WYDM 32

Romina stood up from her seat, looked at Sehera, then immediately turned to Himoph. If only the doctor would say whether it was okay or not in situations like this, it would make things a bit easier to navigate…

Sehera looked at Himoph with similar thoughts, but he was examining Ethan with an extremely calm expression.

“If we’re going to the drawing room, there should be at least one seat where I can sit. Being stuck in the room while it’s so noisy outside. I’m an uninvited guest, but may I join this gathering for a moment?”

He spoke in a voice that wasn’t gentle at all. He hadn’t been that affectionate to begin with, and since he wasn’t in a good mood right now, it showed plainly.

Sehera looked troubled but didn’t particularly snap at him.

“Fine. Rabo, could you help support His Grace?”

“…Yes.”

As Sehera stood up, she asked the shaggy-haired servant. While Ethan frowned at her gentle voice—so different from when she talked about him—Rabo answered quietly, stood up, and approached him.

He didn’t particularly like being supported by a stranger, but everyone would be moving together and he couldn’t move at the same pace he had before.

When he stepped back from the dining room entrance and started moving, the others also stood up one after another and began moving cautiously.

The atmosphere that had seemed boisterous and cheerful just moments ago sank in an instant. No one laughed or spoke loudly.

In the cautious atmosphere, people walked carefully and watched Ethan.

“I thought you looked unwell, but I see you’ve been providing devoted care.”

In the midst of this, that voice from before came from up ahead. During the short walk, that strikingly handsome man standing next to Sehera was sending her a gaze full of concern.

“Did I look that unwell?”

“I could see you were trying to hide it, so I didn’t say anything, but you did look unwell.”

Sehera just answered kindly, but the man was openly displaying his affection for Sehera. Like he didn’t care who knew.

Walking behind them, leaning on the support of Rabo—a servant as tall as himself—Ethan barely held back a sigh as he took one step after another.

Sehera, who had agreed to let him join on his own insistence but wasn’t paying him any attention… felt hurtful. And even while feeling that way, he felt pathetic for moving forward instead of going back up to his room.

Continuing to nurture only negative feelings wasn’t good for anyone.

Not for himself or anyone else.

But just looking at that back… made his insides churn.

“Now then, Your Grace, you should sit here.”

The place Romina guided him to was the single-seat sofa at the head position. Naturally, his physical condition didn’t allow sharing a sofa with others, and as someone who ranked above Sehera, the owner of the count’s estate, it was an appropriate seat.

After Rabo carefully seated Ethan in that chair, the rest of the people settled into their seats in small groups.

While Romina busily prepared tea time after finishing the seating arrangement, the girl moved with her, and people began talking in small voices, speaking to those next to them.

The murmuring sounds gradually became more lively as tea came out and desserts piled up.

Sehera was still just smiling and watching them, and the loud voices leading the conversation belonged to the young man and the girl.

“Really? You prepared gifts so thoughtfully…!”

“I knew it! That’s what it was, right? Those are really hard to find, I was so surprised to receive them as gifts.”

“It’s because of everything you’ve all done. You deserve this much gratitude at least.”

“We may not get monthly salaries, but we’re practically employees of Dirk, aren’t we, Lady Sehera! Ahahaha!”

Ethan’s mind started working busily when he caught the word “Dirk” in the hearty middle-aged men’s conversation.

Ethan knew that name too, of course. It seemed Sehera wasn’t just returning to the Planer count’s estate but was working to restore the Planer name and authority.

“Content is… still doing that, it seems.”

Ethan casually tossed the words toward Sehera, who was sitting nearby. She had been listening intently to what the middle-aged men were saying when she heard Ethan’s voice and flinched slightly.

Was him speaking to her really that surprising?

Content Planer. He knew that the title of Count Planer had passed to him, who would be her uncle. All that remained to her legally was the count’s estate.

But Content had always been an irresponsible person, so even though receiving the count’s title meant inheriting responsibility for the territory, he’d heard Content didn’t care for it at all.

So naturally he wouldn’t have any interest in the merchant company Dirk either.

But she… had revived it? The thing that would have completely fallen apart after losing its owner?

“Oh, you don’t know how diligent Lady Sehera is. Originally these were things she only knew about in passing, but she came to me asking to work together.”

The one who answered Ethan’s question wasn’t Sehera but one of the middle-aged men. From what he could tell, he seemed to be family to the girl who seemed closer to a maid than a guest.

This man began explaining like he was Sehera’s spokesman. If he was the first person she’d sought out for Dirk’s business… that made sense.

Sehera didn’t stop the man or show any sign of doing so either.

“But of course, we alone couldn’t immediately restore the merchant company Dirk, so we decided to start small and began trading. That’s the basics, isn’t it? Haha. She has no dangerous greed, and her goal itself is to revive the Planer territory, so we had no reason not to participate.”

Looking at how proud he seemed, Ethan gazed steadily at the man.

To think she’d consider doing something together with commoners—people he’d thought just did their work below and paid their taxes on time—she certainly thought completely differently from the usual noblewomen of the Croft Empire.

No… first of all, she thought differently from him. He thought she might have learned this from the former Count Planer. He’d heard from his parents many times that he was quite an eccentric person.

“You’ll probably understand too when you meet that friend’s daughter. Even if it seems strange and incomprehensible at first, you’ll come to know she’s truly a good person.”

“Count Content… doesn’t care about such things. The people living in the territory. We have no reason to help him.”

While recalling his father’s words, the man added one more comment. When he brought up Content’s name… it seemed he’d opened his mouth to say this.

Even glancing around, the atmosphere showed everyone agreed with his words. Even that man beside Sehera was watching this situation with a somehow pleased smile.

That made Ethan flinch again. If anyone should be pleased, it should be Sehera, so what was that guy doing sitting right next to Sehera with a pleased smile about this story?

The seat beside her… was originally mine.

Ethan’s face hardened after thinking that far. At the sudden killing intent from the man who’d been fighting on battlefields, the people around looked around in bewilderment at the suddenly chilled air.

Quickly reining in his killing intent, Ethan quietly closed his mouth. And as he stayed quiet, the conversation among them gradually became more active.

Ethan breathed quietly and slowly so even his breathing wouldn’t become agitated as he looked at the people in front of him.

Once the tension that had flowed tautly when he’d intruded relaxed, they gradually began their boisterous conversations again. And perhaps realizing it didn’t greatly affect Ethan, their voices gradually grew louder.

Ethan naturally kept his gaze on Sehera.

When was the last time he’d seen her at the ducal estate? What had her face looked like then?

He couldn’t remember that precisely. When he’d last seen her. Whether it was when he’d shouted at her not to come near him, or when she’d been watching from a distance as he was helped into the estate.

His recent memories were all like that. Because they’d started guerrilla warfare unknown to people maintaining normal daily lives, battles became more difficult and frequent.

Day by day the fighting grew harsher, and he returned injured more often. He had no mental capacity to care for anything. War, the battlefield… were only desolate.

“We need to have a proper harvest this year too and sell well. How does it look?”

Sehera asked the middle-aged men in a gentle voice. They seemed to be people who cultivated the crops they sold.

“The weather looks good, so I have a good feeling. I think whatever we plant this year will do well.”

“Definitely! The more carefully we tend to them, the better they seem to turn out. I plan to tend them carefully this year too.”

Sehera talking in more detail about farming and business while looking at the men answering hopefully was uncomfortably unfamiliar to watch.

Watching them absorbed in conversation, Ethan quietly and slowly stood up.

Since he was rising so slowly, none of the people talking among themselves noticed his movement.

Sehera, being closer, had her head turned toward the people. So she was even more unaware of his movement.

“If you raise them well, they’ll do fine without me getting involved. In that case… I’ll start my second mission.”

At the young man’s meaningful words, Ethan flinched, but everyone focused on his words like Ethan had, so in the meantime he quickly stood up and turned around.

He thought he’d just leave even if someone called him, but as he passed through the open drawing room door, no one called out to him.

Even wanting to walk weakly, he couldn’t walk that way thinking of the shock to his wound, and though he wanted to quickly escape this space and return to the bed where he’d been lying, when even walking wasn’t going as he wished, that couldn’t be possible.

As Ethan moved his heavy, slow steps, his heart seemed to have fallen into emotions more sticky and heavy than his footsteps.

“Huh? Where did His Grace go?”

At Romina’s sudden words, people looked back at the head seat. And only then did everyone realize Ethan had disappeared.

“Oh my, when did he leave with that body? He looked like he was in so much pain.”

If he’d heard this, he probably would have felt hurt. He’d tried so hard to act like nothing was wrong.

Sehera had sensed the presence behind her. She hadn’t trained to read people’s presence like knights did, but she could tell that much.

But she didn’t look back at him. She had no intention of stopping him, and no words to stop him came to mind.