TPWTL 60

#60. Don’t Hold Back, Just Tell Me.

“You’ve got your pants on, haven’t you?”

“Put something on for your top too!”

As the sharp, rapid replies came one after another without giving her a moment to breathe, Olivia really began to feel as if the air itself was being sucked away. Cryer finally fell silent. Perhaps because of the sudden quiet, Olivia felt as though his bare skin was reaching through the thin fabric separating them, and she unconsciously leaned forward. But since he had a hand on her waist, her attempt ended there, mere motion without result.

“Don’t move. It’s dangerous.”

Instead, his arm around her stomach tightened, and he drew even closer.

“You should be the one to stay still.”

Olivia’s face turned pale, almost as if drained of color rather than flushed, and she covered her forehead and eyes with her hands, exhaling in stunned silence. Water droplets intermittently fell from the damp ends of his hair, leaving wet patches on her rounded shoulders that had long since soaked through. Focusing on the sensation of the dampness, Olivia finally spoke hesitantly.

“Wait… you don’t usually walk around the palace like this, do you?”

“How long do you think I’ve been away from your side? What you see is my usual self.”

“That may be so…”

At his casual words, Olivia’s ears suddenly flushed red. She hadn’t blushed even when her nose had been pressed against his bare chest, but simply realizing that his ‘everyday life’ was spent entirely with her made her ears—and even her cheeks—burn. Cryer, who had never taken his gaze off her for a single moment, now wore a subtle, unspoken expression.

A bare body brushing against her, heat radiating from him, and her heart racing like a wild stallion from just a single sentence—Olivia tried to focus on something else to cool her flushed cheeks. Pain… yes, she could focus on the throbbing in her heels instead. But as he held her waist, supporting her, some unknown magic seemed to ease the pain in her heels, leaving her no refuge.

Her wandering blue eyes finally landed on the closest thing at hand: Cryer’s arm, solid as iron, veins bulging as he held her stomach. Almost instinctively, Olivia pressed her finger to the middle of a vein. As soon as she did, a soft laugh echoed from the top of her head.

“What are you doing?”

The vibration from being in contact with him traveled through Olivia’s body, giving her a tingling, fluttering sensation, and she weakly dropped her head. Feeling both a childish shame for her actions and the lingering warmth behind her, Olivia slumped against his arm like a heavy blanket. With her stomach pressed and having said nothing of real substance, she was utterly exhausted. Well… except for a little cursed walk.

“Take me back.”

Without hesitation, Cryer lifted Olivia up effortlessly.

As they crossed the quiet palace corridors, a voice close to a whisper slid into Olivia’s ear, while her mind wandered.

“Why were you out?”

“Oh, I was just going for a walk. Sitting for too long made my back and shoulders ache… um… anyway, just a walk.”

Speaking without much thought, Olivia realized her answer wasn’t really something to say to others, and her voice trailed off. She added quickly, almost as if excusing herself:

“I’ve been sitting at my desk a lot, and I’ve been skipping swordsmanship classes…”

“If you want to keep walking until your foot heals…”

“Mm, I’ll try to bear it.”

Olivia cut off the middle of Cryer’s sentence with a nod, then paused at his next words.

“Don’t hold back—just tell me.”

Tell you what? Did he intend to carry her like this all the way? If he did, what kind of walk is that? Well… it’s technically a walk, but it’s not the kind of walk I needed. Moving with my own legs was what mattered. Could just feeling the outside air be enough? Isn’t opening a window enough for that? Still… the office air isn’t the same… Her mind, a whirlwind of confusion, contrasted with her tightly sealed lips, which remained closed until they reached the office.

“Always sending money to your family, so you’re struggling financially?”

Ambre and Isaac were entering a new phase of their investigation into a servant who had suddenly disappeared in Tarenzer. Their investigation wasn’t grandiose or extremely secretive; since the next head of the Tarenzer household wanted to locate the servant, there were no restrictions. Ambre could have comfortably conducted the inquiry in her office by calling the household staff, but she insisted on investigating personally.

‘I want to get out of the office!’

A simple yet urgent reason, judging by the piles of documents surrounding her, meant Isaac followed her without complaint as they scoured the mansion. The investigation into the suddenly vanished, seemingly irresponsible servant went smoothly and quickly. Ambre puffed her cheeks at hearing that the servant had financial troubles.

“Tarenzer’s salary isn’t that stingy!”

“There are only two cases when someone with a steady income ends up buried in debt,” Isaac counted on his fingers.

“First is gambling, second is being surrounded by parasites,” he said.

“Can both happen at once?” Ambre asked, raising her hand like a diligent student.

Isaac’s fox-like eyes gleamed with amusement.

“If so, they would have disappeared before even getting a stable income.”

“Indeed!”

From a third-party perspective, Isaac laughing about harsh realities while Ambre clapped and nodded seemed like they were made for each other.

“Anyway, this servant’s situation is both simple and complicated.”

A love triangle, money… or rather, debt.

“Seems like disappearance was inevitable,” Isaac muttered, flipping through the files of missing servants he had collected. Ambre, clinging to his arm and peering over his shoulder, nodded enthusiastically.

“Investigate without assuming whether it’s disappearance or voluntary absence! Keep all possibilities open!”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“Good! Now that we’ve heard from all the servants, let’s go to someone who knows the most.”

Ambre led the way, Isaac shadowing her expertly, as he had when questioning other servants. Due to various restrictions, he couldn’t openly accompany Ambre. For example, the fact that he was “a guest entering the next Taren Marquess’s office without passing through the front gate” complicated matters. Soon, Ambre confronted the butler.

“I heard the servant had financial problems. Were the minor issues also about money?”

“No, not exactly. But if they were struggling financially, they’d have no patience, bumping into anyone and everyone.”

“What about gambling?”

“That’s strictly managed. Addicts cannot distinguish right from wrong.”

Like other noble households, the Taren household did not interfere with servants’ private lives, but addictions were strictly prohibited. The butler’s firm response made Ambre whisper to Isaac in the shadows.

“Then it’s the second possibility?”

“Huh?”

“No, if not gambling, what about family relations?”

“He had no other family, as far as I know.”

“What? That can’t be.”

Ambre’s strong denial startled the butler for a moment, but he calmly added:

“We care for the families of our servants as best we can, but we don’t dig into those who try to keep theirs hidden. If he wanted to hide his family, I might not know.”

Even this reasonable explanation left Ambre unsatisfied, but the butler, determined to help, added with a grave expression:

“Still, who am I? Regarding household servants, I know them better than anyone. Wait a moment, I can find anything.”

Isaac looked at the veins rising on the butler’s slightly bald head in the dim light and felt a sense of solemnity. The butler was working tirelessly, just like Isaac had been drawn into the investigation with Ambre.

“Ah!”

With a triumphant exclamation, the butler dragged over a thick, heavy book, clearly too heavy for his arms.

“Do you see this?”

“Yes. Is this the payroll ledger?”

“Yes. It records servants’ salaries and additional payments. Here, you can see that an advance was given. The reason at that time…”

Ambre’s eyes gleamed as she followed the butler’s hand.

“Family circumstances. And that servant was a noble, right?”

The clearly written name “Levir” spun furiously in the mind of Taren’s heir, Ambre.

“Ah, they owed a debt to our house.”

It wasn’t uncommon for noble houses to owe money to the Taren family, but some owed so much that they couldn’t sustain their family anymore. Levir seemed to be one such case, paying off their debt through labor for a period while maintaining only the shell of their family. Ambre memorized everything about Levir in an instant and straightened up.

“As expected, something completely unexpected has come up! Let’s go!”

“Huh?”

The butler looked confused at Ambre’s sudden announcement, but she beamed at him, speaking to someone—or perhaps no one—in the air.

“The exact residence isn’t listed, but I remember the family’s base. We’ll go there. Let’s go!”

With that, Ambre disappeared, leaving the butler staring long at the wide-open door, bewildered and worried.