Chapter 74

“Please tell me about Ashton. I don’t know how he lives outside my sphere. You’re a newspaper editor-in-chief, so you must know more than I do.”

Edmund nodded slowly.

“He’s capable. It isn’t easy for a foreigner with no title to blend into Reedblon this quickly. This country is conservative, and the nobles even more so.”

Sabina, included among those conservative nobles, took an elegant sip of tea.

“At first, I thought he’d only provide amusements that nobles wouldn’t dare host, get squeezed for all he was worth, and fail to cross the wall—but I was surprised when I heard he signed a contract with the Royal Research Institute. It made me think his friendship with His Majesty the King wasn’t a joke.”

‘Today, Reedblon’ had covered that story the most prominently as well. Sabina thought this was a good chance to resolve something she had been curious about.

“They said he had a notarized document drawn up.”

“Ah, yes, he did. What on earth was it for? We don’t know exactly, either. Mr. Bryant didn’t open his mouth.”

“A promissory note?”

“That seems the most likely. At that young age, there’s no reason he would be preparing a will already.”

At Edmund’s joking remark, Sabina’s heart dropped. An attitude that didn’t plan for next year. Harsh medicine. A will. If she thought there was even the slightest connection, was she going too far?

Sabina shook her head. She was surely thinking too seriously.

“Do you love him?”

Edmund asked softly, as if testing the waters. A gentle smile floated on the face of a man looking at the beloved granddaughter of his friend. Sabina wondered briefly how to answer. Then, once again, she nodded.

“So you do not love him, then?”

Edmund asked sharply. Sabina could no longer bring herself to lie. A long sigh slipped from her lips.

“It’s not like one can only take someone as a lover if one loves them.”

“Do you think that man loves you, Miss D’Vialis?”

Sabina thought he probably did. He liked her. His kisses were sometimes yearning, and when they went deeper than that, he always craved her like a thirsty beast. Even when his movements weren’t gentle, he was clearly treating her as precious.

As she thought that, the Sabina of the past—who had decided not to trust the man—quietly raised her head.

“That…… I think it would be better to ask Ash.”

So Sabina’s answer came out in a slightly uncertain tone.

Suddenly, she found everything tiresome and hateful. She wanted to send Edmund away and rest. She opened her mouth as politely as she could.

“By when should I give you the manuscript?”

Edmund was quick-witted. In an instant, he realized that Sabina had begun to feel uncomfortable here, and that she wanted Edmund to leave. The keyword that had provoked Sabina was, of course, Ashton’s love.

Thinking it was understandable, he laughed off the rudeness of a young lady the age of a granddaughter.

“You may send the draft by next Monday. Then, after a few rounds of adjustments, the article should be able to run on the day of Walter’s Memorial Day.”

Sabina nodded. Edmund put his hat back on, which he had removed.

***

That same day, Reyes visited Helio.

Reyes expected Helio to look miserable. He had provoked the boy by telling him that Sabina and Ashton had gone on a trip, so Sabina, whose fatigue wouldn’t have fully gone away, and Helio, who was sensitive, surely would have fought. The better he drove a wedge between them, the easier it would be for Reyes to move.

But while the boy looked gaunt, he didn’t look tormented. In fact, when Reyes saw Helio’s face, he flinched. His eyes were blazing blue with fighting spirit.

“It’s been a while, Helio.”

Reyes greeted him with a smile. Helio lowered his head slightly and greeted him in a whisper, “Hello.” His voice was hoarse. It was because, just yesterday, after training with Ashton for hours, he had studied until dawn and was completely exhausted.

“What brings you here? Do you have something new to tell me?”

“I just came to see you. Sit.”

Helio sat. Reyes brought all sorts of sweet snacks. Helio looked at them silently, then, out of courtesy, picked up one cookie and put it into his mouth.

“Delicious, isn’t it? It’s the work of the Imperial Family’s head pâtissier.”

Reyes was, as always, soft beyond any limit. Helio glanced at Reyes for cues and nodded slightly.

“I’m digging into that bastard’s past. Like you said, before he settled down in Berna around fourteen or fifteen, it seems he wasn’t in Letona. Even in the village listed as his place of connection, there was no one who knew him.”

“……About him being an unregistered mage……. Have you spoken to His Majesty the King?”

“No.”

With a picture-perfect smile, Reyes answered like a blade. He had no intention of speaking a truth that would break his own pride.

“I intend to tell Kenneth once I have something a bit more certain in my hands.”

Helio nodded faintly. His gestures were still subdued.

By then, Reyes was starting to find Helio’s attitude irritating. Today, the boy was strangely stiff. It was completely different from his usual self, who would step neatly into every trap Reyes laid. He didn’t talk much, and he didn’t even touch the sweets.

Reyes forced himself to swallow his annoyance and asked,

“Is something bad going on? Your expression doesn’t look good.”

Helio hesitated, and hesitated again. Recently, he had begun to harbor a small doubt about Reyes.

It was a doubt born from spending time with Ashton. Lunging at that man and getting repelled again and again, Helio started to wonder. Was it really plausible to “raise” someone who might devour him, merely because he thought Helio wouldn’t be able to swallow the goodwill even if it were offered?

That doubt kept spreading, until it began to shake even Helio’s impression of Ashton Bryant. Frequent contact became the foundation that let Helio look at Ashton—and the previous incidents—at least a little more coolly.

When he stepped back and thought about it, he could see a few strange parts in what Reyes had said.

But could he say that to Reyes?

As Helio wavered, Reyes began coaxing him in a low, gentle way.

“Tell me. It’s fine. What are you worried about? I’m always on your side.”

The boy still held deep goodwill and trust toward Reyes. In the end, he fell for Reyes’s persuasion and decided to speak.

“I’ve been thinking about it lately, and there’s something that doesn’t make sense.”

“What is it?”

“……You said that man slandered you in front of my master, so my master misunderstood you, didn’t you?”

“I did.”

A bad feeling told him this wouldn’t be a pleasant conversation. Reyes strained to keep his expression from hardening.

“But Your Highness, you said…… that man met my master just one day before meeting me. Then that guy…… wouldn’t he have had too little time to ‘set the stage’ specifically to ruin your reputation, Your Highness? I mean, even the party he hosted was only, what, two weeks later.”

Yet despite all that effort, Reyes’s face froze—still wearing its picture-perfect smile.

“So, if you were originally friends with my master, Your Highness……. then someone who suddenly appeared like that…….”

“That’s far enough.”

Helio shut his mouth. Watching Reyes’s expression, he realized he had touched something he shouldn’t have. Reyes was smiling, but he didn’t look pleased. He looked extremely displeased.

Like someone who’d been hit dead center.

“So, Helio, my adorable little friend……. you’re saying you doubt what I told you?”

“That’s not…….”

“Shut……. Heh-heh, if you’re saying you don’t understand what I said, that means you doubt me, doesn’t it? Hm? Helio, tell me. Do you doubt me? Hm? Do you also think I’m, like, a bad bastard?”

A cruel smile shadowed his gorgeous, beautiful face. Helio felt that same discomfort he’d felt the last time he saw Reyes—tingling up from his tailbone. He wanted to run away from this place.

“Helio, you don’t trust me? What am I supposed to do about that? Did you suddenly become weak? Hm?”

That festival of question marks made the boy dizzy. Reyes stood up, bent over the table, and poked Helio’s chest with his finger.

“So you’re saying you won’t trust me anymore? I was really happy to be on the same boat with you because you looked smart, you know? And you say that kind of sh*t? Are you fine with Sabina getting played by that bastard? Don’t you know what you’re doing right now is nothing but handing over your beloved master into that guy’s hands?”

Reyes’s voice grew more and more heated, rising higher. Helio grew frightened. With lips gone bluish, he only shook his head. Reyes wasn’t satisfied with that.

“If Sabina throws you away, what do you think you’ll become? A mage from the Academy? Do you think you’ll be amazing just because your attribute is rare? School life is nothing. You have to graduate and be able to publish papers, and for that you need research funding. If you carry yourself like this, who would ever want to invest in you, hm?”

“S-sorry.”

Reyes spoke with such certainty that for someone young and inexperienced, it was far too easy to mistake his words for the world’s truth. His pressuring tone, his threatening words, had an enormous short-term effect on Helio. The boy turned his head away and trembled.

Watching him cower, Reyes slowly cooled his anger. But his mood, already ruined, couldn’t be restored no matter what. He cursed inwardly and barely restrained the urge to spit on the floor.

“Think carefully. Try saying that kind of nonsense one more time. You know very well I don’t forget, right?”

Helio nodded slowly.