Nightmare
Shiron took the report Berta handed him and began to read.
The report was packed dense with cursive handwriting and looked difficult at a glance, yet Shiron had no trouble with it. It would have been rather comical for the young master of a prestigious house to struggle over a few sheets of paper.
“......”
As his eyes traveled down the page, they narrowed. Then his eyelids gave a faint, telltale quiver.
The change was tiny.
But Berta could ignore nothing, however slight. Facing the terrifying young master, she swallowed hard. The ominous sign drew every muscle in her body taut.
And of course—
Rip— shred—
Shiron tore the papers apart, an aura rolling off him as if frost were swirling in the air.
Berta's face went as blank as a woman who had just lost her country. Ophelia, who had been attending at Shiron's side, quietly gathered the scraps scattered across the floor.
“Ah......”
A sigh slipped from the woman's lips. The report she had poured herself into had been torn to pieces for nothing.
If that had been the end of it, she might have counted herself lucky.
What's the problem?
Berta had no idea why Shiron's gaze had turned so cold. Worse than the ruined report was the fact that her client's mood had soured.
As a proper working adult, she could accept without flinching that several days of hard labor had gone up in smoke.
She had been through this enough times that it no longer surprised her.
The soft-headed hope that the fruits of one's effort would automatically be treated with respect was something she had discarded as she grew older and harder.
But not knowing why she had failed struck her as fatal.
Producing a result that completely missed the mark meant that no matter how hard she tried, she could never reach the standard he expected.
Watching Berta bite down on her lower lip, the terrifying young master spoke with a gentle face.
“Berta.”
“I apologize.”
“What did you do wrong? It's all my fault.”
His soft voice tried to soothe her. Berta could not relax. She was not dense enough to drop her guard over empty words of comfort.
Whether he understood her feelings or not, encouragement continued to spill from the terrifying young master's mouth as if by rote.
“You must be exhausted. I pushed you too hard. There's no way I overestimated your ability. It had to be the pressure.”
“No. It's all my fault. If you would just give me one more chance... I'm certain...”
She wanted to declare it with confidence, but her voice dwindled smaller and smaller, as if it were crawling away.
She already had the sinking feeling that no matter how many times she revised it, the report would only be torn to shreds again.
Berta took what little comfort she could from the fact that the pathetic words I can't do it never left her mouth.
The terrifying young master looked at her and tilted his head.
“Is that so?”
“Yes. If you would only tell me what the problem is, I will finish it by the deadline without fail.”
“No. There's no need.”
“......I'm not sure what you mean.”
“It means we shouldn't both waste our time.”
“?”
Berta wore a dubious look even as she felt the atmosphere turn dangerous.
The terrifying young master wiped the smile from his face.
“I should have just killed you back then.”
The terrifying young master,
wearing a terrifying smile,
beckoned to the terrifying maid.
“Dispose of the trash.”
Thrust—
Berta's chest was pierced through.
It was too fast for her even to react.
“Gah! Kuh... hah...”
But—
“...”
Though a slender hand had run her through, no pain came no matter how long she waited.
Her mind was clear, yet her senses felt dull and cottony.
Berta slowly looked down at the wound.
What is this.
There was no blood.
No heat of something flowing out, no rush or weakness that pain should have brought.
Only then did she understand.
“......A dream.”
Berta's expression went hollow.
The moment she recognized it was only a nightmare, the world around her began to blur.
The hole in her chest closed over,
and she was left alone in a pure white space.
And so,
as her vision darkened by degrees,
she was able to wake from the dreadful dream.
A thoroughly soaked back.
A face burning with heat.
Even a strangely stiff neck and waist.
Having fallen asleep face-down, her whole body ached.
Berta woke with a dry cough and pushed herself upright.
“......”
She rubbed her fever-flushed face and massaged her bleary eyes. They were so sticky they barely wanted to open.
When she finally managed it, Berta turned her head this way and that.
She was sitting in the study that had been prepared in the mansion.
After the young master announced they would leave for the capital tomorrow, she had been staying up all night revising.
Suddenly Berta felt something soft resting on her shoulders.
Sss—
What slid from her shoulders was a blanket.
She had come here intending to pull an all-nighter. She had no idea why a blanket had been draped over her.
“......Who was it?”
“Who else.”
Clatter—
Berta shot up from the chair. Shiron stood before her eyes.
Propping his chin in his hand across from her and watching her intently, he looked no different from the figure in her dream.
“Ah?!”
Perhaps that was why her voice cracked.
“Sleep well?”
Shiron greeted her with an innocent smile.
There was nothing special about the smile.
He had no idea what nightmare had made her moan the entire time she slept,
but watching a grown woman startle awake like that was so entertaining he almost hated to keep it to himself.
Tousled bob, lipstick smeared with drool, bloodshot eyes—
all of it clashed so completely with the cool, haughty air she usually wore that it bordered on slapstick.
“The blanket...”
“You looked too tired.”
“......Thank you.”
Berta glanced away from his gaze and sat down carefully.
Looking at the desk, she found papers strewn in a mess.
Sheets of a slightly different color were marked with drool stains. They were useless for a report now.
“Ugh...”
Berta irritably raked her fingers through her hair.
Her body was exhausted, her eyes were bleary, and the report she had been writing until moments ago had its ink smeared by drool and ruined.
A complete disaster.
Tears pricked at her eyes.
There had been plenty of times she wanted to cry, but right now she truly wanted to bawl.
Unable to let him see, Berta scrubbed at her eyes with her sleeve. Even with her vision blocked, her trained senses caught someone walking toward her.
The footsteps that circled halfway around the desk were calm and unhurried. A playful voice soon brushed her ear.
“Hey. You crying?”
“Ah—no.”
Berta denied it at once, but her voice was thick, as if it had been underwater. She almost wished she had simply ignored him.
She was mortified that a mere nightmare had made her act so pathetic. He had already seen her cry once, but that had been after she nearly died and came back, so she had decided it didn't count.
Shiron snorted a quiet laugh and kneaded the back of his neck.
She really does all sorts of things.
He had only come to check whether she was managing, since they were leaving tomorrow—only to find the person in the biggest hurry out cold, drooling and talking in her sleep.
Since Shiron considered himself a decent person, he had even done her the kindness of draping a blanket over her so she wouldn't catch cold.
And then the moment she woke up and saw his face, she started making crying noises.
Hah—
Shiron let out a long sigh. Ever since the possession, the frequency of his sighing had strangely increased.
He poured lemonade into a cup and held it out to Berta. She blinked her sharp eyes, looking from the cup to him and back again.
Unlike a moment ago, the boy was not teasing her.
“Drink this. It's good for you.”
“...Thank you.”
Berta accepted the cup with both hands. Shiron sat down beside her and began gathering the papers.
“How far did you get? I'll help.”
“......”
The answer he had hoped for never came, but Shiron did not scold her.
The day of departure, before dawn.
Even though a busy morning was scheduled, Shiron had not slept a wink. Thanks to the stimulants he had been downing all night, there were no dark circles under his eyes—yet his growing body still ached for sleep.
With eyelids that kept trying to close, he clenched his teeth and forced them wide.
Rustle—
Rustle—
Even as he yawned behind one hand, the other—wounds fully healed—never stopped moving.
The pages he turned one by one were messy with smeared ink, as if they had been revised many times over.
And beyond those papers, little better than rags covered in strike-through lines, sat Berta looking tense.
“Is it... all right now?”
The way she fiddled with her hair and rolled her eyes this way and that made her seem smaller than Shiron.
Yet she showed not the slightest sign of fatigue.
“Yeah. This should be fine.”
“Hah... finally.”
Berta slumped forward as if collapsing under the sheer relief of having finished at last.
The first draft she had submitted had been unwatchable.
What any outsider would have mistaken for a hymn of praise—that burning trash—had only begun to resemble a proper report after countless rounds of editing.
The fruit of their all-nighter mentioned Shiron's name, which had left the strongest impression at the succession ceremony, only twice, and calmly described Lucia and Cyriel crossing the ice without incident.
Shiron wore a bitter little smile as he took out the kill list he had kept in his breast.
Aggro distribution, perfect.
Papers detailing a ritual that had been conducted in secret for five hundred years were something every stiff-necked big shot would kill to see.
He was simply waiting for the high-and-mighty to hurry up and look.
Though he was so tired he felt ready to collapse, a proud smile curved Shiron's lips.