ITMLWKM 10

Chapter 10.

I sent Susan away and sat across from Carsian.

He got straight to the point.

“I’ll give you one sheet of the letter paper.”

“Got it. You’re testing me, right?”

At the word “test,” Carsian’s red eyes wavered for a second. He clearly hadn’t expected me to ask so directly.

He muttered quietly,

“You’re not supposed to take the test after realizing it’s a test…”

But that little mutter was pretty loud.

Even if he was the male lead, he was still pretty naive.

Suddenly he really did feel like a baby cat, so I let out a soft laugh and said,

“Why not? Because I’ll do whatever you want in order to pass the test?”

“…Yeah.”

“Then isn’t that a good thing? You can just keep testing me every time. Then I’ll keep doing whatever you want, right?”

For a moment Carsian’s eyes went round, like he’d just realized, ‘There’s a method like that!’ His red eyes sparkled, and the mouth that was usually pressed shut with wariness parted a little.

“Ahaha!”

His expression was so cute that a clear laugh burst out of me before I could stop it. The second I laughed loudly, Carsian’s face instantly turned sulky.

His eyes said, ‘Why are you laughing?’

How could someone be this bad at hiding their thoughts?

But then a strange sense of dissonance hit me.

Wait a second—forget young Carsian for a moment… didn’t I also completely read adult Celtron’s expressions?

Come to think of it, I’d easily read Betty’s thoughts, and Bill and Ron’s, and even those stiff knights who’d blocked Celtron.

Huh? In the original story there was never any mention of Latia being this sharp…? No, wait—if she’d had good intuition she wouldn’t have lived her whole life before the regression without even realizing she was a bastard, right?

I tilted my head with a deliberately serious expression. Then Carsian, who had been looking sulky, asked in an uneasy voice,

“What…? What’s wrong?”

“H-huh?”

“Why did you suddenly get all serious?”

He looked back and forth between the letter paper he’d brought and me. He was clearly hesitating—‘Should I give it to her? Can I trust her?’

…See? Look at that.

Even now I was reading Carsian’s expression—and his heart—completely naturally and easily.

What on earth was going on? How was I reading other people’s minds?

It was extremely strange, but right now I needed to deal with the male lead who held my life in his hands. I pulled myself together again and held out my hand to Carsian.

“Give me the letter paper. I’ll pass the test in style.”

Carsian still looked like he didn’t fully trust me, but he carefully handed the paper over. I took his number-one treasure and placed it on my lap.

Keeping it somewhere visible until he left would probably make him feel more at ease.

Carsian couldn’t take his eyes off the letter paper on my lap for a while, then quietly asked,

“Why… did you help the Gruan Trading Company owner?”

“Hmm? How did you…”

Suddenly the moment our eyes met when he was standing outside the window came back to me.

So he really had been watching me from outside that day.

“How do you know about that?”

I played dumb and asked, and Carsian hurriedly made an excuse.

“I j-just happened to see when you stopped the knights. I wasn’t doing it on purpose. Definitely not!”

Well, even if he had been watching on purpose it wouldn’t have mattered. The entrance was an open place, and it wasn’t like there was anything wrong with being seen.

“I heard he was in a difficult situation. If a little help from me can make things better, there’s no reason not to help. And there’s also something I want the trading company’s help with.”

At my answer Carsian stared blankly with his mouth open, like he’d been hit on the back of the head, then closed it again.

“You’ve… really changed.”

“Hmm? What was that?”

“No, it’s nothing.”

Carsian thought to himself for a moment, then spoke with a hint of sarcasm.

“Do you know this?”

“What?”

“They say people suddenly change when they’re about to die.”

He was testing me.

His expression showed his true thoughts so clearly it was almost embarrassing: ‘There’s no way a person changes this much overnight unless they’re about to die. What’s your real scheme? Just be honest.’

Being able to accurately read someone’s thoughts just from their expression… what exactly was this mind-reading ability? It had definitely appeared after the regression…

Anyway, Carsian’s thought was true.

I was going to die soon.

If I couldn’t win Carsian’s favor, three years from now when his father returned, my life would disappear along with the family.

That was why I had changed.

In other words, he was right that I had changed because I was about to die. So I answered honestly.

“Yeah.”

“Usually terminally ill people… wait, what?”

At my answer, Carsian’s face, which had been rambling on, instantly froze.

Huh? Why is he reacting like that?

“D-die…”

Carsian barely managed to move his lips, looking completely shocked.

‘She’s going to die? Latia? She’s terminally ill?’

Thanks to that I realized exactly what Carsian was misunderstanding. This mind-reading ability that let me read thoughts just from facial expressions was both mysterious and extremely convenient.

I thought it over.

Hmm, should I deny it and clear up the misunderstanding right now?

Carsian’s misunderstanding was ridiculous, but the fact remained that if things stayed as they were I would die because of him.

‘She’s going to die… Latia…’

The way his red eyes kept shaking was pretty pitiful. But I decided to hide the truth from him.

Because I was going to use a sympathy operation.

Saying that I had changed because I was about to die would soften the wariness of Carsian, who was still suspicious of me.

He would feel sorry for me, the person who calmly admitted she had changed because she was about to die, right? Then maybe he would open his heart a little faster and more easily?

It did feel like I was using his feelings, but like I keep saying—I have my own problems to deal with first.

I don’t want to die.

I’d been treated as an unwanted burden my whole life because I was a bastard, and the last thing I wanted was to hear, right when I was about to die, that I was a member of the family and therefore shared the responsibility.

No matter how underhanded the method was, I had to survive. Even if it meant using someone’s feelings.

The loneliness and terror I’d felt on the execution platform had made me this ruthless.

First I’ll survive, then I’ll sincerely apologize and say, “This is what really happened.” Is there anything a person facing death can’t do?

If I explain the circumstances that forced me to use him, he’ll understand.

…Probably.

I never told Carsian the truth as he left with a complicated expression.

I’m sorry, Carsian. Once I’ve safely survived, I’ll definitely tell you the truth.

I carefully spread out the letter paper he’d given me near the window and apologized inwardly.

* * *

Three days later, Celtron came to see me.

Today I planned to tell him that he was a descendant of the druids. But just saying it wouldn’t be enough to make him believe me, so I’d made a few preparations beforehand.

“Here, Trading Company Owner. Try growing this.”

“Isn’t this… soft-leaf herb? And it’s completely withered.”

Celtron examined the soft-leaf herb whose leaves had turned yellow and withered, looking gloomy.

Soft-leaf herb. It was the ingredient used in ointment that prevented wounds from getting worse.

The same ointment I’d once offered to Carsian only to hear Betty shout, “Do you have any idea how expensive that ointment is?!”

“The ointment made from soft-leaf herb is really expensive, right?”

“Yes. Because you have to grind a huge amount of soft-leaf herb into it.”

“And I heard soft-leaf herb is extremely difficult to cultivate.”

On top of that, the effects weren’t even that outstanding. But there was no substitute, so they had no choice but to keep making the ointment with soft-leaf herb. That was only true, though, when using the herbs cultivated by our Gladellis family.

In other words—

“You already know, don’t you, Trading Company Owner? That if it’s the soft-leaf herb Gruan used to sell, you only need about three roots.”

With the soft-leaf herb Gruan used to sell, just three roots produced the same effect as twenty roots in the ointment.

Celtron tilted his head like he had no idea what I was talking about. I handed him a book I’d prepared in advance. It was one Susan had borrowed from the national library outside the estate.

“The History of… the Druids?”

“Yes. And did you bring the thing I asked for?”

“Ah, yes.”

Celtron took out the register of successive Gruan Trading Company owners from his bag. I grinned and opened both the book and the register at the same time.

In The History of the Druids I opened to the page about “the last steps of the final druid,” and in the Gruan register I opened to the page with “the name of the first trading company owner.” And of course the two names were the same.

“The Gruan Trading Company is passed down through the male line, right?”

“Yes, that’s correct. It’s the family business our Gruan family has carried on for generations. So this register is basically the same as our family genealogy… wait.”

Celtron’s eyes started to shake. The ancestor of the Gruan family shared the exact same name as the last druid.

“The Gruan family has had a legend since ancient times that their ancestor was a druid, right? I learned about it when I studied the major families.”

“Ah, yes. That’s right. Then… could it be…”

Celtron muttered like he couldn’t believe it.

“Haven’t you already felt it yourself, Trading Company Owner? That plants that were almost dead come back to life or grow even more lushly just from your touch? You never actually kill any plant, do you?”

That was exactly why I had deliberately found a withered soft-leaf herb.

“I… always thought it was just thanks to the know-how passed down over a long time… Good heavens.”

Celtron muttered in disbelief.

“Try testing it with this withered soft-leaf herb.”

If Celtron really was a descendant of the druids, he would be able to revive this difficult-to-cultivate herb that had completely withered. And that herb would have far better effects than the soft-leaf herbs the Gladellis family carefully cultivated.

Celtron’s expression changed completely.

“…All right.”

With a face full of firm resolve, he carefully took the withered soft-leaf herb and left.

“Young lady, do you really think the trading company owner is a descendant of the druids?”

“Well. We’ll just have to wait and see.”

I asked Susan to go through the trouble one more time and handed her The History of the Druids.

Susan immediately started preparing to head out to the library.