episode_0133

If there’s one thing I realized after listening to Emily, it’s that.

I was too greedy.

I want to have a lot of customers, I want to monopolize the clothes I spread to the world, and I want to find someone I can trust, and I wish I had someone who was good at their job, and I try to take care of this and that event.

I was overloaded because I was trying to embrace everything.

I’m not a superhuman or a machine.

You have to be good at throwing things away as much as you take care of them.

You have to distinguish between junk and antique luxury goods so that your house isn’t covered in trash.

You have to be able to distinguish between important and unnecessary things to have time to spare in your life and approach what you truly want more sincerely.

But throwing things away is not easy.

Because greed and arrogance exist in people’s hearts, even if they know it’s too much for them, they don’t want to give up, because they think they can do it.

And it’s also the part I’m worst at.

I’m a bit of an extreme person, so I either don’t do anything at all, or I take care of everything.

That’s why I’m in this state.

In times like these, it was good to honestly admit my own limitations and go to seek advice.

To someone I know who knows how to throw things away the best, and who I can trust enough to get help from.

– Knock knock.

“Come in.”

A low, mid-bass voice heard from beyond the door after the knock.

I slowly opened the door so that it wouldn’t make any noise and carefully stepped into the room.

The strong scent of black tea that I felt as soon as I opened the door.

If my mother were here, she would have told me to stop eating perfume instead of black tea, and I felt a slight dizziness from the strong scent, but whether or not, the man in the room was indifferently sipping black tea and silently reading documents.

“What’s the matter?”

“Do you have a moment, Father?”

“Hmm?”

My father, who was asking the uninvited guest what was the matter while keeping his eyes fixed on the documents, looked ahead with his eyes wide open like a surprised rabbit when he heard my voice from the uninvited guest.

“William?”

Slightly dazed eyes.

Lips that are awkwardly open and trembling lips.

“…Am I interrupting you while you’re busy?”

“No, no, sit over there first.”

“Yes.”

Just as I was about to step back, thinking that I had come at the wrong time, my father came to his senses half a beat late and pointed to the reception table in the corner of the room and got up from his seat.

And while I was heading to the table, he lightly shook the bell on the desk and called the maid who was waiting in the next room.

“Did you call, Count?”

“Bring some fresh black tea, but make it light so that my son can drink it too.”

“Understood.”

My father, who ordered to replace the perfume called black tea with real black tea, sat across from me.

“It’s been a while since you’ve come to see this father first, what’s the matter?”

As soon as my father sat on the chair, he went straight to the point without waiting for the maid to brew new tea and bring it.

His expression was stiff, but the subtly light movements and the center of gravity leaning slightly forward showed that my father was subtly excited.

“I have a problem, I thought you could give me some advice, Father.”

“Helen would be better than me for that kind of thing… but I’ll help as much as I can in my own way.”

“Thank you.”

“So, what’s the problem?”

“Hmm…”

I glanced at the ceiling and leaned slightly on the backrest.

And I hesitated and opened my mouth.

“I have a lot of worries about this and that… the most important thing is that I’m starting things haphazardly, but it’s not being handled well, I don’t have enough people, the work is increasing, troublesome things keep happening, and unpredictable things keep happening… I have to solve it somehow, but I don’t know how… huh…”

I was a little embarrassed to be telling my family about these worries after eating enough age, so I told the story in a slightly rambling way, and as I finished speaking, I let out a breath close to a sigh and lightly scratched my cheek.

“Ha…”

My father listened to my story quietly, then chuckled and raised one corner of his mouth, crossed his arms and tilted his head slightly upward, and began to speak.

“When this father was about Edward’s age, I had a lot of the same worries as you.”

“You did, Father…?”

“Of course.”

My father is also a human being, so he may have had such a time, but honestly, I couldn’t believe it.

Because the titles attached to my father’s side are not ordinary.

The shield of the empire, the butcher, the human crusher…

Would you believe it if someone like that had the same worries that a teenage boy would have?

That’s why I looked at my father with distrustful eyes and waited for what kind of story would come out.

“My father passed away a little early, so I suddenly had to inherit, Evelyn was growing up, Helen was pregnant with her second child, and as the late Emperor became seriously ill, the power struggles in the imperial family became increasingly fierce.”

“I, I see…”

As expected, it was on a different level than me.

If I had just two of those things coming at me, I think I would have gone crazy…

“I gave up quite a few things back then.”

“You gave up?”

“At that time, our family was on the side of the 2nd Prince… that is, the older brother of the current Emperor, since we have no choice but to be close to the military.”

“Huh?”

I frowned with a dumbfounded sound at the very unexpected sound.

He was on the side of the person that the Emperor himself had put in a coffin?

“It must be a bit strange for you, you can’t even imagine it when you see the current Emperor and us.”

“Yes…”

“The 2nd Prince was a capable knight and general, I can guarantee that he would have been used heavily until now if he had no desire for the throne, as far as the military system is concerned, he is comparable to His Excellency the Prince Consort.”

“Then why did you support the current Emperor?”

“He wasn’t the right person to be a good emperor, his personality and ideology were a bit… extreme, he was someone who thought it was natural to treat the people harshly, thinking of them as consumables.”

“Ah…”

“The moment to make a choice comes, but things are flowing in a complicated way, so I was going crazy, after much deliberation, I chose a better future even if it was uncertain, at that time, the Emperor was timid but upright.”

“Yes…?”

Words that shouldn’t be together came out in succession.

As I made a shocked expression and opened my mouth wide, my father burst into a hearty laugh and shrugged his shoulders.

“Haha, well… he became a little eccentric because of the stress of the throne, but still, it’s not directed at the people, at least he keeps the line.”

“That’s true…”

I felt like I was hearing a lot of shocking stories today.

Is this why my parents don’t talk about the old days very often?

Indeed.

In fact, if I heard that the Emperor was timid and that my father was actually a runaway ninja from the 2nd Prince’s side, I would probably be told not to talk nonsense.

How can a timid person make an imperial duke his maid, and how can a runaway ninja rise to the Emperor’s right-hand man?

“It must have been difficult to make a choice, how did you make such a choice?”

“I always set priorities clearly, what to protect first, and what to throw away first.”

“What’s the method for setting that? You have to give up what you have anyway.”

“You have to set a clear goal, if you clearly define and remember ‘why’ you came to do that action, that job, that plan, it will help a lot when setting that priority, I prioritized the peace of the family and the empire, so I was able to neatly betray the 2nd Prince and the friends I had made in childhood.”

“I see…”

My father smiled bitterly and closed his eyes slightly.

And my father bit his lower lip slightly and kept silent for a moment.

“…William.”

As time passed and the maid who had brought the new tea placed the teapot and teacups on the table and left, my father slowly opened his eyes and opened his tightly closed lips and called me in a low voice.

“As you get older and walk your own path, you will gradually have things that you have to give up, it may be money or things, but it may also be an opportunity to move towards success, just like you are worrying about how to handle the things you have started haphazardly now.”

“Yes.”

“If you want to regret that choice a little less, make sure you understand what you truly want, you have to know clearly what you want to protect the most, what you want to do the most, to decide what to give up.”

“Yes…”

“I think this is about all this father can say to your worries.”

My father, who gave me advice with a soft smile, finally unfolded his arms and picked up the teacup that the maid had left and quenched his thirst.

“Did this father’s words help you even a little bit?”

“My head is still complicated, but I think my thoughts are getting a little clearer.”

“I’m glad if it helped.”

“No, I should be thanking you.”

I smiled along with my father, who looked relieved, and picked up the teacup.

My head was still complicated and I needed time to sort it out, but after listening to Emily’s and my father’s stories, I felt like I was seeing a direction a little bit.