118.
Early morning.
I had finished preparing to leave for the Imperial Capital and was doing one last check when I saw someone entering the estate grounds.
I leaned my head out the window and saw a familiar face.
Karl Paraton spotted me, took off his hat, and raised a hand.
After exchanging a brief nod with me, Karl spoke with Prien for a while in front of the mansion.
They were too far away for their voices to reach me, but fortunately, the atmosphere didn’t look too bad.
“Have you packed everything?”
At the sound of knocking, I turned around to find Isitan standing in the doorway.
“Yes, I’m all packed. There wasn’t much to bring, actually.”
Isitan came over to the window. Standing beside me, he looked out as well and, upon noticing the two of them, spoke quite naturally.
“It seems there are circumstances he’d rather not have known to the temple.”
We all had a good guess as to what those circumstances were, even without saying it aloud.
After all, a secret room that appeared to have been made by heretics had been discovered beneath this mansion.
“If that’s the case, didn’t he pick the wrong person? Of all people, asking for leniency from……”
I shut my mouth. I’d almost blurted out Prien’s true identity to Isitan.
Isitan glanced at me and said,
“I know.”
“Really?”
“We’ve known each other since the battlefield.”
My eyes widened.
“Then the two of you have known each other for a long time?”
“Yes.”
“……Were you on bad terms even back then?”
One corner of Isitan’s mouth lifted in a curve as if drawn by a brush.
“What do you think?”
I looked away.
“Right, I asked something pointless.”
“We weren’t particularly close, nor were we on bad terms.”
“Yes, yes.”
“Neither of us was the type to take an interest in other people.”
Come to think of it, even though quite some time had passed since I’d gotten to know them, I had never once seen either of them converse intimately with anyone else.
Just then, Karl Paraton seemed to have finished talking with Prien and glanced up this way again, meeting my eyes.
He bowed his head to me one last time, then pulled his hat low and walked away.
I watched blankly until he disappeared beyond the wall by the main gate, then suddenly grew curious.
“There’s something I’m wondering all of a sudden.”
“Ask.”
Isitan, who had naturally leaned his back against the wall beside the window, tilted his head.
“If a person’s memories are intact, are they still the same person?”
“I suppose so.”
I asked again.
“Then if they have no memories, can you still say they’re the same person?”
When no answer came back, I tore my gaze away from the window and looked at Isitan.
Even though our eyes met, he did not move.
He seemed to be pondering the answer, or perhaps trying to figure out why I was asking such a question.
I decided to ask more specifically.
“Where do you think the certainty comes from—that someone is the very person I once liked? Memories shared together? Or……”
“Yes.”
“Pardon?”
Isitan turned his body slightly toward me.
“Even then, they’re still the same person.”
“Even without their memories?”
As if repeating my words, he answered,
“Even without their memories.”
I looked out the window again, propping my chin on my hand as I tilted my head.
“…….”
For some reason, those words lingered in my heart.
That answer—that even without their memories, they were still the same person.
* * *
“I’m back. Nothing happened while I was gone, right?”
Perhaps because it had been so long, the sight of the well-maintained mansion moved me anew.
The peaceful figures of the servants here and there were pleasing to see as well.
But what appeared before me, who had been steeped in such warm emotions, was……
Julie, her face frigid, stepping out of the darkness while exuding a cold chill.
“W-why, why, why……?”
I instinctively took a step back.
“I sent news regularly…… I even wrote that I’d be arriving today……?”
As I rapidly reviewed my recent conduct to see if I had done anything wrong, Julie came to an abrupt stop before the door.
At the ominous atmosphere, Jaka and Prien, who had been unloading luggage from the carriage, also approached.
“What is the matter?”
“What’s wrong?”
I naturally grabbed the hems of Prien’s and Jaka’s clothes and pulled them in front of me.
Then, to get even a little farther from Julie’s chilling gaze, I subtly hid behind them.
“Baroness.”
My shoulders jerked violently.
‘Ju-Julie called me Baroness……?’
Julie, who always, without fail, called me “Lady Asha” no matter how angry she was.
While I stood there in shock, unable to close my mouth, Jaka narrowed his brows and lightly tapped Julie’s shoulder.
“What’s wrong? You startled the Baroness.”
Without a word, Julie shoved Jaka and Prien aside and stepped right up in front of me.
Jaka was one thing, but Julie had always treated Prien as a guest. And yet now, rather than even speaking to him, she shoved him away as if swatting at an annoying fly?
“I knew something was strange.”
Julie’s voice rang out ominously. I quickly rolled my eyes, searching for someone else in the mansion who could explain this situation.
A cleaner who had just come down to the first floor noticed the standoff between Julie and me, looked briefly surprised, and then sent me a gaze of pity.
‘Why? What is it?’
But even they, instead of explaining anything to me, merely opened and closed their mouth as if they had a lot to say……
Then looked back and forth between Prien and Jaka, who were standing close at my side, with a strange expression.
A chill instinctively ran down my spine.
‘What is this?’
I met Julie’s eyes again as she held her head up so close in front of me that our noses nearly touched.
“……What was strange?”
“You said this man liked you, didn’t you, Baroness?”
Prien, suddenly pointed at right in front of his nose, blinked.
“If you had no feelings, there’s no way you’d keep sticking together like this, so I thought perhaps things were going well between you two. That’s why I nagged Jaka so much not to butt in without reading the room!”
“Y-you did?”
Beside me, Jaka silently whipped his head away.
“Just when were you planning to tell me?”
“……Tell you what?”
“They say you drank another potion!”
Julie shouted as if she were screaming, the veins in her neck standing out.
“And that’s how that duke dragged you under his command!”
“…….”
I squeezed my eyes shut.
Then I calmly took hold of Julie’s shoulders as tears welled in her eyes.
“Who did you hear that from?”
Even as I asked, I had already half expected the answer.
“Out there—rumors are everywhere! Everyone is talking about it right now!”
“Julie.”
“Send those people out right now! Tell them to leave our mansion! You get out too!”
Julie shouted, clinging to me as she looked back at Prien and Jaka.
I half embraced her and tried to soothe her.
“Julie, it’s all right. The reason I left the mansion this time was to look for ingredients for the antidote. It’s true. There isn’t much left now. It’ll be resolved soon……”
“An antidote?”
Julie suddenly lifted her tear-filled eyes and glared at me.
“Why on earth is Lady Asha preparing an antidote for those people? All you’ll get for it is insults! No, if insults are all you get, that’d be lucky. Have you already forgotten? That humiliation back then? That bastard Rohwinas Kanesion abandoned you without even looking back! I know exactly how much he looked at you like you were a bug.”
“…….”
Julie seemed to lose strength; she staggered, then sank down right in front of me.
I bent my knees as well and sat before her.
“Julie.”
“You can’t trust them, Lady Asha. You’ll only get hurt again. You’ll be upset again. Why is it always only you who’s sincere? You can’t like those people, Lady Asha. Please?”
“I don’t like them.”
“Liar!”
Instead of arguing back, I silently patted her on the back, and Julie pulled me into an embrace.
“Why did you only come now? Why didn’t you tell me? Why did I have to find out on the street while other people mocked me?”
“……I’m sorry.”
“Why every time, why only Lady Asha…….”
I asked one of the servants who had come closer in a low voice.
“When did the rumor spread?”
“……Since the day before yesterday.”
As I soothed Julie, who kept crying and saying something, my head, which had been burning hot, cooled sharply.
It was safe to say he had moved more slowly than I’d expected.
From the very day we had run into each other, he must have been able to guess many things.
That I was looking for him.
That I had realized the three of them had been affected by the potion.
If so, he would also have known that his original plan to “expose the truth” and deal me a blow had gone awry.
That pervert, that bastard…….
So he had changed methods.
Once he was certain I wouldn’t open my heart defenselessly to the three of them, he had no reason to keep hiding this “secret” any longer.
He had even targeted the very moment when the three of us and I were away from the imperial capital, so it couldn’t be dealt with immediately.
It was as if I could hear his mocking voice.
His sneer, asking if I really thought that was the only way he had to hurt me.
“Baron.”
Just then, Prien bent his knees and brought himself to eye level with me.
Concern and worry were written on his face.
“I’m fine. You must have things to report for now, so go to the temple first.”
I briefly calculated the date. Then I asked the servant.
“Didn’t an invitation arrive from Her Highness the former imperial princess?”
Zaka approached with a sigh, and a shadow fell over my head.
“What are you planning to do?”
“I have to show them.”
Everyone.
And him.
That being frightened and running away is no longer my role.