not bound by emotion.
She was already planning the next move,
and putting it forward as if it were nothing.
But why was that?
For some reason, there was a sense of urgency in the way she spoke to me.
“Lady Eileen.”
I called her quietly.
At that moment, the smile resting on her lips stopped.
Her eyes, which should never have wavered, trembled very faintly but unmistakably,
and intensely.
As if she already knew what I was about to say.
“I will now...”
My words could not continue to the end.
“Stop.”
She, too, said that and then could not immediately continue.
Only after a very brief silence
did a suppressed voice flow out.
“I’m truly sorry as well. In the end, this happened because of me.”
Her gaze dropped for the briefest instant before rising again.
“There will be more things like this from now on. So... if it’s for your sake, then that would be right.”
Eileen probably thought I was running away out of fear.
Considering the state of my body, it was only natural for her to think that.
From the standpoint of an ordinary noble, having one’s life threatened would naturally make one terrified.
I did not care if I looked cowardly.
For whatever reason.
If anything, it would be better if she saw me poorly, for the sake of severing this tie.
Once I had recovered to some extent, I immediately decided to return.
They told me to leave after I was completely healed,
but leaving like this would make it seem even more as though I had been frightened.
Valterk was busy now, so I could not even say goodbye to him, and though I did say my final farewells to her and Elkant, I substituted them with only a light nod.
Even my departure was hurried, driving the carriage away from the mansion.
And when we had gotten some distance from the mansion, I slowly opened the window.
...
She was looking this way, smiling.
The moment our eyes met, she raised her hand.
As always, she was composed,
without the slightest disorder.
And yet I could see the sorrow within her.
The sorrow she had failed to hide in the end.
The emotions of hers, who so rarely let them be seen.
The moment I saw that sight,
I bit my lip hard.
Shouldn’t I be glad instead?
She was the person who had driven me so far.
In truth, I had taken revenge on her.
Seeing her like that now, I should have felt exhilarated.
At least a little,
I should have been satisfied that she, too, was feeling the sorrow I had felt.
“Hah.”
Idiot.
Fucking idiot.
You damn fool.
Why am I so pathetic?
To think that my idea of revenge would be satisfied by seeing her grieve.
I truly found myself pathetic.
And this life’s version of her had nothing to do with it, at that.
It was the her from my past life, not the her of now, who had done those things.
With this.
Perhaps now, I truly would not be able to see her for a while.
No.
With Eileen’s pride,
perhaps I might never see her again.
Yes.
This is right.
I repeated it to myself over and over.
Whether it was reincarnation,
a dream,
or having seen the future.
All those strange memories I had experienced
were only now, at last, reaching a single conclusion.
***
Far off in the distance, the scenery of the Brennan territory came into view.
The first thing that caught my eye was the rice paddies spreading beyond the outer wall.
Green sprouts swayed in the wind.
Before long, that place would turn golden.
Despite that hope, my expression as I looked at it was not good.
Once we passed through the outer wall, the village revealed itself.
A peaceful village.
The residents who recognized our carriage began waving, one by one.
Everyone wore bright faces,
and the atmosphere of the territory had improved so much that it could not even be compared to before.
“Nice.”
I opened the window and lightly waved my hand.
After passing through the village like that, the mansion came into view.
In front of the entrance, Father, Mother, and my younger sister were already waiting.
I could tell just by their expressions
how anxiously they had been waiting for me to return.
“My son! Are you all right? You really are all right, aren’t you?”
Mother ran over first.
Her face was full of worry, showing just how much she had been concerned.
“How is your body? Let me see.”
Father was the same.
“Brother!”
The moment I got down from the carriage, their worries poured over me all at once.
I smiled lightly.
“I’m fine. I’m hungry. The doctor told me to eat well.”
“Then let’s go inside right away!”
In the end, I had to sit at the dining table for quite some time.
What had happened,
what kind of beast it had been,
how badly I had been injured.
The questions did not stop.
Even in the midst of it, Mother kept placing food on my plate.
Only after I finally used being sick as an excuse was I able to return to my room,
and after closing the door, I threw myself onto the bed.
“...”
My room.
It should have been comfortable,
but somehow, it wasn’t.
How absurd.
The place that had been so uncomfortable
was now starting to feel more comfortable, so I could only find it absurd.
Was that why?
Eileen came to mind so naturally.
The first thing that came to mind was her face.
And her smile.
The way she smiled while looking at me.
Her laughter.
At the same time, as if in reaction, the sight of her from my past life surfaced as well.
The way she looked at me.
That chilling gaze.
That cold voice.
But then, at that moment, something occurred to me.
Ironically, it was something Valterk had said.
The feeling of liking someone itself can become a weakness.
Then...
Could it be that she, in my past life, too?
“Hah!”
For an instant, I was so dumbfounded that a hollow laugh escaped me.
Now I’ve gone too far.
There was no way.
Just then,
the image of her from my dream came to mind.
That gaze was certainly similar to the her of now as well.
What if.
The image of her that I saw in that dream.
Was not something I saw because I wanted to,
but truly the sight of my past life?
Thinking back on it, it wasn’t as though there had been nothing strange.
I had certainly thought I was confined.
In the mansion, I could not leave by my own will.
But that did not mean she stopped most of the things I could do inside the mansion.
If I wanted books,
or simply news or information from outside,
or various collectibles, she had never stopped me when I asked for them.
If there was training or study I wanted to do, she immediately assigned a teacher to me.
No matter how much it cost.
If she had truly hated me,
would there have been any reason for her to allow even those things?
“No.”
I immediately shook my head.
It was not because she did not hate me,
but because I was merely a tool.
That was why she may not have bothered caring about what I did.
From the start, the things I asked for were not especially burdensome to her either.
I raised myself up and opened the window.
From the mansion, beyond the outer wall,
I could see the green rice paddies.
Over them, the light of sunset had already begun to spread little by little.
At the same time, a cool breeze seeped into the room.
Empty delusions.
Because the current situation had changed from before,
I had merely begun to want to interpret even the past favorably.
Maybe, in truth, things had not been different from the beginning.
Maybe, in truth, there had been something I simply had not known.
If I thought that way,
then an ill-fated bond would no longer be an ill-fated bond.
Because then it would feel as though I could hold on to it again.
As though I could.
Do it again.
“What do you mean, again.”
I laughed quietly.
My expression, lit by the sunset, was full of bitterness.
“It’s obvious how she’ll see me... after I ran away because I was scared of things like that.”
In my past life,
I was forced by her to attend parties.
Every time, countless nobles looked at me pathetically.
Men,
women, all the same.
In truth, I did not care much about gazes like that.
But this was too shameful.
I should have made up another reason instead.
How embarrassing.
For a moment, I squeezed my eyes shut.
Soon, after dragging a hand down my face,
I looked out the window again.
As the sunset faded, the air blowing in had become slightly chilly before I knew it.
“Enough. It’s already over.”
The countless pains I had suffered because of her had always been passed over like this.
Yes.
I could just let this pass as well.
I could just accept it.
Time would resolve it in the end.
***
“...”
I could not say a word as I stared at the situation before my eyes.
Eileen, standing at the entrance of the mansion, clearly wore the same face as always.
Her back was straight,
and she did not avoid my gaze.
Looking only at the surface, she was calm and composed, as always.
However,
beneath that composed face,
I could clearly see a tremor, as if cracks had formed.
“Have you been well?”
“...”
I stared blankly at her for a moment,
then let out a small sigh.
“You... know what I was about to say.”
“Pardon? What do you mean?”
Eileen shook her head as if she truly had no idea.
“We... didn’t say anything, did we?”
For an instant, my brow furrowed.
There was no way she had not understood.
“Clearly, back then...”
“No.”
She quickly cut off my words.
Rather than cut them off,
it would be more accurate to say she closed them away.
“We... had no conversation. Clearly.”
It was firm.
No.
It was something she had said while trying to be firm.
As if.
She were asking me not to say anything more.
“I...”
Eileen could not continue for a moment.
Only after suppressing and swallowing her emotions with all her strength
did she place her familiar smile on her lips again.
“Your father, your mother, and Lisel all said they wanted to see me, didn’t they?”
She added with a calm face.
“So I came to keep that promise.”
Silence flowed.
I looked at her,
and she quietly looked back at me.
As though she would not say anything until I opened my mouth first.
It was,
as if she were waiting for permission.
“Why.”
At my first word, Eileen’s shoulders flinched ever so slightly.
“So dangerously.”
I continued slowly.
“What were you going to do if those bastards came?”
Only then did her expression crumble slightly.
The moment she heard my words, the ends of her body trembled faintly, as if it had become even harder for her to hold back her emotions than before.
Eileen bit her lip hard and said softly,
“The first thing you say... is that you’re worried about me.”
She lowered her eyes for a moment, then drew in a deep breath.
It was as if I could hear her swallow.
“Phew...”
After letting out a short breath, she raised her head again.
Before I knew it, her expression had returned to normal.
A face as though nothing had happened.
Confident as usual,
with a relaxed smile as usual.
“It’s all right.”
Eileen lightly lifted the corners of her lips.
“You’ll save me again, won’t you?”
And the wink that followed
made me smile without realizing it.
As we laughed for a moment, we both turned our gazes away so naturally that it was impossible to tell who did so first.
Because we saw a carriage coming up toward the mansion.
It was a carriage so splendid that even from afar, one could recognize it at a glance.
The moment Eileen confirmed that carriage, she could not hide her flustered look.
“W-why is she...?”
The emblem engraved on the side of the carriage.
It was the crest of the D’Harmont family.
A moment later, the carriage arrived and the door opened.
Seraphinlie emerged from within.
The moment she, too, discovered Eileen, her face hardened coldly.
“Why are you here?”
Her voice did not hide even the slightest bit of displeasure.
Eileen’s expression immediately hardened as well.
“That’s what I should be asking.”
The two women’s gazes collided head-on in midair,
as if sparks might fly at any moment.
They were emotions that should never have been visible between the two of them originally.
The problem did not end there.
Before long, another carriage came in.
“Huh?”
This time, I was the one flustered.
A moment later, the one who got down from the stopped carriage was none other than
Marsha.
The moment she got out and saw the situation, her face went blank.
Eileen and Seraphinlie turned to look at me at the same time, and their reactions were no different.
“Ah, this is Marsha Lin... She’s a friend.”
At my words, the two of them relaxed ever so slightly.
They seemed somewhat relieved.
She was cute in appearance,
but at least by their standards, they had judged that she was not someone they needed to be wary of right away.
“She’s my childhood friend.”
At the words that followed, the air froze.
Eileen and Seraphinlie’s expressions hardened at the same time.