Chapter 21
Countless people came and went through the mansion every day.
The household servants, guests, family members, and so on.
Since one of them might be able to give Iqua some information, I would have to hide somewhere they wouldn’t notice me if I wanted to avoid getting caught by him.
I gradually made my way deeper into the mansion, searching for somewhere with fewer people.
“Ah!”
Then I found the perfect hiding spot.
If I hid inside that enormous porcelain jar, no one would ever find me.
My eyes lit up, and I was just about to throw myself toward it when I failed to notice the people coming from the front and crashed straight into someone.
I was pushed backward with as much force as the momentum I had built up to dive forward.
“Ouch!”
Then, with a loud thud, I fell flat on the floor.
“Ah.”
The person I had collided with approached me as I lay sprawled on the ground.
Annoyingly, he didn’t seem to have taken any damage at all.
“Are you all right?”
“Ow, ow…”
When I raised my head at his question, I saw two people standing before me who looked like nobles.
They didn’t seem to be employed by the mansion, so they were probably guests of one of the older members of the family.
The man I had collided with was startled when he saw my red eyes as I lifted my head.
The two men exchanged strange looks after seeing my face.
“She has red eyes.”
“Ah… This is that commoner brat Lady Marianne mentioned.”
The two of them began talking to each other right in front of me.
Marianne? Who was that supposed to be?
But more than the unfamiliar name, what bothered me was the phrase commoner brat.
Apparently, the two people standing before me knew who I was.
I didn’t know them, but one thing was certain: neither of them had any particular goodwill toward me.
Even the way they called me a commoner brat made that obvious, and the way they stared at me was unpleasantly persistent.
Normally, if a child fell because of you, you’d at least offer a helping hand. The fact that they were merely staring at me meant they clearly didn’t like me very much.
“Looks like you’re going to see the head of the family again?”
“……?”
At that moment, one of the noblemen asked me in a sharp voice.
He was the one leaning on a cane and looked to have considerable difficulty moving.
Come to think of it, the innermost part of the mansion was where Silvanos’s study was located.
I must have wandered all the way to Silvanos’s study while searching for somewhere without people.
Ugh. I guess this was why habits were so frightening.
Since these people were here, they must have been guests of Silvanos. But I still didn’t know why these men, whom I’d never even seen before, were hostile toward me.
Actually, I was familiar with looks like these.
Ever since long ago, there had always been more people who didn’t particularly like me than people who showed me goodwill.
Still, these were gazes I hadn’t encountered much since coming to this mansion.
And I knew very well how to deal with people like them.
The answer was simple.
Ignore them.
I dusted off the hem of my clothes and stood up. Then I turned around without a second thought.
“……”
I really liked that jar, but surely there would be somewhere else I could hide.
Where else in this mansion could I find a place Iqua wouldn’t know about?
I was thinking about that as I began walking away without looking back.
Then I heard a click of the tongue behind me.
Almost simultaneously, a sharp voice stabbed into my ears.
“Getting all high and mighty just because you’ve caught the head of the family’s attention.”
“……”
I stopped dead in my tracks.
There was no way I could just let that comment slide.
Did they have any idea how much trouble Silvanos was causing me?
These days, Silvanos was practically like a parent obsessed with educating their child.
Try this. Try that. Oh, you managed to do this? Then surely you can do this too, right?
It was an endless cycle.
The Silvanos I knew had never been like this at all. His basic philosophy when it came to education was complete neglect.
Not hands-off parenting.
Neglect.
Silvanos was the kind of person who seemed to live as though gravity itself didn’t exist when it came to other people.
He had absolutely no attachment to others.
In fact, he barely had any interest in people at all.
Even though he highly valued Iqua’s talent and was proud of his achievements, Silvanos had never personally taught him.
But look at him now.
These days, Silvanos even showed up in my dreams and asked me things like mathematical formulas.
From the perspective of the person being subjected to it, it was extremely exhausting.
I turned around and looked at the two men again.
“……”
The two men were looking at me with expressions that practically said, Got you.
“……Don’t tell me.”
“……”
“Are you jealous?”
At my question, I could clearly see their expressions turn flustered.
Apparently, I’d hit the nail on the head.
If these two really were picking a fight with me out of jealousy, I honestly wanted to tell them to please take all this overflowing attention off my hands.
But Silvanos and I weren’t strangers. We were direct family.
What possible reason could they have to be jealous of a granddaughter receiving attention from her grandfather?
“If you like it so much, you can just get Grandfather’s attention yourselves.”
I said it in an annoyed voice, and the two nobles snapped back furiously.
“How insolent!”
“Soon enough, you’ll be taken care of by Lady Marianne—”
“……Marianne? Don’t tell me, Marianne Ashford?”
I frowned and interrupted them.
There was a name that kept catching my attention.
If Marianne wasn’t an especially common name, then as far as I knew, there was only one Marianne.
While I was thinking about her name, the nobleman had already approached me and was standing directly in front of me.
“You were a commoner until recently, yet your arrogance reaches the heavens!”
“……!”
I wasn’t sure what exactly I’d said, but apparently I’d seriously gotten on the wrong side of these two.
The nobleman approached me angrily, taking large strides.
Then he raised the cane he was holding high into the air.
S-Surely he wasn’t going to hit me with that?!
“Don’t worry. I’ll only hit you where it won’t leave any visible marks.”
“……!”
So he really was going to hurt me!
What kind of person was this?!
Just because he was a noble, did that mean he could hit other people whenever he wanted?
There was no doubt about it.
That man still thought I was a commoner.
“Isollet!”
Just when I thought I was doomed, a familiar voice called my name.
My eyes flew open at the sound.
Iqua!
Waaaah! Thank goodness! I’m saved!
When I cautiously opened my eyes, I saw Iqua’s back as he stood there with his sword pointed at the man.
For some reason, Iqua’s back looked especially broad today.
Iqua asked the man in a grim voice I’d never heard from him before.
“Baron German? You’re the second son of the Benos Merchant Guild, aren’t you?”
“……”
“This mansion is neutral territory!”
“……”
Neutral territory?
I stared blankly at the unfamiliar term.
Iqua looked extremely angry.
There was even a chilling killing intent emanating from him, enough to make the air feel cold.
At times like this, I could really feel that he was Eloise’s son.
The man and Iqua stood facing each other for a while.
Then I noticed something blue rippling out from Iqua.
“……!”
The man facing him directly flinched in surprise.
“Young Master Iqua, it was a joke. W-We have known each other since we were children, haven’t we?”
“Yes. Please, c-calm down.”
The two men immediately raised their hands in surrender, but Iqua still didn’t lower his sword.
“Neither of you will be able to escape responsibility for attempting to attack someone recklessly in neutral territory.”
“……”
Iqua was still angry, but his voice had become somewhat calmer.
“……Y-Yes. As for the head of the family—”
“Please leave.”
Iqua cut him off as though he didn’t want to hear another word.
It was a clear order for them to leave.
After the two men disappeared, Iqua came over to me and crouched down in front of me so that our eyes were level.
The killing intent had vanished as if it had melted away.
“Are you okay?”
When I met Iqua’s concerned red eyes, I couldn’t hold back any longer.
Tears suddenly spilled from my eyes.
“Sniff.”
“……?”
“Waaah.”
Forgetting all about dignity, I burst into tears.
I grabbed onto Iqua’s clothes and even got snot all over them.
Waaaaah! That was so scary! What was that?!
I wasn’t normally the type to burst into tears so easily, but that had genuinely frightened me.
Silvanos had been frightening when I’d first met him too, but he had never intended to hurt me.
Those two, however, had genuinely harbored murderous intent toward me and tried to do something terrible to me.
For a while, Iqua simply stared down at me, clearly not knowing what to do.
Then he awkwardly raised his hand and tried to pat my back.
“Hey! But!”
“U-Uh-huh?”
After spending quite some time bawling and blowing my nose, I suddenly turned my head.
Iqua’s face had turned red, and he froze with his hand still raised, looking as though he’d been caught doing something he wasn’t supposed to.
I asked him what I’d been curious about ever since I first saw it.
“W-Wasn’t that sword aura just now?!”
“What?”
Iqua asked back with a bewildered expression.
Huh?
