Chapter 18

Ailien stood among the retainers with her arms crossed, full of dignity.

“Lili—Lili picked the flowers!”

“Little one!”

“Thank you, little one!”

“We are so sorry for not recognizing you and for being rude, little one.”

“That’s right, you were all really too much.”

The traditionalists had no way of knowing the miraculous sense of liberation the new faction felt, who had experienced the horrors of war to the bone. While the new faction retainers were lost in the wonder of the demonic energy—a fear worse than death—being washed away, the expressions of the traditionalists watching the scene twisted.

“This is absurd.”

Baron Molton, who had been sitting with a face like he was chewing on something foul, sprang to his feet and shouted loudly.

“There must certainly be some sinister trick at work!”

“A sinister trick, you say!”

Baron Kirein confronted him.

“You have been grating on my nerves since earlier. If that is the case, then the little one seated here……!”

“Sinister!”

Ailien cried out loudly.

“Is Lili sinister? Hm? Am I sinister? Huh? Is Lili the sinister one?”

“No, what I meant was.”

Baron Molton, at a loss for words because of Ailien’s sparkling questions, took a step back from his seat.

“Sword! That one says I’m sinister? Is Lili sinister?”

“Not sinister—rather, commendable.”

“Isn’t that the same thing?”

“Completely different.”

Even as he answered Ailien in a tender voice, Calisto’s gaze toward Baron Molton was cold as ice. Under that gaze, Baron Molton finally seemed to realize his mistake and hurriedly bowed his head.

“I was late in greeting you. I am called Baron Kirein.”

“Baron Kirein!”

Ailien clenched both fists and shouted. Calisto found himself suddenly concerned about her plump cheeks, flushed bright red.

She seemed to be thinking something very…… unexpected.

“So barons are in fashion these days!”

Sure enough, Ailien turned to Calisto and cried out.

“That one is a baron, and this one is a baron too!”

“Is that so?”

Feeling she could no longer hold back, Ailien climbed down from the sofa. Then she placed her hands on Calisto’s knees, looked up at him, and gazed at him with earnest eyes.

“Should Lili do it too?”

“Do what.”

“Baron…….”

Realizing that the unease he had felt earlier had become reality, Calisto squeezed his eyes shut and rubbed his forehead with his index finger.

“Being a baron is not something just anyone can do, you see…….”

“But Lili is Lili, and Lili is Zeronias…….”

“What?”

At Ailien’s sudden remark, everyone behind her was horrified.

***

“How could that be?”

After Ailien’s brief but astonishing encounter with the retainers ended, they all followed into the Ruventain Grand Duke’s office.

Standing before the great desk, Calisto let out a hollow laugh at the eyes fixed on him. He wondered how long it had been since these people had looked at him with such clear, sparkling eyes.

But to the question of ‘Is Ailien truly the successor of Zeronias?’ he answered coldly.

“But, even so…….”

The retainers who had personally experienced Ailien’s miracle showed no sign of believing Calisto’s words at all. At the blatant doubt in their eyes, Calisto was dumbfounded.

“You also said she is a child personally cared for by Zeronias…….”

“So if Zeronias cares for someone, they become Zeronias, and if a swordmaster cares for someone, they become a swordmaster? Then from now on, since I will be caring for her, Ailien will become a swordmaster.”

“That is not what I meant!”

“Enough, all of you go back now. From now on, I should start charging lodging fees.”

At Calisto’s order to leave, the retainers turned their backs but exchanged uneasy glances.

“Let me warn you in advance—if you bother Ailien, I will not let it slide.”

The tone was indifferent, but in Calisto’s expression was a murderous sincerity. These were the very people who, in the reception room earlier, had been trying to pry everything out of Ailien.

Ailien had thrown a fuss about being sleepy, so it had fallen through, but they were persistent by nature and had tried to hold onto the child. In the end, because the child’s temper was so formidable, they had no choice but to send her to her bedroom.

The retainers, unable to get the answer they wanted from Calisto either, trudged out the door. Calisto’s gaze sank deep as he thought of someone who was not among them.

After pondering something for a while, Calisto left the office and walked the corridor. The corridors of the Grand Ducal House, where Ailien was not running about, were simply quiet.

Then something suddenly caught his eye.

A single yellow flower placed on an intricately carved console table.

“Goodness.”

A servant following behind Calisto hurried over.

“So this was placed here as well.”

“Here as well?”

“Yes. You have placed these flowers all over the castle. I was unsure how to deal with them…….”

Even as he said that, the way he subtly watched the Grand Duke’s reaction showed he did not truly wish to clear them away.

A single tiny yellow flower placed in this bleak Grand Ducal House.

“Just leave it.”

“Yes? Yes!”

The servant answered brightly and carefully withdrew, and a faint smile was drawn at the corners of Calisto’s mouth as he walked on.

“A single yellow flower.”

Calisto’s destination was none other than Ailien’s bedroom.

Standing before the door, he had to steady his breathing for a moment before opening it. To open this unowned room required a very small courage.

That courage was of a far more delicate and careful nature than charging boldly onto a battlefield and cutting down the enemy.

Creeeak.

The well-oiled hinges made not a sound, yet to Calisto’s ears, it was as if the great gates of a castle were opening with a thunderous roar.

As he stepped into the room, the first thing to greet him was the faint scent of sunlight. The room, which had held only a chilly air from being empty for so long, had taken on warmth in the mere few days Ailien had stayed there.

Calisto’s gaze moved toward the great canopy bed in the center of the room. In the very middle of that wide bed, a small child lay curled up like a piece of cotton candy.

Calisto cautiously approached the bedside. Ailien was in such a deep sleep that he felt sorry even to come near.

Her white, soft belly slowly swelled like warm bread and sank again, over and over. Beside her, the black cat lay coiled, and the flying squirrel, as if delighted, let out a small squeak and made as if to greet him.

Calisto looked down at the yellow hair splayed carelessly across the white bed.

‘So small, and yet.’

Calisto sat on the edge of the bed and looked down at the child’s peaceful face. All the grand epithets the retainers had been clamoring about—successor of the great Zeronias and the like—felt utterly meaningless before this small breathing.

‘Are you the gift Marilyn left behind for me?’

Did she leave you there for me, knowing I would come looking for you someday?

Even as he thought that could not be, a tender longing lingered in his eyes. This room was originally a place Evangeline and he had decorated with a ‘just in case’ hope.

In the place left empty for some being they had hoped would one day come, this child now lay.

“……Is that you, sword?”

“Yes, it’s me.”

Ailien blinked slowly. Calisto, feeling heavy at heart for having woken her from sweet sleep, carefully brushed back the child’s hair.

The child smiled a sleepy smile.

“It’s nice.”

“What is?”

“Lili woke up, and someone is stroking her hair like this.”

At those words, which should have been natural and ordinary, Calisto was briefly at a loss.

“After Mari disappeared, there was no one to do this for Lili.”

“I see.”

Calisto answered briefly. Unlike his terse reply, the inside of his throat burned hot.

“Hey, sword.”

“Yes.”

“Doesn’t Lili bother you?”

“Why would you bother me?”

Ailien moved her lips for a moment, then swallowed her words. She could not bring herself to confess that she was the child who had taken Marilyn from them.

“Ailien is amazing, isn’t she. You saved people with flowers.”

“That’s right, that was a little amazing.”

The words, uttered along with a yawn, were so lovable that Calisto forgot his seriousness and could not help but laugh.

“I suppose you really are a gift after all.”

Unfortunately, Ailien did not hear those words and slipped back into a peaceful dream.