TDKB 30

Chapter 30

Scarlett had thought she wouldn’t be able to sleep deeply.

But she had underestimated how weak her stamina was from spending so much time cooped up in her workshop. After using even her mental strength to work the previous day, when she finally opened her eyes that morning, the sun was already high in the sky.

Still half-asleep, Scarlett climbed out of bed. Then, without thinking, she looked at her wrist and saw that it was wrapped in a bandage.

“……”

She stared at it for a while before murmuring,

“I must have done it in my sleep.”

Otherwise, there was no way such a poorly wrapped bandage could be there.

Considering how wonderfully she had slept, it wouldn’t even have been strange if she had woken up halfway through the night, wrapped the bandage while only half-awake, and then gone back to sleep.

Besides, if she hadn’t done it herself, there was no one else who could have.

Victor wasn’t the sort of person to do something so gentle, and he was good at everything he did. There was no way he would have wrapped it so clumsily.

After staring at the bandage for a while, Scarlett got ready to leave the room.

When she stepped outside to collect some gravel, the pleasant autumn sunlight of the southern region was sparkling brightly.

The air force soldiers were each absorbed in their training, and she could see Victor standing there watching them from behind.

Victor Dumpelt, dressed in a magnificent naval uniform, looked like an elegant stallion.

His tailored black trousers emphasized his long, beautifully muscular thighs, giving his figure a distinctly sensual appeal.

“Good morning.”

“Good morning!”

The young men cheerfully greeted Scarlett as they passed.

They all seemed encouraged by the fact that a technician capable of repairing the engine actually existed.

Victor turned toward Scarlett and spoke.

“We’re leaving at dawn tomorrow. Go back to sleep.”

“I’m going to get the materials.”

“Have my men do it.”

“They’re your men, not mine.”

Victor clicked his tongue at her response.

He gestured toward someone in the distance.

Soon, one of his men brought a horse out of the stable.

It was a beautiful black horse.

Victor helped Scarlett onto it first, then mounted behind her.

“It’s far.”

“Yeah.”

Scarlett decided she would no longer refuse Victor’s help.

There was no point in wasting time doing so.

Aside from riding ponies when she was young, Scarlett had never ridden a horse before, so she initially felt awkward and uneasy.

But once the horse started moving, she soon relaxed.

Victor had one arm wrapped around her waist, and the sensation was almost like being secured by an iron bar.

His body seemed almost superhumanly strong.

Scarlett had been keeping her eyes tightly shut when the softened breeze brushed against her face, making her open them.

Victor had leaned forward slightly, and Scarlett became flustered by how close his body had suddenly become.

After a while, the two arrived near the river flowing beneath a waterfall.

After dismounting, Scarlett rolled up her sleeve and looked at the bandage on her wrist.

“It came loose.”

Victor noticed the bandage and turned his head.

Scarlett asked,

“Did I wrap this while I was asleep? I can’t exactly trust my own memory.”

“…I did it.”

“Don’t lie. Someone who’s good at everything like you couldn’t possibly have wrapped it this messily.”

“Sorry to have disappointed you.”

Scarlett blinked in surprise at his response.

Then she looked at the bandage again.

“Wow. Looking at it again, you actually did a good job.”

After praising him, she hurried toward the river.

She thought she could almost hear Victor laughing behind her, but since he wasn’t someone who laughed very often, it was probably just her imagination.

She walked only a couple of steps into the river before picking up a stone.

Something resembling quartz was embedded inside it.

“Wow…”

The stone glittered beautifully in the sunlight, almost unbelievably so.

Then she remembered that these were the same kinds of stones that had always been piled up in her parents’ workshop.

At the same time, she remembered her father crushing the stones with a small pestle and then panning them.

The materials he selected were crushed again and solidified.

Those materials became important components inside Crimson watches.

She had stopped making something so important.

Scarlett stared at the stone and said,

“After my parents died, every watch made by the Crimson family has been fake.”

As the memories came flooding back again, her head began to ache.

When she staggered in the river, Victor hurriedly caught her.

After a while, once she had regained her composure, she lifted her head.

“Sorry. I was just suddenly hit by the shock.”

Scarlett released his arm and stepped back into the river to gather the gravel.

Although the southern region was warmer than the capital, the water was cold.

Scarlett reached into the river, gathered the gravel, and began putting it into her bag.

She knew she wouldn’t be able to take much at once, and she also knew that returning here again would be nearly impossible.

In the end, the latter thought won out.

She decided to fill the bag completely.

When she came out of the water and tried to move the bag, however, it wouldn’t budge.

She had apparently filled it too much.

After several failed attempts, Victor moved to lift it, but Scarlett stopped him.

“I’ll do it.”

“How?”

“I need to put wheels on it. That’s what I do every day.”

Scarlett looked around and spotted a tree.

Then, using the tools she always carried with her, she began carving wheels.

Victor simply stood there and watched her.

Just as she had promised, Scarlett quickly made wheels and skillfully fitted pieces of wood together so that she could transport the bag without even using adhesive.

However, the wheels didn’t roll easily on anything other than packed dirt.

As Victor watched Scarlett prepare to modify something yet again, his expression, which had remained stiff the entire time, finally softened into a faint chuckle.

“…Why are you laughing?”

Scarlett glared at him.

“You look like a squirrel collecting acorns.”

“What makes you think that?”

“Everything about you.”

With that, Victor grabbed Scarlett around the waist and lifted her onto the horse.

“It’ll be sunset soon. Let’s go.”

“What about that bag…?”

“My men will handle it.”

Just as he said, the moment the two mounted their horses, several of his men appeared from somewhere and took care of the bag.

Scarlett looked embarrassed and asked,

“…How long had they been watching?”

“Since you left the bedroom.”

“They saw me picking up gravel too?”

“They must have found it extremely uncomfortable to watch.”

“In your eyes, I probably didn’t look very much like a noblewoman.”

Victor looked at Scarlett once before answering.

“When have you ever acted like a noblewoman?”

“I tried.”

“It’s not a matter of effort.”

Victor pulled Scarlett securely against him with one arm and said,

“I’ve never understood you.”

At those words, Scarlett looked up at Victor.

The nuance of his words felt unfamiliar.

There was a slight implication that he himself might bear some of the blame.

Coming from Victor Dumpelt, a seemingly perfect man, the admission sounded incredibly foreign.

Victor tightened his arm around Scarlett.

They slept in the same room for another night.

This time Scarlett wasn’t tired, so she couldn’t fall asleep easily.

She lay down early and pretended to sleep.

At dawn the next day, Scarlett left the air force base with Victor and his group.

As they traveled toward the capital by train, the sun rose and then slowly began to set again.

While they sat facing each other on the way back, Scarlett asked,

“There was something I wanted to ask. Were you the one who ordered the tax investigation into the Crimson watches?”

“Yes.”

Victor answered while turning a page of his book.

Then he put the book down for a moment and looked at Scarlett.

“So you’re saying the watches are defective?”

“Yes. Only the watches containing the Version 5 components made by my uncle.”

“What are you going to do?”

“We need to recall them. All of them.”

“You’re doing something dangerous again.”

Scarlett answered,

“This is the obvious thing to do.”

“What’s obvious about it?”

“I’m the legitimate heir of the Crimson family. Are you telling me to just stand by while defective watches continue to be sold?”

“Leave them alone. It’s insignificant. As long as you keep your mouth shut, no one will ever know.”

Scarlett spoke firmly.

“How could no one know? I know. My parents, who passed away, are watching. And the people using the watches will know.”

“You’re insane.”

The words slipped out of Victor’s mouth before he could stop them.

Scarlett answered,

“Yeah. You already knew that. That’s why you sent me to the convent.”

“I didn’t send you there knowing it would be a place like that.”

“A hundred days is a long time. If you cared about me even a little, you would have come at least once.”

“You betrayed me!”

Victor’s voice rose.

As though they had planned it beforehand, the officers of the Rubid, who were sitting in the first-class train compartment, quietly got up one after another and headed for the smoking room.

Scarlett thought that Victor probably hadn’t raised his voice like that many times in his entire life.

He still hadn’t calmed down at all.

Scarlett, however, asked in an unexpectedly calm voice,

“Are you still angry that you couldn’t return to the royal family because of me? Even after I spent a hundred days in the convent?”

“I forgive you. I just can’t forget.”

Scarlett felt a tightness in her chest and pressed both hands against it.

Then she forced a smile and said,

“Good. I don’t think I’ll ever forget those hundred days either. The days when I was miserable every single day because you never came to see me. I’ll never forget them until the day I die, either.”

“……”

“Me too…”

As Scarlett said those words, she seemed to have trouble breathing and gripped the window frame.

Victor grabbed her hand.

“Scarlett?”

“Ah…”

Fortunately, Scarlett soon regained consciousness.

She took a deep breath and lifted her head.

But then she looked around awkwardly.

“Victor.”

She blinked and looked at him.

“Where are we?”