Chapter 50
What is this? Just as I was about to speak, unable to bear the heavy atmosphere, Raymon spoke flatly.
“I will keep in mind that such is Her Imperial Highness’s wish.”
“……Yes.”
“However, matters of the future are strictly for the future.”
Raymon’s gaze lingered briefly on the hem of my skirt, which had been torn into a mess.
Without hesitation, he unfastened the ceremonial mantle he was wearing over his shoulders.
As mantles often were, it was a ceremonial piece with no practical use, likely worn because he had just entered the Imperial Palace to stand before the Emperor. Even though he already had the <Insignia of Gloriana> draped over his shoulders like a short cape, he didn’t seem to care as he draped his mantle over my shoulders and tied the knot.
The sensation of the heavy, stiff fabric wrapping around my shoulders felt foreign.
“Currently, Her Imperial Highness is my one and only fiancée.”
“…….”
Raymon didn’t ask why I was clutching a suspicious sword stained with Lisianthus’s blood, nor did he care that Lisianthus’s hands were a mess.
He didn’t ask or care about a single thing.
“Therefore, protecting and worrying about you is not a matter of showing excessive favor. It is something I do as your fiancé, as an individual, not for the sake of the family.”
“…….”
The presence of the mantle wrapped around me, as if to shield me from the eyes of others, felt incredibly awkward.
Right. He had always been a man who was the very incarnation of a sense of duty.
No matter how much Titania threw her fits, he always came. He had never once lost his temper at her pouring insults.
He had never uttered a single word of dislike, even for the letters that were more like bombs or the hideous items that were closer to terrorist threats than gifts.
Though it only resulted in Titania acting out even more in an attempt to get a proper reaction out of him…….
I know very well what this is called in other terms.
It’s hope torture.
I looked into those golden eyes that, to Titania, must have been like the sunlight rising over the horizon at dawn or the only moonlight shining down on a dark night.
If he wasn’t going to take responsibility, it would have been better if he had just been cruel instead.
What happens to a moth that realizes the moon and the sun are not meant for it?
Will it drown trying to catch the reflection of the moon in the water, or will it burn to death trying to fly closer to the midday sun? Rather than lusting after a light that isn’t its own, it would have been better to steal and bask in the warmth of a campfire lit by a passing traveler.
“Oh, is that so?”
When I gave a smooth smile, the man blinked a couple of times as if surprised.
He seemed to have expected a sharp response like ‘excessive favor is burdensome’ or ‘what gives you the right to act like this.’
Well, I’ve made my intentions clear enough. This should be enough to prevent my past actions from being treated as some ‘sly trick to snatch the position beside Young Duke Raymon’ later on.
“The future Duchess must be very happy.”
Instead of denying my words, the man cast his eyes down and remained silent.
He wore a strange expression.
There was a suffocatingly thick scent of flowers.
The Marquis Havilios’s estate was located on the outskirts of the Capital.
Typically, any prestigious family with a long history dating back to the early days of the Empire would own a grand mansion in the prime heart of the Capital. Compared to that, this location was almost humble.
While they couldn’t compare to the Duchy of Castline, the Empire’s only ducal house, Havilios was one of the few remaining marquessates in the Empire.
Excluding the Marquis Lakerta family, which was annihilated generations ago on charges of plotting treason, the only ones left were the Marquis Integria family, the Marquis Rand family, and the Marquis Havilios family. Just these three.
Compared to the Marquis Integria family producing an Empress and the Marquis Rand family producing an Imperial Consort, the Marquis Havilios family was surprisingly quiet and lacked presence.
Then again, children were scarce in the family, so they didn’t even have a daughter to send to the Imperial Family. They weren’t a wealthy family either.
Their fief was located at the southernmost tip of the Empire, and while the weather was good and food was plentiful, there were no particular specialties that brought in money.
A family content with maintaining their current position and living quietly in the shadows. That was their public image.
If there was anything slightly unusual, it was that the garden kept at the Marquis’s estate was exceptionally large and beautiful.
“Father.”
Emerging from between trees grown as tall as a person, a girl with flowing hair like black roses smiled lovably.
“Oh, you’re here. Lilium.”
Marquis Havilios, who had been engrossed in work, looked up and welcomed his daughter. Had an unsuspecting person seen them, their attire was simple enough that they might have been mistaken for a gardener and his daughter dedicated to tending the garden.
They wore coarse cloth clothes typical of commoners with stained aprons here and there, and towels hung around their necks. However, the father and daughter looked natural in such an appearance.
“Prim told me these are the cyclamens that bloomed today.”
Lilium handed a small basket she was holding to the Marquis. Inside the box woven from straw was a heap of cyclamens with deep blue petals.
Hidden beneath the fresh flowers at the bottom of the basket was a single pitch-black egg; the black shell was so thin that the inside was faintly visible. It even had faint cracks as if it might break at any moment.
The Marquis narrowed his eyes as if trying to see inside the egg. Watching the contents, which showed a faint reddish tint, the girl grumbled softly.
Her grumbling voice was as cheerful as a bell.
“I worked hard on it, but the germination failed.”
“As expected, there are limits with low-rank demon beasts.”
“I was hoping Imperial Consort Cleo would work harder this time, so it’s disappointing that things turned out this way. I thought we’d obtain some decent materials.”
As the girl sighed and crushed the bright blue cyclamen petals, blue-black juice dripped from beneath her white fingers.
A beetle crawled over, licked the flower juice, and shuddered. Its blue shell instantly turned a dark navy color.
The insect, which had been making clicking and choking noises, eventually turned completely pitch-black and hovered near Lilium’s cheek, acting cute.
Tiny creatures that could be mistaken for moths, mice, or hummingbirds hid themselves among the leaves, their red eyes gleaming.
The Marquis rubbed his lower back and spoke as if troubled.
“Indeed. If only things had gone well, we wouldn’t have had to worry about materials for a while. Especially since the Duchy of Castline suddenly started tightening their internal security, making it difficult to find good materials here as well….”
“What should we do about the support for the workshop, Father?”
“Ah, that crazy old man.”
Whatever he was thinking of, the Marquis frowned.
“He says the same thing every time. ‘If you bring me a blood relative of the Castline Duchy, I can show you the research results right this moment.’ On the contrary, we were the ones who almost got caught through the merchant guild because of his mistakes. He acts so thoughtlessly.”
“But he is a genius, isn’t he? They say the improvement of the Arlene flower wouldn’t have been successful without him.”
“The problem is his recklessness! He was throwing a fit about buying slaves to use, so I thought he’d be able to source them himself. Tsk. If I had left him alone, he would have caused another accident! To think he’d talk about kidnapping someone just because he couldn’t find anyone to his liking.”
“Who did he have in mind?”
“The youngest daughter of the Castline family.”
Lilium spoke in a puzzled voice.
“Didn’t they say she was adopted? I thought they weren’t blood-related.”
“I thought so too, but it seems that’s not the case. He was grieving so much about how he could have had her in his grasp but missed out. At my age, to have to watch a middle-aged man my own size crying like that.”
The Marquis clicked his tongue.
A squeaking sound was heard, and a black mouse appeared from somewhere, licking up the rest of the flower juice on the ground.
The beetle that had been hovering near Lilium’s cheek lunged at the black mouse and bit its tail.
Squeeeeak! A scream rang out.
The girl, as lovely as a rose in full bloom, watched the scene nonchalantly and spoke.
“Now that I think about it, it’s truly a pity. The Castline Duchy are people who could become perfect if only they set their minds to it. To think they cannot share our ideals.”
“We are gardeners, Lilium. We prune branches, apply fertilizer, and catch bugs to harvest fruit. How could we be the same as those who would blindly set a tree on fire just because the fruit is poisonous?”
“You’re right, Father.”
Lilium giggled.
“But since we never know, yes. It wouldn’t be bad to try making a move. Especially since we have a plausible excuse this time.”
“Yes.”
The girl replied obediently. She was happy.
The breeze was cool, the garden was beautiful today as always, her father was kind and diligent, and the flowers offered by the maid who served her blindly were also pretty. Everything about the day was a blessing.
Blessing.
Indeed, there was no word that suited the Marquis Havilios family better than that.
The residents of the Marquis Havilios fief told one another, ‘Living in this fief is truly a blessing.’
It was true. The sunlight was warm, water was abundant, and the temperature was mild.
Vegetation and fruits were plentiful, and livestock gained weight easily.
Most of all, there were no invasions by demon beasts.
Even in the neighboring fiefs, low-rank demon beasts would invade intermittently. But in the Marquis Havilios fief, not a single common demon beast would even show its face.
To an unnatural degree.
As if wild animals were fleeing far away to avoid the nest of a natural predator…….