episode_0006

2 weeks later.

While I was getting ready to leave, I waited for a visit from my fiancee, just in case.

What should I say when she comes to visit? How should I apologize? How will she react again?

Days like these continued to clutter my head.

“Deacon.”

“Yes, matriarch.”

“Has the letter from her arrived yet?”

“Unfortunately… Yes, it hasn’t arrived yet.”

“I see.”

Even though I was leaving the capital tomorrow, my fiancée, who hated me, didn’t even send me a letter, let alone visit me.

“I wasted my time.”

What should I say? How do I apologize? What kind of tea and snacks should I serve? Should I tell her what my condition is? How will he react if she gets angry? How will you react if she cries? She… What will you do if you catch me?

All my time worrying about such things was just a waste of time.

“… Butler. From now on, can you write down what I say and pass it on to her?”

“Whether it is possible?”

I quietly cleared my throat even though she wasn’t listening.

“Young-ae. I know that every feeling you have toward me is valid, and I respect every action that stems from that feeling.”

“Young-ae. Please understand that I am leaving for reasons I cannot bear to tell. I will not ask you to forgive, understand, or remember. I probably don’t have the right to do that.”

“I will leave hoping to meet someone who can make you happy.”

The deacon, who quietly wrote down the contents, soon stopped his pen and asked the question again.

“Do you really think this is enough…? ?”

“Me… no. That’s enough. Any more than that would be a waste of time and ink.”

The butler quietly left the office to mail the letter, and I took out the snacks I had planned to treat her when she came and gave them to the crow.

I thought crows would like it because it was quite expensive, but I was wrong. Instead of accepting the cookie, the crow immediately started getting angry.

“Hey, you stupid bastard!”

“I’m asking this out of curiosity, but are crows naturally this angry creatures?”

“If he sees you, he will burst out in rage even if a saint, not a crow, comes! ”

If you think about it, why do you get angry over something that isn’t anyone’s fault? She just didn’t reply to my letter asking to visit. So I didn’t visit.

And I just got excited and prepared to greet the guest, expecting her to come.

I just wrote a letter and prepared to receive a guest, and she just didn’t write a reply and didn’t come to see me. That’s all. Why are you angry?

“Fuck… ! Ah-oh… ! You frustrating idiot! Why are you being so annoying to a girl who isn’t even family?”

“Others may not know, but she has the right to hate me.”

“What… ?”

“I… ”

I couldn’t speak properly, as if something painful was stuck in my throat.

“I murdered her sister solely out of my own will. By piercing her chest and squeezing her heart out in the middle of the battlefield.”

“That’s… ”

“That’s also why I entrusted the letter I wrote to her to the butler. A letter written by a hand that has broken the heart of flesh and blood. There is no deception like that.”

The crow seemed speechless.

“… There is no right to be offended by something like this.”

Now that she was the head of a decent family, she had the right to refuse my request.

“I’m rather happy. The fact that my dear friend’s younger brother has grown up like this.”

“You know it’s not very persuasive when you say that with a deadpan expression, right?”

“Adding fake information for the sake of persuasion is called fraud.”

“Anyway, he’s like an old man. They say there are no weirdos.”

I thought it wouldn’t make much of a difference given that I didn’t have much time left to live.

“It’s quite awkward to listen to a crow who speaks human language calling you a weirdo.”

Recently, I learned a few things from frequent conversations with this crow.

This crow has quite sophisticated tastes.

This crow overthinks my position.

And this crow has an excessively loud mouth.

“Anyway, what were you doing earlier?”

“Even if I leave tomorrow, I can’t neglect my duties as the head of the family.”

“… Aha! That’s it, that’s it!”

The crow suddenly began to rejoice alone, clapping his wings and behaving strangely.

“Yes, something like this should come out!”

“Can I ask what that means?”

“Why is it a common pattern? Something that feels the empty space after I’m gone and tells you to give it a try!”

I expressed doubts about the crow’s words.

“That sounds incomprehensible.”

“Even though you are an idiot with stiff facial muscles, aren’t you a person who works hard? You’re right, I’m asking you to have a hard time juggling the influx of work after you disappear! I don’t know what to do and there’s no one to teach me, so I stay up all night! In the process, you make a lot of mistakes and feel like you’re empty, so you’re telling me to fuck you, right?! Right?!”

It was even more incomprehensible. To the point where it would have been easier to understand the crow’s cry.

“… I have written a manual for when my younger sister succeeds to the position of head of the family. There are also vassals to help my inexperienced younger sister. There will be no confusion, no wandering, no staying up all night.”

Laws for managing the family’s property, laws for managing the family’s knights, laws for managing businesses owned by the family, matters related to events that must be hosted as the head of the family, and even laws for managing subordinates. I wrote down everything I know in detail.

“Why did you do that…? No, do you want to see Koraji whining that there are no problems even without you? Those bastards have to make some mistakes before they feel your absence, you idiot!!!”

“Because I actually hope so. Because I don’t want my position to be empty or my sister to make a mistake.”

“Fuck, I loved my amazing little sister. Has your sister ever given you a cup of tea for your hard work?”

“… That’s foolish. This isn’t for my sister. It’s not even for me.”

I took out a document about my family’s business and showed it to the crow.

“This is for these people.”

“What…?”

“Many subordinates are held responsible for the mistakes of the head of the household. And the impact will also be felt on their countless families. Because you never know how big a disaster a single mistake made through ignorance can cause.”

The crow quietly lowered his head.

If the owner of any position changes, it is natural for confusion to arise.

“… I don’t know what I gain by doing so, so I can’t say for sure. If the purpose of that act is to feel self-satisfaction by looking at my mistakes after I am gone.”

If it is an act of deceiving the other person by taking advantage of their inexperience and thinking that you are foolish and I am superior.

“That would truly be a terrible and selfish act.”

There would be no more cowardly act than ignoring the repercussions of such an act and the people who will suffer as a result. Moreover, if there is someone who does something like that to prove their worth, that person deserves to be treated like trash.

“… Surprisingly, you grew up to be a great nobleman.”

“You speak as if you know me from the past.”

“Well… wouldn’t you be able to get a rough estimate if you look at the details of this family?”

I wanted everyone to live the same tomorrow as yesterday, or even a better tomorrow than yesterday, even after I left, as if nothing had happened.

The crow seemed to be convinced and started pecking at the peppermint cookie I gave it. And the sight of me eating cookies felt like I was seeing someone from the past, so I felt a little proud.

And when the crow was about to eat all the cookies, a knock was heard.

“What’s going on?”

“Madam, the reply you sent has just arrived.”

“Come in.”

The butler handed me a black envelope with a luxurious gold pattern.

“The head of the family must have been late in choosing what to say. So don’t be too angry…”

“There is no reason for me to be angry, sir.”

I opened the envelope with very little anticipation.

And what was inside was just white paper.

It was a pure white paper with no letters to be found. The paper itself was high quality, but there wasn’t even a common greeting inside.

The white blank paper in everyone’s mind in this office immediately brought out the anger of the butler and the crow.

“You bitch!!!”

“… Isn’t this too much, matriarch? Anyway, how could you do this to the head of the family?”

Even I could understand why they were angry.

This blank page was an unspoken message telling me to get out of the way immediately because I have nothing to say to people like you.

“Don’t be angry, butler.”

“If it weren’t for the help of the head of the family, would that young girl have been able to sit in the head’s position?”

“… Butler. Could you please add one more line to that letter?”

I felt like I needed to edit the letter.

“As you wish, I will never be happy again.”

The butler nodded with a gloomy face and quietly left the office.

“Hey, at least get angry! So, everyone doesn’t think you’re an asshole! Why on earth are you like that?”

“… Because there is no need for that.”

Right now, I didn’t feel any sadness, anger, or regret.

“Because a dead friend told me. How to kill the surging emotions and bury them in a corner of your heart.”

“Hey, wait a minute, you said that…”

“I can bury this much in my heart.”

The emotions that were killed and buried like that could rot like actual corpses.

There was a huge tree that grew from those rotten emotions.

And the name of the tree was ‘familiar’.

Today, a new branch has simply grown into that ‘familiarity’.