Fish Don't Know About Water - Chapter 50

What is this… He stopped and stared at the sentence in the novel. No matter how many times he blinked, his name was clearly visible. Esca tapped his shoulder.

“Why are you trembling?”

“M-my name… Why is it in the novel…”

Until now, it had been ‘Your Highness’ or ‘Commander’ or marked with Xs. Why the sudden change?

“Why? Didn’t you read the notice, Your Highness?”

“I-I didn’t read it.”

“The notice changes subtly with each issue, so you have to pay attention. And it’s clearly written there. Characters other than the Little Lord and her family are marked with XX.”

Esca tapped the notice written above the serialized novel. Viett checked the notice and then felt a strange gaze on him. He quickly looked up.

Hilias Law was walking straight towards him, staring intently. He wasn’t alone. A young woman, nervously adjusting her coat collar, was with him. The hem of her teal skirt peeked out from under the coat. She was a nurse’s assistant working at the field hospital.

Both of them looked disheveled. Hilias Law’s uniform and the woman’s coat were covered in black ash and dust. Moreover, their hair was messy.

“Now that you’ve had an official wedding, Phenelity Cochrun is now Phenelity Hartmann. You and Pepe are truly family now… Vivi? Vivi!”

Leaving his muttering friend behind, Viett approached Hilias. Hilias greeted him with a smile.

“…Good morning, Commander.”

The young nurse assistant pouted and nodded in greeting. Up close, her face looked even more familiar. She was the nurse who had been smoking nearby when he visited the field hospital to check on Phenelity’s meal yesterday. He had also seen her mingling with the officers at the reception.

“I was too flustered yesterday to help. Are you hurt?”

Hilias asked, brushing the white ash from his hair. Viett nodded silently.

“Is Phenelity okay?”

The young nurse blurted out, adjusting her coat.

“She’s not hurt, right?”

“S-she’s not hurt.”

“Really? It’s fortunate it was a whipped cream cake. If it had been a chocolate cake, Phenelity might have been seriously injured.”

The nurse sighed in relief.

“Costonia’s traditional chocolate cakes are filled with hard, large pieces of chocolate.”

“My goodness. Why do you two look like that?”

Esca rushed over, surprised.

“Were you near the Ruimbert Hotel that was bombed?”

“Not just nearby, we were staying at that hotel! We almost died far from home!”

The young nurse cried out in distress. Hilias smiled and patted her shoulder. Viett narrowed his eyes at his gentle action. This guy…

“Fortunately, we weren’t buried under the rubble and were rescued early.”

Hilias explained, calming the agitated woman. Esca looked at them with a sympathetic face.

“Oh no, are you hurt?”

“As you can see, except for some scratches, we’re fine.”

Hilias pointed to a mark under his chin. It looked like a cut from a sharp object. Despite the deep wound, he seemed unconcerned.

“Miss Maclean. I’m sorry, but I need to speak privately with the officers. Could you leave us for a moment?”

At Hilias’s request, the woman grumbled but left. He watched her walk away with a smile and then suddenly spoke.

“May I ask a favor of you two?”

And without waiting for permission, he continued.

“Please keep it a secret from Miss Phenelity that I spent the night with a nurse.”

Esca glanced at Viett with a bewildered expression, surprised by Hilias’s audacity to mention his wife in front of her husband. Hilias smiled faintly, staring directly at Viett’s expressionless face.

“Miss Phenelity is not so naive as to not know what men and women do in a hotel. If it becomes known that I spent the night with a fellow nurse, it might put her in a difficult position.”

“Y-you shouldn’t have put my wife in a d-difficult position in… in the first place.”

Viett couldn’t suppress his impulse and spoke coldly. If he stayed here any longer, he felt his fist might fly. Beating up his wife’s physician would surely make the headlines again.

“From now on… ta-take better care of your lower half.”

Suppressing his anger, he turned his head sharply. If he kept looking at that pale face, he felt he would definitely hit him.

“Thank you. Well then…”

Hilias Law gave a playful salute with a grin and walked towards the field hospital. Esca, watching his retreating figure, clicked his tongue and shook his head.

“So the rumors were true.”

“W-what r-rumors?”

“That guy, Law. He looks like a pale bookworm, but behind the scenes, he’s been quite the playboy, even fooling around behind the Count’s back.”

Viett looked at his friend, who made an exaggerated gesture, with disdain. Esca scratched his head awkwardly.

“It’s said that if you gather all the noblewomen he’s seduced since his days at the Academy, it would turn the social world upside down…”

Since his days at the Academy? So he was meeting other women even while knowing Phenelity had a crush on him?

Viett glared in the direction Hilias Law had disappeared, his eyes narrowed. He didn’t know how much of it was true, but it was unpleasant to have a man plagued by such vulgar rumors working in his wife’s family.

Does Count Cochrun know about this?

“Make sure Ph-Phenelity never hears… a-about this.”

“Yes, yes, Your Highness.”

Esca grinned and bowed deeply, like a clown from a fairy tale.

Viett stared at his round head for a moment, then raised his hand and smacked the back of his head with the bundle of newspapers.

“Ouch! You bastard!”

“Th-that’s for talking d-dirty about my wife.”

“I wasn’t the only one… Ah, fine. Sorry, sorry.”

Esca stopped grumbling and pouted his lips. Viett tapped his chest with the newspaper bundle and turned away.

“Don’t think I’m letting you off just because it’s your birthday!”

As he walked towards the residence, he heard Esca’s frustrated voice behind him. He raised his middle finger over his shoulder, and Esca screamed in exasperation.

“Aaah! Pepe should see this with her own eyes!”

“Shut up.”

Viett flicked his middle finger and headed to the residence, feeling relieved.

“Viett. Good morning!”

To his surprise, he met Phenelity in the middle of the road. She was standing at the fork leading to the field hospital and the mess hall, waving at him.

He stood there, stunned for a moment, then ran to her. He noticed the officers passing by were trying to suppress their laughter seeing him run to her, but he didn’t care about those jerks.

“W-where did you g-go?”

“Oh, I went to the quarters to fetch some things.”

Viett looked at her with a bewildered expression. It was the usual Phenelity. Her hair was messily twisted up and held with a pencil, and she wore a scruffy apron over her teal nurse uniform.

The only difference was that she had a stuffed bag slung over her shoulder and a paper box full of odds and ends in her arms. He quickly approached and took the box from her.

“Do you always wake up so late? Or just today?”

Phenelity laughed as she quietly handed over the box. She seemed to have completely forgotten about the previous night, her attitude overly cheerful.

It makes me feel like I’m the only dirty one. Viett avoided her gaze, feeling embarrassed. As they walked towards the residence together, he mumbled awkwardly.

“J-just today…”

“I met your adjutant on the way, and he said the Commander-in-Chief excluded you from dawn training? That’s a relief. I didn’t want to wake up alone on the first day of our marriage.”

And I’m okay waking up alone? Viett suppressed the urge to complain and looked at her bag. It was smaller than he thought, and the box he carried was filled with unidentifiable odds and ends. There were only a few clothes and essentials.