Chapter 201
The story continues off the page
The Last Dance Before Midnight
A masked dragon asks the lanternwright for one slow dance
“Weren’t you working?”
Valdrova asked.
“It’s nothing important.”
“No, I just came because I was bored, so if I’m bothering you, I’ll come back later…….”
He couldn’t possibly refuse.
What could be more important in the world than being bored?
“Not at all. You may come in.”
“But you seem to have so much work…….”
Valdrova looked at the work documents piled on Ferda’s desk.
“It’s really fine.”
“Really……?”
“If necessary, I can burn it all.”
“What? Is that really okay?”
“It’s okay.”
His voice was so firm that it had the opposite effect, making it hard to believe him.
“N-no, you can’t do that. You have to work, right?”
“Won’t you be bored, though?”
“Just keep working, Mr. Ferda. I’ll sit beside you.”
“Beside me……?”
“Yes! I’ll sit perfectly still!”
“Understood.”
Valdrova walked over cautiously, dragged Mori’s chair over, and sat beside Ferda.
“You can do it!”
She raised both hands in an encouraging gesture.
But there was no way he could concentrate.
Even with her mask on, having that face turned toward him made him inexplicably self-conscious.
She said she had come because she was bored, but if he only made her more bored instead of easing it, wouldn’t he be disqualified as her future partner?
‘Maybe I really should burn the whole lot…….’
Just as Ferda was about to make a major decision, Valdrova’s face drew close.
She read the document Ferda was holding.
“Interim Report on Summer Budget Expenditures……. What does this mean?”
Ferda answered her.
“It’s a document checking how the money allocated for summer is being spent.”
“I see. Does it look like it was written well?”
“They say more budget is needed than expected, but for now, it’s still within acceptable limits.”
“Hmm…….”
Valdrova looked down at the numbers written below with a troubled expression.
“Do you think I could do something like this too, Mr. Ferda?”
“I’m sure you could, but there’s no need for you to.”
“But aren’t these things I’m supposed to do?”
“These tedious, miscellaneous tasks are properly mine to handle. You needn’t learn them separately, Your Highness.”
Valdrova’s words cut off abruptly.
The silence sent a chill through him.
Had he said something wrong?
Should he have told her that she could do it too, and that she could if she studied hard enough?
“I didn’t actually come here to say something like this……. I keep getting sidetracked into other things.”
Valdrova fidgeted, rolling her fingertips together, then spoke.
“I’m sorry I’ve done nothing but avoid you these past few days. I was so embarrassed I couldn’t bear it…….”
“No, Your Highness. I can wait until you’re ready.”
“……There you go again.”
She looked deeply hurt.
Ferda still had no idea what he had done wrong.
“I……”
“Yes.”
“I like you.”
“What?”
Ferda was shaken.
He was so violently shaken that even Valdrova herself was startled.
“Um…… I mean the name Elinore.”
“Ah, is that so?”
“Yes. It’s a name you gave me, Mr. Ferda…… and it makes me sad when I can’t use it.”
“Ah.”
So that was why?
It was whenever he used the term Your Highness that she seemed upset.
“I see.”
“Yes.”
“……”
“……”
“Then, Elinore……?”
“Yes!”
Valdrova answered with remarkable cheer.
It was clear that was all she had meant.
“Hehe, you can go back to work. I was really bothering you, wasn’t I?”
“Not at all. This much is fine.”
“Can I bother you a little more?”
“You may.”
“Then……”
Valdrova’s fidgeting hand slid forward along her body, then cautiously took hold of one of Ferda’s hands.
“May I take this?”
“Would you like me to cut it off for you?”
“You don’t have to go that far!”
“I’m joking.”
It hadn’t sounded like a joke at all.
Ferda gave Valdrova a faint smile.
Unable to see his smile, Valdrova lowered her head and fiddled with Ferda’s hand.
Her index finger moved from the wrinkles of his thumb along the smooth surface of his nail, then on to his index finger.
The sensation of her tracing it piece by piece felt as though she were trying to read everything on his hand.
Naturally, Ferda couldn’t concentrate.
“Mr. Ferda……”
“Yes.”
“What do you like about me?”
It was a sudden question.
Valdrova continued speaking as she moved from one finger to the next.
“You’re handsome and smart, Mr. Ferda…… so I feel like you’d prefer a girl prettier and smarter than me. Someone like that lady Olivia, perhaps……?”
Olivia Arken.
A beauty who could easily be called the Rose of the Empire.
But Ferda knew what lay beneath her surface.
That hidden side was so deep and dark that it felt as though he were looking at another version of himself.
No matter how beautiful she was, she left him with nothing but an uneasy feeling.
“Even if Olivia and I are both smart, there are things we can’t gain through effort. You have one of those things, Elinore.”
“What is it?”
It was the very fact that she was asking it.
“I can’t tell you.”
“Why?”
“Because what you don’t know you possess is the most beautiful.”
“What is it? That…….”
Valdrova grumbled as though she thought he was teasing her.
It was deeply paradoxical.
Something was so precious precisely because she did not know its value.
The heart that had been pounding with excitement gradually settled down.
A pleasant silence descended, and Ferda returned his focus to the documents.
They fell silent again.
Ferda turned the pages, and each time, Valdrova fiddled with his hand.
Before long, Valdrova began drawing something on Ferda’s palm.
Tracing the lines by touch, he recognized letters.
“Are you writing letters?”
“That’s right. Can you feel them?”
“Yes, I can feel them.”
“Hmm……. Then I’ll write some letters, and you can try to guess them?”
Valdrova’s mood suggested that she thought it would be fun.
There was no way Ferda could refuse.
“All right.”
“Then here’s the first question?”
Her finger moved gently across Ferda’s hand, using it as a sheet of paper.
After adding a period, she asked playfully,
“What did I write?”
“An apple?”
“Yes. It’s an apple. Next question!”
Valdrova excitedly wrote out another set of letters.
“Ferda. That’s my name.”
“That’s right! Next question……”
“Elinore. That’s your name.”
“Correct! You’re good at this. I’ll need to make the next one a little harder.”
Valdrova hummed, swaying her head from side to side with delight.
“The next question is, hmm…….”
Her previously excited movements grew calmer.
The hand she was holding grew strangely warm.
“……Will you guess this one too?”
“All right.”
Ferda concentrated and tried to read the letters Valdrova was forming.
She put a period at the end and asked,
“What did I write?”
“……”
“Hmm, was this one difficult?”
“No. I think I know what it says.”
“Then tell me.”
“It says……..”
Ferda unconsciously touched his own face.
He hesitated, looking extremely troubled.
What she had written was something Ferda knew very well.
But it was something he could never bring himself to say while in his right mind.
It was a cute, beautiful phrase, too sweet for someone as taciturn and expressionless as him to dare utter.
Valdrova wanted him to say those words.
That was why Ferda carefully said to her,
“I like you.”
She answered with an utterly satisfied expression.
“Me too.”
Valdrova wrote it out several more times.
She smiled, savoring Ferda’s troubled expression each time.
* * *
Valdrova Castle, Luri’s room.
After finishing her day, what she did was simple.
She threw off the clothes she had worn that day and popped a piece of fruit preserved in honey from the jar into her mouth as a reward.
She rolled the sticky, sweet morsel around in her mouth, then threw herself onto the bed.
It was midnight.
Since her schedule began at four in the morning, sleeping now would give her four hours.
Luri always slept that much, and it was enough.
She closed her eyes as usual.
“Hmm…….”
But her eyes would not properly close.
She had trained herself to fall asleep the moment she collapsed onto the bed, yet she could not fall asleep easily.
A single intrusive thought was tormenting her.
It stirred a vague, hazy emotion in her mind that kept her awake.
Luri’s head turned slightly.
A pile of books lay where her eyes landed.
Books she had stolen wholesale from Ferda’s office.
Books filled with subversive and obscene material.
“……Pervert.”
The words were aimed at Ferda.
Luri herself knew she did not truly mean them.
Ferda didn’t know what these books were; Luri was the one who did.
She was the one who had made a fuss and bolted out alone.
At the memory, Luri covered her face.
‘I screamed at the top of my lungs and ran off…….’
Luri couldn’t believe she had done something a sheltered maiden might do.
When had she ever been this shaken?
Of course, Luri had often been shaken by major events.
But over something this trivial?
Had she ever been oversensitive about something so insignificant?
‘This is all because…….’
Ferda’s face rose in her mind.
A frail man with almost no expression on his face.
Deep blue eyes and a beast-like jawline.
And an incredibly comforting scent.
Arms broader than she had expected.
“Ah…….”
Luri violently shook her head and erased the image from her mind.
This is driving me crazy.
Even imagining it made her feel strange.
It felt as though she were approaching a taboo she must not cross.
Luri got up and put another piece of fruit preserved in honey into her mouth.
When had this started, anyway?
Luri traced it to its source, and that source was undoubtedly the book in her hand.
The writing was in an unknown Eastern script, but Luri knew the title.
‘49 Ways to Tame an Arrogant Maid.’
It had absolutely nothing to do with Luri herself.
She was the Red Dragon Valdrova’s maid, not Ferda’s.
Luri Silverwind, Valdrova’s maid, stood in a position where she could refuse any request at any time, no matter what it was.
This book was making her imagine something that could never happen.
‘A book like this should be burned immediately.’
Luri conjured a flame.
But she couldn’t bring it close enough to burn the book.
A question suddenly arose in her mind.
‘……Now that I think about it, is there really any reason to burn it?’
It wasn’t her who was arrogant; it was Ferda.
Though he was tall and possessed a refined air beyond his years, wasn’t he, despite being so young, acting like her master in front of a dragon spawn?
And he put on airs despite liking to be hit.
‘I just hope that perverted tendency doesn’t rub off on my master.’
Valdrova was a woman like a blank sheet of paper.
She would take on anyone’s color in an instant, so Ferda would surely color her.
‘Which means…….’
I, at least, have to keep my head straight.
Luri recalled the advice she had received when she was appointed commander of the Mobile Brigade.
‘Know your enemy and know yourself, and you will win every battle.’
Having steeled her resolve, Luri looked down at the book again.
49 Ways to Tame an Arrogant Maid.
‘If I know the 49 methods, I can prepare ways to counter them.’
Once she thought of it that way, her mindset changed.
Her hesitation and worry vanished in an instant.
This must not be burned.
She absolutely had to read it!
But there was no way Luri could read the obscure Eastern script.
She needed someone who knew Eastern script.
Who could that be?
‘Penelope.’
Luri instinctively radiated killing intent.
She’d rather be caught by Ferda than let that demon catch her reading this book.
Then what other way was there?
‘Mori.’
Ferda had gone looking for Mori so she could read this book.
As the owner of the Myriad Library, she undoubtedly knew Eastern script.
‘I can ask her.’
Mori had no sense of self, so asking for secrecy should keep the matter from being disclosed.
It was late at night, making this the perfect time to ask in secret.
Luri decided to put the plan into action immediately.
She sprang up and placed her hand on the doorknob.
“……”
She hesitated over something for a moment, then looked back.
What caught her eye was another stack of subversive books.
‘Come to think of it…….’
Since she was reading subversive books anyway, what difference would taking a few more make?
Yeah.
It should be fine.
Luri picked up about three more books and headed for Mori’s bedroom.