Chapter 3 (Part 6)

Determined not to be swayed, Leonardo stepped outside and quietly watched Grace sitting at the entrance, tending to her sword.  

She was polishing it as if she knew nothing else.  

Somehow, she looked precarious.  

Just as Leonardo was about to call out to Grace, who was mindlessly tending to her sword, the sound of the delivery owl’s bell rang out.  

Even amidst all that, Grace jumped up and shouted, as if she had heard it again.  

“It’s here!”  

Leonardo couldn’t help but smile, knowing what she was eagerly anticipating.  

How could she be so sincere about eating?  

“Let’s go check it out first.”  

At his words, Grace sheathed her sword and stood up.  

When she slightly opened the door, they saw the delivery owls flying from afar. More were coming than expected.  

“They arrived sooner than expected.”  

“It seems the vice-commander put in some effort.”  

As they stepped outside, they saw the owls, having confirmed the delivery location, landing one by one, placing their baskets down, and flying off again.  

Soon, the small yard that doubled as a training ground was filled with items brought by the delivery owls.

“We need to organize this first before we can do any training or anything else.”  

At his words, Grace reattached her sword to her belt.  

Then she unbuttoned her sleeves and rolled them up, and Leonardo glanced at her.  

Until now, he hadn’t paid much attention to his forearms, but suddenly they caught his eye. He glanced at Grace’s arms without realizing it.  

‘……Have I been neglecting my training too much?’  

Recently, he had been busy locked up in his lab, researching magic, and had neglected other things.  

But how could my forearms look weaker than Grace’s, a woman?  

Feeling his pride wounded, Leonardo deliberately lifted a basket for her to see.  

Seeing that, Grace commented,  

“Sir Leonardo. If you lift heavy objects like that, you’ll hurt your back.”  

“……What?”  

“Aren’t you still at an age where your back should be strong? Then you should be careful.”  

Casually throwing out those words, Grace picked up a basket in a very stable posture and walked inside with long strides.  

Watching her, Leonardo muttered incredulously,  

“She says we should get used to each other’s bodies, yet she’s already completely adapted to mine.”  

She truly had an uncanny talent for physical tasks.  

Despite the height difference between him and Grace, which meant paying attention to arm and leg lengths, she used it so effortlessly.  

Leonardo, for a moment, envied such animalistic instincts, just a little.  

‘I can’t believe I’m thinking this.’  

Amused by his own thoughts, Leonardo shook them off and carried the basket inside.  

While he had been momentarily lost in thought, half of the baskets had disappeared. He felt sorry for Grace, who must have carried all that alone.  

Just then, Grace, who had gone to the kitchen for a drink of water, saw Leonardo and frowned.  

“What are you doing? Are you making me work alone?”  

“Sorry. If you rest, I’ll take care of the rest.”  

“Then it’s still my body doing the work. How is that different from me working?”  

At Grace’s nitpicking, Leonardo fell silent.  

Why did this woman always manage to find something to dislike, like a thorn in a pocket, whenever I tried to think positively about her?  

Unconsciously, Leonardo clicked his tongue.  

“Are you saying I’m talking nonsense now?”  

When Grace snapped at his action, Leonardo sighed and replied,  

“We need to move and organize quickly to have time for training or eating. Do we have time for trivial arguments like this?”  

Grace seemed to feel a bit guilty at his words and headed outside without a word.  

Leonardo followed her out and diligently carried the baskets. Together, they moved all 15 baskets into the reception room.  

Watching them pile up, Leonardo said,  

“Then I’ll handle the corpses, so please organize the items, Sir Lowell.”  

“Sure.” 

As Leonardo spoke while picking up items magically shrunk in the basket, Grace nodded obediently.

If not for him, Grace herself would have to do it, but she didn’t have the courage to touch them.  

Grace looked at the items filling the basket and placed her hands on her hips.  

“I’m really good at organizing things!”  

Her confident words reached Leonardo.  

Imagining Grace’s expression as she said that, he found her somehow cute.  

“……What is all this?”  

―He might have to cancel that thought.

Leonardo was beyond bewildered by the unexpected situation; he was getting angry.  

“Is this what you call organizing?”  

Looking at the items in the storage, Leonardo asked, and Grace nodded with a proud face.  

Then she replied brightly,  

“You just have to put them in by type. What’s so hard about that? I put things I wasn’t sure about over there.”  

This kind of organization was entirely against Leonardo’s common sense, where organization meant anyone could find the items.  

No matter how he looked at it, this was just stuffing things in. Astonished, Leonardo covered his face with his hand.  

‘It’s my fault for asking her to do it.’  

This was the person who ate charred meat and bread, claiming they were well-cooked.  

Thinking dozens of times that it was wrong to expect a reasonable level, Leonardo ground his teeth.  

“Sir Grace Lowell. People don’t call this organizing.”  

“Why not?”  

At Leonardo’s ominous voice, Grace tilted her head.  

Her gaze turned to the storage. No matter how she looked at it, it was the best she’d done so far. 

What could be wrong?  

Leonardo could clearly see what was going on in Grace’s head.  

“Then, can you find the item I mention from there?”  

“Of course.”  

Watching Grace speak so confidently, Leonardo sighed and said,  

“Then find the blessing potion.”  

As soon as he finished speaking, Grace found the potion and handed it to him.  

Even more baffled, Leonardo found himself speechless. Grace, a bit miffed, pouted and said,  

“I told you I organized it.”  

“—Then how about this?”  

Several times after that, Leonardo asked her to find small, hard-to-find items, and each time, Grace found them from the messy storage.  

By this point, even he had to admit it.  

“……You really did organize it.”  

“Oh, seriously! Are you training me like a dog or something? I told you I did it!”  

As Grace, who was quite upset, snapped, Leonardo sighed.  

Order in chaos, they say. Leonardo finally understood his colleagues who lived in labs that looked similar to this.  

He sincerely apologized to Grace.  

“I’m sorry, Sir Lowell. You must have worked hard, but I didn’t know and ended up offending you. However, if I leave it like this, I won’t be able to find anything, so I’m planning to reorganize it. Is that alright with you?”  

At his apology, Grace pouted.  

All her hard work organizing had become pointless. But she could forgive this much if he did her one favor.  

“……If you also make my portion of dinner tonight.”  

At her words, Leonardo couldn’t help but laugh.  

It wasn’t a mocking or incredulous laugh but a genuine, bright smile that made Grace’s eyes widen.  

“If that will make you forgive me, I’ll gladly do it.”  

Answering so, Leonardo sent Grace into the quarters, telling her to rest for a while.  

With an oddly blank expression, Grace nodded and trudged toward the quarters.  

As soon as she opened the door and entered, she threw herself onto the bed. Then she clutched her head with her hands and silently screamed.  

‘You’re crazy, crazy! Grace Lowell! Get a grip!’  

Grace was struck by a shock like someone had hit her on the head the moment Leonardo smiled.  

She was so surprised that bells rang in her head.  

Perhaps it was because she had never seen that side of him before.  

‘He’s not the one, Gracie. He’s not.’  

But thinking back calmly, she realized she had never really faced Leonardo Fernandez as a person until now.  

People around her always told negative stories about him. At the academy, it was her master and colleagues, and at home, her father and retainers.  

Thus, ten years passed.  

‘Dad, what should I do?’  

The daughter of the leader of the aristocratic faction couldn’t think of the son of the leader of the royalist faction as a good person.  

No, she shouldn’t.  

‘Master, what should I do?’  

As a knight, she could never think positively of a mage who retreated to the rear, claiming to assist in battle, and comfortably cast magic.  

Grace had to struggle to hold together her somewhat broken mental state since coming here.  

‘It’s that appearance that’s the problem!’  

Though she silently shouted with a face full of frustration, Grace knew.  

She was already beginning to crumble.