The head maid, who had stiffened at the menacing voice, hurriedly bowed and walked toward the other side of the hallway.
Barcas, who had been watching the scene while leaning against the doorpost, was suddenly driven by an inexplicable impulse and followed after it. Even he did not know what he was trying to do.
He climbed the stairs, overtaking the head maid in an instant with long strides, and approached the wide-open entrance of the women's quarters.
At the same time, a sharp shout pierced into his ears.
"Get out of the way!"
Barcas turned his head and narrowed his eyes when he spotted the nanny arguing with maids in the middle of a bedroom cluttered with all sorts of belongings.
The woman shrieked as she roughly pushed away the young maids who were trying to stop her.
"My young lady says she only wants to take the things she brought with her when she got married, so why are you getting in her way!"
"Don't talk nonsense! Do you think it makes any sense to try to take Her Highness the Grand Duchess's belongings without permission?"
"You're going to take a new Grand Duchess anyway! When that time comes, are you planning to give all of our young lady's belongings to her?"
The woman took out a handkerchief and blew her nose loudly, then grabbed the dresses piled on the bed indiscriminately and stuffed them into a chest on the floor.
"Do you think I would just stand by and watch? These are all things our Empress gave to our Young Lady! I will take every single one of them back to the Empress's Palace, so keep that in mind!"
"Since when have you cared for Her Highness so much!"
A young maid grabbed the nanny's arm with an enraged look on her face. However, she could not withstand the immense strength characteristic of the dwarf bloodline.
The woman shook off the maid as if swatting away a fly and began to haphazardly sweep up her belongings.
Barcas, who had been watching the scene with a cold expression, slowly crossed the room. Only then did the maids notice his presence and hurriedly bowed their heads.
Barcas, who had walked past them indifferently and stopped in front of a Quarter Dwarf, carefully looked around the chests piled high on the floor. Silk clothing, various ornaments, fine crafts, and high-quality books that appeared to be of Dwarven origin were mixed together haphazardly.
Barcas's gaze, which had been scanning them one by one, stopped abruptly on the hem of a dress that was slovenly crumpled. The woman, who had been glancing at him while clutching an armful of clothes to her chest, took an awkward step backward.
Barcas roughly grabbed the woman's wrist, turned around, and walked toward the door.
The flustered woman threw away the clothes she was holding in her arms and resisted, but she was no match for his strength.
The woman, dragged listlessly out into the hallway, slumped to the floor and shot out a look of injustice. Ignoring her, he coldly lashed out at the guards.
"Send this woman back to the capital immediately!"
Then, lowering his cold gaze at the woman, he added.
"I'll allow you to take your personal belongings, but don't even dream of anything else."
"How can you be so heartless!"
The woman, whose lips were trembling, could not contain her anger and raised her voice.
"Do you have no regard for how heartbroken Her Majesty the Empress must have been upon hearing the news of the Young Lady's passing? It is only the proper duty to deliver her daughter's belongings to her!"
At that moment, a sound like something bursting was heard from inside his temple.
He grabbed the woman by the collar with his convulsing hand. The woman coughed and looked up at him with terrified eyes.
Barcas, who had been looking down at the scene with an expressionless face, quietly opened his mouth.
"Leave quietly. If you cause trouble one more time, you will never be able to have an audience with the Empress you worship so much again."
The woman's face instantly turned pale.
He let go of the woman as if throwing her, then gestured to the maids lined up behind him.
"Everyone, get out."
The hesitant maids soon rushed out of the room like an ebb tide.
As the sound of their footsteps faded, Barcas turned around and faced the messy bedroom.
As the ruin-like landscape surrounded by dim light came into view, a sudden feeling of suffocation washed over him. He immediately approached the bed and began tidying up the items piled on the floor.
He cleaned the glass bottles containing the lotion and rose oil she used and placed them neatly on the bedside shelf, and he folded the clothes scattered haphazardly on the floor and arranged them neatly inside her closet.
After that, he began putting the jewelry piled inside the chest back in its place one by one.
He couldn't understand why he was doing it himself when it would have been finished in the blink of an eye if he had ordered the maids.
How long did he keep his hands moving without rest, simply consumed by the compulsion to put all her belongings back in their original places?
He was able to find a strange object inside a loosely constructed chest.
Barcas narrowed his gaze. Amidst the jumble of various ornaments lay a crude jewelry box that young girls would likely go wild for.
After staring down at that utterly alien and noisy box for a long time, he knelt on the floor and carefully took it out.
The old box, scratched here and there as if it were an old object, had an elaborate lock installed on it. After feeling it this way and that, he realized he probably needed a key, so he started rummaging through the chest again.
Then, this time, he found an old book wrapped in a tattered cover. As Barcas absentmindedly opened it and skimmed through it, his spine stiffened.
It was roughly scribbled handwriting, but he could recognize it at a glance. It was her handwriting.
[Tiuran suggested that I try writing a diary, saying it would help alleviate my symptoms.
I said with a blank look on my face that I didn't know what to write, so they told me to just freely write down the words swirling in my head, so I'm just scribbling something down.
But no matter how much I think about it, it seems like a stupid thing to do. There's really no way doing something like this will make me better.]
Barcas's gaze, which had been slowly scanning the roughly scribbled text, fixed on the date inscribed at the very top of the page. It had been written not long after he had set out on his first expedition.
He turned the page with trembling hands.
Careless sentences, seemingly scribbled reluctantly, continued monotonously for a while.
Most of it was about a young wolf, but occasionally a line or two about a healer was interspersed. Despite the extremely brusque tone, Barcas could tell that she was slowly opening her heart to a woman named Tiuran.
[Today, what Tiuran said lingered in my mind all day. The words that there are wounds in the world that never disappear, no matter how much time passes... Why were those words so comforting?]
Was it because I felt like I had been given permission to hurt as much as I wanted?
Thanks to you, I think I can forgive myself just a little bit.]
Barcas, who had been reading the phrase over and over with hazy eyes, carefully turned to the next page with trembling fingers.
Perhaps due to a change in her mindset starting from that day, the contents of her diary gradually became more colorful.
It was still closer to a monologue of thoughts swirling in her head than a diary, but rich emotions began to settle into the once bleak sentences.
He read through the records she had left behind, forgetting even to breathe. Then, suddenly, he reached a certain point and stopped his gaze.
[Khan is growing day by day. Just a few months ago, he looked like a tiny doll... but now it's hard to even lift him in my two arms.
I want to show you Khan right away, too. Will you be able to recognize this child? Will you believe me if I tell you?
No. You probably think I'm crazy.]
Only then could he realize that her diary was written for a specific person.
Suddenly, his heart pounded violently as if it were about to burst through his chest, and sweat poured from his entire body.
He turned his eyes to the next page, seized by the sensation that something was strangling him.
[You're back today.
The moment I saw you from afar, joy and fear overwhelmed me at the same time. What terrible words will I end up pouring out at you again? What words will you use to stab my heart again?
I don't think I'm ready to face you yet.]
He checked the date engraved at the end of the page. It was when he had returned to Raedgo Castle.
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