Episode 4
“About Rene……”
“Don’t tell me you couldn’t concentrate because you were thinking about that woman.”
“Wasn’t there something different about her yesterday?”
Even at the way his tone turned cold in an instant, she paid it no mind and said what she wanted to say.
Of course, he was the one who had forced her to speak. But if he had known she meant to talk about that woman, he would not have asked at all—no, he would not have cared whether she was able to concentrate or not.
Hah, Aiden sighed.
His thoughts were cold, but by nature he was weak when it came to Anastasia. Aiden chewed over her words and recalled “that woman” he had met yesterday.
Hair of an unusual color that shone like flame, or like the sun, when she stood beneath it.
It had been the same yesterday.
Her hair had been blazing brilliantly as she stood proudly in the garden behind the royal palace.
And his childhood friend Anastasia had been collapsed before her.
He hated to admit it, but up to that point, it was ordinary.
Her seeking out Anastasia whenever she was alone and slapping her across the face, that is.
However……
Erasing the thought that had come to him unbidden, Aiden said cuttingly,
“What was different? The fact that she suddenly hugged you yesterday? That means she’s finally gone mad, not that she’s changed.”
“That too, but.”
Unlike Aiden, who acted as though it were nothing, Anastasia’s face was serious.
“She called you Burwords.”
Aiden’s expression went utterly rigid.
‘Aiden Burwords?’
The memory of yesterday, which he had tried so hard to shake off, flooded back over him.
That woman, suddenly calling him by the wrong surname with a foolish look on her face.
Yes. If there was one thing different from before, it was certainly that.
‘Being called that... it’s been about……’
Aiden gave a short shake of his head and set the pen down on the table as if throwing it there, then looked at Anastasia with sunken eyes.
Dark red eyes and golden eyes collided. That fierce war of nerves ended when Aiden smiled with his eyes.
“So? What are you trying to say? Surely you’re not about to say that because she seems to have changed, things can go back to the way they were?”
“Ed……”
“Asha. The evil deeds that woman has committed for ten years don’t disappear.”
As if by habit, he gripped his right forearm tightly, then loosened his hand.
“You gave up hoping these past few years too. Why are you suddenly clinging to false hope?”
“……”
“I always say this, but she isn’t the Rene Blair from before. Even her remaining blood relative gave up on her. So why would you, a complete stranger……”
It was just as Aiden’s voice, knowingly or not, had grown heated.
Someone slipped into the gap in his words.
“You were talking about me.”
Aiden and Anastasia flinched and turned their heads at the same time.
A man with soft coral-colored hair and eyes, a face that resembled someone else’s, was standing in front of the office door.
The moment she saw the man, Anastasia immediately rose from her seat and showed her respect.
“It has been a long time, Lord Reden.”
“Why do you come in without knocking?”
The two of them reacted in completely opposite ways.
The one called Reden turned his gaze from Anastasia to Aiden.
Reflected in his eyes was Aiden’s face, still wearing a smile out of courtesy.
Aiden found that terribly unpleasant. Because they were eyes that reminded him of someone.
“I did knock, but there was no answer. And since you happened to be talking about me, I couldn’t help myself.”
So you used magic to come in?
Aiden’s dark red eyes swiftly moved to the locked doorknob, then returned. Aiden could have wagered his wrist that Reden had used teleportation magic to enter.
And he could have wagered his neck that Reden had not knocked.
“So, what business brings you here?”
Swallowing a sigh, Aiden asked, his face returning to expressionless as though he had never smiled. He always drew a line with everyone except Anastasia.
“I have no business with Lord Budwords. I came because I have business with my assistant.”
“I see.”
Aiden quickly withdrew his interest and turned his eyes to the documents still piled up.
Anastasia, his assistant, looked puzzled.
Reden approached her with quiet footsteps. He pointed to the stack of documents on her desk.
“Are these today’s documents?”
“Ah, yes. I haven’t finished them all yet, but……”
“There are quite a lot.”
“……Ah, um. I-I’m sorry. But I can finish them quickly.”
Anastasia’s face reddened, as if embarrassed. At that, Reden shook his head.
“I’m not blaming you. More importantly, if you can finish them quickly, I’d like you to find one document for me first.”
“Finding it is easy. What document should I look for?”
“It should have been processed last week…… There should be a report sent by the Hugo Knights after they subjugated the dragon. Could you find that for me?”
As soon as Reden finished speaking, Anastasia quickly opened the bottom drawer.
She deftly flipped through the papers with her fingers, then immediately pulled out a document.
“Is this the document you mean?”
“Yes, thank you.”
Reden glanced over the contents of the document and offered a brief word of thanks.
Aiden, who had heard every word of their conversation, let out a cold laugh inwardly.
‘As if he would have come all this way in person for something so trivial.’
Just as Aiden expected, Reden’s business did not seem to end there, for he did not leave. When Anastasia blinked in puzzlement at him, Reden suddenly pointed to his own left cheek.
“Your cheek?”
“My cheek?”
She looked at his cheek as though she had no idea what he meant, then went, Ah, and waved both hands.
“It’s all right. Healing magic was cast on it right away, and……”
“I’ll tell that child to apologize.”
“Rene has nothing to apologize for, Lord Reden.”
Was it coincidence? The moment she finished speaking, Aiden clicked his tongue loudly. Anastasia wanted to step hard on his foot, but outwardly, she did not let her smile fade.
After all, she too rarely revealed her true feelings to anyone other than Aiden.
It was then. A slightly rough, hurried knock rang out.
The gazes of all three turned to the door at the same time, as if none could be said to have been first.
Aiden twitched his eyebrows and snapped his fingers. A light metallic sound rang from the doorknob. It was the sound of the firmly closed lock being released.
That sound indirectly proved that Reden had entered the office by magic.
“Come in.”
No sooner had Aiden spoken in a sigh-laden tone than the door flew open.
The person who entered was someone all three of them knew. Reden and Anastasia in particular.
A woman whose purple hair and eyes stood out.
Horatia, one of the royal mages, waved the white envelope she held with her characteristic smiling face.
“I’m sorry to interrupt. But a letter has arrived for Lord Reden. It had red sealing wax on it for once, so I had no choice but to come find you.”
The Blair family was the only one that used the color of sealing wax to indicate the importance of a letter.
Realizing without difficulty that it was a letter from the estate, he wore a rare puzzled expression.
Because he could not tell what on earth had happened for them to use red sealing wax, which signified the highest importance.
‘Don’t tell me she’s done something absurdly serious again.’
A ridiculous image of the woman who looked exactly like him bringing the estate crashing down flashed through his mind like lightning.
Luden tore open the letter at once.
Soon, his expression began to change in a strange way.
“Did something happen?”
Anastasia asked. Aiden was pretending not to care, but he was curious as well.
“……I’ll have to return to the mansion.”
He murmured, slipping the letter back into its envelope.
“They say she collapsed.”
At the same time as Luden’s words rang out flatly, as if it were nothing at all, a heavy stack of documents spilled to the floor with a rustle.
They were the documents Anastasia had been holding.
* * *
The moment he received the letter from the mansion saying, “The young lady has fainted,” Luden Blair, in truth, was not terribly worried.
Because he thought his one and only family member—his younger sister—was acting again, plotting something or other.
Even so, the reason he came to the mansion as soon as he received the letter was because, among all the performances she had put on until now, not once had she ever acted out “collapsing from illness.”
That was all.
‘Even so, it’s probably just another act.’
However, even after he stepped inside the mansion, even after he climbed the wide staircase that stretched high above, the only ones who greeted him were the servants.
He saw not even a shadow of her, let alone her figure. His expectation that she would appear at any moment, laughing loudly and mockingly, was cleanly proven wrong.
Perhaps she was waiting in her room, perfectly fine.
Before long, Luden arrived in front of his sister’s room. And yet, for some reason, he did not want to open the door.
As he stood silently before it, hand on the doorknob, the butler Catherine, who had followed after him, politely explained the situation.
“The maid who attended to her this morning was the first to find her. She said there were no signs of illness in the morning.”
“……Are you certain it isn’t an act?”
“We called the family physician and confirmed it. They say it is a fever, but for some reason, neither divine power nor healing magic has any effect.”
Luden’s mind fixed on the words that they had called the family physician and confirmed it, and he did not hear anything Catherine said afterward.
‘So she really is sick?’
While Luden was lost in thought, the maid fidgeting behind him opened her mouth. She was the maid who had attended to his sister in the morning, and the first witness to discover his unconscious younger sister.
“Sh-she didn’t seem unwell, but she was different somehow……!”
“This is not your place to speak.”
Catherine immediately cut off the maid, but Luden gestured for her to continue, as if telling her not to mind it.
“W-well……. This morning, she h-hugged me and comforted me when I was crying.”
“…….”
“More than anything…….”
The maid swallowed hard.
“More than anything, she didn’t strike me today!”
Unable to contain her excitement, the maid ended up shouting. Yet Catherine could not bring herself to reprimand her.
Instead, her eyes widened as if she had just learned the most astonishing fact of the past ten years.
Luden seemed surprised as well, for his eyes widened slightly—a rare thing—before he unconsciously turned the doorknob. For some reason, his steps were hurried.