Chapter 84
It was love that was so pitiful and so miserable… The same feeling that he had laughed about so much and never thought it would be his.
Unable to bear it, Otis took a couple of steps back. In the blurred vision, Irene’s face was visible. A face stained with embarrassment. It would have been better if her face was not kind. The distance that he had kept narrowed just that much.
“Young Master, I don’t mean to go very far. I have something more urgent than being by your side right now. It’s about Master Rodion.”
Even though he understood what she was saying in his head, he could not accept it at all. Otis’ gaze turned cold.
“…Remember we have to leave for Lowens tomorrow?”
“Even so, I was going to tell you that I don’t think I’ll be able to go.”
“Why?”
“Young Master Rodion is in critical condition, so I need to be by his side. And, I have work to do here.”
“Irene. Didn’t you say you were leaving the mansion?”
At Otis’ words, Irene’s mouth shut.
“Weren’t you trying to catch a spy before you left the mansion? But, you wouldn’t go to Lowens. Do you have any time to pay attention to Rodion?”
“I’m not leaving the mansion yet. I can’t just let this go.”
“He won’t die without you. Didn’t they say it’s not life-threatening? Why do you have to do that?”
He knew what a foolish and ridiculous question this was.
“What’s wrong with him…
How shabby was even this tirade? Still, he could not stop talking. With one realization, the sadness that surged in like a broken dam weighed him down.
…Worst of all, he already knew Irene’s answer.
“Because I’m worried about the Youngest Master.”
Yes… She was such a person, someone who was fairly kind to everyone. A lake that helped and sent everyone’s pieces who visited her. It was Otis’ laxity that thought it would be special only to him.
“As much as I cherish the Young Master, the Youngest Master is precious to me. If I leave… If something accidentally goes wrong with the Youngest Master, I won’t be able to bear it.”
Irene took Otis’ hand and continued her words. She said that sometimes she dreams of the Young Masters dying. Those dreams hurt so much that she always wakes up crying all the time.
“He’s not dying, but it’s really strange. I just can’t stand it…”
So she could not leave, she said. Even though he could not understand it, please let her do this.
However, there was one thing Irene did not know… It was the fact that Otis fully understood her feelings. If he dreamt of Irene dying, he could not stand it either. In the end, he could no longer hold onto her.
“I’ll come back when I’m done talking.”
Irene left those words behind before leaving.
…Though he knew that she would not come back.
Otis knew the people he cared about very well. He knew well what the nature of Ahibalt was. And Irene, who looked like she was apathetic… He knew how swayed she was. So, it was only her carelessness to say that she would come back.
His half-brother could not bear it any longer, and Irene’s gaze was also on him.
‘Irene. You think you can love everyone…’
Regardless, emotions were not fair. Even more so to love those who were not satisfied.
Irene would not come back.
The fact that he did not want to accept it made his fingertips numb. Otis watched the paper crafts rustling at his feet, then dropped his hand.
‘What should I do to make Irene look back at me?’
What should he do to keep her by his side…
Tormented by those thoughts in the night rushing towards the darkest vision, Otis’s remorse shone with a strange obsession.
‘…The woman who drugged Rodion.’
Did they say she was locked up in the basement?
As he thought so, Otis stood up as if possessed from his seat. There was a rustling sound with every step. Ignoring the trampled paper crafts, he opened the door.
It was time for him to prepare to leave.
At the same time, in Ahibalt’s room.
“So, the reason Rodion collapsed isn’t because of poison.”
“Yes. What Madam Edith passed on to Charlotte Eunice was really a love potion. She was doing research on the relationship between favorability and fate, so she tried to manipulate favorability and change fate.”
Irene finished the long explanation concisely. She also did not forget to glance at the other person’s reaction by moving her gaze.
‘He looks better than I thought.’
She thought that if he heard something like this, Ahibalt would react as absurd or distrust her words. However, he accepted it more bluntly than expected. Perhaps, it had something to do with the reason for him being in a good mood.
In fact, Ahibalt was always like that. from the moment she met him in the hallway a while ago.
“I’m truly happy.”
Saying that, Ahibalt was smiling brightly like she had never seen before. It was a little unfamiliar, and it was a smile with a sense of incongruity.
But for Irene, that was not a problem that bothered her.
Rather, it would be more accurate to say that she was preoccupied with something else.
“I think I’ve been waiting.”
“Yes?”
“That moment… you come directly to me.”
As soon as she heard those words, she felt all boundaries disappear in an instant. It was not even a big deal, but it was very strange.
Why did the word ‘waiting’ feel so warm?
At the same time, the desire to avoid Ahibalt, which had been hovering in her all along, was shaken. Perhaps, it may be because a bright smile followed. Still, Irene did not think as deeply as she had always done. No, she did not want to.
‘…Let’s not get any closer.’
This was not the first time she had been shaken by Ahibalt’s kindness. It was clear that it would be on her side to get hurt only when she got closer. Moreover, she had something more urgent than her emotions right now.
Irene hid her disturbance, and she confided everything to Ahibalt—from the reason she had been hiding that there was a spy and that what Charlotte was using was not really poison. In addition, the fact that Rodion drank it even though he knew it, and Edith’s research on favorability and fate.
“So, as a result… I think I’ll have to meet Madam Edith. Since it’s not poison, and if it’s not something that can be treated with medicine, that’s the only solution.”
“You chose the most difficult person to meet as a solution. He’s a person who doesn’t even step a foot out of Lichpen.”
These were words that could have been somehow embarrassing, but Ahibalt was calm even after she explained everything. It was Irene who was so embarrassed by that reaction.
“Do you… trust me?”
“Is there any reason not to? It’s you, not anyone else.”
“Because I’m not a member of the organization, I’m just a maid. My words are rather futile.”
Even though she knew that Ahibalt trusted her in human terms, was this not a separate thing?
“But, you have a higher understanding of Knox than the members of the organization, and you’ve been watching Lavrenti as closely as we have for a long time.”
As Ahibalt’s index finger tapped the table as he spoke, his blue eyes turned towards Irene. He certainly looked like he was in a good mood, though his eyes were strangely calm. If he had been someone other than her, they would have felt eerie by his gaze.
“Do you trust me, Irene?”
“Of course.”
However, this was not the case for Irene.
Seeing her giving a quick answer with extreme naturalness as if answering a question about whether the sun would rise tomorrow morning, Ahibalt bent his eyes and smiled.
“So, I have no choice but to trust you.”
She trusted the most untrustable person in the world, how dare he not trust her?
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