Chapter 54
Don't you really love your wife?
Yuan stood there blankly for a long time.
The state of her heart, which had been pounding so hard it felt like it would burst, slowly calmed down.
Feeling a little drained, Yuan chuckled.
Dying for her wasn't really a problem. Even if it hurt enough to die, she never actually died.
"Yes."
But Klaud looked serious.
Yuan felt the strength of his grip on her shoulders again, and looked up at him with a pale smile.
"I promise."
As if drawing out a light that had momentarily flickered in his bottomless, abyss-like eyes, Yuan answered very carefully but firmly.
"I will never die in front of Your Highness."
Klaud's grip tightened.
The heat that started from his body passed through his clothes and seeped into Yuan's wet clothes, eventually penetrating her skin and warming her heart.
The sound of approaching hooves grew closer.
A carriage bearing the Rockenhardt crest was coming through the rain.
Yuan quietly watched the pouring rain again, wondering what this ticklish and warm feeling that welled up for no reason was.
She thought she was happy at this moment, looking at the rain while being held in his arms.
That she had a home to return to.
That there was someone by her side who said she could do anything as long as she didn't die.
"What happened outside that you're working so hard, Your Highness? Did you get hit with an egg or something?"
"Don't be ridiculous."
"I'm just saying that because you're not eating and being ridiculous right now."
Lancelot, who had come to Black Manor early in the morning to hear his impressions of his first tour of the territory, pointed to the sandwich that the butler Gustav had left.
"Why won't you eat me? Do you think I, mashed potatoes mixed with carrots and onions, don't taste good?"
"How grotesque."
"Oh, that's exactly how I feel when I look at you!"
Lancelot swept back his neatly scattered caramel-colored hair and tapped the top of the pile of documents stacked like a tower.
Certainly, according to Maxim's report, the commercial district was empty because of the lack of manpower in the spring, and Klaud, the lord, seemed very dissatisfied and embarrassed.
Moreover, it had rained quite a bit in the middle, so the tour of the territory was as good as ruined.
Klaud, who should have been lounging in a rocking chair as soon as he got to work, had been gone from the bedroom for a long time, and as if he had become a different person, he was sitting in the dusty office that only the men of the Rebeu family had frequented for the past 10 years, pretending to be busy all by himself.
He was dumbfounded by the speed at which he was starting to handle all the state affairs, which he had been gradually starting to handle little by little as his body improved.
"You've worked hard, Lancelot. You're just a body."
"Is it time for me to die..."
"Tell Eddie and your uncle too."
"I don't know about Eddie, but if you told Father yourself, he'd be so happy he'd cry his eyes out-?"
Sharp gazes and smooth gazes collided at the same time.
Lancelot quickly realized that the sensitively sparkling eyes were not the color he had faced in the past 10 years, but the same eyes he had when he first crossed swords and sparred more than 10 years ago.
The eyes before the terrible curse.
The brilliant color he witnessed in an instant brightly illuminated Lancelot's heart after 10 years.
"So, what kind of plans were our lord, who only has land without a title, making?"
With a full heart, Lancelot moved to Klaud's side, who was buried in a pile of documents.
The densely scribbled handwriting was unusual.
"...Huh?"
"It's the central city of Rockenhardt, after all. It has to be as fancy and sparkling as it used to be. It has to have a lot of attractions."
"Don't say it in such a harmless way. Read exactly what you wrote here."
"......"
"You're going to spend all your private funds to turn Central Rockenhardt into a commercial city?"
"It sounds like I'm being asked to perform a miracle. Do you think the reason my parents loved this city was simply because it had a lot of forests? It's in the far northwest, with no mountains at all. If you pass through the northern forest, you can reach a port with a sea that allows you to advance to other continents without the threat of monsters. If you pour gold into it, it's definitely possible within 10 years."
Lancelot just moved his lips and stared blankly at the pile of documents that had already been neatly completed.
"You did this in one day? Didn't you sleep?"
Lancelot opened his mouth in disbelief, then quickly closed it again.
...He did sleep.
Klaud's face, which didn't look tired at all, had a vitality that would make a fly slip.
"Is it because of your wife?"
The hand that was nervously placing the last document on the pile stopped.
Lancelot, who had captured the fleeting moment again, clicked his tongue.
"Did your wife look disappointed when she toured the territory? Or was our lord embarrassed because he wanted to show her something good but couldn't? So you want to make it a rich and sparkling city no matter what. Right."
"Who would do such an important thing for such a ridiculous reason-."
"You're doing it, Klaud."
Lancelot shook his head as if he couldn't believe the situation.
He had expected some kind of change since he saw the west Annex being cleaned up and the vines, similar to the ones he had seen as a child, slowly wrapping around the outer walls, but he never thought it would change so quickly.
He looked at the sunlight flowing along Klaud's slender and clean face with a choked gaze.
He always laughed at his father, Marquess Mosan Rebeu, for holding back his tears whenever Klaud did something, but it was very difficult for him to suppress the surging emotions as well.
Right there, the image of the late Emperor Alexei, sitting like a huge mountain with the small Klaud on his lap, telling him not to fight with Lancelot, flashed and disappeared like a hallucination.
The small child became black ash in that spot, locking himself up and seeming to be trapped in pain and darkness, left to die.
He was always precarious and always hurt.
He was always sensitive and always twisted.
But after a woman named Yuan Pellieresse entered Black Manor, Klaud changed dramatically, like a bamboo that had begun to rise above the ground, using the pain he had been suppressing for 10 years as nourishment.
"My mother... it's the land my father loved. She said she wanted to be buried in the backyard of this Mansion, not in the imperial cemetery. I'm in good enough condition to sign these papers a few times, so of course I'm just taking care of it. Don't jump to conclusions. Don't have unnecessary thoughts."
Klaud.
Are they really unnecessary thoughts? Is it really an early conclusion?
The sunlight clinging to Klaud was also intensely reflected in Lancelot's caramel-colored eyes.
He couldn't swallow the question he couldn't bring himself to ask Klaud, and held it in his mouth.
'Don't you really love your wife?'
Finally, the west Annex was completely clean.
The baggage cart that had gone out to fetch water stopped hesitantly at the first-floor entrance where it always unloaded its cargo, and eventually ran all the way to the front of the west Annex.
Several servants who jumped off the baggage cart admired the fence at the entrance of the Annex.
The west Annex, revealing its original red flesh, sparkled in the sunlight like dew on a blooming rose.
The young maids began to chatter, saying that the various flowering trees planted in the yard, as well as the vines that had grown vigorously and were winding around the corners, were fresh and lively.
Yuan greeted them, awkwardly holding the worn-out brush that had been torn and broken, and smiled awkwardly at Mr. Mazarin, the person who had driven the baggage cart.
Then the old coachman smiled kindly, holding up two identical new brushes in both hands, as if to say it was okay.
"Madam, shouldn't you show it to the master soon?"
"He hasn't been coming out again these days, is he sick?"
At the sound of the young maids chattering, Yuan turned her gaze to the butler Gustav, who had come rushing after the baggage cart in a flustered manner.
Gustav suggested tactfully.
"Why don't you tell him yourself? It seems like His Highness should have a break time now-."
Yuan, who had taken off her apron and sleeves with Henna's help, nodded vigorously.
Yuan knocked on the door of the office with the snacks that the chef Ralph had packed.
The door to the office on the 3rd floor was as huge and massive as Klaud's bedroom on the 2nd floor.
When there was no answer even after knocking several times, Yuan looked up at Gustav, who was standing next to her, with an uneasy gaze.
Butler Gustav smiled faintly and opened the door for Yuan, who didn't have enough hands.
"Don't disturb me-."
"It's me."
With the sound of the door closing, Klaud's face, which had been issuing an eviction order without even looking at the door, suddenly lifted.
Beneath his roughly swept-back blond hair, his pale, slender face and languidly raised eyes met hers directly.
Yuan smiled brightly and approached him, placing the refreshments on the table.
Klaud rubbed his dry eyes and glanced at the clock on the wall.
"It's almost mealtime, why bother?"
"Would you like to take a walk to the west Annex with me?"
Klaud, who had been tapping the head of the quill on the desk, looked into Yuan's expectant eyes and soon put down the quill with a light sigh.
Yuan hesitated and slipped the notebook she had tucked under her arm next to the refreshments.
"It's the recipe for the <Cleaning Potion> that cleaned up the west Annex."
Klaud's eyebrow shot up quickly.
Klaud, who had only been looking down at the notebook covered in fingerprints, crossed his arms and turned his gaze to her.
"I made the Potion, but Hille came up with the idea. They say you can make a fortune if you commercialize and sell it."
"...You want to make money? Is the budget allocated to you not enough?"
The first thing Klaud did when he started working was to maximize the budget allocated to Yuan.
Yuan quickly shook her head and pushed the notebook he was only looking at between his tightly locked arms. Klaud, who had accepted it without realizing it, opened it.
The recipe for the <Cleaning Potion> was densely recorded with neat handwriting and crooked drawings.
