Fish Don't Know About Water - Chapter 8

“I brought you a discharge gift secretly from Miss Tenessa, so cheer up and smile a bit.”

When Viett opened the paper box Esca tossed to him, he found a bundle of cigars.

“They’re not as high-end as the ones Your Highness smokes, but they’re d-decent enough.”

“Crazy bastard.”

Viett glared at Esca, who was mimicking his stutter, then chose a cigar and rummaged through his uniform pockets.

Damn it. He couldn’t find his cigar cutter. Maybe it had fallen out when he sent his uniform to the laundry. Clicking his tongue, Esca cut the cigar for him.

“I saw in the novel that Pepe checks your daily smoking count accurately. Does this count too?”

Viett paused with the cigar in his mouth. The image of the woman’s pale face, who fainted at the sight of cigarette ashes, flashed through his mind.

If he left the smell of cigars in the hospital room and then disappear, she might clutch her head and collapse.

“W-who cares.”

He muttered to himself, biting the cigar. Lighting it and taking a deep drag, his displeasure quickly dissipated.

For the first time in weeks, a satisfied smile spread across his face. Esca chuckled at his relaxed expression.

“Anyway. If you keep smoking like that, you’ll be the first Hartmann to die young.”

“W-what’s with the cigar? This is… isn’t on the supply list.”

“This? Crown Prince Minute slipped it to me.”

His brother? Viett looked at the cigar suspiciously. Minute and Esca had no special relationship.

They had only briefly exchanged glances at Viett’s commissioning ceremony. So why would his brother bribe this guy…?

“Now that I think about it, it’s infuriating. As a Crown Prince, he could have given me something high-end. What does he take me for, giving me this cheap stuff? Damn it.”

“Why did M-Minute give you this?”

“He asked me to get the names and photos of the assistant nurses.”

“What?”

This h*rny bastard couldn’t even wait… Viett was dumbfounded.

Come to think of it, during his last visit, he had been babbling about an angel or something. So that angel was a nurse at this field hospital.

“So, did you give it to him?”

“Yeah.”

Esca scratched his head and replied ambiguously. Viett stubbed out his half-smoked cigar roughly and spoke through gritted teeth.

“W-why did you do it?”

“I got it for him. It wasn’t difficult. I was also curious about which assistant nurse had caught the Crown Prince’s interest. But the woman’s identity was…”

Esca glanced at the tightly closed hospital room door, then walked to the window and firmly shut the wide-open glass window. Only after drawing the curtains did he turn back to Viett with a sly smile.

“It was your caregiver.”

“…Co-cochrun?”

That scatterbrained woman was Minute’s ‘angel’? Viett was bewildered as he recalled Phenelity Cochrun’s appearance.

Her face was decent. As his sister had said, she looked just like a legendary actor.

The problem was her somewhat unhinged eyes and expressions, her scatterbrained speech, her childish behavior, her messy hair, and her bizarre sense of fashion.

“Want to hear something interesting?”

Esca spoke enthusiastically.

“Thanks to the Little Lord using an alias… Crown Prince Minute has no idea that Phenelity Cochrun is the Little Lord. You brothers are so alike. It’s such a stark contrast to Princess Rosemary.”

“My brother… n-never cared about such novels, thinking they’re only for c-commoners.”

“Hmm. So he’s a noble royal to his core.”

Esca muttered sarcastically and shook his head.

“If only he spent time looking at Princess Rosemary’s collection instead of chasing women.”

More importantly, it’s a problem that he has no aides to give him honest advice.

“Well, whatever. Thanks to his ignorance, the Crown Prince will face a huge embarrassment.”

Esca rubbed his hands together, his eyes gleaming. Viett frowned as he threw the cigar case into his luggage bag.

“Em-embarrassment?”

“Listen.”

Esca cleared his throat a few times and explained in a low voice.

“The Crown Prince doesn’t know that Miss Cochrun is the protagonist of the novel ‘Pepe.’ On the other hand, Miss Cochrun knows the Crown Prince’s face. If Minute Hartmann tries to flirt with Miss Cochrun, it will be accurately depicted in the novel and distributed throughout Westenia. The people who praised the Crown Prince and Princess Amelia’s love as ‘the love of the century’ will be shocked.”

So, he plans to expose Minute’s true nature in the novel. Viett rubbed his chin, deep in thought. Esca must harbor a deeper grudge against Minute than he had imagined.

Minute’s flamboyant romantic exploits spared no regard for rank or age. He had even made advances on Esca’s wife, the viscountess.

Minute often meddled with married women, but the only time it was discovered by the King was then.

However, the King dismissed it as ‘youthful folly’ and laughed it off. Emboldened, Minute continued his numerous affairs with married women, flitting from one party to another.

“Every time an article praising that bastard as ‘the masterpiece of the royal family’ graces the front page, I can’t sleep from the anger. Minute Hartmann deserves to be humiliated.”

Viett stared at Esca, speechless for a moment. He felt conflicted. His brother was annoying, but he didn’t hate him to death. However, he agreed that his brother deserved public humiliation.

To hell with the ‘royal family’s dignity.’ After facing nationwide criticism, his brother might finally end his promiscuous relationships and devote himself to Amelia.

“So, what do you say? Will you join me or not?”

Viett recalled his sister-in-law’s perpetually weary face at royal events, then quietly nodded. Seeing his silent agreement, Esca grinned wickedly.

“Good. This time, we can finally strip away Minute’s hypocritical mask.”

Suddenly, Viett imagined what would happen if Phenelity Cochrun fell for his brother’s advances. She would be just as criticized as his brother.

…But… Would that childlike woman even understand the gaze of a man who wants to sleep with her…?

He quickly dismissed his worries, recalling Phenelity Cochrun’s clueless expression, and stood up from the bed.

“L-let’s go.”

“Is this all your luggage?”

“Yes.”

He grabbed his bag and left the hospital room. Although a nagging feeling tugged at the back of his mind, he had a mountain of tasks waiting for him.

Just before closing the door, Esca pointed to the pile of file folders stacked in the corner of the small hospital room.

“Aren’t you taking those?”

It was a scrapbook of the novel <Pepe> that Rosemary had brought. Viett glanced at the pile of file folders visible through the door crack and shook his head.

“The, the adjutant will move them to the quarters soon.”

“…Is that trash…?”

Esca muttered as he looked under the bed, but Viett ignored him and strode down the hallway.

After the two men left, the adjutant arrived a few minutes later and carried all the piled-up scrapbooks out of the hospital room.

Phenelity Cochrun, who had come to organize medical tools, discovered the abandoned doll that evening.

* * *

「<Pepe: On the 76XXth day since birth…>

※ This propaganda novel includes scenes inappropriate for children.※ Characters other than the Little Lord and her family are marked as XX.

I didn’t want to see Prince XX’s annoying face for a while. I had never met a man so rude, arrogant, and ill-tempered in my life. (Even if this constitutes royal defamation, I can’t help it. It’s the absolute truth!)

He returned to headquarters without a single word of thanks for all the care he received.

He left behind the wax doll I had painstakingly made and gifted him, abandoned in the hospital room!

— Bastard!

I slumped over the wooden desk, cluttered with craft supplies. Knowing that calling him a ‘bastard’ wouldn’t get me arrested for royal defamation, I cursed Prince XX loudly to my heart’s content.

— Bastard, bastard. Son of a b*tch.

Since XX had fled back to her homeland and no one volunteered to be my roommate, I had this double room all to myself. There was no one to get angry at me for muttering curses under the moonlight.

I suddenly got up and approached the trash can. The prince’s wax doll, which I found in the hospital room, was stuck upside down in the trash can.

— If you didn’t like it, you could have used it as a candle! Why did you leave it like trash and disappear?

I brought the wax and oil paints all the way from my homeland. I used such precious materials to make a gift for someone like him! I looked regretfully at the empty wax container and the few remaining oil paints.