Lia von Elleves (2)
Homemade sweets.
They were uneven and lumpy on the surface, still rough around the edges, clearly the work of an unpracticed hand—but the chocolate peeking through here and there looked sweet and delicious enough to make my mouth water.
Why was she holding these out to me?
I could not make sense of Lia von Elleves’s intention, so I could only stare at her blankly. Then her cheeks tinted pink, and she let out a small, awkward cough.
“Sir Knight, if you keep staring at a lady’s face like that, won’t I start to feel a little embarrassed?”
At Lia von Elleves’s words, my mind went blank for a second.
What, a lady?
Lia von Elleves, the promising villainess who would one day become the greatest evil woman in the Empire, was calling herself a lady?
I nearly corrected her on the spot, because that statement was practically an insult to every lady in the world. But with great self-restraint, I swallowed the words back down.
I had no idea what Lia von Elleves was up to, but if I let my guard down just because she was being friendly for the moment, she might show her true colors before long.
So I decided to indulge her whim, at least for now.
“I apologize, Lady Elleves. I’ll gratefully accept the sweets you’ve given me.”
I took the homemade sweets she offered and quickly examined the surface.
There might have been poison in them, after all. So I pretended not to suspect a thing while checking them very carefully, but at first glance, there was nothing unusual.
……Then, next came the tasting.
Crunch, crunch.
“Sir Knight, do they suit your taste?”
I had been planning to praise them no matter what, even if they hadn’t tasted good, but that turned out not to be necessary. Apart from the rough-looking exterior, they were actually quite good.
With the first bite, the scent of brown sugar spread richly through my mouth, and it was clear the person who made them had real skill.
“Yes. They’re delicious.”
“Oh, I’m glad. I’m happy they suit your taste, since I made them myself.”
“……You made these yourself?”
She hadn’t asked one of the Elleves family’s cooks to make them?
That was unexpected. I looked up at her in surprise, and Lia von Elleves gave a bashful smile.
“I heard the person who’d be taking over as my bodyguard was arriving this afternoon, so I got up early this morning and made them in a hurry.”
“……”
It sounded foolish, but men were naturally weak when it came to the words “homemade food” from a woman.
For a moment, even I nearly found Lia von Elleves adorable.
But just before I let my guard down, just before I could grow careless, I reminded myself that seven years from now she would be the greatest villainess in the Empire—and I barely managed to steady my head again.
“Ah… I see. So you got up early this morning and made these homemade sweets for me.”
“That’s right!”
Lia von Elleves said it in an unusually bright tone, but I was too busy wondering what I should offer in return for the homemade sweets to hear her properly.
After all, I had just eaten homemade sweets made personally by Lia von Elleves, the only daughter of the famous Count Elleves family.
There was an old saying that if something went out, something else had to come back in return. In noble society, give-and-take was basic common sense, so if I wanted to remain proper, I needed to present something of equal value in return for these sweets.
In other words, I needed to give Lia von Elleves a proper return gift right now. The problem was that I hadn’t brought anything with me.
My food, clothing, and lodging were all being handled by the Elleves household, which had hired me, so the only things I had on me were the sword at my waist and a wallet with emergency cash in it.
Giving a sword as a gift to an unmarried female noble was not etiquette, and handing over cash was… well, there was no need to say more.
So while I was thinking about what I could offer her, I reached inside my robe.
My fingers touched something hard, and when I quietly pulled it out, it turned out to be the recovery potion I’d received from my older brother.
“Wow, that’s a pretty potion. Sir Knight, what does it do?”
Just as I was about to put it away again, because this really didn’t seem right, Lia von Elleves took an interest in my potion.
I froze awkwardly and covered the bottle with my palm.
“Well, it’s a potion that improves the body’s natural healing ability, but….”
“Natural healing ability…!”
Lia von Elleves’s eyes lit up.
“Sir Knight. If your natural healing ability improves, do you think you might also get taller?”
“Ah, well. I’ve only heard that it improves natural healing ability; I wasn’t told the details of the effect. So I can’t really guarantee….”
Her face slightly flushed, and she stepped closer.
“Could you give me that potion?”
“……Pardon? This?”
“Yes. You said it improves natural healing ability, didn’t you? I want to drink it. Because I want to get taller.”
It was true that Lia von Elleves wasn’t very tall.
According to the novel, she was said to be about one finger joint shorter than Stella, who stood at 162 centimeters, so generously speaking she was probably around 160 centimeters tall.
Even in the year she met her end, when she turned twenty, her height had not changed, so it was a settled fact that she would never grow beyond 160 centimeters. But there was no way the current Lia von Elleves could know that and be asking for the potion because of it.
She was probably just like any childish kid, wanting to grow up as quickly as possible—even if only by a day—and asking me for it for that reason.
“……”
Handing over the potion itself wasn’t difficult. But this was something I had held in my mouth and spat back out before my brother used magic to return it to the bottle.
If I gave it to her and, by some terrible chance, she found out it was a potion I’d spat out after drinking it?
As far as I could tell, a catastrophe—or something close enough to one—would be inevitable. So I reached into my robe to hide the potion-
──Grab.
“……Sir Knight?”
Lia von Elleves caught my sleeve.
She clutched it tightly, her tiny hand packed with surprising force.
“Didn’t you hear what I just said? I said I want that potion….”
She probably thought she was stopping me, but it was still only the strength of a little girl. Someone like me, who had trained since childhood, could shake her off with ease.
But this wasn’t just any little girl—it was Lia von Elleves, the infamous villainess herself. If I carelessly shoved her away, she might reveal the monstrous true nature she’d hidden all this time and start tormenting me instead.
So I chose to talk first, before acting rashly.
“Lady Lia von Elleves.”
“Would you call me Lia? The people close to me call me that.”
“Lady, first please calm down and listen to me, if you would.”
Apparently she didn’t like being called “lady,” because Lia von Elleves’s brows twitched.
But as a bodyguard serving a young noblewoman, I couldn’t casually address someone who was effectively my lord by her first name, so I kept the title and continued.
“There’s something I neglected to mention. This potion actually has a major side effect.”
“Huh? A major side effect? What in the world do you mean…?”
“Yes. The major side effect is….”
I let the end of the sentence trail off and quickly racked my brain. What could I say that would give Lia von Elleves a reason not to drink this potion?
Saying it causes a serious illness if you drink it… was too obvious, and saying it brings misfortune if you drink it… didn’t make any sense either.
For a bodyguard who served a noble lady up close to be carrying such a dangerous potion was absurd in the first place.
So I needed a more realistic excuse—one that would absolutely keep Lia von Elleves from putting this potion to her lips.
While I was agonizing over it, my eyes landed on Lia von Elleves’s flat upper body.
……Ah, right. This would do. This excuse should work.
I cleared my throat and met Lia von Elleves’s eyes.
“It makes your chest grow.”
“……My chest?”
“Yes. This is a potion that improves the body’s natural healing ability. But because its effect is so powerful, it has a fatal side effect: if a young girl drinks it, her chest will grow far too much when she’s older.”
People who didn’t know the unwritten rules of this world might think that was a ridiculous side effect, but that wasn’t the case.
Young noble ladies who met many people naturally had to wear clothes that flattered them well.
But women with overly abundant chests usually couldn’t make anything look elegant.
Why? Because if clothes were tailored to fit the chest, the waist would end up too loose and baggy, and if they were tailored to fit the waist, the chest would feel tight and look terribly awkward.
In that sense, a large chest was a disadvantage, not an advantage, for a noble lady. So naturally, I thought Lia von Elleves, who had received a noble upbringing from birth, would recoil and refuse outright.
……But.
──Whoosh!
After hearing me out, Lia von Elleves widened her eyes and started rummaging through my robe with rough hands. I was so startled that I grabbed her wrist before I could stop myself.
“L-Lady. What are you doing?”
“Sir Cain Reinhardt, who became my bodyguard starting today. From this moment on, don’t move even one step. That is the first order I’m giving you.”
“Pardon? What are you—what are you talking about…?”
“……Tsk! Why does this bodyguard talk so much? Enough nonsense. Hand over that potion—the one that makes your chest grow. Right this instant!”
“W-wait? Lady, Lady? You can’t do this, you really can’t….”
Bang!
Just then, the drawing-room door swung open with a thud. The steward I’d seen earlier, along with several servants in neat maid uniforms, looked around in alarm.
“──Lady Lia! We heard a loud noise from inside—are you all right…!”
Then they spotted Lia von Elleves, who was still rummaging through my robe with her hand shoved inside it.
Their faces froze.
And then Lia von Elleves, who should in seven years’ time become the greatest villainess in the Empire, looked at me with pleading eyes and seemed to beg only with her gaze.
Please, don’t say anything-!