Chapter 34
Chapter 34
After the meal.
Screeeech—click, click.
The restaurant door opened, and Louis and Elysia came out.
The reporters spotting the two of them showered them with flashes, while the coachman hurriedly opened the carriage door and bowed his head.
Louis escorted Elysia by holding out his hand.
"It was a delightful time."
"Yes, Your Highness. I enjoyed it as well. Thank you deeply for the consideration you showed me today."
With a smile befitting the future crown princess, Elysia took his hand.
Without anyone knowing who started it, the reporters captured that beautiful moment with flash after flash.
At this moment.
Louis was smiling at her, but inside he was badly twisted.
'It's empty again.'
There was no soul in her smile.
The excitement that used to redden her cheeks and leave her at a loss, the overwhelming emotion that used to pour over him, the suffocating look of affection in her eyes.
All of it had vanished.
Just as he was wondering whether Rosenberg had added acting to crown princess training.
Elysia, who had gotten onto the carriage, straightened the hem of her dress and offered a faint smile.
"Even eating together, and being sent off by Your Highness. It's been a really long time."
"I see. Then there will be another time."
"……Then."
After her short reply, Elysia went all the way to the innermost seat of the carriage.
Even until the maid riding in the carriage closed the door, she didn't look back once.
Normally, she would have hesitated and lingered with regret several times over, but this time there wasn't even a hint of hesitation.
Clatter, clatter.
The Rosenberg carriage set off.
Louis glared at the receding carriage with a hard expression.
Usually, her obsessive gaze felt like shackles, so he always wanted to look away from it.
Please, just get away from me.
Please, stop looking at me.
That's what he had begged and begged for.
'What a joke.'
But when that gaze actually disappeared, he felt no sense of liberation—just a nasty discomfort.
"This is the picture I wanted. So why is my stomach this noisy?"
Louis gave a self-mocking snort and headed toward the imperial carriage.
Before long, once the reporters were out of sight, he irritably loosened his cravat.
It was obvious that, without him realizing it, a huge change of heart had occurred in Elysia.
Her eyes no longer held Louis de Leopold.
Something else.
Or as if she were looking at someone else altogether.
An uncontrollable variable.
Louis couldn't stand this situation.
"Hector."
He growled low.
Hector, who had been waiting in the darkness like a shadow, immediately stepped out.
"Yes, Your Highness."
"Find out the cause of Lady Elysia's change in behavior."
"......The cause, Your Highness?"
"Yes. There's no way a person changes that suddenly. There must have been some trigger. Someone must have put ideas into her head."
Louis's red eyes gleamed coldly.
"If necessary, request cooperation from the Intelligence Division and uncover everything down to the last detail. I'll know the gossip of high society like the back of my hand."
"Understood. I will send a letter to the Court Count."
Hector bowed his head firmly.
Louis had no idea, not even in his dreams.
That the second son of the Court Count, who held the real power in the very Intelligence Division he was about to investigate, was the very source of all this turmoil.
* * *
Clatter, clatter.
Elysia, back in the carriage, sank deeply into the seat.
"Haah……."
A sigh escaped her.
She felt restless.
The crown prince's attention she'd wanted her whole life.
His outstretched hand, his escort, his gentle tone.
She had gotten all of it today at once—moments she would have hated to wake from, if it had been a dream.
'……I don't feel anything.'
Her chest felt hollow.
"It had been uncomfortable beyond words."
Elysia muttered bitterly.
It had been such a hard time she couldn't even tell where the food had gone.
"Why on earth am I like this……."
In her troubled state, she muttered to herself even in front of the maid.
Only belatedly did she notice the maid's worry-filled gaze and offer a faint smile.
What was she doing, saying this in front of another person?
Just as her head was pounding and she was about to open the window for some night air.
Swoosh.
As the carriage turned a corner and slowed, a familiar silhouette swept past outside the window.
"……Huh?"
Elysia blinked.
Had she seen wrong?
No way. There was only one man in the capital who dressed that sloppily and sat that crookedly.
She quickly opened the little side window connected to the coachman's seat and shouted.
"Stop the carriage!"
"Neigh!"
The moment the carriage stopped, she leaned out of the window and looked outside.
Across the street, on the terrace of an open-air café.
Beneath the streetlight, there he was after all.
Cassian del Farne.
But.
"……Pfft."
Elysia burst out laughing without meaning to.
Because his expression was just too good.
His brow was furrowed, and his lips were slightly jutting out.
His whole body was broadcasting, "Ah, I'm in a terrible mood, aren't I?"
If you had to create the textbook face of someone with absolutely no noble decorum, wouldn't it look like that?
Who was he talking to, and about what, to make that disgusted expression?
'I'm worried.'
Could something have happened?
Realizing she was worried, Elysia flinched in surprise.
'Why am I worrying about that man?'
I'm on my way back after ruining my date with my fiancé, and I'm checking another man's mood?
And then.
In just a few seconds, Cassian's crumpled brow smoothed out as if ironed flat, and the lips that had been jutting out tucked back in as a bright smile spread across his face.
A happy expression so blissful it was as if the phrase "having the whole world" had been made for moments like this.
The expression full of negative emotion from just a second ago was nowhere to be seen.
"Pffft…… ahaha."
Elysia couldn't hold it in and laughed out loud.
It was so transparent.
Watching that simple, crystal-clear change in emotion, with every feeling laid bare, made the complicated thoughts pressing on her just moments ago seem to evaporate.
Not only that, the unpleasantness she'd had to feel during today's awkward meal also disappeared with it.
"You really are impossible……"
Elysia propped her chin on her hand and leaned against the window frame, watching him.
Just watching him was fun.
Then, all at once, curiosity raised its head.
'By the way…… who did that person come out with at this hour?'
Alone? Probably not.
Or…… a woman?
For his expression to change that dramatically, it must be someone very important.
Her chest tingled and she couldn't help being curious.
The curiosity cells that had been dead when she was with the crown prince kicked into full gear the instant she saw Cassian.
"Who could it be that's making him that happy?"
A feeling lighter than jealousy, but heavier than mere curiosity.
Clunk.
"Please wait here for a moment."
Elysia got out of the carriage.
* * *
In the middle of the bustling district, the terrace of a café with an eye-catching marble interior.
A stylish café, fragrant black tea, and a charming older woman seated right in front of me.
To anyone else, it would have been the perfect picture of a date, but in reality it was completely different.
The Viscountess Müller sitting across from me was grinning ear to ear, and I was so pissed off I was pouting like crazy.
"Looks like you're pretty angry, our almost-student prodigy?"
"Do you know when a person gets angriest?"
"Let's see? I get angriest when I miss a thing I want right in front of me."
She replied leisurely, propping her chin on her hand.
I flinched.
What the fuck. It was a vicious line that sounded like the rest would be, "If I can't have it, I'll smash it."
But today I was too angry to chicken out.
Thinking about the pink bomb and the animal farm that had rolled into my peaceful lab made me so wronged I couldn't sleep.
"I get the most pissed off when I'm angry but don't have a good reason to be."
"Oh my."
"It's a situation where I'm clearly being wronged, but if I press the issue I end up being the weird one."
I set my teacup down irritably.
Clack!
"Still, since you seem intent on making this into an argument, I'll humor you and tell you."
"Go on."
That smile is fucking irritating.
"Didn't I ask you to keep it a secret?"
"I did."
"Then why did you tell everyone? Thanks to you, my research lab turned into a daycare center."
"My student isn't a child; he's an adult, though?"
"You can tell just by looking at him. Biologically, sure, he's an adult, but do you think he looks like one mentally?"
"That is true too. Your phrasing is incredibly funny."
The Viscountess Müller looked thoroughly amused.
"Hmm, Cassian, the student, said, 'Please keep it a secret,' and I said, 'I'll think about it,' not, 'I promise,' right?"
I was speechless.
Damn, this is so infuriating.
"……No, the conversation is going exactly as expected, so if that's the case, why did you ask me to say it?"
"Just because. I thought you'd come to argue, but you didn't, so I was a little disappointed."
"If I went, I'd just get teased by the professor, wouldn't I? She'd obviously wriggle out with 'I never promised anything' just like now. If I went and got all red-faced and huffy, wouldn't that only amuse the professor?"
It was obvious I'd get nowhere if I went to argue, legally or morally.
Just like a moment ago.
"Oh my, to think you'd see me as such a bad person. How hurtful."
Is she messing with me?
"That's a compliment. As a merchant guild master, you have excellent qualities. A competitive spirit is an important value, after all."
"Heeheehee, thank you."
The Viscountess Müller looked so delighted even by my sarcasm that the smile never left her face.
This auntie's gotten a taste for teasing me.
Professor Iris at least gives a generous reaction when teased, but this woman isn't fun because I'm the one getting teased.
"By the way, why did you call me here? Surely not to invite the professor and me to tea at an NC in the bustling district."
"NC?"
"Short for 'nice café.' A café with a good atmosphere."
"You really abbreviate everything, huh."
This goddamn world.
They didn't import NCs from Korea, but they did import the habit of shortening everything.
But the important thing is why I was summoned here.
A professor and a student meeting up to chat, and on a day with no class, no less?
This is seriously fucked-up content.
"The reason's obvious."
She took a sip of tea, her eyes gleaming.
"Since I took in the talent you recommended as my student, I need to thank you for that... and since I entrusted that student to your care, I should also say thank you for looking after him, shouldn't I?"
"......"
My eyebrow twitched.
'This is a dig, isn't it? Not 'give medicine after making someone sick'—it's 'make them sick and then come finish them off,' right?'
She's really got the art of rubbing salt in the wound down to a science.
Then.
The Viscountess Müller set down her teacup and got serious.
"Let's stop joking here."
So she was going to tease me to the hilt and then get to the point.
"You didn't really think I'd just repay my thanks with words, did you?"
"......Excuse me?"
She pulled a thick envelope of documents from her bosom and tossed it onto the table.
"Here, take it. This is my token of thanks for recommending such a good student."
"What is this?"
"Open it and you'll see."
I picked up the envelope with a suspicious look.
Carefully, I opened it and read the documents inside.
And then.
"......Whoa!"
My breath caught.
It was a document.
But this wasn't just any document...!
[Transfer of ownership documents for a large mansion and estate near Emerald Beach, a southern resort area]
My hand started trembling.
"T-this, this, this is......"
"You said you hate the capital because it's too hectic, didn't you? You said crowds were the last thing you wanted."
The Viscountess Müller smiled slyly, resting her chin on her hand.
"So I prepared this. It's at the far southern tip, so the climate is mild, making it perfect for farming too. I even included plenty of land, so who knows? Maybe you'll end up living there and farming for the rest of your life."
"......"