Chapter 119
---------------
Brought to you by Valir Scans! To support our team and enjoy the latest releases, please read directly on our official site: valirscans.org
---------------
119.
Our conversation at the Bistro that evening never continued further, thanks to an Employee who approached our table with the typical question of whether the food suited our palates.
After all, it concerned a subject related to Cassian's mother, and I myself had no desire to remain tactlessly absorbed in such weighty matters.
So I set aside the stilted conversation for a time, instead filling those hours with observations of the evening scenery and the beautiful sights I'd witnessed while traveling through Reardon Territory.
Since the journey back to our lodgings remained quiet, I saw no reason to broach the subject with Cassian.
Yet he, perhaps sensing my lingering questions, presented me with Maribel's diary upon our return to the lodgings that evening.
"Why not read it properly?"
"I thought it might be uncomfortable for you."
"It isn't."
Cassian settled beside me on the sofa, where I lay drowsily after my shower, and spoke while gently drying his still-damp hair.
"I simply wanted to savor the evening with you, so I postponed it."
"And to organize your thoughts as well?"
"Yes."
He smiled naturally, meticulously drying even the moisture from the ends of his hair.
Seeing that peaceful expression, my heart eased somewhat.
"Were you worried?"
"Yes, I felt I'd pried too thoughtlessly."
"Even knowing I'm not so fragile as that?"
After all, your current temperament differs from your true nature—it was shaped by words I spoke in childhood.
With such thoughts, I gazed at him quietly, and he brushed the damp towel aside, extending his hand.
I placed my hand in his as habit dictated, and he grasped it gently in return, smiling.
"I feel the same way, Roselita. I want to know anything more about my mother. You simply organized and shared what I would naturally have questioned."
"You're too generous with me, Ian."
"Because it's you."
He interlaced his fingers with mine.
"You're someone I can afford to let interfere in my life to that extent."
My heart stumbled.
I could tell myself it was merely playful banter, words meant to tease me.
Yet it didn't feel like something said simply because I was his aide.
Knowing the change in his gaze that had occurred long ago, I gazed at him in silence for some time.
Cassian held my stare without flinching, then opened his mouth quietly.
"Won't you ask if I'm teasing you?"
Entranced by the question—level in tone yet subtly tense—I answered.
"Is that what you'd prefer?"
His gaze, which had been fixed directly upon me, shifted away as if evading, then took on a bitter edge.
"For now, yes."
I paused my deepening thoughts amid his question laden with such anguish, and asked as he wished.
"Were you teasing me?"
His lips curved into a smile.
One that held both regret and relief.
"No."
Though it truly seemed like he was toying with me.
As I narrowed my eyes slightly, he brought his lips to the back of my hand.
"I'm sincere."
I had thought there would be mischief mixed in.
But he spoke with a weighty seriousness, as if unwilling to miss this opportunity.
"So in that mind of yours, so full of work and other things."
His lips traced upward along my wrist, approaching the scroll hanging there.
It was a gesture as if asking me to share the weight of the scroll I always tried to bear alone, telling me not to exclude him.
In an air where time seemed to have stopped flowing at its usual pace, he gazed at me with piercing clarity.
"Leave me a mystery too."
That way, you'll unravel me.
Toward him, who had always been serious except when injecting playfulness into those words, I felt an inexplicable emotion.
It seemed like nothing but his contradictory consideration—giving me a corner to escape to.
*
It was also he who redirected my mind, so full of his strange behavior, back to normal.
"But Roselita, it's fine if my priority is pushed back for you right now."
"...What?"
"So resolve what you're curious about first."
He opened Maribel's diary for me, who was answering foolishly, and reminded me what we were originally discussing.
"I also want to know Mother's secrets."
Even adding an appropriate reason.
It was also his way of saying that if I was going to unravel him, I should think it through properly later, not now.
So I turned my head toward the diary, pretending I couldn't help it.
Because I knew Cassian Artez understood me far too well.
Right now, there was nothing more important to me than resolving the scroll.
"Ian really asks too much of me."
I could just speak the truth.
At my grumbling, he pulled my waist close as I began reading the diary.
"I know, but that way you won't run away."
If he said it now, I would run away?
Did this man really see me as so irresponsible?
Exasperated, Cassian Artez laughed softly and redirected his attention once more.
"After you finish reading the diary, I'll take you to the Duke's Residence."
Dangling bait too cunning to refuse.
*
Maribel's diary from her teenage years was quite substantial in volume.
Throughout its pages, she had pressed and decorated it with dried flower petals and leaves, and pasted short letters she'd received from someone.
Because I was so absorbed in reading, I couldn't fall asleep until quite late.
"You need to sleep, Roselita."
"Just a moment, Ian—oh!"
Eventually, Cassian Artez burst in and forcibly laid me on the bed, pulling the blanket over me.
Yet my reading continued until morning.
"Roselita really won't rest even when told to."
He clicked his tongue, but made no further attempt to stop me.
Instead, he waited quietly beside me while I finished, reviewing the borrowed Nobility Almanac and the Liarden Duke House genealogy that he'd obtained.
Those books had been lent by Parker, the Manager of our lodgings.
When Cassian Artez showed interest, Parker eagerly recommended them, emphasizing their importance as reference materials.
'To understand the Reardon Territory, examining the Duke House's history will certainly be most helpful!'
Perhaps his affection for the Liarden Duke House rivaled Cassian Artez's own?
Only after spending that quiet morning did I finally unfurl the scroll that had been making its presence known.
This wasn't the first time I'd opened Maribel's diary.
Unlike when I was planning the Reardon Territory trip with Cassian Artez, now that I was reading the diary properly, the scroll began raising its temperature as if demanding my attention.
I thought naturally that gossip about the parent generation would emerge the moment I opened it.
Information suddenly popped up in the basic settings section.
'Holy Maiden, Mage, Temple... these are all weighty keywords.'
Each one could be called a hidden force shaping the world, yet they're all connected to the Liarden Duke House?
Even Cassian Artez, who was reading the scroll alongside me, wore an expression of bewilderment.
"It seems our mother was far more remarkable than we realized."
"Indeed, and it appears the daughters of Liarden never leaving the territory is connected to this, doesn't it?"
In response to my question, Cassian Artez set down the two books he'd been holding and nodded.
It was his way of confirming what he'd discovered.
That the daughters of Liarden had never once stepped beyond the territory.
"Though the sons of Liarden who left through political marriages were quite numerous."
"Certainly strange, isn't it?"
"True, and as you've read, unlike the previous Duchess who was said to have frail health and often traveled abroad—"
I nodded in agreement with his words.
Indeed, the settings in Maribel's diary were entirely confined to the Liardan Duchy.
As if that were how one was meant to live.
Once I became aware of this pattern, it became impossible not to notice—not a single phrase like "I should visit there next time" appeared throughout.
Cassian Artez extended his hand toward me, lost in thought.
"Shall we visit the Duke's Residence?"
I gazed at his hand for a moment before nodding.
"Things are in chaos there as well."
I grasped his hand while waving the scroll wound around my other wrist.
It felt like the answer we needed right now.
*
The garden resembled the Winter Palace I had seen in the past—back when I was seven and first laid eyes on Cassian Artez.
Amidst the overgrown vegetation, patches of subtle maintenance created an oddly disconcerting impression.
Yet strangely, it didn't evoke that desolate, abandoned feeling.
Evidence of care was visible not only in the building's exterior but throughout its interior as well.
"It seems the villagers must have come regularly to maintain it."
Buildings like this deteriorate rapidly without constant attention, transforming into abandoned ruins.
Yet this place bore the marks of someone entering at least once a week to tend and clean.
"It's clear that the Liarden Duke House treated the territory's people exceptionally well all this time, isn't it?"
"Indeed."
The words tumbled out casually, yet relief threaded through them.
As a family that had been exterminated, I had steeled myself to witness far worse devastation.
After all, the Reardon Town House in the Capital City had been left with nothing but the garden—not a trace remained otherwise.
Contemplating these bittersweet thoughts, we explored the various rooms throughout the Reardon Mansion.
Though the furnishings were aged, nowhere did I see dust accumulated in thick layers.
Even the white cloth draped over the furniture to protect it from damage remained relatively pristine.
As we spent considerable time surveying the spacious first floor in its entirety, neither the scroll's reaction nor the flow of air shifted despite our thorough inspection.
'Isn't this the Duke's Residence?'
With that thought, I ascended to the second floor under Cassian's escort.
We had climbed only three or four creaking steps of the aged staircase when—
"...Ian."
"Yes."
The grating sound that had been persistently irritating my ears vanished abruptly.
---------------
Brought to you by Valir Scans! To support our team and enjoy the latest releases, please read directly on our official site: valirscans.org
---------------