IMYL 27

Chapter: 27

It was only when I reached the cabin where my mother was lying that the reality of the situation truly sank in.

All the strength drained from my body.

‘I’ll probably be jilted.’

An outsider, not someone from the Marquis’s household, had witnessed my mother’s madness.

We had confined ourselves to the marquis’s estate precisely to avoid such incidents.

Now, rumors would spread. They’d say the Princess of Liente truly was insane.

We had spent so much money to secure my engagement…

My betrothed’s family would be furious.

They’d call us shameless, for hiding such a critical matter and rushing the engagement through.

What if the madness was hereditary…?

I held my mother’s hand as she lay in the cabin, and only then did tears stream down my face.

Regret, self-pity, and… a profound sense of despair.

“Hmm?”

Mother only opened her eyes after the boat ride was over.

“What’s this? I feel a bit dizzy….”

I wiped my tears and smiled with a clean face.

“You took some medicine for motion sickness, Mother.”

“Is that so?”

Mother tilted her head.

“Oh dear, I must have missed the prize drawing. Where is your father?”

“He’s in another cabin.”

I said calmly.

“Still, you don’t seem well. The official schedule is over now, shall we head home?”

“Yes, let’s. My stomach does feel a bit queasy.”

Mother remembered nothing. But as always, she accepted the gap in her memory without concern.

“In any case, the engagement went off without a hitch, didn’t it? Right?”

“Yes, Mother.”

I nodded.

“Everything went well.”

I couldn’t bring myself to tell Mother the truth. I was too afraid.

She still hadn’t come to terms with her own madness. I couldn’t fathom how shocked she would be if she learned of this.

What if the shock was so great she went completely insane…?

For now, her lucid moments were still more frequent…

But she would find out eventually…

Leopolt had witnessed her madness, the rumors would spread far and wide, and soon, I would be jilted.

Of course, even after the engagement ceremony, Mother didn’t improve.

Every night, from behind her locked door, she would wail.

“I don’t want to go! I said I don’t want to go! I’d rather die! How am I supposed to live there all alone, huh?”

Refusing to eat or sleep, insisting she wouldn’t go to the Empire…

“I won’t marry that man! Marquis Seaher? Why should I marry some old man I’ve never even laid eyes on?”

I would sit in my room, face buried in my arms, crying silently.

She hated the Empire and my father that much. Could she possibly love me, a child born from that coercion?

From the moment we left Liente, hadn’t she dreaded bearing my father’s child?

The reason she kept mentally returning to the day we left the Kingdom of Liente… was it perhaps because she regretted all the days she spent with me?

But after raging like that all night, when the sun rose in the morning, Mother would seek me out.

“Brisa? Hurry and bring the Tapan language textbook. We need to cover the next lesson. Hmm, that lace is wrinkled, so sit back down and try again. We’ll have an ancient language vocabulary test this afternoon, so be prepared.”

I always gave it my all.

If I did well, Mother was pleased. And if she was pleased, perhaps she wouldn’t regret giving birth to me. Perhaps, if she could break free from the past like that, she might miraculously recover.

‘I tried and tried so hard… but if I get jilted, it will all have been for nothing, won’t it?’

I agonized in torment, unable to tell anyone about what Leopolt had witnessed.

But then a month passed, then two, then three.

Until the day Mother left this world.

Not a single word about that incident was ever spoken by anyone.

Even when I reunited with Leopolt at the academy, we never mentioned it.

I was simply careful not to say anything nonsensical or foolish in front of him. I feared he might suspect I was ‘crazy, just like my mother.’

Truth be told, I was like that with everyone.

I never lost my composure, never cried or laughed easily, never said anything irrational.

As a result, I was often called cold and distant, but that was better than being called insane.

Unlike me, Leopolt was a gentleman who showed such kindness to everyone.

To him, who would offer appropriate kindness to others’ affairs and then forget them, that day probably meant nothing.

“It will all be alright.”

But in life, there are moments like that.

Moments when you incur a debt that you alone will never forget for the rest of your life.

Because my own heart felt so heavy, I tried my best to act as if nothing had happened.

I worried that my continuing to remember that episode might be a burden on him.

There was a reason I’d fed Baron Foreman so well. Even wrapping up potatoes and radish sprouts to send with him.

‘To be honest, that wasn’t all.’

I even gave him eggs. I picked out the large ones.

Leopolt quietly watched Brisa’s party vanish through the warp.

The knights were doing their best, carrying stacks of fully loaded sacks of wheat.

“Looks like the Central region can’t use warp either, so they’re taking wheat like that.”

“Right. I really thought I was going to starve to death.”

Baron Foreman, standing beside Leopolt, sighed.

“But that young lady fed us all. The same young lady you sent anonymous flowers to.”

“I’ll have to dismiss my subordinate.”

Leopolt said lazily.

“It seems classified information has reached Grandfather’s ears.”

“You could change your subordinates a hundred times over, but you’d still never escape the eyes of Grand Duke Nogen in the West.”

Baron Foreman grinned.

When Leopolt had heard that his maternal grandfather had gone to the Central region, he had already pieced together the entire situation.

Knowing it was pointless to play dumb now, Baron Foreman spoke with a sly smirk.

“Why did you send the flowers?”

“Just a small consolation for an academy colleague who might be feeling dejected after being jilted.”

“Then why send them anonymously?”

“Because I dislike situations where someone asks me ‘why’. Precisely like this moment.”

Leopolt replied with an expressionless face.

Baron Foreman murmured with satisfaction.

“She’s truly a remarkable young lady. I’ll have much to tell the Grand Duke Nogen. For now, I am deeply indebted to that young lady.”

“In debt for what?”

“Lotus root, fried fish, grilled mushrooms….”

At Baron Foreman’s earnest words, Leopolt smiled calmly.

“An amusing debt.”

“It’s far from trivial, Leopolt.”

Baron Foreman’s expression turned serious, recognizing the implication in Leopolt’s words that it was ‘nothing much.’

“You’ve been in the West all this time, so you don’t understand the preciousness of food. There, monsters may appear, but everywhere you go, things are abundant.”

“I see.”

“Leo, you have no idea.”

Baron Foreman’s gaze deepened.

“The true worth of that young lady… I doubt you’d truly understand it in your heart right now, even if I explained.”

“Surely not.”

The denial was firm.

“No, I’m telling you, you don’t understand.”

Baron Foreman stated flatly.

“If you truly understood, you would never have given her something like a tracking perfume.”

“That was the most valuable thing I possessed. In fact, I thought Grandfather would be pleased with my frugality.”

“Goodness, such an ignorant boy… Could you not see she accepted it purely out of politeness? The look in her eyes said it was the most useless thing in the world.”

“Then I’m curious, Grandfather. What gift would you have wished to give Brisa instead of the tracking perfume?”

At this, Baron Foreman puffed up with pride and answered.

“One more sack of wheat.”

“Surely not.”

Then he added regretfully.

“Maybe then I could have seen that young lady’s smile.”

“Surely not.”

“But before that.”

Baron Foreman looked around.

“We need to find out when dark mages started crawling into the Western ports.”

Leopolt nodded, his eyes also glinting ominously.

At his feet lay the dark mage they had confronted along with Brisa, still alive. He had no intention of killing him quickly.