Chapter 4. A Guest from Far Away

Pehiard blinked at the scene before his eyes.

Since it was difficult to readily judge the spectacle he was witnessing, he stood there for a moment and fixed his gaze quietly.

Aprion’s Central Library was famous as a repository of knowledge open to the public.

Since it was a place anyone could use regardless of status, the library that was always crowded was unusually quiet today.

With no one else around, only one person sat at the wide desk in the center of the library—a small woman who was crying while continuously moving her hands without rest.

Her slender fingers that turned through the mountain of papers one by one trembled.

It was the aftermath of the tears she was shedding.

If she was going to cry so sadly, she might as well just cry instead of writing so diligently.

Pehiard soon realized that she was someone he had met before.

The lush, thick brown hair swaying on her heaving shoulders reminded him of their encounter.

“Ah……”

Count Kent’s lover.

Recalling the memory that came to mind, Pehiard sat across from her.

The woman crying with hiccups didn’t seem to notice that someone had sat across from her.

Quickly crossing out dense rows of numbers with her pen and rapidly calculating and rewriting numbers above them, and when one sheet was finished, bringing another sheet to calculate.

And then dropping a tear.

The busy hand movements of her small hands caught his attention.

Pehiard, who had slowly pulled back his deeply pressed hood, propped his chin and sat watching what she, Elia Weiss, Aprion’s financial administrator, was doing.

“Sob, sniff. Sob. Sob……”

What could be so sad?

Though they had never exchanged a single word, it was a scene that naturally aroused curiosity, so Pehiard, who was usually indifferent to everything, unconsciously opened his mouth as if throwing out words.

“Why are you crying?”

It was a sudden question.

However, Elia, intoxicated by her own sorrow, reflexively answered without even checking who had asked the question.

“…… Sob, sniff…… I hate working……”

What is this now……

Pehiard’s eyes widened at the more absurd answer than expected.

“…… If you hate it, you don’t have to do it.”

“Sob, if I don’t do it…… sniff. Who will? Sob.”

The sight of her hands not stopping even while complaining about hating work made Pehiard chuckle.

In fact, there were somewhat complex and long circumstances behind Elia being able to escape from Casiel’s bedroom and be at the Central Library.

Leonard Zeke, the finance minister, was an experienced man over fifty this year.

However, the degree of experience and physical strength were never proportional.

With Elia suddenly being removed from practical work without a replacement, and the variable of welcoming distinguished guests arising, the work of the finance department became indescribably overwhelming.

To make matters worse, an incident occurred.

Terence and Kane, Elia’s direct seniors, had an accident where a bookshelf fell over and broke their legs while searching through predecessor documents about state guest reception in the imperial archives.

Naturally, they were also excluded from practical work.

When the three financial administrators who did the most work suddenly disappeared, Leonard Zeke became busy.

But he was a man who had become a grandfather this year after having a grandchild. The elderly man eventually collapsed, unable to handle the heavy workload he had to shoulder alone.

As the most core personnel among the working staff handling funds operated in the empire disappeared one after another, other departments screamed.

With all departments simultaneously in chaos asking what to do about this, Terence, who had a broken leg, had no choice but to work even while lying in bed.

Like someone who had lasted long under Casiel, Terence was a type with strong responsibility.

Setting aside Kane, who was too seriously injured to work at all, Terence stepped forward saying he would work, but there were limits to working while lying in bed at home.

He developed a fever due to his broken leg, and no matter how hard he worked, documents only piled up.

When three days passed, Terence eventually dragged his broken leg and pleaded with Casiel. Please send Elia.

Casiel flatly dismissed it as nonsense.

However, as the work of the department handling money became sluggish, soon dying sounds spread from all departments.

Hearing the maid who came to serve casually lament, Elia judged that she couldn’t miss this opportunity.

That day too, as soon as Casiel entered the room and tried to undress her, Elia clung to him. Please let me work.

Casiel knew that the inner meaning of her clinging was no different from saying please let her go outside.

So he cleanly ignored her plea and that day too held Elia in his arms while driving her breathless.

Normally, Elia, exhausted from three or four sessions of s*x, would have fallen asleep as if fainting.

But she, who desperately wanted freedom, grabbed Casiel’s arm and clung to him even after he had fully satisfied his desires.

Casiel, who had intended to confine Elia until she really conceived a child, was offended by Elia’s pleas and left the room.

As soon as Casiel, who had slept in another room, showed his face at the morning assembly the next day, the ministers simultaneously spoke as if they had made a promise. At this rate, not only welcoming distinguished guests but the administration itself would have holes.

Casiel finally backing down was thanks to even the head maid, who was always quiet and calm, stepping forward to add a word.

“Your Majesty…… you cannot just drive her too hard. You must give a person time to breathe.”

The subtle reproach that confining Elia in a room and forcibly taking her was fine for a day or two, but at this rate she wouldn’t last long, and Elia’s gaunt face made Casiel hesitate.

Under the complex offensive, Casiel finally raised both hands.

Instead, he set conditions.

Work, but don’t work where other people can see. When needing to use materials from the Central Library, he would block other people’s access.

So today, when Pehiard came to the Central Library, was precisely the day when general public access was restricted.

But as for why Pehiard, in suspicious attire with a dark hood pulled down to his head, could enter where Elia was working without any restraint, it was the result of coincidence—he had entered the entrance at the exact moment when the knights guarding the library entrance were changing shifts.

While Pehiard, who had no way of knowing this fact, was wondering why it was so quiet today and why this woman was complaining about hating work while still working……

Elia, who had been crying with drooping shoulders, finally raised her head.

Blinking her round eyes soaked with tears, she looked at Pehiard sitting across from her and opened her lips.

“Sob, but……”

“……?”

“Who are you?”

Human emotions seem solid, but in fact that solidity is like a violently pouring waterfall.

An unexpected, odd question lightly touched what was actually a wall that would change course with just a needle prick.

“…… Pfft.”

The moment he felt caught off guard, laughter leaked from between Pehiard’s lips.

Elia, who had hesitated momentarily at the laughter of the man sitting across from her, thought for a moment and asked.

“Today the library was supposed to block anyone from entering, so how did you get in?”

“There was no one blocking at the entrance?”

“…… Ah.”

Was it shift change time?

There was no certainty in the voice that muttered quietly. Elia said casually that it must be so, and lowered her head again.

With a voice where the crying had considerably subsided, Elia spoke to him.

“Today is a day when general access is restricted. Normally you should leave immediately, but if things get complicated it becomes troublesome…… The knights’ next shift change will probably be at dinner time, so if you leave inconspicuously then, it should be fine.”

Pehiard frowned at Elia’s matter-of-fact behavior.

Without a doubt, this was the first time he had received such a reaction from a woman who had seen his face directly.

Whether they had ulterior motives or not, women would first be mesmerized upon seeing his face.

Since there had never been an exception since he developed self-awareness, Elia’s abnormal behavior aroused the unfamiliar emotion of bewilderment in him.

But the reason Elia remained calm even at the man’s beauty that would naturally make eyes spin was simple.

Partly because her threshold for male beauty had risen due to handsome men around her like Casiel and Count Kent, and partly because right now she was not in a position to leisurely admire a man’s beauty due to headache-inducing worries.

If it hadn’t been this situation, Elia would have stared mesmerized at the man’s beauty, but instead she didn’t even glance at him as if looking at a cow or chicken, holding onto documents and frowning.

“Ah, I can’t calculate this like this. This senior really……”

Due to Elia’s long-standing habit of not paying attention to anything else once she focused on number calculations, Pehiard was able to have the fresh experience of being ignored by a woman for the first time in his life.

Even if there were women who sent reproachful looks because of his criticized birth background, even those women couldn’t hide their glances at him from the corner of their eyes.

Having plunged one man into unfamiliar bewilderment he had never experienced, Elia reached for materials and documents brought from the Central Library’s underground archive.

Thanks to this, Pehiard could appreciate Elia Weiss’s face without any hesitation.