Never Mind the Heir, I’ll Focus on Healing — Chapter 200
Perhaps because of the peaceful scenery, utterly free of any disturbance, Jack couldn’t sever the thought that had crossed his mind.
An imagination he usually suppressed—since he lived a reality akin to walking on a knife’s edge—now twisted freely of its own accord.
What if.
If he and Kyle had been born in a place like this, if they had grown up in an environment where they could have anything they wanted.
If there had been a steadfast family unconditionally believing in and backing them.
Wouldn’t their lives have been so different from now?
Could he, too, perhaps have lived with hands that were soft and free of calluses—hands that had never once touched anything harsh?
Could he have lived guided more by trust than by suspicion?
If that had been the case, would he have found peace?
“…”
Jack’s lips twitched unconsciously before he hurriedly came back to his senses.
‘…What am I doing.’
What had he been thinking just now?
Fortunately, his flight of fancy snapped off sharply, but he was considerably shaken.
‘Wishing that I could be like that.’
Dare he say, he had never once in his life entertained this kind of thought.
He had often felt envy of others’ lives, that was true.
How could he not envy a life lived in peace and comfort, without bloodying your hands?
Yet he had never thought he wished to enter that world. Life was never fair.
Rather than stand around envying others and sucking his thumb,
he’d always believed it was better to do something.
And so he had built it.
Because he had no family, he considered Kyle and the old man his family. Because he had no home, he resolved to make the Criminal Underworld his home.
And, because he had no dream of his own, he set out to realize Kyle’s dream—the boy who was like a little brother to him.
He had strived to protect his own ideal world.
That was the spirit with which he, which Jack, had lived up to now.
And he had climbed to a position where, to a certain extent, he could be said to have achieved that dream.
A nameless orphan boy had become Jack, who held all the power of the Criminal Underworld in his grip, and Kyle, too, was now on the brink of reaching his goal, was he not?
And surely Kyle as well…
‘Must think of me as family.’
…Most likely.
In that case, wasn’t this an ideal situation, one that could scarcely be bettered?
Even with the deep observation undertaken to mimic Lion Asteri’s perspective, he didn’t need to feel emotions to this degree.
Rather, things were normal as they had been when he first came to the Asteri mansion.
Because the man was a ‘noble’ who had lived in comfort during all the times Jack himself had struggled.
So then, why.
“Are you feeling anxious?”
“Me?”
Jack answered Lion’s words immediately, out of sheer reflex.
Thanks to that, his tangled thoughts were severed, but an odd irritation and suspicion began to rise.
Why, after not paying the slightest attention until just a moment ago, was he suddenly asking something like that?
Jack forcibly suppressed his temper and asked in a cheerful tone.
“In what regard do you mean? Ah, is it because of that fellow over there?”
Jack shifted his gaze and stared at Varg.
“This is indeed the first time I’ve seen a beastfolk who has reverted to their original form at such close quarters. However, since you seem to have a good grip on his leash, young master, surely I needn’t be anxious, need I?”
“No. Not that.”
Folding up the sketch he had finished, Lion hesitated briefly before uttering lightly.
“It’s that you always get more verbose whenever you’re feeling anxious.”
“…”
“You appeared not to realize it.”
At Lion’s words, Jack shut his mouth.
There was nothing else he could do.
This wasn’t something that had ever happened ordinarily. In the first place, he had never been defeated in conversation before.
Even when placed at a disadvantage during fleeting encounters, in the long run he always gained the upper hand in a relationship.
That was one of his defining traits, a special talent, beyond simple physical force.
So why did everything seem to go wrong in front of Lion Asteri?
More than that…
‘And why am I failing to refute it?’
Anxious, he said.
What in the world about?
That his relationship with Lion Asteri might go completely awry?
It would be a painful misstep, certainly, but it wasn’t a problem that would ruin everything.
Lion Asteri, after all, tended to stay quiet so long as you didn’t provoke him.
Above all, he was someone with no interest in power struggles or fights for profit.
To put it bluntly… he was simply someone deeply interested in ‘people’.
If so, there was nothing to be anxious about in this matter.
Jack, for his part, understood that much perfectly well.
So why in the world.
“Well, in truth, it’s actually better for me when you’re anxious like that—but I thought it might get a little awkward for you if someone else caught on.”
“…Haha. You have an unsavory hobby there, don’t you.”
“Everyone’s got one nasty hobby or another, haven’t they?”
Mine just happened to be an overactive sense of responsibility.
With a playful remark to change the mood, Lion rose from his seat.
Of course, the atmosphere didn’t get any lighter.
‘Whoops. Look at those eyes.’
What was the use of painting a smiling face? He was glaring at Lion with those axe-sharp eyes of his.
Lion had intended to treat this with consistent indifference as long as he could, but the expression was simply too…
It was the kind of expression that looked likely to cause an incident if left alone.
Since that was not what Lion wanted, he had acted to prod Jack lightly like this.
‘He doesn’t seem to realize it himself, so this should keep him quiet for a while.’
Of course, he had other ulterior motives too.
“Ah, then how about we do this?”
“When you say ‘this’.”
“You, good sir, wish to have a proper conversation with me once more, and I happen to have an unsavory hobby. In that case, what do you say to trading those two things this time?”
For Jack, it was a good opportunity.
It was a case where no opportunity had arisen at all, but now the other party was providing an opening for him to angle in, wasn’t he?
However…
“So then, your nasty hobby, young master, is to verify the nature of another person’s anxiety, is that what you’re saying?”
“Well. That’s how it’s going to turn out for this deal.”
Lion shrugged, letting out a sigh inside.
‘That is how the words came out, I suppose.’
If he might be excused, Lion neither possessed nor had newly acquired any nasty hobby of directly hearing about another’s anxiety.
Let him say it once more! He was simply dealing with a person who happened to possess a very peculiar character, in a manner befitting that peculiarity, nothing more.
“In any event, whenever you feel inclined to take up the trade, do send word to the servants. Goodbye, then.”
Lion finished speaking hurriedly and left.
If he lingered for no reason and was caught with a reluctant expression on his face, things could get complicated.
“Pooch, Varg. Let’s head back now.”
Waving his hand, Lion departed toward the two beasts. Watching him go, Jack closed his eyes tightly and let slip a very small, coarse swear.
“Anxiety, he says.”
Of all the things to catch him up in, it had to be a decidedly unpleasant kind of deal.
But what could he do?
He would have to find it.
* * *
“Dammit.”
Jack met the morning with a curse in the guest room.
He hadn’t ever slept deeply, but lately he’d been unable to sleep a single wink.
The sole cause was none other than the homework Lion Asteri had set him.
Just as Lion had anticipated, Jack had spent these last several days thinking about ‘the cause of his anxiety’ and doing nothing else.
Not only had he stopped trailing after Lion to observe him, but even the work of the Criminal Underworld had been neglected.
“You still have not found your answer, I take it.”
The subordinate attending Jack handed him his everyday clothes and asked respectfully.
“Yeah.”
Muttering grimly, Jack frowned and seized the shoulder of the subordinate assisting him with his clothes.
“What do you think?”
“As to what you are referring…”
Under the fierce grip that felt capable of crushing bone, the subordinate swallowed a groan and asked.
“I am asking what you suppose my anxiety is. Or what sort of thing you think Lion Asteri believes my anxiety to be. You’d have an idea, wouldn’t you? You accompanied me to the Bydantis territory.”
Crack.
The grip on his shoulder steadily tightened.
Despite that, Brick, the coachman and Jack’s right hand, maintained his composure.
It was rare, but it was something that happened—for Jack to reveal this side of himself.
He wasn’t trying to take it out on someone; he simply couldn’t control his own strength.
Brick frankly and calmly voiced his honest thoughts.
“I do not know. Nor is it my place to dare divine Jack’s feelings.”
He also answered that during the journey to and from Bydantis territory, Lion Asteri had shown not a hint of such a thing.
Still, the hand gripping his shoulder would not release.
Brick fell silent for a moment, then added.
“Rather than me, would it not be better to ask a person well acquainted with anxiety?”
“A person well acquainted with anxiety?”
The strength drained from Jack’s hand where it gripped Brick’s shoulder.
Calmly, Brick finished his remaining tasks and took a step back.
“…Right. That’s true.”
In any event, he had racked his brains for days and no clear answer had come.
“I’m no mage pursuing the truth, after all.”
Why did he have to suffer an inner agony and seek enlightenment?
It was a somewhat reckless thing to say, here inside a prestigious mage household, but Jack currently had no leisure to mind such things.
“The person in this mansion who’s felt the most anxiety…”
The answer came at once.
A fellow constantly aware of him and quietly radiating hostility, someone who had been present at that location.
A wolf beastfolk with red fur.
Was his name Varg?
“Shall I summon him discreetly?”
“…That won’t be necessary.”
Jack turned his head and stared at the guest room door.
From very far away, he could hear the sound of that fellow’s footsteps.
Footfalls too heavy for a human, yet utterly without the heavy thudding noise—those were a wolf’s steps.
And soon after.
Knock, knock.
Came the knock at the door.
“I’m not sure why, but it seems that one has business with me, too.”
At Jack’s small nod, Brick went to open the door to the guest room.
And there, as expected, Varg stood alone.
Perhaps because he had come straight here the moment he woke up in the morning, he wore ordinary clothes and hadn’t even a sword at his side.
‘A bold one, too.’
Or perhaps simply careless?
No matter that he was a beastfolk, to come in without a single weapon.
On top of that, perhaps because it had taken great resolve for him to make it this far, his gaze was unsteady too.
Most likely, he was about to cause some kind of grand incident.
‘But he does have good eyes.’
For all his unfocused staring, his actual eyes were surprisingly clear and honest.
“I—I’ve come to make a deal.”
“Hmm. A deal, is it.”
Every Tom, Dick, and Harry with a deal.
He must have heard them talking with Lion Asteri in that forest.
Though indeed it worked out well for both sides, Jack did not accept the deal immediately.
Instead.
“Please, come this way.”
Smiling affably, he personally guided Varg to the table in the reception room.
It was only Lion Asteri who could drag him about—Jack was not a personage to be pushed around by just anyone.
More than that…
‘A deal with someone once held by a slaver is usually obvious.’
Where the slaver was, whether they were alive, whether they could be killed: all things of that nature.
This fellow would be no different.
Jack poured the tea himself and posed his question.
“A deal, after all, only works if it’s mutually profitable. May I hear the story first and then decide?”
Without so much as touching the teacup, Varg merely twisted the fabric of his own clothes. Then, as though he had steeled himself, he opened his mouth.
And what he said was, just a little, not quite what Jack had predicted.
“P-Please… spar with me, just once!”
“…”
Jack thought to himself.
Was it perhaps basic etiquette in the Asteri mansion…
To leave a person utterly dumbfounded?