Chapter 075
‘If those guys notice me…’
“Ah.”
Joy reflexively brought his hand to his mouth at the sudden pain he felt on his lips.
Seeing blood on his fingertips, he realized he had been biting his lips hard enough to draw blood.
After roughly wiping the blood with the back of his hand, Joy steeled his resolve.
When the promised date approached, he would leave without looking back.
“Ugh.”
At that moment, Aires turned over in his sleep and faced Joy.
“Go away. I can’t play with you anymore.”
Joy whispered coldly to the sleeping child.
Yet, contrary to his cold tone, his hand gently covered the child’s blanket.
Checking carefully to ensure the child wouldn’t catch a cold, Joy was suddenly startled by his own actions and shook his head vigorously, muttering to himself.
“This is just because if you catch a cold, it’ll make me tired, okay? Yeah. I don’t want to increase my workload any more before I leave.”
☪︎ ִ ࣪𖤐 𐦍 ☾𖤓 ☪︎ ִ ࣪𖤐 𐦍 ☾𖤓
A few days had passed since Aires’s brief runaway incident.
Recently, Evan’s behavior had been a bit suspicious.
“Evan, aren’t you busy?”
“I am busy.”
“But is it okay for you to keep doing this?”
I looked at Evan, who was standing close behind me, and asked with a troubled expression.
It had been a week since I started following the investigation team to find Tilke.
There hadn’t been any results yet, but we were diligently expanding our search area and ramping up the investigation.
Recently, over the past few days, Evan had been spending an increasing amount of time following me around.
Today, he also insisted on accompanying me while I went out with the knights to investigate the territory.
‘It’s nice, but something feels off.’
Even though we were together, it seemed like Evan’s attention was more focused elsewhere.
Look at him now.
He was busily scanning the surroundings more than he was actually looking at me.
Whenever I moved even slightly away from his side, he would notice immediately and stick close to me.
‘Is he worried that a wild beast might appear?’
But my curiosity only grew as I observed him being so vigilant even in the mansion, not just in the mountains.
“Ah? How did you hurt your hand again? Did you get injured during training again?”
As I was watching Evan, who was diligently scanning the area instead of paying attention to me, I noticed a wound on his hand.
I immediately grabbed his injured hand with both of mine and pulled it toward me.
‘It’s strange that he’s been getting small injuries on his face and hands lately.’
Whenever I asked, he always said he got hurt during training, but I didn’t find that explanation very convincing.
There’s no way someone who doesn’t get a scratch in a 10-to-1 sparring match would be getting hurt this often.
There were more than a few suspicious points, but since he wouldn’t say anything, I had no way of knowing.
“I’ll treat it later, so try not to use that hand as much as possible. If you leave it like this, it’ll get worse. Why do you always just leave it alone?”
“This isn’t even a serious injury.”
At his words, I narrowed my eyes on him.
He had also ignored his injuries before when he had seriously hurt his right arm, sparring with the knights every day instead of resting, and now he was neglecting his own health again.
“This won’t do. From now on, if you get hurt and you don’t tell me, I might just wrap it up really thickly with bandages.”
Worried that he might dismiss a serious injury later as nothing, I shook my head and took a firm stance.
“That’s not acceptable.”
“Then you have to tell me every time you get hurt from now on.”
Evan raised his eyebrows in apparent dissatisfaction at my words but eventually nodded as if he understood.
Seeing Evan nodding obediently brought a faint, satisfied smile to my lips.
Then suddenly, I recalled the first time I met Evan.
‘He has really changed a lot compared to then.’
It hadn’t been that long ago, yet I could clearly feel that many of the sharp thorns he had shown me when we first met had disappeared.
It felt like just yesterday that he labeled me a perverted fool for merely touching his face lightly, and now he was calmly letting me fidget with his hand like this.
“Ahem. Um, Your Grace.”
As I was unknowingly smiling at Evan, I heard a cough from the side, sounding somewhat awkward.
Evan and I both flinched, shaking our shoulders and turning our heads to see Roman standing there with a peculiar smile, holding some documents.
“I apologize, but I have some materials that need urgent confirmation. I really wanted to wait until later to discuss this, but it seems that can’t be the case…!”
“I get it, so be quiet.”
Evan cut off Roman, who was rambling on with excuses, frowning slightly.
Soon, Evan moved closer to a tree to talk with Roman.
As I watched the two from a distance, I heard a low voice echo in my ear.
“Suspicious.”
“Wow, you scared me.”
“Hmm, it’s suspicious.”
“Joy, don’t come over acting so suspiciously.”
Joy, who had quietly approached from behind, kept repeating that it was suspicious while fixing his gaze on the spot where Evan was.
“Don’t you think it’s strange, customer?”
“What do you mean?”
“Look around! The number of knights has been increasing, and now it’s so crowded that they could train here.”
As the number of people grew, Joy began to express his dissatisfaction, saying they couldn’t even use magic anymore.
Unlike the usual small groups of three or four conducting investigations, there were now twenty knights gathered in one place on the mountainside.
And it was all centered around me.
“That’s true….”
I nodded slightly, deeply agreeing with Joy’s words.
When did so many knights start appearing?
Joy, who had to use magic while avoiding people’s eyes, had already been waiting for opportunities but had ultimately done nothing.
“And they said it was to reinforce the manpower needed for the investigation. Yet, they’re not actually conducting the investigation and are just guarding around you, which is strange.”
At Joy’s words, I scanned the surroundings.
The knights had come out to investigate the territory under the pretext of manpower reinforcement, but it was easy to notice that they were all circling around me.
‘This is definitely strange.’
It looked more like they were guarding me rather than conducting an investigation.
“These days, it seems like your husband follows you wherever you go. Could it be…?”
“Could it be what?”
“Did you do something behind your husband’s back? This is complete surveillance.”
I refuted Joy’s speculation, saying that wasn’t the case.
However, I had also noticed Evan’s suspicious behavior lately, which made me slightly uneasy, but I thought it was probably nothing serious.
“I’ll ask Evan to reduce the number of knights. Oh, by the way, how’s Aires these days? Is he still trying to go out alone?”
I changed the subject and asked Joy about Aires.
“Yeah. When I asked if he was going to sneak out alone again, knowing he did something wrong, he shook his head and said he wouldn’t.”
Relieved by his response, I hesitated for a moment before cautiously speaking up.
“Joy, have you noticed anything strange while living with Aires?”
“…Huh? Strange?”
“Well…”
I shared with Joy the story I had heard from Nora a few days ago.
I thought that as a mage, Joy might have sensed something unusual about Aires.
“Well, it is indeed strange that he sneaks out of his room without anyone knowing or that the maids have vague memories, but I haven’t felt anything particularly special from the kid. Maybe it’s just a coincidence that happened by chance?”
“Mm. That could be….”
Since Joy, who lived with the child, hadn’t noticed anything strange, I began to wonder if it was truly just a series of coincidences, as he said.
midori
thanks! LOL why IS evan guarding her so closely? he just doesnt want her to be alone with joy?! is it really that?? also, i mean, i don’t see why Joy wouldn’t tell her about what he sensed about the kid, but that may be because if he DOES tell her about the kid, he’ll probably feel obliged to tell her about the curse/magic that’s on her…