Chapter 7 One Step Forward

Mallan replaced the wagon with a smaller, more maneuverable carriage.

Maria, Nella, and Robert rode in the carriage, while Byron, who was relatively skilled at horseback riding, chose to ride a horse.

The shortcut to the marquisate was rough terrain, making it a difficult journey, but no one complained.

After riding nonstop for three days, they caught up with the knight order just before entering the marquisate.

Lydia, clearly tired, was awkwardly trying to dismount from her horse.

Having successfully rescued the people and joined the knight order, Lydia unconsciously relaxed now that the arduous journey was over.

It would have been fine if her feet had touched the ground, but the timing was slightly off.

“Whoa…!”

Her body tilted sharply while one foot was still in the stirrup.

Lydia squeezed her eyes shut. Just then, a thick forearm caught her.

Rough hands unwound the reins tangled around her ankle and set her down on the ground.

“Th-thank you, Sir Randel.”

“……”

Randel merely nodded and left to return to his duties.

Lydia blinked, staring at the spot where Randel had been, and tilted her head curiously.

But soon she was stroking her horse’s neck, checking if it had been startled.

Standing a short distance away, Arsen had stopped mid-stride as he watched Lydia.

In fact, he had been watching her for a while.

When the knight order came into view in the distance, Lydia’s body had begun swaying loosely on horseback.

It was a sign that her tension was easing.

He should have put her in the carriage—that was a mistake. Or he should have had her ride with him on his horse.

Arsen hadn’t taken his eyes off Lydia the entire time. That’s why he had been able to move immediately when she started to fall from her horse.

Of course, Randel had beaten him to it. Which meant Randel had also been keeping an eye on Lydia all along.

That could happen. It makes sense.

Arsen’s knights are trained to watch out for each other.

To ensure no one is in danger, to guard each other’s backs at the right moment.

Although Lydia wasn’t part of the knight order, she had entered their circle of comrades since Arsen had decided to take her to the border.

So Randel must have been subconsciously paying attention to her.

He understood it all intellectually, but he couldn’t understand why he felt so displeased.

It was a very subtle displeasure.

The kind of feeling he could easily hide if he wanted to—just that level of emotion.

But it wouldn’t easily fade, so he had to forcibly think of something else to divert his attention.

The problem was that this “something else” turned out to be Lydia, who was now patting her waist.

But that kind of problem was no longer recognized as a problem.

‘Is her waist hurting? Last time she said her b*ttocks hurt. Since she can’t pat her b*ttocks here, is she patting her waist instead?’

But the pain in her b*ttocks wasn’t something he could do anything about.

Besides, the moment he offered to do something about it, he’d likely be branded a pervert.

But do I want to somehow solve that problem for her?

Just as the answer to this sudden question was leaning toward “yes,” Byron approached Arsen’s side.

“Young master.”

Looking down at Byron, who had somehow appeared beside him, Arsen saw his weathered face, wrinkled from hardship, though his kind smile remained unchanged.

“I understand.”

“Understand what?”

“That you’re at a vigorous age. It’s natural at your age.”

Arsen frowned, unable to grasp what the gentle voice was implying.

“You’re still as indirect as ever, Master.”

“And you’ve always hated when I questioned you like this.”

Byron smiled gently again, reminiscing about old times.

Then he opened his mouth to his grown student who was waiting for guidance.

“You shouldn’t stare at a woman’s b*ttocks.”

“……I wasn’t.”

Yeah, right. The fact that he didn’t immediately deny it and stammered instead was as good as admitting he had been staring at Lydia’s b*ttocks.

“I wasn’t, Master.”

Arsen firmly denied it, but it was already too late.

“And Priestess Lydia isn’t a woman, young master. She’s a priestess.”

“I don’t see her as a woman.”

“Then let me correct myself. You shouldn’t stare at a priestess’s b*ttocks.”

I’m not, Arsen insisted, regressing to his childhood self.

But now, as then, his insistence had no effect whatsoever.

“Lying is also wrong. I must pray to the Goddess to forgive the sins you’ve committed today.”

With that, Byron politely clasped his hands together and hurried away.

Arsen buried his face in his palms and sighed.

As he brushed back his fallen hair and released a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding, Lydia approached him with sparkling eyes.

Then she blinked those long eyelashes like butterfly wings as she looked up at him.

Arsen, feeling preemptively guilty, almost took a step back.

“Sir, are you hot?”

“No.”

“Your face is red.”

Unable to explain the real reason, Arsen could only deny it.

“Before we enter the marquisate, can I look around over there?”

Lydia pointed to a field connecting to the forest beside the road.

“Why do you want to go there?”

“Remember when I said I could cure the White Ghost disease? The cure for that disease is over there.”

* * *

The White Ghost disease appeared suddenly and spread throughout the Empire.

It wasn’t contagious. Yet it affected commoners and nobles alike, with a very high mortality rate.

The common symptom among patients was seeing hallucinations of ghosts in white clothing, which naturally led to the name “White Ghost disease,” but in reality, it was neither a ghost nor a hallucination.

It was the white smoke rising from medicinal tobacco.

Tobacco made from an herb called serfim was effective for chronic headaches and fatigue recovery.

However, serfim contained a substance that caused addiction in people.

Seeing hallucinations was a sign of addiction.

And the moment they first saw the hallucination was usually while smoking the tobacco—precisely at the instant when particularly white smoke rose from the serfim.

Once it became known that serfim addiction was the cause of the White Ghost disease, a treatment was soon discovered.

Drinking yellow mountain dandelion root brewed like tea helped remove the serfim’s toxins from the body.

The Marquis had unfortunately died before this fact became known.

But not this time.

Lydia gathered plenty of yellow mountain dandelions and rushed to the Marquis.

After two days of pouring dandelion tea into the unconscious Marquis’s mouth, he opened his eyes. By the fourth day, he could swallow the tea himself, and by the tenth day, he could even sit up.

“Father!”

Lydia sniffled as she fell into the arms of the Marquis, who was sitting up against the headboard of the bed.

She had originally planned to fake tears, but fortunately, they came naturally.

“There, there, your father is fine.”

Lydia looked up at the Marquis who was patting her back, her face covered in tears.

I saved Father, so now Father should take my side.

Her eyes said as much.

“Father, Richard wants to break off our engagement and marry Giselle!”

* * *

“What?”

“Richard wants to break off our engagement and marry Giselle. Giselle is already pregnant.”

Lydia returned to her old self for the first time in a long while, throwing a childish tantrum and crying profusely on the Marquis’s bed.

Knowing how much Lydia had liked Richard, the Marquis’s heart ached for his daughter.

Moreover, whenever he regained consciousness, the servants and physician who nursed him told him that Lydia had saved his life and cared for him devotedly, which increased his affection for his daughter.

“Don’t cry, Lydia. You’ll exhaust yourself.”

Lydia hadn’t wanted to cry this much.

But once she started telling her father, her emotions welled up.

“Richard, how could that bastard do this to us?”

The Marquis had accepted Richard as his son-in-law despite knowing the risk of their family’s destruction.

If it hadn’t been for his help, could Richard have even ascended to the throne?

Betraying Lydia was essentially the same as betraying the Marquis.

“I’m disappointed in Giselle too.”

He could have ignored her. But she was such a pitiful child that he took her in, fed her, clothed her, and educated her.

And now she steals his daughter’s man?

The one who should have become Empress was Lydia Evansi.

Not Giselle, someone from a distant branch of the Evansi marquis family!

“What about Devon? What is Devon doing?”

“Devon.”

Lydia pouted her lips considerably.

“He accepted the breakup without protest.”

Devon, having made some deal with Richard, accepted the breakup as soon as the dissolution document arrived, in his capacity as acting head of the family.

Even when Lydia cried and made a fuss, he didn’t bat an eye.

He even had the audacity to say that marrying a man who didn’t want her would only bring about her own unhappiness, and as her brother, he couldn’t stand by and watch his sister’s misfortune.

‘Hmm, come to think of it, that does sound right?’

She would definitely have been unhappy if she had married Richard.

Well, anyway, the important thing was that Devon had backstabbed Lydia along with Richard.

“What is that boy thinking? Having an Empress come from our family is politically important.”

“They’ve decided to adopt Giselle as our family’s daughter. Now Giselle is your daughter too.”

Lydia whispered that Devon had threatened to lock her in the mansion if she didn’t sign the consent form, so she had no choice but to agree.

The Marquis groaned in disbelief.

The butler of the lord’s castle, who had been listening quietly, quickly brought lukewarm water.

“Butler, has Devon ever sent someone about this matter?”

“The young master….”