Chapter 53: Servant Cedric (Cedric) (19) - Reasonable Inference

#53. Servant Cedric (Cedric) (19) - Reasonable Inference

Claudia had almost never run as hard as she could on two legs in her life.

To begin with, she wasn't the type who especially liked moving her body, and as a noble young lady for whom even walking counted as part of 'etiquette,' that was all the more true.

But at this very moment, she was running with all her might, making that past seem irrelevant.

The manor's servants looked at her with startled eyes and seemed about to say something, but she didn't care; even her breath, caught up to her throat, was a secondary concern.

「By the way, it's about Cedric. Lately, I think his condition has gotten a lot worse.」

「Compared to before, the amount of work he does has dropped a lot, and his speed has slowed down quite a bit too. Even so, he still does more than one person's share, but how should I put it... if before it felt like he was at a level no one could ever catch up to, now it feels like he's fallen to the level of 'an exceptionally capable person among his peers.'」

「I just thought the manor and the territory had both settled down, so he was taking things a little easier, but the other day I saw him, um... vomiting blood.」

「What's more, he didn't seem especially flustered or surprised; he calmly erased the traces, so it seemed like Cedric himself also knew his own condition well.」

「It's basically someone else's private matter, so I hesitated over whether I should say anything, but I thought the young lady ought to know.」...