Chapter 28: Second Note – 2

“Ugh…”

Consciousness slowly returns.

I tried to open my eyes, but my body felt so heavy that even my eyelids wouldn’t lift properly.

Soreness from muscle pain and the sting of wounds wrapped around my entire body.

Through the barely opened slits of my eyes, I was greeted by a warm scene.

Sunlight streaming in gently.

Curtains swaying slowly.

The chirping of birds.

It was incomparable to the prison I usually woke up in, the prison of the Punishment Unit.

I tried to turn my head slightly, and my heart sank.

Sitting in a small chair next to the bed, Vivian was glaring at me.

“You’re awake.”

She spoke.

“I thought you were dead after being out for two whole days.”

“…Two days?”

I felt like I had just taken a brief nap, but more time had passed than I had thought.

I asked Vivian.

“When did you get here?”

She didn’t answer.

Instead, she rang the bell under my bed to summon people.

The head butler, Pippin, walked in with neat steps and spoke.

“Sir Kailo Alan, you’ve woken up. What a relief.”

If you’re going to say it’s a relief, you could at least put on a more relieved expression.

I would’ve believed it if someone said Vivian was more concerned about me than Pippin was.

Vivian, who looked quite emaciated after the past five days, seemed like she had been through a lot.

If I hadn’t been lying here like this, I might have been the one worrying about her instead.

“P-Pippin, please call Scholar Crellin. A-And bring something light on the stomach too.”

“Right away.”

Vivian’s behavior wasn’t entirely usual.

From the fact that this sickroom was so tidy to her having somewhat taken care of me, to immediately calling a physician and ordering food the moment I woke up.

None of it made sense.

“…Why the sudden care?”

I asked out of curiosity.

Vivian paused for a moment after ending her conversation with Pippin, then sighed and said,

“I was afraid you’d die if I didn’t. If you die here, that’s my responsibility.”

“You always wanted me dead, though.”

“I thought so too… but now I think I’d rather watch you suffer more.”

“You even told me once, didn’t you? That ending things like this would be too boring.”

I turned my head to the side with a faint smile.

Her words were full of contradictions, but for some reason, I felt like I could understand them.

Because I had felt the same way when I looked at Vivian.

Maybe she was doing this for a somewhat similar reason.

It wasn’t long before Scholar Crellin arrived.

He looked me over and said I’d be fine as long as I rested, then left.

Next, the maids entered with food.

The room soon filled with a warm aroma.

Chicken soup and fragrant herbal tea.

A large maid who introduced herself as ‘Lorna’ spoke.

Her voice was surprisingly soft.

“I’ve made the meat nice and tender. It’ll warm you up, and it’s easy on an empty stomach.”

Lorna ladled the soup into a small wooden bowl and placed it in front of me.

The steam from the soup tickled my nose.

Vivian, in her usual indifferent voice, said,

“Eat.”

Even after hearing her words, I hesitated for a moment.

My whole body ached, and I wondered if I could even lift the utensils.

But as I stared at the soup, I suddenly realized how hungry I was.

A wave of hunger hit me like a flood.

I scooped a spoonful of soup into my mouth, and as the warm broth slid down my throat, the pain in my body began to slowly ease.

Vivian watched me eat for a long time without saying anything.

After a while, she turned to Lorna.

“…Bring me some too.”

Though her tone was cold and firm, her fingers were trembling slightly.

I stopped eating and looked at her carefully.

Sure enough, I could see the fatigue on her face.

Even as I stared at her, Vivian didn’t notice my gaze.

She was so hungry that she ate the soup in a somewhat frantic manner, scooping it into her mouth quickly.

Her normally elegant movements were now clumsy and awkward.

It wasn’t until she realized I was watching her that she paused.

When our eyes met, she awkwardly turned her head away.

“…You.”

I quietly asked.

“…Did you go hungry while I was out?”

Vivian didn’t answer and instead lifted her bowl a little higher, as if trying to hide her face.

She tried to maintain her calm, but the tips of her ears, which she couldn’t cover, were turning red with embarrassment.

“You put on a brave face, acting like you’d be fine without me, but you were starving? So you didn’t eat at all for five days?”

Without saying anything, she quickly finished her bowl, then spoke bluntly to the maids.

“…One more bowl.”

Watching her roughly wipe the soup from her lips with the back of her hand, I couldn’t help but laugh.

At the sound of my laughter, Vivian frowned for a moment and warned me,

“If you eat slowly, there’ll be no food left for you.”

She then took the next bowl handed to her by the maids and busied herself with filling her stomach again.

I smiled at her and continued eating my soup.

The room, still bright with sunlight.

***

Around the luxurious wooden table, two or three figures sat, cautiously eyeing one another.

As silence filled the room, a man sitting to the left of the head seat spoke.

“The longer we delay, the harder it becomes.”

The man sitting at the head seat rolled his eyes at this.

“You know, if we’re going to get rid of Vivian, it has to be done as quickly as possible.”

“So we tried poison.”

“If we were going to give up after failing once, we wouldn’t have started at all. The longer we wait, the more guarded she’ll be. You need to move to the next step quickly.”

The man at the head seat snorted.

“So what’s the plan? Even if we use poison, that Kailo Alan guy will just eat everything first. If Kailo Alan isn’t around, Vivian won’t even eat. What are we supposed to do?”

“Well, I was thinking…”

“What, stab her? Do you want to go and do it? The moment you’re caught, suspicion will fall on me, and we’ll both be implicated. Is that what you want?”

“Maybe we could attempt an assassination…”

“How? There are eyes everywhere in the castle, and Vivian’s room is on the third floor. Unless you can turn into a shadow, how are you going to sneak in? You might as well climb the castle walls.”

As the man shrank back under a few words of rebuttal, the man at the head seat clicked his tongue.

It was all because of Kailo Alan, that damned guy.

He was ruining everything again, just like the Alan family always did.

Saving Vivian when she was on the brink of death from poison, eating the food first so the poison couldn’t be used, constantly stepping in when Vivian was humiliated—it was always Kailo Alan.

It was as if Kailo Alan was deliberately trying to anger them.

Even though he had no loyalty to protect Vivian Rondor, he kept acting like it.

Young people were said to be impossible to understand, and Kailo Alan was the perfect example.

There was no one more annoying than Kailo Alan from their perspective.

But eliminating him wasn’t an option either.

He wasn’t some farmer from a remote village.

He was the son of Jade Alan, the undefeated knight.

If they touched him, it might be their heads that would roll.

The Rondor family could face total annihilation.

And yet, there he was, sticking to Vivian like glue.

It was maddening.

What made it worse was that they were spending more and more time together, increasing the pressure.

“Why are those two so attached to each other? I heard they don’t even get along.”

“…Could it be they’re tormenting each other?”

“…Hmph.”

As the Duchess of Rondor had ordered, if Kailo really stayed by Vivian’s side as her guard… at that point, there would be no way to get rid of Vivian.

The man seated in the highest position leaned back and sighed.

“…The next chance is the last.”

He instinctively knew.

If he failed to eliminate Vivian the next time, he would have no choice but to wait idly until she became an adult.

After that, he would no longer be lucky enough to escape the net like he did during the poisoning attempt.

When the poisoning attempt had failed, he had no idea how much trouble it had caused him, killing everyone involved one by one.

Since the longer the tail, the more likely it is to be caught, if he missed the next chance, he would have to live quietly for a while.

Wiping his face repeatedly, he spoke.

“…For now, do whatever it takes to separate that Kailo Alan from Vivian.”

At his words, his advisors nodded.

“Let’s think about the rest after that.”

***

A few days passed, and I continued doing laundry by the riverside.

The wounds on my body had healed to some extent, and my strength had returned.

With each passing day, as my life stabilized little by little, I found myself humming for no reason.

My position in the punishment unit had improved somewhat, and Vivian and I no longer clashed as much.

The vassals of Rondor Castle, who had grown accustomed to my presence, no longer cursed at me as they once did.

Feeling relieved, I stood up.

And when I turned around…

“…Whoa.”

…a maid appeared in front of me.

“Huh?”

And she was the very maid I had been searching for.

The one who had given me the note that said ‘Be careful with the food.’

“I’ve been looking for you… and here you are, appearing just like that.”

“As you probably already understand, I’m not really a maid.”

With time, I had come to understand that to some extent.

But I couldn’t hide my hostility toward her.

Because the fact that she had appeared in front of me again… didn’t seem like a good sign.

“…My master is offering this as a gift to Sir Kailo Alan for what happened last time.”

The maid once again grabbed my hand, placing a pouch of coins on it.

The weight of it told me it was a considerable amount of gold coins.

“Well then.”

Without any hesitation, the maid turned and left after handing it over.

“…What? Leaving just like that?”

I couldn’t stop her from leaving.

There was no point in grabbing her anyway, she wouldn’t tell me anything.

And I didn’t want to get involved in any strange matters by holding her back.

Still, there was a realization.

There was someone in Rondor Castle secretly helping Vivian.

Just that fact alone seemed to ease the burden on my mind.

But to show herself like this just to hand over some gold coins?

I wondered if she wasn’t being a bit too careless.

“…Huh?”

At that moment, I realized something was tucked under the pouch of gold coins.

I sighed through my nose and gritted my teeth.

Of course.

There was a note.

It read: ‘Stay by her side.’