Chapter 123

“If you’re going to become the head of the family, you need to find a young lady who shares your values and—ow!”

“I told you I’m not thinking about marriage yet.”

This was the problem.

To be recognized as the head of a noble house, he needed not only the ability to serve as its successor, but also a stable family of his own.

And Lucas kept pretending that requirement didn’t exist.

As I flailed with my cheek caught in his huge palm, a long sigh came from beside us.

“You two are perfectly normal when you’re apart, so why do you revert to children whenever you’re together? Aisha, sit next to Father. Lucas, hurry up and make your rounds of the territory.”

“What? I just got to see Dandelion.”

“Exactly. You said you’d see your sister’s face and then go straight out on patrol.”

“No, but at least ten minutes—”

“You are the future of House Kreutz.”

At those unexpected words of wisdom, Lucas’s blue eyes slowly widened.

“...Yes. That’s right. I am the future head of House Kreutz. I’ll go. I’ll work hard.”

Lucas hadn’t changed at all from ten years ago.

He could act like a mischievous brat one moment, but the instant House Kreutz came up, he turned serious.

Actually, rather than serious, maybe he had been brainwashed so thoroughly that he had simply become an idiot.

“Aisha. Your brother’s leaving. Don’t cry because you miss me. I’ll come straight back after patrol, so stay right here.”

The moment my cheek finally escaped his hand, I jerked my head away and glared at him.

“I’m not going to cry, and once I read the message, I’m leaving to study ahead for the Academy, so I won’t be here anyway. See you at dinner.”

“...You were cuter when you were five.”

“Huh?”

“Never mind. Make sure you eat dinner with me.”

Lucas roughly ruffled the top of my head with a dissatisfied expression before disappearing.

Good grief.

He looks like a terrifying adult, but he’s still a baby!

“Father, what are we supposed to do with him?”

I asked while rubbing the cheek that still retained the warmth of Lucas’s hand.

“What do you mean, what do we do with him? When you’re not around, people are actually afraid of him. The problem is that the moment he sees you, he turns into a child.”

“True.... Ah, Father. Anyway, hurry up and check!”

Only after Lucas disappeared did I remember why I had come here in the first place.

Once a month, messages arrived from Kyle and Knox.

And today was the day.

“All right. Let’s read them.”

“Okay!”

I giggled and pressed myself right up against his side.

The first message Calypse unfolded was from Knox.

Most of it was a report about monsters, so I was about to skim through it without much interest.

But then one strange sentence caught my eye.

[Greetings, Your Grace. And to Lady Aisha, who I expect is reading this beside you.

Another month has passed. This time, I have roughly two matters to report.

The first concerns the trousers I requested last time. They were slightly too long for me, so I gave them to Kyle instead. Please send me a slightly smaller size.]

“......?”

Startled, I read the sentence again.

The trousers were too long for Knox, so he gave them to Kyle? Knox is tall too, though....

He was shorter than Father, but as far as I remembered, he had still been around 180 centimeters.

Then just how tall has Kyle gotten?

Just as I had grown a great deal over the past ten years, Kyle must have grown too.

But I had never imagined he would become taller than 180 centimeters.

Wait.

I was a little over 160 centimeters, so....

After some rapid calculation, my face filled with disbelief.

Kyle was thirty centimeters taller than me now?

Ten years ago, I was a little taller than him!

Good grief.

Kyle was taller than me now?

Well, of course he was a boy, so it was only natural, but still!

Wasn’t that way too tall?

For some reason, I felt as though I had lost to Kyle.

“Father.”

“What.”

“You’re so tall. Why didn’t I become 180 centimeters tall too?”

I glared at him resentfully.

Father went quiet for a moment before offering me some consolation.

“You’re only fifteen. You’ll grow more.”

“Do you think 180 centimeters is possible?”

“It seems more realistic for me to fold that bastard in half than for you to reach 180 centimeters.”

“Then let’s go with the second option.”

“Good. From now on, I suppose I’ll have to make him kneel whenever he’s in front of you.”

We shook hands, bringing the matter to a dramatic settlement.

However.

“...Father?”

“Yeah. I’m reading.”

The expressions on both our faces hardened even further as we reached the next sentence.

And for good reason.

Knox’s next report was just as shocking.

[The next matter concerns the discovery of a new species. We have found a race of monsters that has formed a civilization. It is primitive, of course, but they appear to be higher life-forms with their own social classes and occupations. I plan to investigate them with Kyle soon.]

“We should deploy additional personnel to the snowfield region. Tell the knight commanders there will be an emergency meeting in one hour.”

“Yes, Your Grace.”

Calypse immediately began forming a plan.

At his order, Dorian, the assistant standing nearby, bowed his head.

He had been working in Knox’s place for the past ten years.

Meanwhile, I sat there in a daze.

Civilized monsters?

Monsters forming communities?

It sounded absurd.

But the more I thought about it, the less unfamiliar it seemed.

I had definitely read about something like this somewhere.

In the original novel.

Hmm.

I furrowed my brow.

They had never even appeared in the main story.

They had only been mentioned in a few sentences in one of the side stories.

They had humanlike forms, and even fully grown adults were only around one hundred centimeters tall, if I remembered correctly.

Some people called them fairies.

Others called them dwarfs.

And apparently they used peculiar staffs to wield a “power that overlaps time.”

But that was all I could remember.

The memory was far too old.

Besides, the side story had mainly been about Calypse, who had been more popular than the protagonist.

It was an alternate-story scenario asking what would have happened if Calypse had survived instead of being killed by the protagonist.

“Our daughter is lost in thought again?”

That was when a long, straight thumb tapped my wrinkled brow.

Coming back to myself, I found Father resting his chin on one hand as he watched me.

“Me?”

“Yeah. Looks like this part needs ironing.”

“...Huh?”

I grabbed Father’s thumb and rubbed it back and forth over my brow.

I must have been frowning without realizing it while I was thinking.

“Civilized monsters are fascinating, that’s all.”

I casually voiced the part I had been thinking about.

Naturally, the fact that I knew it from a novel was still a secret from Father.

“They are. For now, I’ll provide Knox with everything he needs and tell him to investigate. Still, we should send a message warning him to be careful, just in case.”

“Yes. I think that would be best.”

If I remembered anything definite, I might be able to hint at it to Father indirectly.

Hmm. Maybe if I keep going over that side story in my head, something will come back to me.

For now, I would leave it alone.

There was something else far more important here.

“Father!”

And that was—

“If we’re done reading Knox’s message, should we read Kyle’s now?”

I propped my elbows on the desk and leaned forward.

Sparkle, sparkle.

I fixed him with such an unbearably bright, expectant stare that he tried his best to pretend not to notice, looking toward the window as he muttered,

“It doesn’t seem like there’s a message from Kyle this time.”

Crash—!

It felt as though thunder and lightning had exploded above my head.

And of course they had.

“What? Why? He didn’t send one last month either!”

“...Right. Last month, as you know, he ate something bad and had a stomachache, so he couldn’t write.”

“He didn’t send one the month before that either. There was only Knox’s message.”

“That’s true.”

“So you’re telling me Kyle hasn’t sent me a message for three months now?”

“......”

That was right.

For ten years, Kyle had sent me a long message every single month.

And then, exactly three months ago, they had stopped.

Calypse fell silent.

Judging by the way he watched my eyes grow sharper by the second, he seemed to be considering how to resolve this situation.

Then—

“Ah. Come to think of it, there’s a postscript on Knox’s message.”

“What?”

Father hurriedly changed the subject and pointed somewhere on the page.

Following his finger, I found a sentence scrawled carelessly along the very bottom.

[P.S. Kyle seems to be busy training. Whenever he comes back to the hut, he immediately falls asleep. He says he’ll definitely send a message next time.]