Chapter 48
Chapter 48
"He insulted my brother, and said something about a monster."
At those words, Leopold glanced at Alpheus.
"Brisa, it seems you and your brother have grown quite close."
It was a roundabout way of asking, "Is your brother someone you can trust enough to say something like that to his face?"
But at those words, Alpheus answered brightly.
"Of course! We're the only family either of us has left in this world, aren't we? Isn't it only natural that we'd grow fond of each other as soon as we met? Hahaha, but thank you very much for the compliment!"
"See?"
Brisa shrugged.
"You can just speak more casually. Although laughing like 'hahaha' is not okay."
Alpheus didn't particularly mind that either. He simply decided that from now on he would laugh with a hearty "bwahaha" instead.
"A monster......"
Brisa murmured once more.
"It's definitely about that house's second son. When I took Alpheus's side, Gilav brought it up while going on about 'dirty blood.'"
The second son of House Dibostan was an illegitimate child with half commoner blood.
Alpheus wasn't an illegitimate child, but his circumstances were similar.
"When we heard that strange sound echoing through the Duke's Residence, Alpheus said it resembled a Monster's cry. There's no reason a Monster would appear inside the residence, so... that second son and the 'monster' must be connected."
Leopold fell silent.
Alpheus tilted his head and spoke.
"So Brisa, are you saying that second son turns into a monster or something? There are lots of stories like that in beautiful fairy tales, you know! He turns back into a person with a princess's kiss...... so how about we start by finding him a woman he loves?"
"Turning into a monster—I'm impressed by your one-dimensional imagination."
"One-dimensional? Then shouldn't you not be impressed?"
"Because a princess's kiss was zero-dimensional imagination."
Brisa sighed and waved her hand.
"A woman he loves, what in the...... If this got out, his perfectly good engagement would be the first thing to break."
The duke's second son had a fiancée. She was a foreign princess arranged by his biological mother, the head of a merchant company.
That illegitimate second son surpassed the eldest son in many ways, both in ability and character. So the vassals wanted to raise the second son to heir by any means.
Moreover, his birth mother had enough wealth to support that movement with money and influence.
What had given wings to that unprecedented movement was precisely his engagement to the princess.
"Engagement? He was engaged?"
"A political engagement."
At Alpheus's question, Brisa answered coldly.
"If your imagination were true, she'd run for her life, let alone kiss him. Where in this world is there a woman who wants to marry a man who turns into a monster?"
"Well, true."
Alpheus agreed immediately.
"You can't live with a monster."
Leopold said nothing.
A brief silence fell.
Leopold slowly confirmed that no filth had gotten on his shoes, then slowly turned around.
"How about we set off by Warp for now? Grandfather will be worried."
Both Alpheus and Brisa agreed. Wendy and the maid would obviously follow on their own from far behind anyway.
As they walked, Leopold asked Brisa indifferently.
"Can we talk about the broken engagement now? I'm a little hesitant to ask, but..."
Hm?
Alpheus swallowed dryly and pricked up his ears.
No matter how mature he tried to act, a kid was still a kid. He had sounded calm, but an adult could see how tense he really was.
'This kid...... no way.'
Fourteen years old.
He was young, but it was an age when one started to take an interest in the opposite sex.
Alpheus, too, had fallen in love for the first time at fourteen. It was with a young woman from the bakery who gave him leftover bread.
Whenever she gave him bread, Alpheus, who had gone hungry all day, filled with joy and spent every day waiting for that moment.
The smell of bread that clung to her was so wonderful that it even appeared in his dreams.
'Could this kid like Bribri?'
It was possible.
Moreover, just looking at them, they clearly seemed to trust each other. The way they casually conversed in a crisis situation alone showed that.
'Maybe a close friend who couldn't bring himself to approach because of the fiancé?'
He barely managed to hold back the snort that escaped on its own.
His chest tingled and his shoulders twitched with excitement.
'I'll keep my mouth shut.'
Alpheus did his best to stay silent.
'So the two of them can focus on their conversation.......'
Even so, he couldn't stop the corners of his mouth from rising.
Brisa smoothed her hair and answered Leopold.
"Sure. I expected it anyway, so it did not hurt."
"Are you feeling all right?"
"The congratulatory bouquet you sent helped quite a bit."
At that, Leopold muttered with a dismayed face.
"......I sent it anonymously."
"I can guess that much. What do you take my reasoning ability for?"
Leopold let out a deep sigh and showed his irritation.
"There's no point in having sent it anonymously, then."
At that, Brisa drooped her eyebrows and consoled him.
"I'll make sure the Sears history records that Leopold sent it anonymously. Then it'll have been worth it."
"Are you joking, Brisa?"
"Not enough? Then I'll have them underline the word 'anonymous.'"
Meanwhile, Alpheus held back his increasingly ragged breathing.
Aaaah, good heavens.
'It's true, it's true.'
Alpheus wanted to stamp his feet from the thrill.
'He was desperately waiting for the engagement to break. And he even sent flowers anonymously? Insane, absolutely insane.'
With devotion like this, he could approve of Leopold as a match for his little sister!
Alpheus wasn't the sort of narrow-minded young man with a mindset like "No one can have my little sister!"
'If she pairs up with a kind-hearted man and lives happily together, that would be nice.'
Watching her become happily independent like that was one of his modest hopes.
Of course, he could still grumble something like, "To think someone is taking away my most precious treasure—my heart aches a little and feels empty......."
Still, Leopold suited Brisa well. For one thing, the two of them could hold a conversation without yielding to each other.
'That alone is a pass.'
Brisa continued calmly.
"So I knew you'd always wanted the engagement to end."
Leopold flinched in surprise, but even so, he answered composedly.
"Really? I don't think I ever particularly showed that."
"Did you think I was that oblivious? Did you perhaps confuse me with Gilav?"
"Good heavens, to think you even noticed that. Your pale hair is similar, so I sometimes get the two of you mixed up. Anyway."
Leopold caught his breath for a moment, then spoke.
"It's a good thing. Noble marriages don't come free. If one was forced through despite mismatched conditions, the other side must be hiding a card."
Alpheus truly wanted to shove his fist into his mouth now.
Could the love lives of little kids be this entertaining?
Was it too premature to wait for a line like "Come to me instead"?
Well, these children were still young.......
Brisa answered calmly.
"Don't criticize him too harshly. I know he treated me with as much courtesy as he could."
Good heavens.
Alpheus felt like pounding his chest.
To take the side of her trashy ex-fiancé here!
In front of the devoted young man who had finally seized his chance and was comforting her!
How miserable must the boy from House Nozen be right now?
He, too, at fourteen, had been terribly dejected when the young woman from the bakery said, "What do we do, Alphi? I gave all the bread to Paul today, so there's none left."
That night, lying on a pile of straw with an empty stomach, he was so miserable he couldn't sleep. All night long, he kept thinking about the bread she used to give him...
Alpheus had always been weak toward children. And on top of that, a wounded child, no less.
"Brisa, that's not right!"
Therefore, he ended up cutting into the conversation.
"What kind of courtesy is it to send a notice ending the engagement the moment you're no longer the heir? If I'd known then, I would have chased that bastard down, hung him upside down, and smacked the soles of his feet!"
Handsome boy from Nozen, I'll take your side!
And not just anyone—the older brother of the very person you're pining for!