CH extra 09

‘There’s nothing to do…….’

Yulinelle sat in front of a clean desk and contemplated. He swept the empty desk with his finger. There was only dust–not even a single piece of paper remained. He didn’t know how to feel.

He took another look at the self-organized documents and finished looking at the new documents in a few minutes.

‘What should I do.’

Usually, he would’ve slept, but he had nothing to do earlier and took a five hour nap. Now he really had nothing to do.

He laid his head on the desk and stayed there, resting his hand on the warm coffee cup and feeling the warmth. Yulinelle was just ruminating when,

“Your lunch has been prepared. I’ll bring it up shortly.”

A maid soon entered after knocking. She wiped the wetness off of her hands as she spoke. Yulinelle nodded before shaking his head.

“….okay ……no.”

“What?”

“I’ll go down to eat today.”

……what’s going on. The maid tilted her head in confusion.

The duke always requested for his meals to be brought up. He always had work to do, yes, but he didn’t want to leave the room out of sheer laziness and wanted to do everything within the confines of the room.

The maid briefly wondered if it was because the baron’s child had come in, but the duke definitely wasn’t the kind of person to worry about that. The duke, who was content with how much he had already done for his guest, definitely wasn’t going to move for her. The maid soon worried if the duke was feeling sick but sighed in relief at seeing his healthier than usual pallor. Then, as the maid looked around the room, she discovered something weird.

‘The documents are…..!’

All of the documents had been completed! The maid couldn’t believe it as her eyes widened. How did he finish everything? The duke’s life begins and ends with paperwork? She couldn’t even imagine the duke without his face buried into a pile of papers. And that unimaginable thing was happening right now.

“Con…. Congratulations. Now you can finally get some rest.”

“…..? Oh, the child helped me finish all of it.”

My daughter-in-law did. Shuraina did. Shushu did? Yulinelle itched to change the word into something else, but he resisted the urge. It was embarrassing.

‘By ‘child,’ does he mean the ‘baron child’?

She briefly remembered the girl who was busy at work, buried in a pile of books. She was a surprising person. She was first shocked to learn that she was the little lord’s lover, and was also surprised to learn that she hadn’t come because of marriage counsel but because she had gotten a request.

There were only two types of people who entered the estate: incredibly high-ranking nobles or those who came to live the life as a spouse. She had thought it was the latter, but that hadn’t been the case. She was apparently going to back as soon as she was done working to work as a royal knight. After she had learned this, the baron child really looked like someone who was here to work.

She had heard that the visitor was able to control the little lord, so she had assumed that they would have a horrible personality and was scared of them. But the more she saw of them, the more she respected them. As soon as she arrived, she sent her lover out to find ingredients and took a seat on the floor of her room with a mountain of books next to her as she researched various magic circles.

Also, she had a lot of cute points. She gave them a low bow and thanked them when they prepared her food. When they watched her eat, she looked guilty by herself before handing them a small cookie as if she was being thoughtful.

These days, she liked the visitor so much that she was observing her alone. Her angry-looking face looked cuter by the day, and she also looked kind of sensual at times. When she smiled, her heart seemed to skip a beat–and she wasn’t even attracted to women.

Everyone was fearful of her at first, but now they were all looking at her in a positive light these days.

Anyway, for her to help the duke’s work as well. She had heard rumors that she had been the top of their class–she must be incredibly talented. The maid thought of Shuraina and smiled.

I should take another slice of cake to her later. Their visitor seemed to get friendlier with a bit of food. She almost felt like she was raising a cat. Whenever she saw their visitor, she wanted to place her on her lap and run her hands through her curly orange hair. If she put her hand on her cheeks, she looked like she would start purring.

The maid smiled to herself as she left to prepare the dining table.

“Wait. I have something to ask.”

“Yes, please ask.”

The maid stopped and walked back to Yulinelle.

“How does Swanhaden and Shuraina’s relationship look to you?”

“The little lord seems like he doesn’t know what to do, but miss Shuraina expresses her like for him often.”

“Nothing happened, right?”

“A few days ago, it seemed like miss Shuraina went into lord Swanhaden’s room and spent the night there…..”

The two of them shared a room together? Yulinelle’s eyes grew wide. Yulinelle’s hands shook in surprise before he stood from his seat.

“Okay! It’s too late now! I must contact the baron immediately. We need to go ahead with the wedd…..”

“They only played cards and she looked bleary upon exiting.”

Yulinelle fell back onto his chair. Cards……… Card games………. Seriously. Seriously?

“……but we don’t know for sure, right?”

“…….”

Shake shake. The maid shook her head sadly. She had found her asleep with cards in her hand. She didn’t know what had happened and just said, “Congratulations,” to Shuraina just in case, but she had received a “No. I lost again. Because of that spade….” that didn’t make sense at all.

“If Shuraina stops liking Swanhaden, it’s over. She’s pretty and talented and rich, so she has nothing to lose.”

“That’s my worry as well.”

“And there’s nothing good about Swanhaden, so there’s a high chance that she’ll stop liking him.”

“You are correct.”

“How can we make Shuraina want to stay here longer? She’s the only daughter-in-law I have. I’ll pay you handsomely, so you and the other employees all think about how to keep her here.”

The duke really seemed to like Shuraina. The maid was overjoyed. She could’ve never imagined the duke, always complaining and always angry, would ever like someone. But he was seeing Shuraina positively, so she felt happy for her.

‘If miss Shuraina becomes his daughter-in-law…..the little lord is soon going to take the dukedom, so….. The new lady of the house?’

“Yes! I’ll do my best to help!”

“Okay.”

“Miss Shuraina seems to love eating, so I think it’d be a good idea to increase the size of our kitchens.”

When she gave him her opinion, Yulinelle slapped an empty sheet of paper on his desk and began to write.

“What if we bring in a chef from a famous dessert shop in town? Shuraina really likes dessert.”

They hadn’t even heard the sound of the door. Swanhaden had, sometime during the conversation, entered the room and had been listening. Then, he casually provided his own opinion.

Yulinelle and the maid both turned and stared at Swanhaden before continuing their conversation.

“What, if you knew such information, you should’ve told me right away. There’s a lot of dessert shops in town. Should we bring one chef per store?”

“Just bring them all.”

The maid listened to Swanhaden and Yulinelle’s conversation with a frown as she nervously fiddled with her fingers. The Blanche dukedom was notoriously secretive and, to keep that reputation, generally avoided hiring those who weren’t part of their group.

Most employees were children of former employees, and if they ever wanted new employees, they brought in starving street children with nowhere to go.

The maid gathered the courage to speak. It wasn’t like she was a big fan of the Blanche dukedom’s traditions, but they were the head of the household, so……

“B, but…. If we hire new people, the dukedom’s tradition is….”

“Break it.”

And that was how the several hundreds of years old tradition of the Blanche family was broken.

Swan and Yulinelle, who had blurted out the same thing at once, tilted their heads in confusion as they stared at each other. They couldn’t believe they had come to a consensus.

“What else does Shuraina like?”

“She went crazy for money before,”

“Then our home is perfect for her. We don’t even spend a lot, so there’s money everywhere.”

“But she doesn’t seem to be as greedy for money anymore.”

Swanhaden thought about how Shuraina played ddakji* with a large amount of gold and shook his head. One of the products that she had introduced to the market via Yvnes had been a huge success. That had been the self-driving Unhorse or something.

“She’s also interested in magic, so she really likes our estate’s library.”

“Damn it, if she’s interested in magic then she might be attracted to the DuBois. But we have more secrets, so is that better for us? Then we can place a warp magic that allows her entry into the library immediately, and…..”

“She made it for herself already. Oh, and when I asked her if she wanted anything last time, she said that she just wanted her basic necessities taken care of.”

“Why is she so simple-minded? Well, that’s why she’s satisfied with something as meager as being in the royal knighthood.”

Swanhaden nodded at Yulinelle’s description of the royal knights being meager and sighed. Being a part of the royal knighthood was something that everyone aspired to be, and for them to say that….

“Shushu likes magic stones, and likes things that take effort. She refuses expensive gifts, but she’ll accept gifts that were given with care even if she feels like it’s too much.”

“Really? Then should we make a room out of magic stones?”

Everyone nodded at the idea of a statue of Shushu, but sighed when they heard that she might fun away. No. But seeing Shuraina with so much more self-confidence than before, she might actually like it. Swanhaden decided to put it on the list for now.

“Should we make a ten-story magic tower made out of magic stones to give her?”

“Ooh….. No, let’s think of something more grand.”

“…..A castle? A one-person palace? Oh. We can destroy the entire planet and create an entire continent with magic stones and gift her that. Let’s make Shushu the emperor. I’ll be the empress. The duke can be the foot-washer.”

“What?”

The maid, a mere run-of-the-mill human, couldn’t take the nervousness anymore and secretly left the room. If it was Swanhaden and the duke, they might actually do just that. She wasn’t interested in world domination, but she did like the idea of a Shushu statue. Hopefully they would make that happen.

There had been a lot of reasons behind Swanhaden’s request to unravel the secrets of the Blanche family.

First, it was so that he could be close to Shuraina. Second, it was because he wanted her to think of their future together. Third, it was because he knew that she was interested in white magic and enjoyed taking things apart.

To be honest, Swanhaden had learned about how to end the curse. Noirelle had told him.

It was similar to the spell that Shuraina had used on him before. When a child was born, their magic would temporarily be placed in another container and kept pure. Then, when they became an adult and their body was fully developed, their magic would be given back to them.

There would be no need for abuse, and they would also be able to keep using white magic. Their magic might be slightly weaker, but they would still be able to safely use their magic.

He could always fix their family’s problem when he wanted, but he called over Shuraina to fix it–she would join the knights and would be unable to do any sort of magical research for a long time.

“Swanhaden, can you grind down the popol leaves and the bert flowers and put them on the magic circle?”

“…….”

Swanhaden nodded as he held the handle of the grinder and busily moved the handle in a circular motion next to her.

Swanhaden glanced at her as he continued to work. She was moving busily back and forth, but she was full of energy.

She had been able to figure out what Noirelle had told him without any hints, and she was now creating a container that could hold the magic. Shuraina wrote down different equations down in her notebook and continued to search for the perfect magic circle to use in the container.

T/N: an entire continent……dream bigger, swan and yulinelle, DREAM BIGGER