Roxana
Chapter 88
Chapter 88
How to Protect the Female Lead’s Older Brother
Chapter 88
I looked at Richel, doubting my own ears.
He wore a calm, indifferent expression, as if he had not just spoken those words. Then his gaze shifted toward me.
“Why are you looking at me with such eyes?”
I weighed my words for a moment.
Then, parting my stiff lips at last, I let out a low voice.
“I thought you would tell me to leave.”
“If I told you to leave right this instant, were you planning to do so?”
I gave no answer, but Richel seemed to see right through my thoughts just by reading my expression.
“Cassis will have to suffer a bit of heartache.”
Setting down the teacup in his hand, he muttered softly under his breath as if to himself.
The air settling over the study was calm and subdued, yet not so heavy as to press down on me.
The look Richel turned on me next was the same.
“Is there any reason I could not welcome you? Three years ago, when Cassis was in Agriche… mm.”
Yet he left the sentence unfinished, showing a hint of hesitation as if pondering something.
“I do not know what I should call you. I doubt you would wish to be addressed by your family name. I shall simply address you comfortably as I am doing now.”
“Yes, that is fine.”
“Indeed. Cassis told me he received great help from you when he was in Agriche three years ago.”
I fell silent for a moment.
Staring wordlessly down at the shallow pool of liquid in my cup, I finally opened my closed lips.
“No. Most likely… the truth is slightly different from what he believes.”
Whatever Cassis and the people of Pedelian believed, it would not be entirely identical to the truth I held.
Truth be told, it had not been an act of pure goodwill, but merely using him to suit my own ends.
In fact, back then, I had deliberately placed him in danger to achieve my own goals.
I had thought it did not matter if he was injured to some degree in the process of fulfilling what I desired.
Most of the reason I wanted to keep him alive was nothing more than petty self-satisfaction.
Yet such things were not something I needed to reveal with my own mouth.
Regardless, it remained an undeniable fact that I had intended to help Cassis back then, and that I had actually done so.
So if I merely kept my mouth shut like this, everyone would make their own mistaken assumption that I was a good person.
Yet why was I going out of my way to say such things to Richel right now?
As if telling him there was no need to accept me into Pedelian for such a reason.
Almost as if I wished to be cast out from this place.
But there was no one here right now forcing me.
So if I wished to leave, I could simply state my intention with my own lips.
Yet the reason I did not…
I closed my downcast eyes completely, shutting out my vision.
Perhaps because of the tea I had drunk a moment ago, the taste lingering in my mouth was somewhat bitter.
“When something happens in this world, whatever it may be, it is far rarer for only a single reason to exist behind it.”
Richel watched me quietly for a moment, then turned his gaze away.
“Whether it is an evil deed or an act of virtue, is it not all the same?”
Soon, his hand lifted the teacup from the table once more.
“Therefore, even if the one who gave it harbored no such intentions, if it became an act of kindness to the one who received it, does the truth even matter anymore? All the more so since Cassis does not seem to care in the slightest how it all came about.”
His words were astonishingly gentle.
“Thus, I have no reason to object, either.”
His tone was calm to the point of indifference, and the warmth lingering within it was lukewarm, neither hot nor cold.
But the meaning behind his words was far from indifferent.
“Aside from that, there are complicated matters weighing heavily on your mind just as they are on ours… But to us, at least, those matters do not take precedence over what was said before, so there is no need to dig them up, is there?”
The people of Pedelian were strange.
I had not expected not only Cassis, but even Richel, to say such things to me.
To think they could accept me for such a reason…
Feeling that no reply would be appropriate for Richel’s words, I simply swallowed my response.
And at the words that followed, I suddenly found my gaze locked onto his eyes.
“Still, I suppose I should tell you this now. It concerns news of Agriche.”
Richel looked straight at me and added:
“Cassis told me to do whatever you wished either way, so choose for yourself. Do you want to hear it?”
* * *
A short while later, I stepped out of Richel’s study. And almost immediately, I ran into someone walking toward this direction.
The distance between us was less than twenty paces.
She was a woman who possessed an elegant, graceful aura.
Confronting one another, both she and I paused in our tracks for a moment.
Her eyes widened slightly as they met mine.
But she soon composed her expression and resumed the steps she had halted, walking straight toward me.
“It seems you have already finished your conversation.”
She seemed to have been on her way to visit Richel’s study.
It was not difficult for me to realize that she was the mistress of Pedelian.
I greeted her first.
“Yes, I have just taken my leave. I apologize for not coming to greet you sooner.”
“Your name?”
“It is Roxana.”
“I see. I am Jeanne.”
Like me, she introduced herself by her given name alone, leaving off her family name.
Realizing that this was out of consideration for me, I felt a strange emotion stirring once again.
“Why would it be your fault that our greetings were delayed? We were away the entire time, after all. The circumstances simply did not allow it, so please do not trouble yourself over it.”
Jeanne’s gaze brushed past my face for a moment.
Her serene eyes slowly took in my appearance before shifting away.
Then, at last, a faint smile graced her lips.
“I would like to speak with you longer, but I just saw Cassis waiting on my way here.”
Hearing that, my gaze drifted unconsciously toward the hallway behind her.
But Cassis seemed to be standing where he could not be seen from where we stood.
“I would like to treat you to tea soon as a gesture of welcome. I shall send word shortly.”
Feeling an emotion I could not quite define, I looked at the person before me with a vacant gaze.
Then, I barely managed to whisper in a small voice:
“…Thank you for your hospitality.”
* * *
“You came out later than I expected.”
As I stepped out into the corridor, Cassis standing right in front of it caught my eye.
“Did I? How long have you been waiting?”
“Since a short while ago.”
When I approached, Cassis stared intently into my face.
But that was all. Cassis asked me nothing.
His silence resembled the one I had shown before him.
And so, I did not speak to him of the conversations I had shared with Richel and Jeanne, either.
Cassis and I began to walk side by side.
“Aah!”
Just then, we ran into the cousins from Hyperion.
It seemed they, too, were on their way to greet the Lord and Lady of Pedelian, just as I had been.
“I had my doubts, but seeing her up close, she’s actually human! Sister, you see it too, right? She really isn’t a spirit, is she?”
Orca rambled incoherently, pointing his finger at me.
But when Cassis glared at it as if ready to snap it off, Orca flinched and quickly lowered his hand.
Pandora had her mouth agape, staring at me the entire time.
She, too, seemed no less astonished than Orca upon seeing me.
“A-a monster? A siren from myth?”
Seeing her babble about monsters after looking at me, it seemed they truly were cousins sharing the same blood.
Cassis’s scowling gaze pierced into Pandora, who was treating me like a monster.
Yet seemingly oblivious to it, she continued muttering to herself with a dazed expression.
“Or is she a nymph that was said to be extinct…?”
“Let’s go, Cassis.”
“D-did she just speak human words…”
Leaving behind the two who were completely out of their wits, Cassis and I turned our steps.
In their current state, it was obvious they would not register a single word no matter what was said.
The moment we stepped entirely out of the corridor, dazzling sunlight pierced my vision.
Pausing briefly, I raised a hand to shield my eyes. I wondered if my eyesight had weakened from spending most of my time indoors lately.
Cassis’s gaze fell upon me beside him.
He seemed to mistake it for me feeling dizzy.
“Tell me if it’s hard to walk.”
“And if I do?”
This man is really treating me like a critically ill patient.
Of course, he was not entirely mistaken. Moreover, there had been moments where I had unintentionally shown him weakness.
Even so, I was certainly not so frail that I could not even manage to walk this short distance.
Naturally, my counter-question was not an ask for him to do something because I truly found it difficult to walk.
Yet without hesitation, Cassis stepped toward me.
“No, wait—”
The next moment, my body lifted into the air.