Chapter 2.3

At least Lisael seemed unlikely to be waiting there with others for a picnic.

“I have finally achieved the long-standing wish I have been harboring today!”

“Long-standing wish…?”

“It’s a territory that I can rule alone, leaving the vassals behind. I have always been annoyed to share public sentiment and popularity with other guys for good deeds, but now that I have a suitable pretext, I can’t just leave it alone! The impudent commoners, from today, I have stripped all of them of the village chief positions!”

As he ran so hard that his soles almost burst, the headwind struck his face and hair. The sound of the wind swirling in his ears somehow resembled the Earl’s laughter, which seemed to shake the castle with delight.

“Kahaha, especially that pesky Village Chief Cherlin. How dazed he looked! The congestion I’ve had for three years is finally clearing up!”

“Miguel, listen well. From now on, the territory will be managed in integration by the Dante family. There will be many changes. We should have done this sooner, but the previous Herais family created unnecessary conventions, wasting time.”

“Lisa… huff… Lisa… huff huff….”

The place where his running stopped was the hill above the sheep pasture. In the middle of the wide-open hill, as he predicted, a girl with neatly braided brown hair was sitting with her legs pulled together. Surely, she must have braided her hair in excitement for the long-awaited picnic.

“…Lisa!”

Miguel, prioritizing calling her over catching his breath, continued to call out until she turned around, even though there was still quite a distance to Lisael. He felt that only by quickly confirming the expression hidden by the wind-blown face could he calm the unease raging inside his heart.

“…Lisa.”

Lisael slowly raised her head in the direction of Miguel’s voice, which was calling her.

“I’m worried she might dare slap you, haha.”

If only that had been the case. The face that had been buried in those small knees was so shocking that it made Miguel forget to breathe as he ran up to her.

Lisael’s eyes, once bright as the sun, were now clouded, sunk into emptiness as if she had lost everything. Her eyes, already dry as if her tear glands had withered, and her complexion, drained of color, were pale.

Her lips slightly parted, and a cracked voice seeped out as Lisael, staring blankly at Miguel with bloodshot, hollow eyes.

“My father is no longer the village chief. Your father… dismissed all four who have devoted themselves to the villages for a lifetime.”

“…….”

“But that’s not what’s important. They were dismissed because they stood their ground to protect the villagers. What’s important is that ultimately, as the Earl wished, we couldn’t protect the people of Cherlin….”

Lisael, with a dazed expression as if entranced, muttered in a monotonous voice and then turned her gaze back to the blue sky above the meadow.

“Go, Miguel. I no longer want to see you. You know what this village means to me and my father, how precious it is….”

The end of her cracked voice trembled slightly. Water welled up beneath Lisael’s eyes, which had seemed dry. She appeared to be trying her hardest to prevent that water from rolling down her cheeks.

Though he knew what the village meant to Lisael and how precious it was, that wasn’t what mattered now. What mattered to Miguel was the tears filling her eyes.

“Lisa, I….”

Despite her powerless warning, Miguel did not stop his steps toward Lisael until he eventually saw the tears he so desperately did not want to see fall from her eyes.

“Go, just go! Please!”

Her anger, once burst with tears, did not stop as if broken. Her eyes, solely fixed on Miguel, were now filled with vivid contempt and hatred. Through Lisael, he experienced, for the first time in his life, an antagonism and resentment he had never encountered before.

“Why did you have to come to our territory! Why did you come here and ruin all our lives! You and your family! It’s so horrible! I will curse you to receive the same as what you did to the village until I die…!”

Having shouted with all her strength, Lisael gave a low final ultimatum, her shoulders heaving.

“…I don’t want to see you ever again, disappear from my sight forever, Miguel Dante.”

Miguel’s face, upon receiving the ultimatum, collapsed into despair without resistance. He didn’t know how. He didn’t know how to bear and lessen this immense resentment and hatred. The immature choice he made was to disappear from her sight as she said.

Turning his toes, Miguel fled again, just as he had run to the pasture. It was evasion and escape.

‘Lisa, you know. I… I didn’t know! I have nothing to do with Father’s will!’

Initially, he was simply sorry, and later, it felt unfair and bitter. It was the Earl, his father, who made the decision, so why was he, not even subject to collective punishment, being hated too? He never imagined that the solid relationship he thought was strong could collapse so easily.

And he believed that all the blame lay with Lisael. As she had notified, he was not allowed to see her even through the small hole in the wall.

He tried to meet her again countless times, but the Cherlin house remained firmly closed to anyone from the Dante family, never opening its doors. Meanwhile, as the Earl foretold, the village, no, the entire territory underwent a massive transformation.

Accepting the flow of the times, factories were built where fields once were, and the territory grew and developed exponentially.

The problem was the displaced villagers. The machines that enabled mass production of goods took away people’s jobs as the price of that rapid technological advancement. Earl Dante, who valued the money brought by machines more, did not, or rather could not, exercise the discretion to embrace the wandering villagers.

Miguel met Lisael again a year later, at the completion ceremony of a new factory built in the village. Cherlin, being a symbolic figure of the village, had to participate in large official events even after stepping down as the village chief.

Thanks to that forced pretext, Miguel was able to see Lisael again.

In the year since they last met, Lisael had grown a bit taller. Of course, so had he. Miguel had continually resented her for coldly pushing him away and never accepting a meeting, but the resentment melted away like snow upon seeing her face again, a face he had desperately longed to see.

Even if it was forced, the dimples in her smile, shown with difficulty towards the crowd, and her lovely freckled face that made one smile just by looking at it. He couldn’t bring himself to hate her, even if it was a lie.

“Li…sa….”

Calling her by the nickname had become so awkward that he almost added “el” at the end. Fortunately, at the small garden party held after the completion ceremony, he had a chance to approach Lisael.

“…….”

Turning at Miguel’s call, Lisael briefly frowned discontentedly, then silently stared at him. Her coldness still stung and hurt, even after time had passed. But his pathetic escape was the last one at the pasture a year ago.

“Can we talk for a moment? I have so much to say to you. There are misunderstandings I want to clear up….”

“Sure.”

“…What?”

At Lisael’s sudden acceptance, Miguel widened his eyes in disbelief, even though he was the one who requested the conversation.

“Shall we step outside for a moment?”

As if his worries were unfounded, Lisael’s stiff mouth softened into a gentle smile. She, too, must have wanted to restore their relationship. She must have regretted it. The time she coldly drove away someone who came to console her.

‘What’s important is that ultimately, as the Earl wished, we couldn’t protect the people of Cherlin….’

Apologies, comfort, forgiveness, and reconciliation. Miguel was ready to perfectly convey everything.

“Since you’re the Young Earl, you must have some say in the territory’s management.”

But the words Lisael uttered after a year of not seeing each other crushed his expectations cruelly, as if mocking him for being an ignorant optimist.

“Please. I can concede a hundred times to having a factory in the village. But a Lord should think of the villagers before personal assets. You know, right? Even though people who lost their jobs are scattered on the streets, the Earl continues to replace workers with machines. Please, tell him to let the residents work in the factory.”