ITMLWKM 5

Chapter 5.

I stepped awkwardly into Carsian’s room. Even if I tried to be polite, there was no way to call it comfortable. He’d clearly done his best to clean it, but it was still dirty. This place wasn’t meant for a person to live in—it was a storage room.

Leaving a kid locked up in a place like this… My own family really was rotten.

Of course the Gladellis family would eventually pay for every wrong they did to Carsian with their lives. To the readers it was a satisfying payoff scene. To me it absolutely wasn’t.

Because I died right alongside them.

I swallowed hard and looked at him. Carsian was carrying the food Susan had given him toward the desk that also served as a table when he glanced at me.

“What.”

His voice was still full of wariness. I put on the most harmless expression I could manage.

“No, it’s just…”

But nothing came to mind.

Isn’t it hard living in this room?

…Well, obviously.

Should I try asking them to move him somewhere else?

…I’m a bastard myself. What power do I even have?

I quietly swallowed a sigh.

I was supposed to be the marquis’s daughter, yet I couldn’t even take responsibility for one boy. The helplessness hit hard. In the end I just gave an awkward smile without finding anything to say. Carsian looked at me like I was boring and kept walking.

I glanced at the desk he sat down at and spotted something unexpected.

“Huh? Isn’t that siren letter paper?”

“Don’t touch it!”

I had asked without any real thought, but Carsian suddenly raised his voice and clutched the paper tightly to his chest.

“W-what?”

I hadn’t even reached out yet, so I was a little taken aback, but right then the original story came back to me.

That letter paper was a gift his father had bought before leaving.

‘As long as you have this paper, you can contact me from anywhere on the open sea. We may be apart for a while, but our hearts will never be far.’

Actually, Carsian had thrown a tantrum saying he wanted to go on the trading voyage with his father. But the sea, full of pirates and unknown creatures, was far too dangerous for a child, so the count had firmly refused.

Instead, to comfort the son who was afraid of being left alone, he had even pawned his late wife’s brooch to buy that letter paper. Carsian knew the story, which was why the paper had been such a precious treasure throughout his childhood.

But that…

I carefully spoke to Carsian, who was still tense like he thought I might snatch it away.

“Have you used it?”

“…What?”

“Have you sent a letter recently? You’re using that to stay in contact with your father, right?”

“How… do you know that?”

Carsian gave me a look that was both puzzled and suspicious.

Oops.

I quickly scrambled for an explanation.

“I read it in the trading company’s catalog. It said that with siren letter paper you can contact someone in the middle of the ocean anytime.”

I also mentioned how expensive it was because envoys crossing the sea or members of the imperial family used it on their tours. Carsian nodded slowly, looking freshly moved that his father had bought him something so valuable.

“But… the replies stopped coming.”

He stared at me with a sharp expression, like he was thinking, ‘Your family isn’t intercepting them in the middle, are you?’

Hmm. The longer I looked at him, the more he reminded me of a baby alley cat. Especially the way every thought showed clearly on his face.

“…You’re not stealing them halfway, are you?”

I had drifted off for a second at his words and quickly snapped back to reality. I shook my head.

“It’s not that anyone’s intercepting them. They’re just not arriving.”

“Not arriving?”

“Yeah. I read in the catalog that the paper is coated with a magic potion that controls the sirens.”

“I know that.”

“Then do you also know that there’s a finding magic cast on the recipient line?”

“I know. That’s how the trained sirens fly in the direction the magic guides them. Are you treating me like an idiot?”

Carsian growled.

“I didn’t mean it like that…”

I muttered quietly and lowered my eyes. Carsian flinched. After a short pause he asked,

“…Then why do you think the letters aren’t arriving?”

I stepped a little closer and pointed at the paper.

“It said that if you keep it in a damp place, the smell of the magic potion disappears. So you’re supposed to always store it somewhere dry.”

Carsian’s breath stopped for a second. Then he stared blankly down at the many sheets of letter paper that were still left.

“A damp place…”

He let out a hollow sigh, looking heartbreakingly lost. Because this room had been converted from the ingredient storage, it was humid and clammy. Of course the paper had started to discolor.

Right then a pretty good idea flashed through my head. I needed to score points with him right now.

To score points I first had to lower his guard and make him trust me a little, right?

And the ones who had forced him to keep that paper in a damp place were our Gladellis family. Before he realized that and got angry at me, I quickly spoke.

“I’ll help you.”

“…What?”

“That letter paper isn’t completely unusable. If you dry the damp sheets properly and reapply the potion, it’ll work again.”

“But that…”

Carsian looked around the room where the stale air sat heavy. Clearly it was impossible here. I spoke like I’d been waiting for this.

“Can you give it to me for a bit?”

“What?”

“Um, you saw earlier—my room gets sunlight. I’m not teasing you.”

I rushed on before he could argue.

“What if we dry the paper in my room? And that magic potion—I saw some in Father’s study.”

“Is that true?”

“Yeah.”

In my previous life I had seen it while helping Father organize the ledgers. I had wondered why someone who hated the sea would have something like that in his study, but it turned out the count had bought it and left it here too.

In the original there was a scene where the count asked Carsian why he never contacted him, saying he’d even bought the magic potion. It also mentioned that because the potion was dangerous for a child with prolonged exposure, an adult had been keeping it.

I carefully made the suggestion.

“So I’ll dry the paper nice and fluffy in my room, put the potion on it, and give it back to you. How about it?”

Carsian hesitated for a moment. Then he shook his head.

“How am I supposed to trust you?”

His sharp voice was full of irritation. I opened my mouth and then closed it again.

Yeah… I’d probably react the same way. The kid who’d been bullying me all this time suddenly acting nice—how could anyone trust that right away?

With an expression that said I completely understood, I carefully spoke again.

“But if we don’t do it this way, that paper will be useless.”

“……”

“If you can’t trust me, how about trusting Susan?”

Susan was still somewhat friendly toward him, after all.

I had a little hope for that.

“No.”

Carsian refused flatly.

‘She’s still your subordinate in the end,’ his face seemed to say. He looked like he had no intention of changing the decision he’d already made.

If this had been before the regression, I would’ve grabbed the letter paper and run straight to Mother. Carsian was probably bracing himself for exactly that, which was why he was being so stubborn. Knowing all of this, I had no choice but to back off and say I understood.

If I pushed any harder here he might decide “She’s definitely plotting something!” and hate me even more. It would have been different if I hadn’t already done wrong, but cleaning up after the fact was a lot harder.

I watched his expression carefully and said,

“Then I’ll head back. The servant seems to have passed, and it’ll be trouble if Betty suddenly shows up to check on me.”

Carsian didn’t answer. Susan and I made sure the hallway was empty and left his room.

Susan asked carefully,

“Is it okay to leave it like that?”

“You mean the letter paper?”

“That too, but… Young Master Carsian.”

She frowned with clear worry. I looked at her and then glanced back over my shoulder.

Through the slightly open crack of the door I met Carsian’s red eyes. He flinched in surprise and quickly shut the door.

He really did look like a baby cat trying awkwardly to stay on guard.

I smiled a little and answered Susan.

“I think it’ll be fine. And he’ll come to me soon.”

“What? Really?”

“Yeah. Because I never got the ointment back—the one he said he wouldn’t put on even if I knelt.”

“Oh my! That’s right!”

Susan laughed like she hadn’t thought of that.

“Once the wound heals thanks to the ointment, your sincerity will get through to him.”

“Yeah. Exactly.”

Then even a little of Carsian’s closed-off heart would open for sure.

* * *

A week passed after that.

“He still hasn’t come today either?”

At Susan’s words I slipped a bookmark into the book I’d been reading. She was glancing toward the door with a worried expression.

A week ago I had confidently said Carsian would eventually come to me.

A whole week had gone by and there was still no sign of him. But I had fully expected this.

“It’s fine. Carsian was always the careful type.”

And that careful kid had watched his father’s friend, the marquis, flip his attitude overnight. On top of that, everyone in the Gladellis household—including me—had taken the lead in bullying him.

“His heart is shut even tighter than usual.”

So of course he would take a week, or even longer, carefully measuring me.

“We just need to wait more. The time it takes to trust someone is different for everyone. You said that yourself last time, Susan.”

When was that… I think I was around six.

Susan and I had been walking in the garden when we found a bird with an injured wing. We carefully treated it, but the baby bird wouldn’t open its heart no matter what.

‘I’m being so nice to it. Why won’t that bird trust me?’

I had complained in a sulky voice, and Susan had soothed me.

‘It’s because the time they need is different.’

‘The time they need?’

‘Yes. You’re so gentle that it doesn’t take long for you to trust someone. But people with a lot of wariness have to watch the other person for a very long time before they can trust them.’

After hearing that I gave the baby bird plenty of time to learn to trust me. And before long it followed us around like it had never pecked at our fingers in suspicion.

“Carsian is probably the same as that baby bird.”

When I said it with a smile in my voice, Susan seemed to remember the bird too and gave a warm smile.

“You’re right. I was being impatient this time.”

She pressed the back of her hand to her cheek like she was embarrassed.

“But I haven’t seen that bird at all lately.”

“Hmm…”

We had released it after Susan said it would be happier living free than stuck in a cage.

“True. It used to come visit sometimes before.”

Even before the regression, I think it stopped showing up around the time I started bullying Carsian.

“Should we go look for it?”

“Yeah… sounds good. It’s been a while since I went out to the garden anyway.”

I set the book with its bookmark down and hopped off the chair.