His mouth tasted bitter from the voice of truth crawling up insidiously, and his head spun until he felt dizzy. With a high-pitched ringing sound and tinnitus, Cesare barely held onto his consciousness as it threatened to fade away, trying to focus on reality again.
Regardless of the process, the conclusion excluding emotion was one. Lionel loves him.
Trying to concentrate on the magic book with a forced calm mind, he realized that Lionel hadn’t kissed him recently. Even though there were opportunities. Through that gap, dark ripples arose again in his heart.
See? Lionel has subconsciously noticed it too. That there’s something wrong with this love. That’s why he can’t even kiss, something he was so crazy about.
The trembling in his fingers holding the magic book’s pages intensified. Next to him, Cain’s complaining voice sounded like buzzing noise, and nothing was getting through to him.
I know best, don’t I? What the side effects of Addiction are like.
‘Mother.’
Elaine, with her beautiful silver hair hanging down, staring at the empty air with vacant eyes. A noble and pitiful woman who had lost her voice that must have been beautiful, her graceful gestures, her lovely smile—all of it—and whose heart had completely shattered after endlessly being confused about who the man she truly loved was.
As if trying to shake that woman from his mind, Cesare roughly shook his head and answered himself.
‘I just need to captivate him, right? I just need to truly become Lionel’s one and only love, right? Then the side effects of the magic won’t occur either…!’
Lionel’s bright face came to mind, always smiling radiantly when seeing him, calling his name, confidently saying he would believe in him no matter what he did and would stay by his side. When even that cute face pleading to be adored with puppy-dog eyes wagging his tail enthusiastically came to mind, his body grew hot and flushed.
Relying on that light and warmth lit in a corner of his heart, Cesare pulled his reason back to reality again.
Right. Maybe it’ll be okay if it’s Lionel. Really. If I’m with him, if I spend my whole life with him, it might not be bad. Even though he’s a man, I think I can like him too.
His darkened heart gradually brightened as if the sun was shining, just by thinking of Lionel. The trembling in his fingers gradually subsided and warmth seeped in.
‘There’s no problem. I’m ready to reciprocate Lionel’s love too. He deserves it.’
It was an answer given confidently without hesitation.
Cesare raised his head like that and looked at the blue summer sky. He suddenly missed Lionel. Even though they had just parted, he missed him so much. It felt like all his gloomy feelings would be shaken off if he came running into his arms, calling his name.
As he blankly stared at the sky like that, the black abyss whispered as if scattering into his ear.
Is that so? Then congratulations. It’ll be a false love for life anyway.
“……”
Above his tightly closed lips, his dark red eyes held a slight moisture, but Cain seemed not to notice until the end.
* * *
“Hmm. There seem to be about three candidate locations for military sites.”
Melba. Trüf. Locan.
After rummaging through Cain’s assignments that he had barely managed to obtain and finding the map, the likely candidates had been narrowed down to these three locations. He busily moved his hands, drawing lines with a pen around the mineral mountain ranges nearby.
Since it was the beginning of the semester, he needed to revise his timetable and check textbooks and syllabi, so his mind was busy.
‘Isn’t it too harsh to give a mere academy high school student the mission to save the empire?’
Sigh. Still, I guess it’s something that I don’t have to take the college entrance exam.
“Which merchant guild owns the mines in this area? I should send some letters. Ah, I should have bought plenty of stationery. Mitche, can you hand me some stationery from over there?”
“Vyo!”
Mitche flew over energetically and handed me a few sheets of stationery. Mitche seemed to have materialized enough now to be able to carry light objects like paper.
“Thanks, cutie. And….”
I grabbed Mitche who had brought the stationery with effort and buried my face in the top of his head. Sniff sniff, when I smelled him, he had such an addictive baby smell full of sunshine scent. Mitche of course hated this though.
“Vyovyo!”
“I’m working hard all day, so let me smell you! Who do you take after to be such a cold shoulder? Sniff. Hm? Who do you take after to be this pretty?”
“Maa! Baa!”
Mitche giggled and twisted his body this way and that, trying to escape my touch. He had become part of my daily life now. I still didn’t know how far or how he would grow, but if it were up to me, I wished he could stay as a pure baby like this forever.
Just then, there was a knock and a few sheets of paper slid in under the door. A servant had brought letters delivered to me.
After setting aside invoices, tax settlement documents, and customary courtesy letters from merchant guilds and such, a white envelope covered with coffee stains caught my eye. I immediately recognized it was from Grandpa.
“Ugh. He must have nagged a lot again this time.”
Though I said that, I happily read through the letter. As expected, from the very beginning of the letter, Grandpa’s handwriting full of anger was visible.
<When I heard you fell from a building, this old man’s heart nearly fell out! If you die, who’s going to hold my funeral!>
Well, even if he’s blunt, he’s a person full of affection.
<If you came back from the dead, you should have come straight to the main house, but you crawled all the way to a principality? How can you worry me sick by being exactly like Ophelia in personality?>
“Because I’m my mom’s son, that’s why.”
<Anyway, since you went abroad, I hope my puppy has broadened his horizons well! I recently discovered a map Roger left behind and was touring the western desert region. I left right away without being able to tell you, so our letters crossed each other.>
“Ophelia and Roger are my mom and dad. They passed away a long time ago.”
I explained as if to Mitche, who was peeking with interest at the letter from the side.
“Hami, hassi?”
I patted the head of Mitche, who was tilting his head muttering incomprehensible words, and thought of my parents.
My dad, Roger Mellans, was originally a wandering adventurer without a surname, but received the Mellans surname after marrying my mom.
I remembered my aunt laughing about how Dad, who had been helping Grandpa who was cultivating a mountainous region, met Mom and courted her every day.
Although their faces are now blurry to me, I remember in full the heart that loved me. I smiled bitterly as I petted Mitche, missing my playful dad and my mom who ran the merchant guild efficiently.
“If it’s a map Dad left behind, is it a treasure map?”
Since he had the nickname of treasure hunter in life, I wondered if something amazing was buried there and continued reading the letter, but there was no particular mention of the west. Instead, there was an explanation about the Dark Guild I had asked about.
<It’s unusual for you to ask about the Dark Guild. Since you’ve come of age, I’ll explain, but if you do merchant guild work, you’re bound to meet Dark Guild people once or twice. Their only interest is money. They’re guys who handle all work for the purpose of compensation. Roger seemed to have been indebted to them occasionally before marriage, but I’ve never dealt with them. Whether to work with those guys or not is entirely up to you. It would be useless to stop you anyway.>
I burst out laughing slightly when I saw the phrase ‘Isn’t that why you’re asking me about the Dark Guild?’ Grandpa was good in this way.
While he completely put his foot down on things that couldn’t be done, he was very adventurous and open-minded about other matters.
<Roger told me in life. If you go to the ‘Surf & Turf’ restaurant in the capital and order ‘fried boots,’ you can make contact with them.>
“Ugh. Fried boots, he says.”
“Bubup.”
Mitche and I made the same ‘yuck’ gesture.
<I don’t think the assassination attempt on His Highness the Crown Prince is connected to them. To borrow Roger’s words, they’re ‘smart folks who are crazy about money but want to stay in business for a long time.’ But it would be good to bring a couple of trustworthy guards.>
‘Sylvia said she was the daughter of the Dark Guild’s leader, right? Seeing that she came to Homecoming, it doesn’t seem completely unrelated. If I go here, I might be able to find out who the real mastermind is.’
My heart pounded as I felt I had found a clue to clear Professor Mahoff’s false accusation. As I continued reading the letter, I saw Grandpa’s affectionate concerns.
<Bell is very worried that you’re causing trouble at school. Bell seems to be getting more timid after getting married. She must be under a lot of stress from the nobles constantly discriminating against her, so shouldn’t you at least relieve her worries? I knew this would happen, which is why I was so opposed to the marriage, but she’s got Mellans blood too, so she’s incredibly stubborn….>
Bell is Aunt Belitia’s pet name. The letter ended like that, just worrying about us. But there was a meaningful sentence written in the postscript.
<p.s. In your last letter you said you met Duke Yanox, did he happen to say anything about Roger?>
“Hm? Does the Duke know my dad?”
I don’t think he said anything in particular. Except for when he tried to kill me without anyone knowing after I brought up the Empress.
I scratched my chin and recalled the past, but he had never brought up anything about Dad.
“Anyway, the only clue right now is the Dark Guild, pretty one.”
Feeling like I had accomplished something, I lay down on the bed holding Mitche. Then, as if by habit, that handsome guy’s face came to mind and a smile slowly spread across my lips.
‘I miss Cesare. Even though I’ll see him tomorrow, I miss him again.’
I wish tomorrow would come quickly, Cesare. I want to talk with you quickly. I want to meet you quickly.
‘Actually, I want to hold hands, kiss, and go on public dates to show off to other students. I want to fall asleep while cupping your face and listening to your voice. I want to be held in your arms and just be adored continuously. But since I can’t do that….’
Still, I want to meet you quickly. It’s okay to be greedy for that much, right?
I quietly fidgeted with my lips, recalling the last kiss I had with Cesare this spring.
Ah. If love under a spell makes my heart flutter this much, how thrilling must real love be? I probably will never know.
* * *
Meanwhile, on the same deep night. In the opposite dormitory, there was one more man who couldn’t sleep.
“Young Master Cesare. Admiral Enrico from Taitus Principality has sent a letter asking if you arrived safely.”
“Okay. Put it over there.”
“It seems you received recognition from the principality. As expected, Young Master is amazing.”
Behind Chad, who was about to leave after putting down the letter, Cesare, who had been blankly resting his chin on his hand in the chair, raised his head.
“W-wait. Grandpa Chad.”
“Yes. Is there something more you need?”
Cesare’s face flushed with embarrassment as he hesitated, as if about to speak but not quite. However, there was really no one else to ask about this, and it wasn’t something that would be resolved by him worrying alone.
In the end, Cesare asked Chad, stammering unlike himself.
“Ha-have you… how many times have you been in love?”
