TDBCD 10

Chapter 10

Hmm, this is difficult.

Ibell rubbed the handle of her parasol as she thought.

They were twins, yet their development was different.

“Your aunt has a few problems as well, but that should be resolved once the lady of the house properly takes her place. Since you have decided to take care of your family, I cannot keep you in the territory forever.”

“Then there are two things I need to do once I go down there. Restore discipline in the household and take care of my nephews’ illnesses.”

“That is correct.”

“I’ll go down there and meet them first. I think I need to see them myself to know what kind of treatment they need.”

Now she understood why he needed her.

The bloodline of the Grand Duke’s family was imitating beasts.

If this ever became a news story, it would be a disaster.

Of course, she had no intention of letting even a single word about the House of Bavaria slip out, not even by accident. She had always been good at keeping secrets, anyway.

“I heard from old Vanya that you used to heat the house with torches… You mustn’t do that. And you shouldn’t keep all the windows closed, either.”

“No matter what my aunt says, I keep the windows open wherever I stay. But the places where the children live are rather dark. As I looked around the mansion, I realized there were many things that needed to be changed.”

That was the part that worried her the most.

If they were coughing, it meant their lungs were not in good condition. But they were still young, so it probably was not tuberculosis.

If they had been coughing up blood, the family would not be trying to treat them internally through such complicated methods.

But there still isn’t a proper treatment for lung disease. That’s why I’m so worried.

People often recommended going to the countryside with its clean air to recover, but the Grand Duchy of Bavaria did not seem as polluted as the capital.

Then what was the problem?

“Have you ever heard of the family illness of Bavaria?”

“Not at all.”

“They say a curse flows through the bloodline of Bavaria. It is better to take things one step at a time, so I will tell you what the family illness is after we arrive at the territory.”

Victor’s profile was cold and solemn as he said this.

Even a man who seemed to have everything in the world would have one or two things he wanted to keep hidden.

Ibell accepted his consideration in the same spirit and did not ask any further questions.

And Victor found her like that very comfortable.

Ibell never crossed the line, yet she carefully approached the things she needed to know.

Normally, she was indifferent to other people—or, in fact, to almost everything. But once there was something she needed to protect, she would throw herself into it without caring whether she lived or died.

“I suddenly remembered that incident. You argued with your superior because you insisted that the instruments had to be sterilized.”

“Ah…! Yes, I remember that too. I wasn’t really in my right mind back then.”

“I thought it was impressive. I believe that was the day I first memorized your name.”

The Bavarian Grand Duchy’s autonomous army had numbered fifty thousand in total.

Among them, there had been around three thousand medical personnel.

Some were from Bavaria, but most had been drafted from other places and assigned there.

And one day, Victor came across someone who was loudly shouting.

“It must be sterilized! I will never back down. How can you put such a filthy knife into a patient’s body?!”

“The more flesh and blood stuck to a knife, the better the doctor! You went to university, and you don’t even know that?”

“At the university I attended, we sterilized instruments with carbolic acid. Didn’t you learn about the achievements of Miss Nightingale during the Crimean War? She maintained cleanliness even in field hospitals, and that was why she saved most of the patients. Throw away that old-fashioned knife already!”

Pointing a finger with her eyes narrowed upward was undoubtedly a violation of military law.

However, the medical corps had one special rule that the other branches did not.

If someone believed that their medical skills were superior and that they could save a soldier’s life, they were free to speak up as much as they wanted.

Victor himself had added that rule while leading the army. Of course, it was unlikely that some low-ranking soldier would actually talk back to a superior, but the rule existed to protect anyone brave enough to do so when such a situation truly arose.

And now he was witnessing exactly that.

Moreover, the person lying on the stretcher and groaning was an old friend of his.

Otherwise, there was no reason for Victor to come all the way to the field hospital himself.

“You took my side back then, Your Grace.”

“Yes. Thanks to you, Lucas survived.”

“It wasn’t a fatal wound. I simply couldn’t stand by and watch him die from an infection.”

Captain Lucas Steiner.

He was the man who had been brought in with a gunshot wound to the abdomen on the day of the bombing.

He had also been one of the final twelve.

That’s right. He’s alive now.

He was a man who loved cannons, bombs, and gunpowder as if they were his own children.

Thanks to Captain Lucas’s ingenious creations, they had been able to evade their pursuers and endure for so long.

“Besides us… I wish there were at least one more person who remembered what happened back then. Even though I know how painful it is.”

“I understand how you feel.”

“It would be better to forget. It would be better if it had never happened, but…”

Ibell gently pressed the ear that still seemed to be ringing with her gloved hand. Whenever she did this, the ringing continued for a few seconds before going away.

Victor noticed her action and stopped walking.

“We were family, after all.”

He gently removed her hand and, instead, covered her ear with his large hand.

Of course, that could not possibly block out the sound completely, but it was the best thing Victor could do for her at that moment.

“I know what you are hearing. I experience it sometimes, too.”

“…Yes.”

Victor’s low and careful voice was unmistakably comforting.

Ibell quietly looked up at the man who seemed to be two heads taller than her.

“Your Grace.”

“My name.”

“…Victor.”

His tone was gentle, but firm.

In the end, she said his name aloud. Once the word left her lips, it somehow felt like nothing special, yet at the same time, it also felt as though she had committed the greatest act of rudeness in the world.

Still, Ibell had to admit that she liked the way his name rolled off her tongue.

“Well done. Is the ringing better now?”

“I’m fine.”

Without realizing it, Ibell answered in a slightly grumbling tone.

Perhaps she had been tense all this time, because her stiff attitude had relaxed a little.

Maybe it was because she had finally managed to overcome the burden of calling him by his name.

“Then stay here for a while and enjoy the view. I have somewhere I need to go.”

“I will.”

“Just in case, I should tell you not to fall into the river.”

“Me? You think I’m a child?”

Ibell snorted, and Victor chuckled.

His smile also looked much more relaxed.

“You do cause trouble whenever I take my eyes off you.”

“Surely not.”

“Let’s see… You argued with your superiors about seven times, if I remember correctly. You even hit a patient once.”

As expected, this man suited speaking casually much better.

He had probably spent his entire life speaking in commanding tones, so it was only natural.

Ibell liked this much better than his formal speech, so she gave him the same sulky look she had back then.

“He was trying to attack me from behind. I shouldn’t have just struck the back of his neck. I should have cracked his head open.”

“You were right.”

The awkward atmosphere that had lingered between them became light again.

As expected, he was extremely skilled at handling people.

Ibell watched Victor as he walked away somewhere, then turned her gaze toward the lake.

The gentle waves moving with the wind were soothing just to look at. Every now and then, a fish would leap out of the water with a plop! before disappearing again, and white birds would circle above it, watching for a chance to snatch it.

She stood there blankly, absorbed in the peaceful scenery, when suddenly a savory smell drifted toward her from the side.

“!”

When she turned around, it was the Grand Duke—or rather, Victor.

With the brightest expression she had ever seen on him, he was holding out a bag of roasted peanuts to her…

“Don’t you like peanuts?”

“Uh, no, I mean, I do like them… Did you really go out to buy these?”

“Yes. It looked like they were about to pack everything up, so I hurried over.”

Good heavens.

Ibell could not bring herself to speak. She looked back and forth between the large pile of peanuts and Victor.

She simply could not connect the iron-blooded commander she had known on the battlefield with the man standing before her holding a bag of peanuts.

“…Pfft.”

In the end, Ibell failed to control her expression.