Chapter 27
Chapter 27 (Illustration)
It wasn't until I reached the cabin where Mom was lying down that reality sank in.
All the strength drained out of my body.
'They'll probably break off the engagement.'
Someone outside the Sears Marquis Residence had witnessed Mom's madness.
We had stayed only at the Marquess's Residence precisely to avoid this sort of thing.
Now the rumors would spread. The Princess of Liente really had gone mad.
So much money had been spent to arrange my engagement.......
My fiancé's family would be furious.
Saying we had hidden such a serious matter and rushed the engagement, that we had no shame.
Asking what would happen if the madness was hereditary.......
I held Mom's hand as she lay in the cabin, and only then did my tears begin to spill.
I was full of regret, miserable, and...... completely at a loss.
"Hm?"
Mom opened her eyes only after the boat outing had ended.
"What's this? I'm a little dizzy......."
I wiped away my tears and smiled, my face clean again.
"You took medicine because you were seasick, Mom."
"Did I?"
Mom tilted her head.
"Oh my, I must have missed the prize drawing. Where is your father?"
"In another cabin."
I said calmly.
"Still, you don't seem to be feeling well. All the official events are over now, so shall we go home?"
"Let's do that. My stomach does feel a little queasy."
Mom remembered nothing. But as always, she accepted the gap in her memory as if it were nothing.
"Anyway, the engagement was completed without any problems, right? Right?"
"Yes, Mom."
I nodded.
"Everything went well."
I couldn't tell Mom the truth because I was afraid.
Mom still hadn't accepted her own madness. I couldn't gauge how shocked she would be if I told her this.
What if she was so shocked that she completely lost her mind.......
Still, these days she was lucid more often than not.......
But she would find out eventually.......
Because Leopold had witnessed Mom's madness, the rumors would spread far and wide, and my engagement would soon be broken off.
Of course, Mom did not get better even after the engagement ceremony.
Every night, Mom wailed from behind the locked door.
"I don't want to go! I said I don't want to go! I'd rather die! How am I supposed to live there all alone? Huh?"
Unable to eat or sleep, saying she wouldn't go to the Empire.......
"I won't marry that man! Marquess Sears? Why should I marry some old man whose face I've never even seen?"
I buried my face in my arms inside my room and cried quietly.
She hated the Empire and Father that much, so could she really love me, the child she had been forced to bear?
From the moment she left Liente, hadn't she hated the idea of bearing Father's child?
The reason she kept going back to that day she left the Kingdom of Liente was, in the end, probably because she regretted all the days she had spent with me.
But after raising such a fuss all night, when the sun rose in the morning, Mom would look for me.
"Brisa? Hurry and bring the Teipan language textbook. We need to move on to the next lesson. Hmm, your lace is wrinkled, so sit down again. This afternoon I'll be testing you on ancient language vocabulary, so keep that in mind."
I always did my best.
Because when I did well, Mom was happy, and if she was happy, she might not regret giving birth to me, and if she escaped the past like that, she might miraculously become well again.
'I tried and tried so hard, but...... if I get jilted, will it all be for nothing in the end?'
Unable to tell anyone about what Leopold had witnessed, I agonized in silence.
But one month, two months, and then three months.
Until Mom passed away.
That incident never once crossed anyone's lips.
Even when I met Leopold again at the Academy, we never once mentioned it.
I alone took care not to say anything nonsensical or foolish in front of him, afraid he might suspect I was "a crazy girl like her mother."
Actually, I was like that with everyone.
Not losing my composure, not crying or laughing easily, not saying anything unreasonable.
Because of that, people often called me cold and aloof, but that was better than being called crazy.
Unlike me, Leopold was a gentleman who extended such kindness to everyone.
For him, who involved himself in other people's affairs with measured kindness and then forgot about it, that day's incident must have meant nothing.
"Everything will be fine."
But in life, there are moments like that.
The moment a debt was created that I alone would remember for the rest of my life.
Precisely because it weighed so heavily on me, I tried even harder to act as though nothing had happened.
I was afraid my continuing to remember that day would burden him.
There was a reason I had fed Baron Forman so well—and even packed potatoes and radish sprouts for him to take.
'Actually, that's not all.'
I even gave him eggs, picking out the biggest ones.
* * *
Leopold quietly watched Brisa's party disappear through the Warp.
The knights were carrying as many sacks of wheat as they possibly could.
"It looks like the central region's Warp isn't working either. That must be why they're hauling wheat home like that."
"Right. I really thought I was going to starve to death."
Baron Forman, standing beside Leopold, sighed.
"But that young lady fed us all. The one you anonymously sent flowers to."
"I'll have to replace my subordinates."
Leopold said languidly.
"Since it seems confidential information has reached Grandfather's ears."
"No matter how many times you replace your subordinates, you can't escape the eyes of His Highness the Grand Duke of Nozen in the west."
Baron Forman grinned.
When Leopold heard that his maternal grandfather had gone to the central region, he had already grasped the whole situation.
Since playing dumb would be useless anyway, Baron Forman said slyly.
"Why did you send the flowers?"
"A small comfort for an Academy classmate who would be dispirited because of the broken engagement."
"Then why did you send them anonymously?"
"Because I dislike situations where someone asks me 'why.' Like right now, at this very moment."
Leopold answered expressionlessly.
Baron Forman murmured with satisfaction.
"She really is a remarkable young lady. I'll have much to tell the Grand Duke of Nozen. For now, I owe that young lady an enormous debt."
"A debt?"
"Lotus root, fried fish, grilled mushrooms......."
At Baron Forman's serious words, Leopold smiled nonchalantly.
"An amusing debt."
"It is by no means small, Leopold."
Baron Forman, who had caught the meaning of Leopold's "nothing much," turned stern.
"You've been in the west the whole time, so you don't know how precious food is. This place is abundant wherever you go, even when monsters appear."
"I see."
"Leo, you don't understand at all."
Baron Forman's gaze sank.
"That young lady's worth, I mean....... No matter how I explain it in your current state, you probably won't truly understand."
"Surely not."
It was a firm denial.
"No, I said you don't understand."
Baron Forman said flatly.
"If you truly understood, you could never have given her something like a Tracking Scent."
"That was the most valuable thing I possessed. I thought you would be horrified, Grandfather."
"Look at this clueless whelp....... Couldn't you tell she only took it out of courtesy? She looked at it like it was the most useless thing in the world."
"Then I'm curious what gift you would have wanted to give Brisa instead of the Tracking Scent, Grandfather."
At that, Baron Forman answered boastfully.
"One more sack of wheat."
"Surely not."
Then he added, as if regretful.
"Then I might have been able to see that young lady's smile."
"Surely not."
"But before that."
Baron Forman looked around.
"I'll need to look into when black mages started crawling into the western ports."
Leopold nodded, and his eyes gleamed chillingly as well.
At his feet, the black mage who had confronted Brisa was still collapsed. He had no intention of killing him easily.