TNDOBM 12

Chapter 12

The embers of suspicion were easily extinguished.

He hadn’t seen the inside of the prayer room, so perhaps there were even more fragments scattered there than outside.

If not that, there might have been another impact from within.

*‘Knox said he’d look into the situation, so I can just ask him then.’*

Just as she was finally shaking off her uneasy feelings, they arrived at the main gate. Cecilia spotted the Weberdin family knights and coachman waiting for her at the temple entrance.

It was a chance to end the awkward companionship.

She quickly offered a greeting to the holy knight.

“You can see me off just up to here.”

“I will see you safely on your way.”

“There are so many Weberdin knights here as well. Thank you for escorting me today.”

At her polite refusal, Miguel reluctantly nodded.

“Then I shall look forward to seeing you again, Saintess.”

Instead of kissing the lady’s hand like most knights, Miguel placed his hand over his chest and gave a silent bow. It was the greeting of the holy knights.

As the man who had given his simple farewell moved away, Cecilia turned towards the knights, as if she had been waiting.

“What about the task I asked for?”

“We found him.”

From among the burly knights, a man cowering timidly approached.

His build was comparable to the knights, yet his awkward posture and the familiar robe were unmistakable.

“Rien.”

At her call, the robed man flinched and lifted his head. His beautiful face, which never tired her eyes no matter how many times she saw it, was revealed.

[Please find a man in a robe among the worshippers heading home and detain him.]

She had secretly given that order to the family knights who had rushed over late after hearing news of the accident.

*‘Given Rien’s personality, he wouldn’t have left first out of worry for my condition. In this holy temple, the only human wearing a black robe would be Rien.’*

Judging by how he’d been caught, her prediction seemed to have been quite accurate.

“Lady Cecilia.”

Like a child who had done something wrong, he fidgeted and gripped the hem of his robe.

She had wanted to ask him why he was at the temple, why he was in that very spot.

But his words were faster than her question.

“A-are you hurt anywhere…!”

“As you can see, I’m unharmed.”

She tossed back a reply that felt like the hundredth time.

He seemed unable to shake off his anxiety even after hearing her answer, meticulously scanning her hair, face, shoulders, waist, hands, legs, and finally her feet, before letting his shoulders slump in relief.

*‘Thank goodness.’* Pretending not to hear his low mutter, she spoke up.

“More importantly, Rien, what brings you here?”

“That is…”

She had been purely curious, and her tone wasn’t angry. Yet his head slowly bowed anyway.

“Rien?”

“…….”

Cecilia, who had been patiently waiting for his answer, let out a small sigh. Standing around on the street like this wasn’t an option; her energy was already at rock bottom.

She passed by him and climbed into the carriage. Then, she asked him as he stood there dumbfounded.

“Are you not getting in?”

Thankfully, the offer didn’t seem too troublesome, as Rien scrambled into the carriage.

As he took a seat across from her, the carriage began to rumble forward.

“Rien.”

His shoulders were still tense. Cecilia quietly gazed at his violet eyes, which were trembling like a ferryboat caught in a storm, through her silver-rimmed glasses.

*‘Judging by his attitude, it doesn’t seem like he just happened to come sightseeing and ran into me.’*

“I didn’t expect to run into you at the temple. I’m just asking just in case, but you didn’t follow me here, did you?”

It was meant half as a joke.

But the pale-faced man narrowed his smooth brow, bit his lower lip, and clenched his pitifully trembling hands into fists.

“Th-that’s not it! I absolutely had no intention of following Lady Cecilia or making you uncomfortable! I just heard that the Grand Temple was nearby and thought it might be nice to look around… It’s not that I didn’t know you were visiting, but I… I….”

Surprised by his more intense reaction than expected, Cecilia gently placed her hand over his.

“I’m not scolding you.”

“……Aren’t you upset because I acted horribly?”

His long lashes fluttered pitifully.

Had he been subjected to harsh words from an ex-lover or a first love? She had thought he had low self-esteem, but this was severe.

Cecilia roughly rubbed her forehead with the back of her hand. After choosing her words several times, she finally let out one simple, honest sentence.

“No. What I was trying to say is that I wish you had just asked to come along.”

“……Would it have been alright for me to accompany you?”

Rien asked desperately, like a puppy that had been abandoned.

*‘Severe case. This is a severe case.’*

It wasn’t just his low self-esteem; her own sanity, which crumbled in the face of his attitude, was hardly normal either.

*‘Well, it’s better than being an arrogant, insufferable prick.’*

After all, she had a weakness for the tender and the cute.

Having shaken off even a hint of hesitation, Cecilia readily affirmed him, willing to offer plenty of comfort and praise to the man who seemed to need it.

“Of course.”

She even deliberately smiled warmly. He, who had parted his lips slightly, immediately flushed.

“So it’s alright.”

He murmured, turning his hand, which had been under hers, to gently grasp it. Then, like a content puppy, he curved his eyes with satisfaction.

That smile was so dangerously alluring.

*‘I almost got blinded again.’*

The visual stimulation was excessive today. Thinking she should ask Melanie for a cold eye compress when she got home, she continued her questions.

“It looked like you came out of the prayer room. Were you attending a service?”

“Ah… Yes.”

“You said you came from the capital. Do you believe in God?”

This was unexpected.

In this empire, believing in God meant being a follower of a deity other than the Emperor. In other words, it meant being someone who opposed the Emperor’s forces.

The palm that had been warming hers suddenly pulled away. Equally dropping his gaze to the floor, Rien silently nodded.

“Hmm, is that so? Then next time you visit the temple, we can go together.”

“Yes, yes!”

His voice answering was quite animated.

Cecilia let out a small chuckle and cast her gaze out the window.

She quietly stared at the man faintly reflected on the glass, superimposed over the passing scenery.

His lips were softly relaxed, seemingly delighted by her offer. In contrast, Cecilia’s lips had already returned to their original position.

*‘Believes in God, he says.’*

A lie.

There was no way.

Because Rien was a wizard.

—

Once, she had told a colleague who was going mad from endless repetitive experiments that all mental stress comes from hormones and neurotransmitters, and recommended they try some serotonin agents or something.

[Please, just get lost with your T.]

Her colleague had immediately rebuked her.

But back then, how wonderful it would have been to know a cheaper and far more effective treatment.

If she had, her colleague wouldn’t have spent money they didn’t have on psychiatrists, and wouldn’t have had to take the blame when the medication didn’t work.

Inside the Marquess’s office, where all the Weberdin family members were gathered.

Cecilia, with Charles, who had followed her closely, on her lap, was truly realizing the greatness of ‘animal therapy.’

The warm temperature, the rough tongue licking her fingertips, and the soft fur.

“This is absurd!”

Even with the Marquess right in front of her, his face flushed red and fuming, she could remain calm.

“An accident inside the temple, and of all people, it happened to Cecilia! It must be the work of those Dillanche bastards!”

The Marquess roughly threw the newspaper he was holding onto the table.

There were moments when the normally composed Marquess’s boiling point would drop particularly low. It was when he spoke of the Imperial Family and their minions.

‘Dillanche.’

Cecilia leisurely savored the name of the familiar noble house.

She easily recalled her lessons with Rien.

[Currently, there are two prominent magical families in the Empire.]

[Magical families?]

[Yes. If the holy family, Weberdin, is the strong backing of the temple, then the Ducal House of Dillanche, a magical family, can be called the right arm of the Imperial Family.]

Cecilia remembered a remark the Marquess had made during a luncheon some time ago.

[Just thinking about what those Dillanche bastards will do next gives me a headache.]

At the time, the Marquess had not hidden his hostility towards Dillanche.

What all this information pointed to was one thing: that ‘Dillanche’ was the sworn enemy of ‘Weberdin.’

The Marquess’s grounds for suspecting Dillanche as the mastermind behind the accident were likely exactly that.

After rushing through his urgent schedule and returning to his territory, upon hearing of his daughter’s accident, the Marquess already seemed convinced.

That this wasn’t a simple accident. That it was undoubtedly some trick orchestrated by Dillanche.

Whether his faith in the temple was too deep, or his hostility towards Dillanche was too great, she didn’t know.

But in truth, the answer was already decided either way.

Knox, who had been calmly watching his father’s anger without needing Charles, refuted the Marquess’s claim.