Chapter 60

“Uh, um……. I mean, I learned that if a friend treats you well, you should treat them well in return. To Mom.”

Clap clap! Seisil applauded and praised him.

“You learned something good, Gin!”

Then Lily also stroked Gin’s head and repeated Seisil’s words.

“You learned something very good, Gin!”

Ethea wished everyone would stop right there. But Lyle joined in too.

“Well, whose son is he.”

“Ohhh, exactly. Whose son is he.”

Ethea was horrified when even Seisil chimed in like that. Gin still didn’t know that Lyle was his father, so they shouldn’t be saying things like that.

Feeling displeased with Lyle, Ethea half-heartedly ate her meal for a while. But her awkwardness and embarrassment only lasted a moment, because at Solei’s urging, she had no choice but to properly eat.

“Etty, let’s hurry and eat. The food here is really so delicious.”

“Yeah…….”

Seeing the people she liked, the flare of anger in her only lasted a moment. Ethea, honestly, was enjoying herself too. She had never had breakfast with so many people before.

After the meal, Ethea said to Lyle,

“I should go back now.”

“Today?”

“Yeah.”

“Without staying and having a little more fun?”

The way he asked so innocently made him seem truly immature. Was he unaware that he was the Emperor? Besides, it wasn’t only the Emperor’s duties that were the problem. Ethea had a life of her own as well.

“Um, Emperor Your Majesty.”

“Yes?”

“Your Majesty, you may be very busy too, but I also have things that keep me busy in my own way.”

“Ah, right.”

Lyle somehow looked like he wanted to stay and have more fun, but when Ethea said she was going back, he said no more.

The Emperor had to work too. No matter how possible it was to work from here as well, it was not good to leave the palace for too long for reasons unrelated to official business.

Likewise, Solei said she should go back as well, worrying about Seisil’s work. Seisil whined that didn’t he have to return to that dreadful workload, but under the Emperor’s sharp gaze, those words immediately died away.

After that, everyone prepared to return.

While packing up and coming out, Seisil whispered very quietly to Solei.

“Next time, shall we go somewhere with just the two of us?”

“Shall we? But Lily……,”

“Don’t worry. I’ll take care of Lily. Or it would be nice if she comes along too! In any case, it’ll just be us going. You and me, and Lily only.”

Ethea thought there must be something wrong with Seisil’s hearing. Did he truly not realize that no matter how quietly he whispered, everyone could hear him? Besides, Solei was just the same. The way she looked so happy at Seisil’s words somehow made her look even more childlike than Lily.

Ethea shook her head as she looked at them, then thought again about going home.

A few seconds later, suddenly, belatedly, very belatedly, Ethea remembered something she had forgotten.

And it was something extremely important.

“Ah. What do I do.”

Lyle asked the panicked her,

“Hm? Why? What’s the problem?”

Ethea’s heart was pounding too hard for her to speak.

‘D*mn it.’

Before coming to Aquarand, she had not put out the fire in the fireplace at home. The house was built entirely of wood, with only the fireplace section made of stone, so if one was not careful with the stove, it was vulnerable to fire. Besides, when she had left the house, she had also piled a great deal of laundry in front of the fireplace to make it dry quickly.

If by any chance the laundry caught fire…….

“No!”

Ethea shouted without realizing it.

＊  ＊  ＊

Foreboding thoughts always do come true. In front of the scene of the major accident, Ethea sank down helplessly.

The house had burned. It looked like a giant log that had completely burned down. It had even lightly scorched the storage shed of Solei’s house next door.

Solei, who had also been silent for a long while like Ethea, finally spoke.

“It’s a relief in a way, since our shed only had things we were going to throw away anyway……”

“I’m sorry, Solei.”

“No, this isn’t the time for you to apologize to me. Etty.”

Ethea stared blankly at the ashes. The house where she had lived alone with Gin, the house that was old but filled with precious memories, had become unusable forever along with all the things inside it.

“Ah……”

Gin silently comforted Ethea by hugging her at her side. Meanwhile, Seisil was listening to the words of the townspeople.

“The wind wasn’t too strong, so the fire didn’t spread badly. Just before it could catch onto Miss Solei’s house, that mage over there came and put it out.”

The mage the townspeople were pointing to was Azure. With sharp eyes directed at his sister, Seisil questioned her in a low whisper.

“What were you doing? I asked you to keep a close watch!”

Azure too lowered her voice and answered as if aggrieved.

“I was busy with work at the Mage Tower too. Besides, you said His Majesty had stationed guards over this whole village. I thought they were keeping watch properly on their own.”

The Lint siblings were whispering so quietly that Ethea could not really tell what they were saying. But it seemed Lyle, who was closer to them than Ethea, could hear it all. Lyle lowered his gaze, his face turning red.

Ethea found that reaction of Lyle’s strange.

‘What’s wrong with him?’

Lyle’s face had darkened like someone who had done something terribly wrong.

＊  ＊  ＊

Just as it was for Ethea, the fire was just as shocking to Lyle as well.

Not long ago, Lyle had certainly stationed guards throughout the village, centered around the house where Ethea and Gin lived, to keep watch over the entire area. If unsavory men found out that a woman lived there alone with a child, they could break in and do something awful at any time. The guards were disguised, so they did not stand out, but there were quite a lot of them.

Then one day, he heard something from Azure.

‘The young man named Hassen from the fruit shop personally carries over even fruit she didn’t ask for, and the young man named Luth from the vigilante corps protects the children in real time because he’s worried they might get hurt while running around in the yard, and then if he receives even a cup of drink from her his face turns red……’

To be honest, hearing that those fellows Hassen and Luth were being unnecessarily nice to Ethea irritated him a little. That said, he could hardly gather them all in one place and bury them just because he disliked them.

He had to do something to stop them from getting close to Ethea.

So what he came up with was official village guards. He spread the word that they were recruiting more young male guards from ages twenty to thirty. Since the pay was higher than the wages at the fruit shop or the support money for the vigilante corps, Hassen and Luth eagerly took the bait. His plan was to have them guard the village only for the time being, then later send them very far away.

As it happened, the original guards protecting Oak Village also needed a vacation. During the time they were away, Lyle ordered the new guards, including Hassen and Luth, to protect the village well. Especially since Hassen and Luth liked Ethea, there was no doubt they would watch her house especially carefully.

That was what he had believed…….

And yet, that was when a fire broke out.