Chapter 48
Chapter 48
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 48
Chapter Title: My Brothers Aren't Villains!
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<048>
I looked around at Mayches and the friends beside him.
Everyone was waiting for me to take Bamper's hand.
Feeling a bit embarrassed, I lowered my head slightly and placed my hand obliquely over Bamper's. Bamper curled his fingers, grasping my hand in return.
And then I heard the sound of earth being pushed aside roughly. It was a strange, unfamiliar sound of movement I'd never heard in my life.
"......"
The rustling of bushes, the sound of wind passing through and scattering far away, the sound of water droplets falling, gathering to trickle along... soon, the tiniest moments of buds bursting forth began to gather, transforming into wildly blooming petals.
With trembling eyes, I watched the narcissus flowers blooming.
"You wanted to see them blooming, didn't you?"
Mayches shrugged as he gazed at the narcissus field bursting into full bloom around me and Bamper.
The carriages had been lined up since morning, loaded with something...
When I asked Doria about it, she had laughed and said, "Who knows? Maybe the Count's love for you, miss?"
I'd thought it was a joke at the time, but... it wasn't entirely wrong...
To think they'd uproot the entire garden and replant it with unopened flower buds.
"Too......"
I covered my face with both hands. And just like that, I sank to the ground.
For some reason, my throat kept tightening up.
"...Pretty......"
In the end, while everyone else was smiling, I was the only one sniffling and crying.
But what could I do? Could anyone move a person like this?
In just over a minute.
Bamper had found all five escape bracelets inside one flower bud.
The tumultuous escape room game came to a close with a "successful clear."
Spreading the fresh white sheets across the bed sent a faint scent of warm sunlight wafting through the air.
Doria hummed a tune as she meticulously smoothed out the edges of the sheets, ensuring not a single wrinkle remained.
The young lady of the house loved to rub her bare face against sheets laid out this neatly and lie there for a moment.
But today, the girl let out a groan, sticking her pen behind her ear.
Normally, she would have already climbed onto her stool and hopped into bed, but since she stayed quiet, Doria turned her head to survey the room.
"Miss. What are you pondering so deeply now?"
The lady she served was always like this whenever something felt off from the usual—she'd furrow her brow in thought.
Aiel let out a soft sigh.
"Yeah, right. If I were healthy, I could pack a lunch and go do something fun, but since I'm sick, all I can do is rack my brain. And it's not even good brainstorming—my head feels like it's going to split."
"Really? If you're not smart, miss, then who is?"
"...Yeah, I guess so."
Doria blinked, then noticed a few strands of the lady's hair sticking out.
She began re-braiding Aiel's fine, silky hair.
"How's your body feeling?"
"The cold seems to be mostly gone now. I took so much of Mayches's special medicine."
After inviting her friends for the escape room game that night, the lady had inevitably fallen ill.
The sea breeze and tearful excitement had already strained her fragile body, and then she'd gone on to battle her guests in a second round of board games.
But even in Doria's eyes, it had been unavoidable.
After the escape room ended, the Count and the lady's friends...
"This is no good. It'd be such a shame to leave just like this."
"Don't you want to lock us up one more time?"
"We came all this way—thirty minutes is too short, isn't it?"
"Brother, I don't think we qualify to leave this mansion yet."
...had shown absolutely no intention of heading out the Rudelriz gates.
No doubt the Count and Aiel felt the same, as there was no urging them to hurry along after just thirty minutes of fun.
In the end, they set up another game in the Count's room.
Doria was utterly satisfied.
Handsome man next to handsome man...! An endless parade of flawless good looks! If only they'd stay for two nights and three days~
But Doria's satisfaction didn't end there.
Just like during the escape room, another heartwarming moment unfolded—one that made her pull out her recording device again.
"But don't you two have bracelets?"
The Saint had said that while looking at his own bracelet.
It was the "escape commemorative thread bracelet" that the lady had made herself, discovered by His Highness the Crown Prince in the final stage.
"Right? It's amazing, isn't it, Bamper? Originally for barriers or circles and such... huh?"
The lady, who had been chattering away to His Highness the Crown Prince, turned to look at the Saint.
"Ah, yes! They're souvenirs for the participants."
"But at the end, you two were participants too."
"I don't think so......"
As Aiel tilted her head to rebut, the Vice-Guildmaster of Baltan Catric picked up the Saint's words.
"Should I make two more right now?"
"If you make them, won't they be different from these?"
"No, just match the level of sloppiness... ah, no, looseness."
Aiel stared blankly at her friends' conversation before stammering with a flushed face.
"I-I'll make two more. ...One for my brother and one for me, right?"
Mumbling about how embarrassing it was, she still looked happy as her small hands deftly wove the threads.
She gave one completed bracelet to her brother, and the other went around her own wrist.
Glancing at her friends' wrists and her own, Aiel said with a slightly reddened face,
"Um... this is actually my first time making something like this. Hehe..."
That moment when all seven bracelets adorned their wrists was captured fresh and pure in the recording device Doria held.
Afterward, Aiel fiddled with hers habitually, just like now.
Doria smiled softly from behind the lady.
"The Count said he'd come check on you soon. Shall we have meals together then?"
"Yeah. Sorry he's so busy."
"Hehe, say that and he'll get sad, you know?"
The Count wasn't at the mansion right now.
He had been selected as the representative pilgrim for the glorious Four Seasons Blessing Parade and was in the thick of preparations.
Doria lightly glanced out the window of Aiel's room, which offered a clear view of the yellow flowers below.
The parade season was already here. True spring had arrived~
The Empire of Roxsidran bordered the north, with much of its territory cold and barren.
As a result, Roxsidran periodically invited Bamper, the Crown Prince of its ally nation and a spirit mage, to lend aid.
That was why Bamper had visited the Roxsidran imperial palace today.
Though the invitation came earlier than scheduled, as the first nation on the tour list for the upcoming Four Seasons Blessing Parade, Roxsidran needed to make full preparations.
The Orelot Imperial Family, fully aware of this, had gladly sent Bamper ahead of time.
"That's him—the future of Illeneias, an imperial spirit mage no less..."
"I'm so excited. I never dreamed I'd see a spirit mage at work in my lifetime."
"Hmm. I saw one once in a marquess's territory. Nothing compared to Orelot's Crown Prince, but still, a small-scale one."
"A few months ago, I went to Repitelips to visit my sister and happened to catch Bamper the Crown Prince using his powers. Lucky me."
"Really? This is my first time ever... He's so handsome, not a single rough edge..."
"Yeah, especially those eyes—soft yet resolute..."
The people enjoying tea time in the Roxsidran imperial palace had opened their windows, quietly directing their gazes outside.
Eyes filled with wonder and awe secretly observed the beautiful Crown Prince from another land.
Spirit mages. They resonated with spirits, communing with their intent, and were beloved by the spirits' overflowing affection.
The miracles they performed might seem akin to a mage's at first glance, but there was a vast difference.
They used none of their own power.
Be they knights, mages, or priests, anyone wielding superhuman abilities beyond the mortal realm had to expend their own energy.
Yet these rarest of rare beings on the land, spirit mages, merely asked a favor of the spirits around them—the ones they called friends.
Spirits never refused a beloved spirit mage's request, always circling their master playfully to show affection, or so it was said.
Of course, spirit mages were ranked by the range over which they could commune at once.
The known ranges for spirit mages were typically about the size of a front yard, with the greatest in history covering an entire city.
All that was before Bamper Leydin Orelot was born.
"My goodness... It's so beautiful......"
"No way... This is incomparable to what I saw before...!"
"His spirit arts still give off that unbelievably pure feeling... My sister fell so hard for him that she tried to make a connection with Bamper the Crown Prince..."
The people watched in awe as the parched land smoothed over in an instant.
From the blades of grass in the Roxsidran imperial palace to the distant snow-capped mountains, the spirits' power seeped in like fine glittering dust, spreading meticulously.