With those words, Claude left the hospital room.

“Come to me. Luca Clodence. That’s the only way you can be safe.”

The conversation from that day still felt like it was crushing down on Luca.

After his exchanges with Claude passed, it felt like another heavy weight was added to his chest. It made him increasingly uncomfortable.

Claude was clearly looking out for him.

Not a single sentence in their conversation wasn’t for his sake. Rather, he was warning him of danger and trying to accommodate him.

‘Then why.’

He increasingly felt Claude was crossing a line.

Claude had slowly, very secretly, been encroaching on the boundaries of authority Luca could exercise. In the past, Luca would have accepted Claude’s demands without suspicion, but gradually he felt something subtly off.

Luca found the facts Claude knew as if they were obvious uncomfortable.

Before Luca even spoke, Claude already knew everything—why a supplier was necessary, why he’d become so weak.

It felt like diving into seawater with all his wounds exposed. Based on his past behavior, Luca had believed Claude wouldn’t shake him by the weaknesses he held. So he’d allowed too much.

Claude felt like a predator observing its prey carefully over a long time, watching everything about him from outside the line. Now not just him, but Maria’s every move was known to the point that he—no, both of them—seemed to be in the palm of his hand.

Luca found all these relationships complicated and confusing. Nothing was resolved. Maria was his supplier and Claude wanted him.

On top of that, orders had come down to go to Geta with his unrecovered body. So his thoughts remained unsorted, and both body and mind were rolling through the gutter.

“……You made this yourself?!”

Ian’s excited voice rang out beyond the door. Beyond excitement, Ian spoke to someone in a moved voice.

“I really love sweets, but the old folks at the magic tower…… no, no, the mages have quite adult tastes. So I couldn’t eat sweets unless I bought them outside.”

“Then I brought exactly the right thing! I didn’t make it myself—our household chef is really good at cooking.”

And that someone had a voice Luca knew all too well. Before he could think further, Luca opened the door.

“Sir Luca, are you finished?!”

Ian, startled by the suddenly opened door, wasn’t visible.

The first thing he saw was a familiar face with crescent eyes and a beaming smile.

“Luca, you’re finally here!”

Maria was probably one of the people Luca least wanted to encounter right now. Yet without knowing his feelings, Maria was smiling brightly as if truly delighted. It had been exactly a month since that accident.

True to her words, it was indeed a long-awaited meeting, but Luca couldn’t even manage a smile.

Ian noticed his usually gentle teacher’s poor expression and glanced between the two, but Maria just kept smiling brightly as if accustomed to this.

“You know it’s been really long, right?”

Maria greeted him once more as if for the first time. Though it was clearly an innocuous sentence, Luca couldn’t help but furrow his brow.

“Why did you come?”

When you didn’t send a single letter all this time.

Of course, the latter part was something Luca would never say. Despite the quite rude question, Maria answered without embarrassment.

“Why? Because I missed you, so I came.”

“You…… me?”

“Well, is there someone else here besides you for me to visit? I wrote letters several times before, but there was no reply. I thought about writing again, but figured there wouldn’t be a reply anyway, so I just came to visit. I’m glad we didn’t miss each other and met like this.”

Maria’s face was full of color, as if she’d recovered quite a bit.

“You sent letters……?”

“Yes, I really wrote a lot. Enough to fill a box, I’d say?”

Luca felt puzzled. If what she said was true, he should have seen at least one of those many letters.

“Well, that’s not what’s important. What matters is that I met you like this!”

At Maria’s energetic response, Luca set aside the matter of the missing letters for now.

Should he say she understood him quite well? Or was even this calculated to curry favor and gain advantage?

Luca didn’t nitpick her words further. Maria talked non-stop from when Luca entered the laboratory, briefly looked at the refreshments she’d brought, until he sat down.

“I heard you were very sick. I knew you’d be ill, but I couldn’t see how sick you were so I couldn’t imagine, but Emily told me. Ah, you know who Emily is, right? You saw her last time, but I somehow became friends with Emily.”

“Somehow?”

“Yes, waaaaaay back at the debutante, you and the Sackelpine heir helped me, remember? I went to House Sackelpine to say thanks, but Emily came out instead of Noah. So from that day, I gradually got to know her.”

Luca narrowed his eyes as if trying to read something in her words. Maria just tilted her head with a beaming smile, looking completely thoughtless.

“Oh right, Luca, what did Prince Liam say?”

Maria chattered away at Luca again. Even though Luca didn’t answer, Maria tirelessly kept asking and asking.

Beside her, Ian was drinking tea with cookie crumbs on his face. He’d clearly been happily enjoying cookies before Luca arrived.

However she’d managed it, Ian’s face excited from eating lots of sweets, and Maria’s face smiling brightly in greeting—everything was just peaceful.

Deflated somehow by the sight, Luca let out a short sigh. He felt like he was wasting energy pointlessly.

“Luca, I heard you’re going to Geta?”

Maria seemed to have already heard to some extent from Ian. While chattering, she watched his mood carefully as if worried about offending him, like a squirrel hiding acorns.

“I’m not going.”

“Huh?”

“What?”

Luca answered a bit mischievously. Maria and Ian, who answered simultaneously, looked bewildered.

“Is that okay?”

“That won’t do?!”

Maria and Ian spoke in turn. But Luca had no intention of answering.

“If you don’t go to Geta, it’ll be a disaster?!”

More than Ian, dumbfounded by his decision, Maria looked more shocked. Her expression turned pale as if his words were a death sentence.

“……You’re really not going? Really?”

“Right.”

“Why? You can’t not go when such an important event is about to happen! You’re the protagonist!”

Maria got excited and inadvertently mentioned the novel, flinching slightly, but fortunately no one noticed.

Rather, Luca was the one dumbfounded.

“Why? Is there a reason I must go?”

Luca felt his emotions sinking into the mire again but asked without showing it.

Of course, Maria wasn’t one to answer easily. She always acted like something was bothering her but never explained exactly what the reason was.

“No, it’s not that…… you’re going to do something great, and if you can’t go, I’d feel sorry thinking it’s because of me.”

Maria bit her lip and bowed her head deeply.

“Is that really all?”

“Huh?”

“Is that really all? The reason I must go to Geta, and the reason you’re so sorry.”

Luca smiled slightly as he looked at Maria. Maria stared at him with a blank expression.

“I don’t know what you mean. Um, does there need to be a reason?”

“Think about it. I don’t even know how you’ve been, and you suddenly appear after a month saying I should go to Geta—I can’t help but think there’s a reason.”

What reason? He just kept wanting to be mean. At this point, he wondered if he was becoming a real piece of trash personality-wise.

He swore to Hete’s head priest, he’d never treated people this way before. But looking at that face deep in thought made him keep acting unreasonably.

“Hmm…… that makes sense. I guess I did say something out of the blue as soon as I arrived. But actually, there’s no reason. I came here today just because I really wanted to know how you’ve been doing.”

Maria’s brow furrowed seriously, as if quite sincere.

“Really. Believe me a little. Whether your body is okay, if anything hurts…… I just missed you. When people come and go and you’re worried, what reason do you need? You just visit if you miss them, or you don’t.”

Maria wrinkled her nose, making an expression asking if he was satisfied now.

Even at that expression, Luca didn’t feel satisfied at all. Rather, something in his chest felt ticklish and uncomfortable, and her pale face kept bothering him, making him want to look away.

“This time it’s real, okay? Please just believe what people say. Just accept people’s goodwill as goodwill. Stop frowning with that pretty face—you’ll get wrinkles.”

Luca tried to show displeasure but his lips curved up despite himself.

“……Sorry to interrupt, but what about Sir Luca’s schedule in Geta? Are you really not going?”

Ian asked, even raising his arm slightly though there was no need.

Ian brought up the question that had been missed during his banter with Maria.

Luca looked at each of their faces looking up at him in turn. The feeling of rolling through the mire from just moments ago had strangely improved. It seemed to be from the trivial, insignificant conversation and the faces of two people who knew nothing.

Even to him it was absurd, and Luca smiled. Looking at their tense faces, he briefly considered teasing them a bit more but put the thought away.

“I’m leaving for Geta as scheduled.”

“Ohhh!!!”

Ian cheered joyfully at his words. And beside him, Maria clutched her chest with a face that had aged ten years. Seeing that somehow sparked a mischievous thought.

“And Maria Certi, I’m taking you too.”

It was an impulsive decision. But seeing Maria’s face asking what he was talking about, he concluded it wasn’t a bad idea.

“Whaaaaat???”

And Maria’s voice, dragged into a completely unexpected schedule, echoed through the magic tower.