A knock sounded, and Diana turned toward the door of her room.
“Come in.”
The instant the door opened, she was greeted by a mass of great blossoms.
A soft fragrance drifted from the bouquet held out to her.
“What…?”
“It occurred to me that we have done things rather badly out of order.”
Alan, the man offering the flowers, scratched his cheek with his other hand in embarrassment.
“Next time, let us have matching rings made.”
“Yes…!”
Diana accepted the bouquet with a smile, and Alan’s fingers gently stroked her cheek.
“Lady Diana… No. Diana.”
Diana’s heart leaped.
His sweet voice filled her with enough heat to make her body melt.
She thought her heart might burst at any moment.
Once she set the bouquet upon a table, the distance between them narrowed further.
Before she knew it, Alan’s powerful arms had drawn her into his embrace.
Thump, thump…
Whose heartbeat was she hearing?
At the pleasant sound of the two overlapping, Diana quietly closed her eyes.
Alan’s palm cradled her cheek, and their lips met softly.
Their second kiss conveyed the warmth of their bodies and the sensation of their lips with perfect clarity.
The moment they parted, Diana lowered her flushed face in embarrassment and buried it against Alan’s chest.
His hand gently stroked her hair.
It was a tender, sweet moment between two people whose feelings were now shared.
But their peaceful time did not last.
“Signs of an epidemic…?”
“Yes. Apparently a few cases have been confirmed in the capital. It has not spread far yet, but the knight orders have decided to increase their vigilance as a precaution.”
Alan had likely intended it as nothing more than casual news.
His words closed around Diana’s heart like a fist.
(The terrible disease that led to Father’s death has finally appeared—)
Memories from her previous life still shook Diana’s soul.
Had they been merely a dream, she would have forgotten them long ago rather than remembering everything with such painful clarity.
At the mere mention of an epidemic, those vivid memories made her shoulders tremble.
In Diana’s previous life, the disease had first appeared in the capital’s slums.
The royal palace reacted too late because it was considered an illness spreading only among the poor.
The nobles had secured every rare practitioner of healing magic for themselves. Almost no healers or physicians remained among the common people, and the sick were abandoned without treatment.
Naturally, the epidemic only continued to spread.
The royal palace eventually chose to seal the slums, attempting to contain the crisis by isolating the source of the disease.
Even after the district was quarantined, however, the illness showed no sign of abating.
While the royal palace abandoned its people, Wesley, Duke of Gazard, stepped forward.
He personally led the search for the disease’s underlying cause while also arranging treatment for the sick.
By the time the investigation discovered that rats infesting the capital’s sewers were spreading the infection, the duke himself had contracted the deadly disease.
(Father was so afraid of infecting Cordelia, me, or the people of the residence that he refused even to let us nurse him…)
Diana remembered how her father had continued investigating the illness until the very edge of death.
Since returning to the time of her graduation and spending her days with her father alive and well, she had pushed those painful memories into a distant corner of her mind.
But she could no longer turn away.
“Lady Diana…?”
Unaware of her circumstances, Alan looked at her with concern.
Diana offered him a weak smile.
“Forgive me. It was such a frightening thought that I lost myself for a moment.”
“Understandable. Against disease, there is little that people like us can do.”
Bitterness entered Alan’s expression as well.
In her previous life, the epidemic had begun after Alan’s death.
Had he still been alive, might he have stopped the royal family from sealing the slums without sending a single physician or healer?
In this life, Alan was present, and the Third Knight Order had already increased its vigilance.
(In my previous life, I could not even help Father. But this time is different—)
Had he not contracted the deadly illness, the Duke of Gazard would not have died.
If she acted now, perhaps she could prevent the epidemic from spreading.
(I do not yet know what I can do…)
But she refused to remain idle and regret it later.
Alan watched Diana’s quiet resolve gather beside him, concern upon his face.
* * *
“Tell me, Milady. Why are we going to the slums?”
“I already told you. I intend to determine how far the disease has spread.”
The following day, Diana walked through the capital’s back streets with her guard Ian.
Considering their destination, she had wanted to refuse an escort and go alone. Her position as a duke’s daughter made that impossible.
She was no longer the little girl whom criminals had nearly carried away.
Diana felt frustrated that she had no need of a guard now, but she could not deprive the knights of their work.
At the very least, she had chosen to bring Ian, her former personal guard and now deputy commander of the Gazard Knights, because she trusted him completely.
“I have never heard of a duke’s daughter visiting the slums.”
“Every endeavor requires a pioneer.”
“There will not be much honor in pioneering this one.”
Though they traded light remarks, Ian’s eyes remained alert as he surveyed their surroundings.
“As miserable a place as ever…”
Diana raised her head at his murmur.
A strand of silver hair slipped from beneath the hood concealing it.
“Come to think of it… You were born near here, were you not?”
“More or less.”
Ian was now deputy commander of the knights serving one of the kingdom’s greatest ducal houses, but he had once been an orphan loitering in the capital’s back streets.
The young ruffians from the slums had set their sights upon the pocketbook of an ignorant noble—the Duke of Gazard.
Though Ian now held a position of command, he had once been caught trying to steal the duke’s purse.
The man who seized the troublemakers, lectured them, and brought them into his knight order to reform them was their present employer, Diana’s father Wesley.
Ian spoke roughly and behaved casually even toward the daughter of his liege, but his loyalty to House Gazard ran deep.
Nor was Ian unique in that respect.
Wesley had not only reformed an orphan from the slums and taught him the work of a knight, but eventually raised him to the rank of deputy commander. That was precisely why his knights admired him and pledged him their loyalty.
The fact that the slums where those men had been born were quarantined without even receiving physicians must have been something Wesley could not forgive.
“Not that there are many people left here whom I know.”
Despite the words, Ian narrowed his eyes with a trace of nostalgia.
To Diana, this was merely a row of filthy streets.
To Ian, it was home.
Only now did Diana fully grasp something so obvious.
“Even so…”
Diana also studied their surroundings from beneath her hood.
She had pulled it low to conceal the unmistakable appearance of a noblewoman, and it hid her expression as well.
(This is appalling…)
Under the hood, Diana released a quiet breath.
She had walked through the capital many times, but never before entered its slums.
The air was stagnant.
The streets were filthy.
Children with soot-blackened faces sat upon the ground beside the alleys.
The walls of the buildings were grimy, and some were covered in graffiti.
There were no proper shops. Merchants spread woven mats directly upon the road and arranged their wares there.
No one seemed concerned if a little dirt clung to them.
Diana’s expression darkened at the profoundly unsanitary conditions.
All around the slums came the ceaseless sound of coughing.
Some people had collapsed and lay beside the road.
No one paid any attention to those who had fallen.
Tomorrow, it might be them.
This was a place where human life and death carried frighteningly little weight.
Only now did Diana truly understand what the slums were.
“Guh…”
A man lying beside the road gave an anguished groan.
He pushed himself upright in a fit of coughing, revealing dark spots across his neck.
“Are you all right?!”
Diana moved to hurry toward him, but Ian blocked her path.
“Stop, Milady. If this truly is the epidemic, you could be infected as well!”
“But—”
Before Diana could continue, her body suddenly lurched to the side.
Someone had seized her right arm.
Startled, Diana looked up at the man standing behind her.
