Chapter: 12
“Rio. Wake up.”
Blasion slowly opened his eyes.
Brilliant sunlight poured down around him. The soft sensation of grass touched his fingertips.
He absentmindedly brushed his bangs back, then suddenly sat upright.
His eyes widened as he looked at the black hair that had fallen down to his eyes.
The pink-haired woman in front of him asked with a worried expression,
“Are you all right? Does anything hurt?”
“…”
Black hair and the name Rio.
With those two clues, Blasion quickly understood the current situation.
This was the garden inside the royal palace of the Kingdom of Cremina.
The time was 700 years ago, when he was still using the name ‘Rio.’
Blasion—or rather, ‘Rio’—immediately stood up and respectfully bowed to the other person.
“I have shown Your Highness the Princess such an unsightly appearance. I sincerely apologize.”
“No, it’s fine. You must have been tired from training. I shouldn’t have woken you.”
The Princess’s face was blurry, so Rio couldn’t see her clearly.
However, he could tell that her face was flushed.
The affection a princess of the kingdom showed toward a mere royal guard could not simply be welcomed.
Rio became even more formal and politely lowered his head.
“I will escort Your Highness to your room. Prince Itran will be visiting soon, so you should prepare.”
Mentioning her fiancé’s name while they were alone together was the best rejection Rio could offer.
The Princess’s face visibly darkened.
Without saying anything, she quickly turned around.
“I’ll go alone.”
“But, Your Highness…”
“I said it’s fine! Don’t follow me. That’s an order.”
The Princess walked away with heavy footsteps, then suddenly stopped and looked back.
“Rio. You’re my guard, right?”
“Yes, Your Highness.”
“Then you’ll protect me whenever I need you to, right?”
This was a question with only one possible answer.
Rio lowered his head in affirmation.
“I will protect Your Highness whenever you need me, until the day this life of mine comes to an end.”
At the time, he didn’t know.
He didn’t know that the ‘day this life came to an end’ would not arrive even after another 700 years.
He didn’t know that he would come to hate someone he had once pitied for more than 700 years.
He truly didn’t know.
When Blasion opened his eyes again, the room was already completely dark.
Everain, who had been crouching in the darkness, approached the bed.
“Everain. How many hours did I sleep?”
“You slept for exactly four and a half hours.”
“…”
“Where is Teacher?”
“She’s lying underneath the bed.”
Looking down, Blasion saw Lionel sleeping soundly on the auxiliary bed on the floor.
It seemed that after Blasion had fallen asleep, she had also dozed off.
Everain asked,
“Shall I wake her?”
“No. Leave her.”
“Yes, understood. Personal Physician must have been quite exhausted lately with all the work she’s been doing.”
It was difficult to decide whether to call it ‘work’ or ‘discipline,’ but Blasion also agreed with his subordinate.
She had examined every servant in the mansion, created additional diets suited to each of them, and in the middle of all that, had constantly gone back and forth to the kitchen to make accelerated-aging food…
It was only natural that Lionel, who had spent the most intense two weeks of anyone, had collapsed asleep in the darkened room.
‘You acted as if you could run around forever, but you’re human too after all.’
As he watched her shoulders rise and fall slightly, Everain spoke to him.
“You slept for quite a long time for the first time in a while. How do you feel?”
“…”
Blasion had never particularly liked sleeping.
It wasn’t sleeping itself that he disliked.
It was the dreams he sometimes had.
Over the long years, many people had died.
They appeared in Blasion’s dreams in various forms and tormented him.
Among them, the most painful were always the dreams of the ‘Princess.’
He knew perfectly well that she was already dead and gone, and that dreams were nothing more than memories.
But Blasion suffered every time.
Whenever she appeared in his dreams, he consciously avoided sleep afterward.
His symptoms of insomnia had gradually grown worse.
But…
Strangely, today, that irritation did not well up inside him.
It was the first time something like this had happened during his immortal life.
“I feel good.”
“That’s a relief. It would be best if we went outside now.”
Everain said that and opened the door.
Blasion agreed and got out of bed.
Just before leaving the room, he covered Lionel with the blanket he had been using.
Still fast asleep, she instantly became one with the blanket, like a snail retreating into its shell.
“…Ha.”
The reason he didn’t feel bad despite having had an unpleasant dream…
He thought he might understand the reason.
“Everain. Can we purchase another chair like the one in my study?”
“Kellen would probably know about that, but do you need one somewhere else?”
“Buy the exact same one and put it in this examination room too.”
“Understood. I’ll look into it.”
Everain agreed immediately without questioning him.
He couldn’t know what his master was thinking.
But regardless, Everain thought that replacing a chair was a small price to pay for the refreshed expression on his master’s face.
At the same time, on the second floor of the Viscount Dorset family residence.
Viscount Dorset was lecturing his son, who hadn’t come out from under his blanket for several days.
“You stupid fool. Who told you to go all the way to the Duke’s estate and cause such a commotion? Do you have any idea how much damage your actions have caused our business?! Your mother is still personally spreading manure at the farm!”
The main source of income for the Viscount Dorset family was a fruit farm.
They were quite famous for their high-quality peaches and grapes, but even that fame could only be maintained when there were enough workers.
Recently, the Viscount had been suffering because farmers kept quitting and leaving.
He had enjoyed illegally gambling with the money he squeezed out of the farmers, but now even the number of times he could go gambling had decreased because he was busy managing the farm.
And recently, he had learned that the Karseido Duke’s family was taking away his farmers through outrageous recruitment offers.
“They say they’ll pay twice the wages for doing the exact same work. Why would they stay here? They have to work all day while receiving practically nothing!”
“I heard that the personal physician who recently arrived there also takes very good care of their meals. Apparently, she even makes sure their employment contracts are properly written.”
Why would that famous Duke’s family be recruiting farmers?
It wasn’t difficult to figure that out either.
Rumors had already spread throughout high society that Adrian had gone to their estate and caused a scene, only to be thoroughly humiliated.
“You pathetic fool. What does that bastard illegitimate daughter matter…? I should have told Ravienne to get rid of that girl long ago. Ugh, this is so frustrating!”
The Viscount slammed the door shut and left.
Adrian trembled beneath the blanket until the sound of his footsteps disappeared.
Around him lay half-eaten snacks, fruits, and pieces of bread scattered everywhere.
“G-Grgh… I’m so angry… So damn angry. Lionel, couldn’t you help it either? In the end, were you really just the kind of woman who drools and falls for a man as long as he has a good-looking exterior?”
Adrian considered himself quite an attractive man, but the three men he had encountered at the Karseido estate were on an entirely different level from him.
Especially that Duke.
He was so perfect that Adrian didn’t even dare look at him properly.
The moment Adrian saw him, he felt an overwhelming sense of humiliation.
“Damn you… You smiled at me before. Damn you…”
Adrian noisily chewed the popcorn in the bowl before dumping the entire thing into his mouth.
That wasn’t enough, so he shoved cake into his mouth as well.
His hands and the area around his mouth quickly became filthy.
Even so, he couldn’t stop.
His entire body craved food.
Even though his throat was already full of food, even though he felt like he was about to throw up, his hands kept reaching for more.
I want to eat more.
I want to eat more…
More, more, more…!!
“What a pathetic sight, Adrian Dorset.”
“Aaah!!”
Adrian was so startled that he fell backward.
At the same time, the peanuts he had been holding scattered into the air like snow.
Adrian hurriedly got up and looked at the uninvited guest.
Beyond the window, on the balcony, someone was leaning against the railing.
“Wh-Who are you?!”
“Me? I’m… Hmm. Let’s just say I’m a tall uncle. I came here to listen to your troubles.”
The man was tall.
He wore a loose robe that covered his body, so his face couldn’t be seen, but there was an air of dignity in his manner of speaking and movements.
“Do you want to marry Lionel Frencia?”
“…”
“I know you like her. I also know that you went to the Duke’s estate.”
The man was clearly suspicious, but after spending his days doing nothing but eating and sleeping, Adrian’s mind wasn’t functioning well enough to judge the situation properly.
Adrian stared blankly at him and asked,
“Can I… have Lionel?”
“No, no. Foolish Adrian.”
The man strongly rejected the idea.
“You mustn’t think of it that way. Talking about whether you can ‘have’ a person or not is rude. It’s the same as treating her like an object.”
“Then… how can I make Lionel accept my feelings?”
The suspicious man quickly answered.
“Lose weight.”
“…What?”
“Lose weight and become slim. Make yourself attractive to her. But it won’t be easy, will it? That’s why I brought something good.”
The man took something out from inside his robe.
It was a small glass tube about the length of a hand, with a lid.
He lightly shook the glass tube and said,
“This medicine will definitely be a great help.”
