“Don’t you get that kind of pressure from your family?”
“Yeah. I’m practically a disowned son.”
From the day he gave up returning to the Knights’ Order until now, Roman had been in a cold war with his father. Thanks to his mother, he could freely come and go from the main house, but during all that time, he’d never once run into his father.
Despite being able to demand or persuade him to bend his stubbornness first, Roman’s mother had never once brought up such words to her son. It wouldn’t be difficult for her son to become a military officer or commissioned officer as her husband wished, but living an unwanted life couldn’t be happy. She was a mother who took her son’s side, saying that since he was a full-grown adult, he should live his life as he saw fit, and such a person wouldn’t tie down her child with a political marriage.
As for his father, there was even less need to worry about that. A person who raged at him not to even mention the family name anywhere and still treated him like he didn’t exist wouldn’t be the first to bring up talk of marriage prospects.
From any angle, it had worked out well for Roman. Even though he’d left home, he still got along well with his mother and older brothers, and needless to say, gaining freedom in exchange for abandoning the family name was a profitable trade.
If someone asked what the best thing he’d done in his life was, Roman could confidently say it was deciding to run a guild. While affiliated with the Knights’ Order, he’d had experiences he’d never even considered, and he’d encountered quite a few trials and errors while handling all sorts of requests. But he’d never once regretted his choice.
Rather, thanks to that…
‘I was able to meet someone like Diego.’
Was it the alcohol getting to him? Suddenly he thought he wanted to see the guy.
A chuckle escaped him. Like most people, Roman had avoided the risk of imprinting by meeting different partners during each Bloody Cycle, enjoying clean relationships without complications.
Among them, there were some people he’d liked well enough, but that was only because their blood compatibility was good. He’d never felt an emotional pull toward anyone, nor had he ever thought about a specific someone outside of the Bloody Cycle.
In that sense, Diego was an incredibly special existence. Come to think of it, feeling satisfaction from the blood of an ordinary trait was unusual in itself.
“…Do you have someone?”
“What?”
Lost in thoughts that didn’t suit him, he’d missed what the other person said. When he asked back reflexively and turned his head, he saw a face looking at him, the gloomy mood now completely gone.
“I asked if you’re currently seeing anyone regularly. Or when was the last time you…”
“I do.”
It was a half-impulsive answer. Even he flinched briefly after saying it, but soon tilted his glass again with the thought, ‘What does it matter if I made something up?’
“You do? Really?”
“Yeah.”
Hearing the repeated affirmation, Calliope pulled his chair closer and continued his questions. His face was full of curiosity.
“Who on earth is it? Did you meet them at Lovers’ Lane?”
Roman let out a laugh. It wasn’t like he was getting married like Calliope, he’d only said he was seeing someone regularly, yet here he was with sparkling eyes, so curious about it.
“I’m not telling you.”
“Why not? It’s not like I’m going to steal them from you. You could at least tell me their name.”
“…He’s attractive enough to even seduce Benic.”
After setting down his empty glass, Roman stood up from his seat. Ignoring Calliope’s astonished expression, he took out the ring he’d shoved into his pants pocket and placed it on the table.
“Return this to him. I’m leaving first.”
“Wait…!”
Pretending not to hear the attempt to stop him, Roman quickly walked away. As soon as he stepped outside, he frowned. Rain was pouring from the pitch-black sky. The raindrops were thick enough to be visible, and it didn’t look like it would stop anytime soon.
He’d planned to take a hired carriage, having already sent back the carriage he’d arrived in earlier. Walking through that rain would be reckless, but he didn’t want to drink more either. After brief consideration, Roman returned to the tavern.
When he emerged a moment later, a crude umbrella was in his hand. Hoping that at least one hired carriage would be waiting, Roman opened the umbrella and began walking slowly through the darkness. A throbbing pain in his right ankle came not long after that.
***
Diego too had grown up in a harmonious family, receiving his parents’ abundant love in his very early childhood. A dependable and caring father, a kind mother with deep love for her family, and a cute younger sister born like a gift the year he turned six. Moreover, his father had accumulated great wealth through trade, so he truly wanted for nothing.
But the happiness didn’t last long. Due to misfortune that came without warning one day, the environment surrounding Diego shattered to pieces in an instant.
It started with his father’s death. On a day when continuous heavy rain was pouring, Diego’s father, longing for the family he hadn’t seen for over a month due to work, hurried on his way home.
That became the catalyst for disaster. The ground had weakened in various places due to the continuous downpour, and an incident occurred where a massive pile of soil that collapsed from a cliff struck a carriage that happened to be passing below. Because of this, Diego lost his father in an instant. To make matters worse, within a few months, he had to send off his mother as well to illness.
The people who took in Diego and Emily, suddenly orphaned, were his father’s younger brother and the man’s wife. The couple embraced the young siblings and shed tears, saying they would protect them from now on, and from that day, Diego left the village following them.
The couple’s true nature was revealed surprisingly quickly. Under the pretext of being guardians, they embezzled his older brother’s assets and arbitrarily disposed of even the mansion, then inflicted neglect bordering on abuse upon his brother’s children, who were now of no use whatsoever.
If only that had been all. One day, his uncle came home drunk to his hair and suddenly slapped Diego across the face, hurling verbal abuse calling him a freeloader who only wasted food.
If the husband was like that, the wife couldn’t be virtuous either. Rather, she went even further, constantly threatening to ‘throw him out immediately if he didn’t obey,’ and one day urged Diego to apply for a recruitment notice for the lord’s private soldiers. Diego was only ten years old at the time.
Perhaps because he’d inherited the blood of his large-framed father, Diego too had been well-developed from childhood. So he lied about being thirteen, passed the private soldier examination smoothly, and from then on began living in the barracks with the other soldiers.
Freedom was granted exactly once a month. Each time, Diego would visit his uncle’s house, hand over most of his monthly salary to his aunt, and only then could he barely take Emily out together.
That day was the same. Thanks to standing overnight guard duty the night before, Diego received leave a few hours earlier than usual and headed to his uncle’s house.
Though his body was tired, a smile came naturally. Instead of resenting or being distant toward her older brother whom she only saw once a month, Emily always greeted Diego with a brightly smiling face. Though he couldn’t tell anyone, it was no exaggeration to say that the reason he was living so desperately—a life he might have given up on if he’d been alone—was because Emily existed.
But that day, Diego witnessed a scene he should never have seen. When he’d almost reached the door, a loud sound suddenly rang out from inside the house that had been silent. Somehow he had a bad feeling. When he turned the handle, the door opened without resistance, and Diego strode inside. And he witnessed an unbelievable sight before his eyes.
‘I-I was wrong, Auntie.’
Emily was kneeling on the floor, unable to even raise her head as she begged. The person standing before her holding a whip-like club was his aunt. No, the face twisted into malevolence was not human but closer to a demon.
The moment the demon raised the club, Diego felt something snap in his head. He couldn’t recall the memories after that well. When he came to his senses at the sound of a voice, he saw Emily, her wrist held in his hand, crying with a face covered in tears, and Diego hugged his sister with a breaking heart.
The inside of his eyes stung. These were people who’d inflicted harsh verbal abuse and beatings on him too, so would they have treated Emily kindly and well?
But Diego had covered his own eyes. He rationalized himself, saying not now, that it would be right to save enough money to become independent and then take Emily away, forcing silence and patience upon Emily.
Right then and there, Diego boarded a hired carriage with Emily without any plan, and left as far away as possible with the single-minded determination never to face those people again.
When the money in their possession was nearly depleted, the two arrived in Brisel, the kingdom’s capital. By great fortune, heaven hadn’t completely abandoned the two siblings. Utilizing his experience of working as a private soldier for several years, Diego joined a mercenary group, and thanks to the compassionate group leader, they found a shabby but incomparably cozy home that became their refuge and started a new life.
Then a few years later, when the leader retired, the mercenary group disbanded, and with the recommendation of the leader who had worried about and looked after Diego like his own child until the end, he submitted an application to join the Fohens Guild.
Thanks to that, now he didn’t have to worry about starving, and not long ago, he’d even moved to a slightly better house. Though it might be a trivial and insignificant life in others’ eyes, Diego thought he hoped days like these would just continue from now on.
But the regret that welled up occasionally couldn’t be helped. If his parents hadn’t passed away like that, if they had stayed by his side just a little longer. Or if the people who adopted him and Emily hadn’t been such people, he might have lived a better life.
That’s why even now, whenever Diego saw Emily, he only felt sorry. Though he was proud of her for growing up well in difficult circumstances, when he thought about how she couldn’t freely enjoy even what girls her age basically had, pity washed over him.
“Are you all right?”
At the voice that suddenly reached him, he turned his head and saw Grace’s face. Diego quickly straightened his posture and answered her words.
“Of course.”
