Translator: Nox

34 - Chapter 34

Philip and Richard had arrived in Cambon an hour earlier.

The letter Ryan had sent listed Feltham's Blissbury as the address.

At first, they considered going straight to Blissbury. So when Philip was about to write a letter to Ryan, Richard stopped him.

"Do you think Ryan will welcome us? We'll be lucky if he doesn't kick us out. Besides, I'm curious what he's doing stuck in that countryside for so long."

At Richard's words, his eyes gleaming, Philip shook his head. He seemed convinced that Ryan was having a romance in the countryside.

"With his personality, he'd never show us, so we have to catch him off guard to see who he's with."

"So? What do you want to do?"

"It seems Cambon is the closest city where we can stay, so let's go there first. We can stay there, peek around a bit, and then go to Blissbury."

Normally, Philip would have scolded him to stop doing useless things and pack his bags.

But Philip was also curious as to why Ryan was staying in Blissbury for longer than he had expected.

He was also worried.

Even when they were in the capital, he never tried to show his weak side to them.

But if they told him they were coming, he would pretend to be doing well to avoid worrying them.

After contemplating, Philip eventually agreed to Richard's suggestion.

So the two of them submitted a three-month leave request to the military.

They hadn't had a proper rest with Ryan throughout the entire war.

Besides, the war was over, and the armistice had been signed, so the military had no reason to hold onto them.

And so, they arrived in Cambon an hour earlier.

Since it wasn't exactly a city known for tourism, there were only three hotels in Cambon.

After securing a room in the nicest one for two weeks, the two of them came out onto the streets of Cambon.

"So? What are we going to do now?"

When Philip asked, Richard shrugged and replied.

"I asked at the front desk, and it seems Blissbury is about an hour and a half away from here. But when I asked about Blissbury, they looked wary, asking why I was looking for it. It seems it's not a mansion that people visit often."

"Then it'll be hard to get news from there."

"I guess so. Let's look around here today and find a carriage to go there from tomorrow."

But Cambon didn't have much for them to see.

Philip, as well as Richard, looked bored just ten minutes after walking the streets of Cambon.

"Is this all there is to the shopping district?"

"It seems so."

"Aren't there any big parks or anything?"

"There's plenty of nature just outside the city, so I don't think they'd bother making one. Those are only needed in Newham, where you can't see any trees."

"Haa... At this rate, I don't know what to do until tomorrow... Let's go to the bookstore we saw on the way here. I forgot to buy newspapers and magazines in my rush to leave Newham."

As the two were returning to the square, a group of young women came out of a cafe.

"I heard the manager of Blissbury has arrived?"

"Miss Suberton called him Sergeant Thornton, so it must be true! That Ryan Thornton is the one."

Ryan Thornton? At those words, Philip and Richard looked at each other. That was the alias Ryan used during missions.

After all, there were ten people named Ryan in the 57th Infantry Battalion alone. If you searched the entire Albion army, there would be thousands.

Rather, because of that, no one thought that using the name Ryan would be an alias used by 'Ryan Wilgrave'. Usually, they would use a completely different name.

"Feltham's friend said he was very arrogant and blunt."

"But she didn't deny that he was very handsome, did she? Isn't that enough?"

Unlike the refined ladies of the capital, the two men followed the girls, who were speaking frankly, quickly but discreetly.

The girls soon entered a store.

"Archie Wilson's grocery store..."

It was quite a neat and luxurious grocery store, even among the ones on the street. Moreover, seeing that it occupied the entire first floor of a large building, it seemed to carry quite a variety of items.

The two gave up on following them inside and looked inside from the outside.

If they went inside and ran into Ryan right in front, they would surely get an earful.

But from the outside, there were too many customers inside the store, so they couldn't see the inside very well. Then, as they moved a little further to the side, they spotted Ryan sitting in what appeared to be a reception room on the first floor.

Fortunately, Ryan didn't seem to notice the two outside.

The two, who had slipped behind a parked carriage, watched Ryan, who seemed to be talking to someone.

He was holding a teacup and looking at someone sitting across from him.

But the back of the chair on that side was too high, so they couldn't see the person sitting there.

So when they looked back at Ryan, he was smiling gently with his teacup in his hand.

At that sight, Philip and Richard were speechless.

The two had spent quite a bit of time with Ryan. They couldn't claim to know everything about Ryan, but if they were to find the people who knew him the most, they thought it would be themselves.

But the sight of Ryan smiling gently now was an expression that neither of them had ever seen before.

"...Is that really Ryan?"

"...I don't know."

That guy is smiling like he put a handful of sugar in his mouth.

Then, a middle-aged man sitting next to him suddenly jumped up, bowed to him repeatedly, and left the room with a delighted look on his face.

After that, Ryan continued to talk to the person remaining in the room. His expression still looked gentle and cheerful.

"Well... it seems he's doing well."

Philip muttered with a still bewildered expression.

When he was in the capital, his expression was always shadowed.

Especially after being criticized, even the occasional expressions he showed disappeared, making him look even colder and sharper.

But in Ryan's current appearance, they couldn't find any trace of his time in the capital.

When he was in the military, he would trim his hair as soon as it got a little long.

But here, he didn't seem to care as much, as it had grown a bit shaggy and disheveled.

But rather, that had dulled his sharpness a lot.

Perhaps because of that, Ryan looked like a young man of their age, not Lieutenant Colonel Wilgrave, for the first time in Philip and Richard's eyes.

His complexion had also improved noticeably. He used to have the complexion of a scholar who had been cooped up in a room and reading books all his life, but now he was tanned just right and looked very healthy.

Moreover, there was not a trace of darkness in the smiles he made several times during the conversation.

The only thing that hadn't changed was his somehow annoying smile.

"The recuperation has been effective."

Richard remembered what Ryan had said before going down to Blissbury.

<Honestly, I don't think rural recuperation will be of much help, but at least it's attractive to be away from the Disciplinary Committee's nagging for a while.>

At that time, Richard had agreed with that statement.

The elders kept saying that he should return to the embrace of beautiful nature, but that was just the thinking of old people who didn't have the energy to play.

He thought that if he wanted to forget his trivial worries, it would be much better to live in the capital, indulging in alcohol, gambling, and lavish parties.

So he had suggested that he go to a resort city with him and drink and play as if whiskey was flowing through his veins instead of blood.

Of course, he was rejected.

Even after Ryan left, he didn't expect him to come back particularly improved. But seeing him now, he thought that the old people's words weren't nonsense.

'But who the hell is the person across from him?'

Richard's gut was screaming. The reason Ryan was smiling and talking so well now was definitely due to the influence of the person across from him.

As he tried to get closer to the window to see the person across from him.

Suddenly, the door to the room where Ryan was sitting opened, and a group of women rushed inside.