Episode 638
Episode 638
"After all I've done for you! I even played Wizard Card with you during breaks because I thought you might be bored!"
'Is that why you ran away?' Yoner doubted inwardly but decided not to pry further out of consideration for his relative.
"Alright, alright, just be quiet. I'll take you back to the estate."
"Can you take my carriage too?"
Gainando pleaded like the most pitiful person in the world. Everything from gifts for Lee Han to various other belongings were loaded in that carriage.
Of course, Yoner wasn't easily fooled. He stared at Gainando incredulously and asked,
"Who's going to drive it?"
"I can drive a carriage, but..."
Nilia answered cautiously. Yoner immediately grabbed her hand as if to say there was no need.
"No. Don't bother with that."
"But I can drive! I can drive!"
"I should install a device to prevent carriages from latching onto us..."
At Yoner's muttering, Nilia hastily replied,
"It's really not a bother. I can handle this much."
"There's no way driving a carriage isn't a bother."
Even among nobles who knew how to ride, those who could drive a carriage were surprisingly rare.
Though coachmen existed, handling a carriage itself was a fairly difficult skill.
Matching the rhythm and direction of multiple horses required considerable expertise...
"How many horses? Four might be a bit tough, but I could manage somehow..."
"Eight."
"......"
Nilia froze at Gainando's answer. Yoner let out a deep sigh and asked,
"Why on earth did you bring an eight-horse carriage all the way here?"
"It looks cool..."
"E-eight is too much."
Nilia looked awkward. She had confidently said she could do it, only to backtrack now.
"Of course it's too much. Don't worry about it."
"Can't I at least try this once?"
"Nilia. Just shoot him."
Gainando clamped his mouth shut with a hup. Yoner twirled his hair in frustration before speaking.
"There's only one way left."
"Yoner...!"
Gainando looked at his relative with hopeful eyes.
As expected, he was a wizard for a reason.
If you couldn't solve a predicament with magic, what was the point of being a wizard?
"Go to the carriage and pack only the essentials. Don't forget the gift for Lee Han."
"...What about the carriage?"
"We'll have to leave it behind. What else can we do?"
"......"
Gainando opened and closed his mouth repeatedly before slumping his shoulders and trudging outside.
Then he quickly turned back and shouted,
"If you leave without me, I'll never forgive you next semester!"
"Got it. Got it."
Nilia grumbled in disbelief as she watched Gainando's retreating figure.
"Listen to him. After all the trouble we went through to give him a ride, he suspects we'd leave him behind!"
"Right. Attending Einrogard has sharpened his instincts. How did he even know?"
"......"
Arsil Wardanaz sipped the lemon tea Lee Han had made and clapped in admiration.
Seeing his younger brother's skills praised, Alsicle couldn't help but smile warmly.
"Brother. This candied lemon peel was bought from the village."
"......"
"......"
Unfazed, Arsil praised again.
"Your tea-making skills are amazing! Though you just poured water into..."
"Wardanaz. Stop. Just stop."
Alsicle found himself intervening unconsciously.
Even though he wasn't part of the conversation, he couldn't bear to watch any longer.
Meanwhile, the meal was served. It was modest but prepared with care—freshly baked bread with jam, rice and eggs, stir-fried meat in oil (Lee Han's favorite dish), and even sardines cooked specially for Alsicle.
Though the ingredients and skills were excellent, the menu was surprisingly simple and sparse. Alsicle was astonished to see the two brothers eating without a hint of complaint.
"Do you always eat like this?"
"Usually, I eat more simply. Since I'm alone most of the time."
Today, with Arsil and Alsicle visiting, the meal was more elaborate, but normally he kept things much simpler.
Alsicle stared at Lee Han in shock.
"You mean you usually eat this miserably, like a slave?"
"...Ah, no. It's just more convenient for me."
The knights were busy patrolling outside, and when Lee Han ate alone, preparing an extravagant meal would only feel burdensome.
Arsil nodded and said,
"No, Brother. It's not because I'm frugal or kind... It's just easier to eat this way... Wait, did you say the sandwich I made for you was delicious? What are you talking about? That was just... ingredients slapped between bread."
Arsil ignored the remark and gave a thumbs-up, praising it enthusiastically.
Alsicle realized he had misunderstood.
'So it's just Wardanaz being weird!'
Clearly, Lee Han must have eaten simply because he lacked time for magic studies.
'Surely the meals at Einrogard aren't actually like this...'
The food there was probably fine—he must have just been too busy studying to eat properly.
Alsicle internally scoffed at the thought of Einrogard students hearing this and wanting to pluck his feathers for such an exaggeration.
After finishing the light meal, Arsil began spreading various oddities across the table.
A glass vial of mysterious oil, a worn notebook, an umbrella engraved with patterns, a tough leather pencil case, a jade comb, an inkwell containing color-shifting ink, a quill, a whetstone, and more...
Alsicle was baffled.
"Why are you taking all this out?"
"Brother, I've chosen the cloak. I won't change my mind. You think it's boring? That's fine. I like boring things. That umbrella summons lightning? No, if an umbrella for rainy days calls lightning, that's dangerous. I'll just take the cloak."
"......"
Finally understanding their conversation, Alsicle cautiously inspected the nearest object.
It looked like an ordinary whetstone, but magic was embedded within—a spell that made swords autonomously attack nearby enemies.
Including their own wielder!
'...'
Surely he doesn't dislike his younger brother, does he?'
Alsicle thought this as he raised his head.
But Arsil was cheerfully offering item after item to his brother with an utterly innocent expression. There wasn't a trace of malice in his face.
"Should we give one to Lord Pengerin too? That wouldn't be bad. Lord Pengerin, my brother wants to give you a gift. Please choose one."
"Wait, you said all these things are dangerous!"
"What are you talking about? They're not that bad. If they were truly dangerous, I wouldn't be able to give them as gifts. Come on."
'Th-This brat! He just sacrificed me to his brother!'
Alsicle was horrified to realize Lee Han had offered him up as a sacrificial lamb.
Since his brother kept insisting on gifting hazardous items, Lee Han had redirected the danger onto him.
"I-I'm fine—"
"Brother says that as a guest, you surely wouldn't refuse a gift, right?"
"Did he really say that?!"
Frustrated but with no way out, Alsicle had no choice.
As a guest, refusing a gift without good reason was impossible—it was a matter of courtesy.
'At least let it be the least dangerous one... Ugh, if only someone else would walk in—'
BAM!
"Hello."
"!"
At the sight of Yoner and his group entering, Alsicle and Lee Han shot to their feet.
"Welcome!!"
"You're finally here!"
"Y-You were waiting for us?"
Yoner and his friends were taken aback by the unexpectedly enthusiastic reception.
Lee Han was one thing, but why Alsicle of the Pengerin family was acting like this was beyond puzzling.
"Did you have any trouble on the way here?"
"No trouble, but isn't it too deserted? Feels like there are fewer people than in the mountain ranges."
"Really? That much?"
Lee Han tilted his head at Nilia's words.
It didn't seem that unusual to him...
"Anything else?"
"...You're not just not sending letters to me, right...?"
Nilia glanced around before whispering quietly.
"Haha. Of course I did. I sent one right after the last time."
"R-right? I knew it."
Nilia, who had been anxiously worrying if she'd been mistakenly put on the 'people who don't get letters' list over some trivial remark, let out a sigh of relief.
"And who is this gentleman here?"
"Ah. This is my elder brother. Arsil of the Wardanaz family. He speaks in Spirit Language, so it'll be hard to understand him."
"???"
"??!"
While Yoner and Nilia were stunned, Lee Han continued talking with Gainando.
"What's wrong? You look like someone who got their carriage stolen."
"I actually did get it stolen!!"
"What? Why? How?"
Yoner and Nilia, who knew the truth, weren't particularly curious about that.
They were far more curious about how Lee Han's brother communicated.
"Wait, what do you mean he speaks in Spirit Language—"
"What on earth is that—"
"Hold on. Let's hear this first."
After calming his friends down, Lee Han asked why Gainando's carriage had disappeared.
Turns out, the carriage hadn't disappeared—the coachman had suddenly run away.
"Did you by any chance force him to read magazines, use black magic, pester him to buy snacks, ask him to do your homework, or suggest playing Wizard Card?"
"...W-well, I did suggest playing Wizard Card..."
"That must be why he ran away."
"What, is suggesting Wizard Card that big of a crime!?"
"It becomes a crime if you keep insisting. You can go retrieve the carriage later. No one would've taken it."
Nilia looked puzzled at Lee Han's words.
The village near the estate was quite large. And the larger the village, the more thieves there tended to be.
Even in the villages below the northern mountain ranges, if you left a horse tied up without anyone guarding it, it'd disappear before long. Why would it be any different here?
"Why? Someone could've taken it."
"Hoho. No need to worry about that."
Alarong entered after removing his helmet.
Thanks to Lee Han's friends visiting, the old knight was in an exceptionally good mood.
"The villagers here don't do such things, you see."
"But... isn't that a bit too trusting to rely solely on goodwill?"
Nilia asked cautiously.
Speaking to a knight she'd never met before—and an overwhelmingly powerful one at that—was nerve-wracking.
"It's not about relying on goodwill. It's the village rules. If any trouble occurs in the village, the Wardanaz family has agreed to send someone to resolve it. But usually, the villagers handle it themselves before it even gets to that point."
Alarong poured tea from the teapot and sipped it as he explained.
While there wasn't a single village in the Empire without its own quirks and character, Fig Blossom Village, being closest to the Wardanaz family's estate, had particularly strong ones.
Among the great noble families, those with especially deep histories and power typically held judicial, taxation, and public security rights over their surrounding territories.
The Wardanaz family was no exception.
"The Wardanaz family protects its people with one of the lowest tax rates and safest public security in the Empire. As such, the villagers are deeply grateful. That's why they don't stand by and let thieves disrupt the order!"
Lee Han nodded familiarly at Alarong's words—he'd heard this many times before—as he prepared snacks for his friends.
He'd heard so much about how well the Wardanaz family governed their lands that the villagers avoided causing trouble that he was practically sick of it.
"So the villagers try to repay the Wardanaz family for fulfilling their duties."
"Indeed. Hoho."
At Alarong's words, all the other friends present wore impressed expressions.
Listening to this, it truly seemed like an estate filled with beautiful virtues.