“I’m very curious to hear that the Duke of Vermont issued a silence order.”
Kaian strode across the room and joined the frozen women.
Hannah was startled when the large man held out his hand to her.
“If there is anything in this castle that needs to be returned to its original place, isn’t it rightfully mine?”
“Yes, My Lord.”
“You said you would become a servant who sacrificed your soul to Temnes, but are you already trying to deceive your Master?”
"No. Absolutely not.”
However, Hannah's voice gradually became quieter and weaker. She looked at Claudel, not knowing what to do. Claudel was equally embarrassed, so the two just looked at each other with their mouths closed.
“Come here.”
At Kaian's words, Hannah finally placed the name card, which she had been holding on to, onto his palm. His face became even colder and hardened as he saw the small, flat red piece of stone. Claudel's heart sank when she saw his expression.
'You know what that is.'
The anxiety that had been clouding her consciousness ever since she discovered the nameplate on his desk became more intense.
“It’s my father’s.”
“...What?"
Claudel jumped up from her chair. His whole body trembled from head to toe, but eventually, the words that overcame her overwhelming fear poured out.
“Why do you have this? How? Who wouldn’t be surprised if something that should have belonged to my father, who passed away ten years ago, suddenly appears on your desk?”
Kaian immediately frowned upon hearing her words.
“You mean it’s your deceased father’s stuff?”
“You really don’t care about me one bit. It’s not like you didn’t know that I entered the family as the daughter of my uncle, the Duke of Vermont.”
"You... Were you a survivor of Plogne Village?”
The moment Kaian's eyes glanced at her, Claudel got goosebumps.
"You. What happened to that village?... You know?"
The name of the village that I heard clearly from his mouth reached my ears in an unfamiliar way.
The village of Plogne was located southeast of Valmonde's estate. It was a hidden village that went off to the side of the road leading up and down the continent to the capital and had to go a long way further into the mountains where the road could not reach.
Moreover, in the Rowen territory located in the south of the Ita continent, even after passing the capital, you had to pass through two more territories to reach Valmonde. In other words, it was not a location where you could just pass by by chance.
My eerieness, my sense of foreboding, shot through me. I was so white that my eyes met Hannah's fair-faced face.
“That was left behind by the old man who brought the prescription to get your medicine.”
“...An old man?”
“He was said to have been an herbalist in a castle on the outskirts of Valmonde.”
Kaian spoke calmly as if he had never been embarrassed before. That looked even more suspicious in my eyes.
'Are you talking back?'
The man, who did not answer my question, continued his story.
“I heard that ten years ago, a man left him a prescription asking for medicinal ingredients. But the village in the forest where he lives caught fire and he didn’t go back to look for it, but he kept it the whole time.”
"Right, Lady. This is Uncle Evan. I think the person who left the prescription was Uncle Evan.”
“That kind of thing...”
Since it was originally intended to be used in lieu of an ID card, it made sense for the nameplate to be used that way. He left it with a down payment, and when the job was completed, he paid the rest and took it back.
“The old man took out the prescription and spilled it on his clothes. The man who brought the prescription had left it with me, so I told him to leave it behind when he told me he had taken it with him.”
Kaian looked closely at the engravings on the piece of stone in his hand as if he were seeing it for the first time.
“It’s something that belonged to my late father, so it would be good for you to keep it.”
He put it down on the table.
“Kaian.”
I called him.
“Are you... Did you go there?”
It was strange that Kaian didn't answer any of my questions.
“What happened to Plogne? You know, right? So you asked me if I was a survivor, right?”
Ten years ago, Kaian was fifteen, before he inherited the Duke of Temnes.
"That...”
Kaian stopped talking and took a moment to catch his breath.
“Queen Silvia ordered me to keep quiet. I don’t know, I haven’t heard, I haven’t seen anything.”
“...I beg your pardon?"
“It is a blessing given directly by the late King. We cannot disobey the orders given by the late Queen.”
I was speechless. At the same time, I was out of breath. It felt like invisible hands were covering my nose and mouth and squeezing my neck.
When I asked Kaian if he knew what happened in Plogne Village, the answer I vaguely hoped to hear was not this.
I wondered if I could hear anything about the fate of a village that was caught in a fire out of nowhere, and about a village that was completely destroyed by a fire without anyone escaping or surviving. He couldn't have been there by chance, but I asked because I wanted to hear that he had seen something.
It was something that Hannah and I had been secretly trying to find out for ten years, but it was impossible under the Duke of Vermont at Castle de Valmonde. This is because the Duke of Vermont became angry and disliked me, calling me 'unlucky' whenever my humble origins and the dark story of my parents' family life were mentioned.
“You shouldn’t be asked about that in the future.”
But I never thought I would hear that ‘the Queen told me to keep quiet’ about it.
Kaian asked Hannah while I couldn't get over my shock.
“Didn’t you say that the two of you were friends who grew up in the same village since childhood?”
"Yes, My Lord.”
“So does that mean you are also from the village of Plogne?”
Instead of answering, Hannah nodded her head slowly.
"Yes. I get it. I have work to do.”
When Kaian left Claudel's bedroom, the two women were left speechless.
A man whose emotions had been tempered to the limit and who had been tempered to the limit tended not to show outward signs of agitation.
"Damn."
As he came out of Claudel's bedroom, Kaian could not control his anger. The butler, who was quickly following in his master's footsteps to accompany him, became more serious when he saw Kaian giving off an unusual aura.
“Is something wrong?”
“It’s troublesome because it looks like something is going to happen from now on.”
After closing the office door and sitting down, Kaian let out a long sigh.
“Why are you doing that?”
“Herzole’s prescription that cured Claudel before. Do you still have it?”
“I told the doctor to keep it in a safe place. Should I tell him to bring it?”
"Yes. It would be nice to see him for a moment.”
The faithful butler did not question why he was looking for a new prescription for a disease that had already been treated but quickly brought the doctor as instructed by his master.
“My Lord. Why are you asking me to bring my prescription?”
“Do you even have all the envelopes?”
“Of course I will. After checking it carefully several times and copying down the ingredients and recipe, I put it back in the original bag and stored it separately.”
The doctor politely placed an old envelope on Kaian's desk.
It was just as Kaian remembered. The seal that sealed the thick, stiff envelope had the traces of the enemy's family clearly stamped on it. The paper inside the envelope was also gold foil, a thin layer of gold spread on commonly used letter paper.
The gold leaf was an item unique to the Vermont family. The reason for using gold leaf was, firstly, to show off their wealth with precious metals pouring out of the ground, and secondly, due to the nature of the metal, it was impossible to rewrite it.
It wrote by scratching the thinly stretched metal with a pen that had not been filled with ink, but even a single scratch left a trace, so it was always obvious where it had rewritten it.
So, in Vermont, gold leaf was used for the most important documents, and later on, gold leaf was used for all documents that were to be written as fiefdom official documents to show off.
This itself proved that it was an item from the Duke of Vermont.
Kaian asked the doctor a few small questions and sent him away.
“Why are you doing that?”
“There is a problem. Do you remember ten years ago, when the Queen ordered you to secretly go to Valmonde with private soldiers?”
"Of course."
At that time, it was Baron Colon himself who followed the orders of the Temnes family head and accompanied Kaian to the north.
“They say Claudel and Hannah are the survivors of that village.”
"Yes? What do you mean?”
"I know. What on earth does this mean? I thought that too as soon as I heard it.”
Kaian raised the corner of his lip at an angle as if he were dumbfounded.
“Send someone to bring that old man from the herbal medicine store.”
Because he was a perfectionist, he tended to be obsessed with filtering out uncontrollable information in this way.
“And Madame Cronach. Bring that woman too.”
“By Rowen?”
He kept her alive, but where did she grind her teeth in preparation to bite his owner?
If Claudel and Hannah had been born and raised in Plogne, the children who were young at the time may not have known or remembered something properly, but it is incoherent that the woman who became Kaian's limb and had a reputation for meticulous work done did not recognize them.
“We need to meet and talk. Conversation must be done with her face.”
The butler lowered his head as he looked at the owner muttering in an eerie tone.
Hannah tried to calm me down.
“Are you feeling better now?”
"Yes."
Perhaps because I was surprised, my lower abdomen was cold and hard, so Hannah massaged my stomach for a while while pressing something warm on it.
"Hannah. What Kaian said is so suspicious, isn’t it?”
I raised my body from where I was lying down and faced Hannah, who was sitting on my bed.
“Besides, what is Queen Silvia talking about?”
What Kaian said was a complete mess, with nothing in it. However, Hannah casually took Kaian's side.
“I think you’re sensitive because of your pregnancy, Lady."
Hannah was startled when the large man held out his hand to her.
“If there is anything in this castle that needs to be returned to its original place, isn’t it rightfully mine?”
“Yes, My Lord.”
“You said you would become a servant who sacrificed your soul to Temnes, but are you already trying to deceive your Master?”
"No. Absolutely not.”
However, Hannah's voice gradually became quieter and weaker. She looked at Claudel, not knowing what to do. Claudel was equally embarrassed, so the two just looked at each other with their mouths closed.
“Come here.”
At Kaian's words, Hannah finally placed the name card, which she had been holding on to, onto his palm. His face became even colder and hardened as he saw the small, flat red piece of stone. Claudel's heart sank when she saw his expression.
'You know what that is.'
The anxiety that had been clouding her consciousness ever since she discovered the nameplate on his desk became more intense.
“It’s my father’s.”
“...What?"
Claudel jumped up from her chair. His whole body trembled from head to toe, but eventually, the words that overcame her overwhelming fear poured out.
“Why do you have this? How? Who wouldn’t be surprised if something that should have belonged to my father, who passed away ten years ago, suddenly appears on your desk?”
Kaian immediately frowned upon hearing her words.
“You mean it’s your deceased father’s stuff?”
“You really don’t care about me one bit. It’s not like you didn’t know that I entered the family as the daughter of my uncle, the Duke of Vermont.”
"You... Were you a survivor of Plogne Village?”
The moment Kaian's eyes glanced at her, Claudel got goosebumps.
"You. What happened to that village?... You know?"
The name of the village that I heard clearly from his mouth reached my ears in an unfamiliar way.
The village of Plogne was located southeast of Valmonde's estate. It was a hidden village that went off to the side of the road leading up and down the continent to the capital and had to go a long way further into the mountains where the road could not reach.
Moreover, in the Rowen territory located in the south of the Ita continent, even after passing the capital, you had to pass through two more territories to reach Valmonde. In other words, it was not a location where you could just pass by by chance.
My eerieness, my sense of foreboding, shot through me. I was so white that my eyes met Hannah's fair-faced face.
“That was left behind by the old man who brought the prescription to get your medicine.”
“...An old man?”
“He was said to have been an herbalist in a castle on the outskirts of Valmonde.”
Kaian spoke calmly as if he had never been embarrassed before. That looked even more suspicious in my eyes.
'Are you talking back?'
The man, who did not answer my question, continued his story.
“I heard that ten years ago, a man left him a prescription asking for medicinal ingredients. But the village in the forest where he lives caught fire and he didn’t go back to look for it, but he kept it the whole time.”
"Right, Lady. This is Uncle Evan. I think the person who left the prescription was Uncle Evan.”
“That kind of thing...”
Since it was originally intended to be used in lieu of an ID card, it made sense for the nameplate to be used that way. He left it with a down payment, and when the job was completed, he paid the rest and took it back.
“The old man took out the prescription and spilled it on his clothes. The man who brought the prescription had left it with me, so I told him to leave it behind when he told me he had taken it with him.”
Kaian looked closely at the engravings on the piece of stone in his hand as if he were seeing it for the first time.
“It’s something that belonged to my late father, so it would be good for you to keep it.”
He put it down on the table.
“Kaian.”
I called him.
“Are you... Did you go there?”
It was strange that Kaian didn't answer any of my questions.
“What happened to Plogne? You know, right? So you asked me if I was a survivor, right?”
Ten years ago, Kaian was fifteen, before he inherited the Duke of Temnes.
"That...”
Kaian stopped talking and took a moment to catch his breath.
“Queen Silvia ordered me to keep quiet. I don’t know, I haven’t heard, I haven’t seen anything.”
“...I beg your pardon?"
“It is a blessing given directly by the late King. We cannot disobey the orders given by the late Queen.”
I was speechless. At the same time, I was out of breath. It felt like invisible hands were covering my nose and mouth and squeezing my neck.
When I asked Kaian if he knew what happened in Plogne Village, the answer I vaguely hoped to hear was not this.
I wondered if I could hear anything about the fate of a village that was caught in a fire out of nowhere, and about a village that was completely destroyed by a fire without anyone escaping or surviving. He couldn't have been there by chance, but I asked because I wanted to hear that he had seen something.
It was something that Hannah and I had been secretly trying to find out for ten years, but it was impossible under the Duke of Vermont at Castle de Valmonde. This is because the Duke of Vermont became angry and disliked me, calling me 'unlucky' whenever my humble origins and the dark story of my parents' family life were mentioned.
“You shouldn’t be asked about that in the future.”
But I never thought I would hear that ‘the Queen told me to keep quiet’ about it.
Kaian asked Hannah while I couldn't get over my shock.
“Didn’t you say that the two of you were friends who grew up in the same village since childhood?”
"Yes, My Lord.”
“So does that mean you are also from the village of Plogne?”
Instead of answering, Hannah nodded her head slowly.
"Yes. I get it. I have work to do.”
When Kaian left Claudel's bedroom, the two women were left speechless.
***
A man whose emotions had been tempered to the limit and who had been tempered to the limit tended not to show outward signs of agitation.
"Damn."
As he came out of Claudel's bedroom, Kaian could not control his anger. The butler, who was quickly following in his master's footsteps to accompany him, became more serious when he saw Kaian giving off an unusual aura.
“Is something wrong?”
“It’s troublesome because it looks like something is going to happen from now on.”
After closing the office door and sitting down, Kaian let out a long sigh.
“Why are you doing that?”
“Herzole’s prescription that cured Claudel before. Do you still have it?”
“I told the doctor to keep it in a safe place. Should I tell him to bring it?”
"Yes. It would be nice to see him for a moment.”
The faithful butler did not question why he was looking for a new prescription for a disease that had already been treated but quickly brought the doctor as instructed by his master.
“My Lord. Why are you asking me to bring my prescription?”
“Do you even have all the envelopes?”
“Of course I will. After checking it carefully several times and copying down the ingredients and recipe, I put it back in the original bag and stored it separately.”
The doctor politely placed an old envelope on Kaian's desk.
It was just as Kaian remembered. The seal that sealed the thick, stiff envelope had the traces of the enemy's family clearly stamped on it. The paper inside the envelope was also gold foil, a thin layer of gold spread on commonly used letter paper.
The gold leaf was an item unique to the Vermont family. The reason for using gold leaf was, firstly, to show off their wealth with precious metals pouring out of the ground, and secondly, due to the nature of the metal, it was impossible to rewrite it.
It wrote by scratching the thinly stretched metal with a pen that had not been filled with ink, but even a single scratch left a trace, so it was always obvious where it had rewritten it.
So, in Vermont, gold leaf was used for the most important documents, and later on, gold leaf was used for all documents that were to be written as fiefdom official documents to show off.
This itself proved that it was an item from the Duke of Vermont.
Kaian asked the doctor a few small questions and sent him away.
“Why are you doing that?”
“There is a problem. Do you remember ten years ago, when the Queen ordered you to secretly go to Valmonde with private soldiers?”
"Of course."
At that time, it was Baron Colon himself who followed the orders of the Temnes family head and accompanied Kaian to the north.
“They say Claudel and Hannah are the survivors of that village.”
"Yes? What do you mean?”
"I know. What on earth does this mean? I thought that too as soon as I heard it.”
Kaian raised the corner of his lip at an angle as if he were dumbfounded.
“Send someone to bring that old man from the herbal medicine store.”
Because he was a perfectionist, he tended to be obsessed with filtering out uncontrollable information in this way.
“And Madame Cronach. Bring that woman too.”
“By Rowen?”
He kept her alive, but where did she grind her teeth in preparation to bite his owner?
If Claudel and Hannah had been born and raised in Plogne, the children who were young at the time may not have known or remembered something properly, but it is incoherent that the woman who became Kaian's limb and had a reputation for meticulous work done did not recognize them.
“We need to meet and talk. Conversation must be done with her face.”
The butler lowered his head as he looked at the owner muttering in an eerie tone.
***
Hannah tried to calm me down.
“Are you feeling better now?”
"Yes."
Perhaps because I was surprised, my lower abdomen was cold and hard, so Hannah massaged my stomach for a while while pressing something warm on it.
"Hannah. What Kaian said is so suspicious, isn’t it?”
I raised my body from where I was lying down and faced Hannah, who was sitting on my bed.
“Besides, what is Queen Silvia talking about?”
What Kaian said was a complete mess, with nothing in it. However, Hannah casually took Kaian's side.
“I think you’re sensitive because of your pregnancy, Lady."
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