Saying It Like That Makes It Sound Like My Mom Died or Something

Chapter 37

The empty seat left after Viscountess Müller departed.

I had been about to stand up, but instead I idly played with my cooling teacup and glanced sideways over at the neighboring table.

I’d seen it clearly.

When our eyes met, they had subtly looked away.

Was that laughter I heard earlier from that person too?

No. It wasn’t in that direction.

'...Then who was it?'

I turned my head to check.

It was a woman with ordinary brown hair and the plain clothes of an ordinary noble lady.

I'd never met her before.

Her outfit was perfectly fine for sitting in a trendy café like this, and if anything, I was the one who didn’t fit in here.

If anyone was going to be suspicious, it should’ve been them, not me.

But then.

'...Huh?'

The moment I turned my head back to the front, a sense of wrongness slammed into my brain.

I can't remember.

The woman’s face I’d just seen, the color of the clothes she was wearing, slipped away from my mind as if erased by a rubber.

'What color was her hair just now...? Brown? Black?'

I turned my head again to check. Brown.

I looked forward again.

'...What color was it?'

Definitely.

The facts remain, but only the details get erased.

This is a hundred percent magic. More specifically, a perception-interference artifact, and probably an expensive one.

'Wow, come on.'

I was dumbfounded.

I had no clue.

Why me?

But usually, when you think, "No way," it turns out to be exactly that way.

I can't stand this kind of blatantly deliberate fishiness.

'What, are you a peeping Tom? If you're going to do it, at least don't get caught.'

I shot to my feet.

I strode over, pulled out the chair opposite the woman, and plopped down.

Creak.

"......!"

The woman froze with her teacup halfway to her lips.

I propped my chin on my hand and leaned in close.

"If you've got something to say, say it out loud."

"......What is it?"

The woman asked calmly.

But even that voice was oddly strange.

I could definitely hear it, but if I closed my eyes and concentrated, it felt like the voice was replaced by a buzzing noise in my brain five seconds later and vanished.

Definitely.

This woman was obviously pulling tricks to hide her identity on purpose.

I couldn't just grab her by the collar and shout, "Who are you!"

If I did, I'd be dragged off by the guards as some lunatic.

But I hadn't come here without thinking.

A line of reasoning I could use had suddenly occurred to me.

"If you recognized me and were sneaking a look, then you're an Academy student... and you know whose disciple I am, right?"

"......"

The woman gave no answer.

But I could see the tips of the fingers holding her teacup trembling ever so slightly.

Hook, line, and sinker.

"Surely you didn't think I, the prized disciple of the great mage Iris von Evergarden, wouldn't notice a shabby perception-disruption spell like this, did you?"

In truth, I couldn't.

And I never would in the future, either.

I wasn't about to study!

I was just reverse-engineering it by watching my idiot memory get formatted in real time.

But the other party didn't know that.

I tapped the table twice with my index finger as if driving the point home.

"I could break it right here and now, if you want. But if I do, that expensive artifact you're using will be smashed to pieces."

I clicked my tongue as though regretting it.

"Then we'd both end up upset and sour at each other, wouldn't we? What a waste of money."

She flinched.

My sharp tongue, honed from dealing with the fox spirit that was Viscountess Müller, was on full display.

Faced with my bold and shameless threat, the woman finally waved the white flag.

She set down her teacup and let out a sigh.

"......I can't dispel it here."

"Oh?"

"There are too many people around. I apologize for the rudeness."

But.

'...Got you.'

A tiny detail caught my ear.

A highly refined accent and narrow pitch range hidden behind the altered voice tone.

Something like that isn't a trick you can pull off overnight, no matter how much you want to.

It was a fingerprint-like habit that only someone who'd spent a lifetime in noble education, taught to restrain their emotions and forced to maintain elegance, could have.

The sense of familiarity was turning into certainty.

I crossed my arms and snorted.

"Aren't you the one who farms with me?"

"......!!"

For a moment, I could feel her real eyes behind the perception-disruption magic widen in shock.

"And you're even using voice modulation..."

She looked around in flustered confusion.

"Did you just break it? The spell?"

Elysia must have thought her own spell had been dispelled.

Otherwise, she wouldn't have thought I could recognize her at a glance.

"No. It looked expensive, so I figured I'd have to pay for it if I broke it."

"Then how did you..."

"I just recognized you from your way of speaking."

"......Huh?"

"How could I not? I can tell it’s you the second I hear it."

I tossed it out casually.

"The rhythm of your breathing, the way you trail off at the ends of sentences. No one else at the Academy has that level of polish and refinement."

"......"

Silence.

Elysia was staring blankly at me.

Her expression was blurred by the perception-disruption magic, but the mood itself came through clearly.

The mood of someone realizing they’d made an unintentional mistake.

'...Huh?'

Wait a second.

Was that line I just said a little dangerous?

Thinking about it again, it was basically the line of a stalker, or maybe a hopeless romantic.

'I remember every little thing about you—your tone, your breathing, everything.'

It definitely sounded like that, didn't it?

Crap.

My damn mouth had gone and caused trouble again.

Elysia made a show of covering her mouth.

"......I had no idea you were paying that much attention to me."

Her voice was tinged with amusement, not sadness, but a ticklish little laugh.

"To the point of even noticing my altered voice."

"Ah, no, that's not what I meant!"

I hurried to clean up my mess.

If I let the misunderstanding stack up any further, I was really screwed.

"It's just that I have good instincts... no, I mean, you've been teasing me with that cultured tone every time, so it's burned itself into my brain. That's all! No other meaning!"

"Fufufufu."

"And just so you don't misunderstand again."

I lowered my voice and, with the most serious expression I could manage, made my plea.

"Please don't go to my betrothed—no, that person—and twist this into, 'They said this to me. They even know my voice.'"

"......"

"I really want to live a long life, okay? I even got a mansion in the south, and I need to live there until I die of old age."

At my desperate appeal, Elysia said with a smile at the corners of her lips,

"I won't misunderstand, and I won't tell them either. I'll protect that precious lifeline of yours."

Her voice was altered, so it sounded mechanical, but she couldn't hide the amusement in it.

Damn, that's annoying.

"......Thank you. I'll be blessed because of it."

*

Now that I knew who she was, my guard was down.

No way this person would be tailing me.

She was just some city boar or the zoo monkey at a gamjatang joint—something I'd run into while having dinner with the crown prince and taking a walk because my head was buzzing.

She’d probably just been curious.

"Yes. So why were you looking at me?"

"Hmm."

Elysia toyed with her teacup and dragged out the pause.

"If it's hard for you to say honestly, I'll just assume you were out in disguise for a walk because your head was buzzing. I do have some intuition, you know."

"......Weren't you the one who came looking into my suspicious intentions?"

"That was because I didn't think you'd be the person I know."

Like hell I’d come grab a noble lady by the collar.

"......If you'd known it was me, then?"

What's there to ask?

"I would’ve run away. Why would I get tangled up with someone who already belongs to somebody?"

One hundred percent sincere.

My life is precious.

Then Elysia tilted her head.

"The person you just met was also someone who belongs to somebody, wasn't she? Viscountess Müller."

"......"

Is this woman for real?

"Princess."

"Yes?"

"Let's not make jokes that don't suit our age. That married-lady gag you just made—an affair joke—is for people over forty only."

"......Pffft!"

Elysia snickered behind her fan. Her shoulders shook violently.

Nice reaction.

This was the moment to nudge again.

Comedy is repetition.

"It's forbidden."

"Ahahaha!"

In the end, she burst out laughing.

Elysia forgot all about decorum and clutched her stomach, laughing.

People around us started turning to look, but I didn't care.

Either way, Elysia was in disguise, and I always do my own thing.

After laughing for a good while, she wiped away the tears gathering at the corners of her eyes.

"Sorry. Was it embarrassing? I was the only one having a good time, laughing so comfortably without any fallout..."

"You've got nothing to apologize for. I only made it funny because I wanted to make you laugh."

I propped my chin on my hand and smirked.

"How could I not poke someone who looks like she'd burst if I gave her a little nudge? I'm not that patient."

"......You're really impossible to deal with."

Even the machine-like noise mixed into Elysia's voice sounded cheerful.

"Well then, shall we get going?"

She rose from her seat.

I brushed off my backside and stood up too.

Time to really go buy the present now.

"......"

But Elysia didn't move. She just stared at me.

What?

Does she have something else to say?

"......Aren't you going to escort me?"

"......Pardon?"

"You usually do, don't you? If you're a gentleman."

Ah.

That blasted etiquette.

"Me?"

I'd rather not.

But if I said that flat-out, I'd just look rude, so I did what I always do and went for self-deprecation.

"I'm asking seriously here, but did I look like the kind of guy who'd know how to do that all this time?"

"......"

Elysia stared blankly at me, then nodded.

"You know what? No, you don't."

I'm glad she's so quick to accept it.

* * *

We went down to ground level via the short steps at the edge of the terrace.

The night air was cool.

"Then I'll be going now."

"Where to?"

"To do a little shopping."

"Shopping?"

Elysia's eyes went round.

"I'm going to buy cosmetics."

"......Cosmetics?"

For a moment, Elysia's gaze shifted subtly.

1. Cosmetics this late at night? Is she off to meet a woman?

There was a second possibility too.

But that guess fell into the "delusional fool" category, so I didn't want to spell it out.

"For the record, it's not for some young lady. It's for the head maid at our house. Should I tell you her age too? She's in her fifties."

"No. That wasn't what I was asking, so I hope there’s no misunderstanding."

Good.

So I don't have to shoot myself in the foot.

"Then... shall I help you pick it out? I’d probably be better at choosing a gift."

"I'll appreciate the sentiment, but I've already decided."

"What is it?"

"I'm going to Rubinic Garden to buy an essence."

"Rubinic Garden... they must have quite a few kinds there. You'd need to know the skin type too."

"I'm buying the brown bottle."

A hundred percent reality.

The legendary brown bottle that the older sisters would nag you to pick up at the duty-free shop whenever they went traveling.

Looks like this world also has something similar, an homage to that.

As expected, this hybrid called a Korean medieval romance fantasy is complicated.

"You seem to know a lot about cosmetics?"

"Not really. I just picked it up from listening to the maids gossip. Secondhand knowledge, that's all."

"I see. You must be very fond of the head maid, then? As family, of course."

"Yeah. She's like a mother to me. She raised me since I was in diapers, so it wouldn't do to go empty-handed, would it?"

"You're a model son."

I said she was like a mother, not that she was my mother.

Saying it like that makes it sound like my mom died or something.

"Then it would be better if I went with you."

"Huh?"

"That brown bottle works better when used with a matching boosting essence from the same line. Depending on skin type, you also mix in oil or cream for different synergies."

"......"

Ah.

I didn't know that.

So the world of cosmetics was this deep.

Wasn't it enough to just toss them one expensive thing and call it a day?

So the older sisters weren't just using the brown bottle by itself after all?

As I stood there opening and closing my mouth in bewilderment, Elysia laughed and said,

"So it was true that you didn't really know. You're not the type to fake an expression like that."

Oh, what the hell. You were testing me?