Chapter 28

Chapter 28. Marquess of Hierro’s House (2)

"Sir Martin, so this is where you were?"

Putting on a delighted expression, I waved at him.

Martin, who had been talking with the two mercenaries, turned his head.

He looked pleased to see me. But the moment he noticed Bianca following behind me, his face immediately stiffened.

"Sir Martin...."

Bianca was the same. With a rigid expression, she bowed her head.

An awkward atmosphere passed between the two of them.

"I didn’t expect we’d meet again this soon."

Pretending not to notice that mood at all, I walked over to Martin.

The two mercenaries beside him stared at me in bewilderment as I approached.

It was only natural they would make those faces. From their point of view, some little brat had suddenly shown up and started acting familiar.

The male mercenary asked Martin,

"Who’s that?"

"Someone from Duke Gresia’s ducal house."

"Ah, one of the people who came with you."

At Martin’s answer, both mercenaries frowned.

It seemed they did not like the fact that they had run into me.

What a shame. I, for one, was very happy to see them.

I sat down at the table where Martin was seated and beamed at him.

"I’m truly glad to see you. I think it was a very good thing that I slipped out of that stuffy lord’s castle."

I could not exactly say I had come out to do a preliminary inspection, so I tossed out the sort of obvious excuse a child could get away with.

At my words, Bianca and Ugo turned to look at me.

Huh? Why did it feel as though they were looking at me like I was pathetic...?

Surely they had not misunderstood and thought I had used official business as an excuse to come out and play?

No, Bianca could be forgiven since she had only met me today, but Ugo should not have been thinking that!

I let out a sigh inwardly.

Even when I did something this childish, everyone believed it without question.

Once again, I was reminded that being young could be an extraordinary weapon.

Naturally, Martin and the two mercenaries believed me as well.

"Since we’ve run into each other like this, I can stay here for a while, right? It’ll be lunchtime soon, so let’s eat together before I go."

At my words, Ugo gave a slightly troubled nod.

Even if this was called an outing, all we were doing was walking around the safe city where the lord’s castle stood.

The preliminary inspection had never been part of the original plan, and I had just said that the whole thing was merely an excuse anyway, so his permission was only natural.

Seeing that I had no intention of leaving, Martin let out a small sigh.

From his perspective, it would not have been easy to refuse my request.

The two mercenaries rose to their feet at once.

"Let’s talk again later."

"I think that would be best."

Martin nodded as well.

Huh? They were leaving?

"You are both mercenaries, aren’t you? Couldn’t you stay and have a meal with us? This is my first time meeting proper mercenaries, and I’d love to hear some stories about mercenary life. I’ll pay for the meal."

I looked at them with a sparkling smile and innocent eyes.

"Young master, I’m sorry, but we aren’t the sort of people fit to speak with someone as high-ranking as you."

"We have business to attend to."

The female mercenary said that with a flick of her finger, and the male mercenary lowered his head with a courteous expression. Then the two of them left the inn.

Damn. That had failed. I had wanted to squeeze out a little more information....

For now, I supposed I would have to be satisfied with the fact that I had found them.

"Wow, they turned me down that easily. They really must be impressive mercenaries."

When I made that slightly barbed remark, Martin defended them.

"They’re both genuinely busy. Benjamin is the captain of a fairly large mercenary company, and Noah is the vice-captain, so they both have plenty to do."

Had I finally learned their names? They were probably aliases, but even knowing the names they used here would be helpful enough.

Martin and I, along with Sir Ugo and Bianca, ate lunch in the inn’s dining room.

Lunch between a knight, a maid, a little boy, and a man who looked like a mercenary was extraordinarily awkward.

I had thick enough skin to keep the conversation going, but Sir Ugo and Bianca ate in silence, and Martin only answered distractedly.

No one came near our table. Then again, no one would be pleased to see a knight show up in a dining room crawling with mercenaries.

The meal ended in awkwardness, and after saying goodbye to Martin, we left the inn.

It had only been a short while, but thanks to the questions I had slipped into our small talk, I had managed to gather a few more details.

'He said they were the Red Bear Mercenary Company, didn’t he?'

The name of the mercenary company those two belonged to, where they were staying, and the rough nature of their relationship with Martin.

It was not much, but it was enough.

There were a few other things I wanted to know, but they had no reason to answer me, and there was someone else who could tell me instead.

After leaving the inn, our group spent the rest of the outing looking around the remaining areas.

The noisy commercial district, and even the top of the outer wall, from where the whole city could be seen.

Just as expected, there was nowhere that looked particularly dangerous, and we were able to return to the lord’s castle before it grew too late.

After passing into the inner ward of the lord’s castle, we parted ways. It seemed Sir Ugo was going to report his return, and Bianca said she was going to see Adria.

When I had first seen Adria, Bianca had not been by her side, so I had assumed they had no real point of contact right now, but apparently that was not the case.

I did not head straight back to my room either.

I sought out the soldier Juan and asked him to investigate the Red Bear Mercenary Company.

It was an utterly displeasing situation, having to ask a soldier from our territory to investigate a mercenary company in the marquess’s territory, but I had no better alternative.

Fortunately, Juan granted my request this time as well.

For a moment, I had the distinct impression that I saw the benevolent smile of an adult humoring a child’s little detective game, the kind I had seen in my previous life, but I forced myself to ignore it.

When I finished with that and returned to my room, one of Adria’s maids was waiting for me.

In her hand was an invitation card.

"An invitation to a tea party?"

"Yes. Her ladyship hopes you will join her and Sir Simon for tea. She says she has something she wishes to ask you about tomorrow’s event."

When I tilted my head, the maid explained why I had been invited.

But even after hearing the reason, I still did not really understand it.

She had never summoned me before, and tomorrow she was only going out with Brother Simon, so there was no reason for her to invite me to a tea party.

'Did she invite me as a decoration? I have a feeling I’d only end up watching Brother Simon’s mood the whole time....'

Still, refusing would have been impolite.

The sun was still far from setting, and there was nothing inappropriate about holding a tea party before dinner.

I washed up quickly and followed the maid.

As expected, Adria’s drawing room was neat and understated.

The moment I stepped inside, Simon furrowed his brows at me.

I knew this was how it would be. Lunchtime had already been uncomfortable enough, so the tea was bound to taste especially bitter.

"Welcome."

Adria greeted me warmly.

Contrary to what I had expected, the main guest at this tea party was not Simon, but me.

"I heard about it from Bianca just a little while ago. She said you met Brother Martin today?"

The moment I sat down, she revealed the real reason she had invited me to the tea party.

"I heard that you came to our territory with Brother Martin as well. Young Master Simon did not tell me, so I had no idea."

When she shot Simon a sidelong glare, Simon subtly turned his head away.

Well, of course. Simon was an aristocrat to the bone. There was no way he would bring up the story of another noble house’s illegitimate son on his own.

In any case, she had called me here because she wanted to know about her half-brother.

Still, the way she sat there so demurely kept bothering me.

There was no way her personality had changed in the span of a single year, which meant this meekness had to be an act....

At this point, it felt as though the person who found it bothersome first ought to be the one to speak.

"You may speak casually to me. I’m much younger than you, after all."

At my words, Adria abruptly stopped speaking.

She glanced at Simon, then looked around the room.

All of the maids had already left the drawing room, so there was no one present but the three of us.

A moment later, the corners of her face began to twitch, and Simon let out a sigh.

In the end, she gave up the act.

"Puhaha! I really can talk casually, right? It was killing me, trying to hold it in."

I had only told her she could drop the formal speech. Who had said anything about dropping the whole act?

To be fair, that was more or less what I had meant, but the fact that she took it so literally....

I already knew what she was really like, so I was spared the shock, but if I had not, I definitely would have been startled.

Ah, right. I should make a surprised face.

"Were you very surprised? This is what I’m really like. Simon knew it too, and he was very surprised when he found out."

When I glanced at Simon at her words, he had his eyes closed with a dark expression on his face.

It seemed she had already let the truth slip during the few days they had been together. Considering how quickly she had dropped the act with me, there was no way she could have kept it up for several days straight.

"You have no idea how much the adults nagged me to keep pretending to be a proper lady until the engagement was secure. They said that if Simon found out, the engagement would be called off. And if that happened, I’d be locked in my room for a whole year, taking flower-arranging and etiquette lessons day in and day out."

She grinned at Simon.

"But they were all wrong. Simon was surprised when he found out I’d been putting on an act, but he did not mind at all. He’s a good man."

At her words, Simon smiled back. Darkness had settled over his face, yet he was still smiling.

Unfortunately, Adria had misunderstood Simon.

He had not accepted her true nature because he was a good person.

The look on Simon’s face right now was steeped in anguish.

Why had he come to like a girl with this kind of personality? Or rather, how could the girl he liked possibly have this kind of personality? He looked utterly unable to understand himself.

On top of that, the way Adria called him "a good man" sounded terribly pitiful.

A good man. A nice person.

In my previous life, single men had always heard those very words from women they knew.

I had heard them myself more than once.... No, no, this was not the time to be thinking about that.

I silently sent consolation toward Simon, who was looking at Adria with a gloomy expression.

'First loves are always like that, brother.'

After that brief commotion passed, the atmosphere in the drawing room became far more comfortable than before.

I dropped my surprised expression as well and told Adria about everything that had happened so far.

From the moment I met Martin, to my conversation with him, and even the sparring match.

Adria listened to my story with unmistakable delight.

She had been astonished when I described meeting Martin, tried to remember every word he had said, and her eyes sparkled when I mentioned sparring with him.

Oh. Maybe I should have left that part out.

At any rate, she looked like someone listening to stories about an older brother from whom she had been separated long ago.

Then again, even in my previous life, she had refused to believe that Martin had caused trouble.

Judging by the look on her face now, the two of them must have been very close ever since childhood.

"It seems you were very close with Martin."

"Yes. I never got along well with the other siblings, but I was really close with him. After he left home, I never heard any news of him, so I was very worried."

Okay. At last, it was time to ask the question I had really wanted to ask.

"For what reason did Martin leave the lord’s castle? It seems he even underwent his Awakening as well...."

"Alex!"

At my question, Simon called my name loudly. He was warning me not to ask something unnecessary.

So the first time he had ever called me by name was only to scold me.

No matter how I looked at it, he truly was an impressive older brother.

"Ah, is it something I’m not supposed to ask? Since he’s an illegitimate son like me, I was curious about why things turned out that way."

As I spoke, I put on the most pitiful expression I could manage.

I had to make the most of this while I still could. In just a few years, it might stop being effective and even backfire instead.

Adria hesitated for a moment. She looked at Simon, then at me.

On one side was the man who had come here for an engagement, and on the other was his younger brother, who shared the same status as her own brother.

She looked around the room once more, then began to speak in a low voice.

"The reason Brother Martin ended up leaving home was partly because his inherited ability was stronger than other people’s, but in the end, it was all because of his younger sister."

And from her lips, the hidden story of the Marquess of Hierro’s House began to spill out.