Chapter 49

Navia stepped into their conversation for a moment.

She asked Margaret,

“Perhaps, is Duke Eseled awake now? I have something to tell him.”

“Hm. He is not a person who lives exactly by time. And if nothing particularly happens, he does not even come down from the third floor.”

“Ah… Then is it okay for me to go to his bedroom?”

Margaret made a troubled look.

“That will be difficult because only a few people can go onto the third floor.”

Margaret hurriedly added an explanation when she felt she was rejecting Navia.

“Trick magic is activated when a person who is not allowed to enter the third floor enters. Then, um.”

‘They die.’

Navia perfectly understood the part where Margaret was too flustered to explain properly.

Minerva, who had been still until then, quickly intervened.

“Um… Then I will check if the Lord is awake. I have to bring medicine anyway-.”

Minerva made an ‘oops’ expression and shifted her eyes.

‘Medicine? Ah, is she talking about anesthetics?’

Navia had already noticed that it was something about the anesthetics.

‘You’re not making drugs out of it, right…?’

His eyes were too relaxed for that.

Navia changed the subject to help Minerva, who was in a panic.

“Then, since I can’t go to him myself… how about I write him a letter?”

“A letter?”

Everyone was puzzled by the unexpected alternative.

A letter to Lark.

‘It would probably be the first letter in his life.’

When they thought so, Suleiman spoke.

“Then I will deliver the letter.”

They were excited by the wonderful idea of writing to Lark.

It was already a very unconventional change that Lark had accepted Navia as a guest.

‘It’s been ten years.’

After the meal, ink, pens, and paper were placed on the table in an instant.

Navia swallowed a laugh as she watched everyone waiting with constrained expressions for her letter from afar.

What they were expecting was unknown, but the contents of the letter were not grand.

「Duke Lark Eseled.

First and foremost, thank you very much for accepting me as a guest of this family and taking care of me like this.

I will tell you right away because you do not seem to like unnecessary pretense.

As I said yesterday, I would like to help the Eseled family to become greater.

Please make me a vassal.

Then, I will look forward to hearing from you.

From Navia.」

Navia wrote the letter with a stroke of her brush and put the pen down.

“I’ve finished writing it.”

The speed of writing the letter and the accuracy of her lines. Even at first glance, her writing was perfect with consistency and was smooth.

“My goodness.”

No one could keep their mouths shut and only exclaimed continuously.

“Is Miss Navia a genius?”

At Margaret’s serious question, Navia smiled slightly.

“Not at all.”

‘I’ve just lived more than others, so I’ve written a lot.’

To think she’s calling someone a genius because of neat writing.

Navia thought Margaret was a friendly person who would\ encourage children exceptionally well.

However, Suleiman and Margaret didn’t think so simply.

‘My… how could there be nothing ordinary about her?’

Come to think of it, Navia was a child raised by the Nikan Agnes to make her Empress.

It’s only been a year since he’s had that child, and if she’s can do that much, how harsh her education would have been can only be guessed.

Suleiman suddenly felt strange.

‘He gave up his foster daughter, who was to be engaged with Prince Ares, much easier than expected.’

It was clear that Nikan would never find another child like her.

Navia is the only child that will be like Navia.

‘Even Nikan must know that.’

In addition to being brilliant, Navia has a natural dignity, a dignity that radiates even in the midst of pain.

Even the slightly unnatural movements due to her bandages that were tied around her wounds was superior to young girls who have debuted.

“Here. I will leave it to you, Count.”

Suleiman spoke suddenly as he received the letter Navia folded and handed.

“But why am I Count?”

“…Pardon?”

“Call me Suleiman.

Navia also looked flustered and spoke a little more fluidly than last time.

(T/N: Pretty sure ‘last time’ is with Margaret.)

“Ah…yes, Mr. Suleiman.”

She’s just calling his name, but why is it so awkward?

Suleiman couldn’t hide his satisfaction and smile when Navia called his name.

‘Hm. Is this what is feels like to have a child in the house?’

He forgot in no time that he was suspicious of Navia, and put the letter in his arms with a smile.

“Then, I will make sure to deliver the letter.

***

Thus, Suleiman knocked on Lark’s bedroom door in the morning. Lark’s bedroom, except for the thin ray of light, is as black as night, even on sunny days.

“Lord!”

Suleiman called Lark with a more lively voice than usual.

Lark, lying down on an elongated sofa, frowned between his eyebrows and slightly raised his head.

“What is it?”

“I have something important to tell you.”

Suleiman took out the letter from the inner pocket of his jacket and held it out.

“A letter.”

Lark glanced at the letter Suleiman held out.

What about it?

Was the expression he had.

“It is a letter from Miss Navia to the Lord. Hurry up and read it.”

‘Ah, that from yesterday.’

Lark shook his hand and leaned his head back on the sofa.

“Burn it.”

“Yes?”

Suleiman reacted sensitively to what he would usually have accepted.

Burning a letter written with those bracken hands and that sick body.

However, it is difficult to disobey Lark.

Suleiman opened the letter and gently pushed it next to the medicine bottles on the marble table next to him.

The bright letter on the black table was unusually clear, like the moon in the night sky.

“Ahem, I will go out.”

Tak.

Light poured into the room for a while, and darkness rose again.

Lark had been silent for a while, covering his eyes with his arms.

It should have been impossible to feel anything, as if time in the room had stopped, but the letter Suleiman left kept bothering him.

Lark eventually got up irritated.

“Ha…”

Then, he sighed deeply and rubbed his temple.

“What’s wrong with that Suleiman to be so happy like that?”

Tak!

When he snapped his fingers, all the black curtains covering the windows were lifted at once, and bright light poured in.

Lark picked up the letter on the table.

‘Didn’t he say that kid wrote this letter?’

The handwriting was perfect, like a master’s.

He was still, reading the letter with a frown on his forehead. That was how he felt when he finished reading it.

“Ha.”

A short snort. It was the general contents of the letter.

“I accepted you as a guest, but you want me to give you a job?”

She’s out of her mind.

Lark crumpled the letter.

He was going to burn the letter with his hand.

“……”

Tch.

Instead of burning the letter, Lark just threw it on the floor.

「Then, I will look forward to hearing from you.」

“I’m even more out of my mind.”

When he opened his palm, letter paper, ink, and a pen appeared.

He wrote in complete mess, completely contrary to the ecstatic and beautiful handwriting of the letter he received, in blunt words.

「Whatever.」

“Suleiman!”

He called Suleiman’s name with a not-so-loud voice, but the bedroom door opened as if he had been waiting.

“Yes, Lord.”

Lark stared at Suleiman, who had a brazen look for waiting outside the bedroom, and folded the letter.

“Relay it.”

“I understand.”

Suleiman was hiding his expression with a stern look, but his excitement was not hidden at all.

“Damn it.”

Lark finally lied down, thinking that the garbage shelter was going completely crazy.