C31
"Oh, you're the maid who came back then, right?"
A middle-aged woman I met in front of a small and clean two-story house looked at Laura and smiled.
"Hello, ma'am!"
Laura introduced us to the woman.
"This is Mrs. Herman, who takes care of their household chores."
"There's no place that pays as generously as this house."
Without even introducing us, Mrs. Herman took us to the butler's house, and we chatted cheerfully.
"As expected, the Duke's house seems to pay generously. Everyone is well-dressed. They're also handsome."
Perhaps because I came with Laura, she seemed to assume that Terence and I were Cassius's servants.
Since it was to our advantage, we didn't bother to correct the mistake.
"So, what errands are you going to do today?"
"Oh, there's leftover food from the banquet, and he asked me to bring it to you. There was a lot of food, so we came in groups."
Following our preconceived excuse, we placed the food baskets we had bought at the market on the table.
Mrs. Herman checked the basket without suspecting anything and exclaimed.
"Wow. That's why it's called Cassius. With this amount, not only me but also Joshua will be full..."
"Joshua?"
"Oh, it's nothing! Instead, I'll serve tea, so have it with dessert."
Mrs. Herman spoke in a way that made anyone uncomfortable.
"Who is Joshua? It's suspicious."
When Mrs. Herman went to prepare the tea, Terence asked in a low voice.
I was curious too, not about Joshua's identity, but about Mrs. Herman's attitude.
Laura doesn't seem to know who Joshua is, but I do. Joshua is the name of the butler's only son.
I didn't know because I heard it myself, but I read it in 'Return and Walk on a Path of Flowers.' Well, anyway, Joshua is a disposable secondary character who only appears in one episode, so I don't know the details.
Although his role was minimal, he was a very significant character, so Joshua's actions in the novel were clearly described even without using the original image.
When Joshua was young, he visited his father's workplace and met Liena, who was about eight years old. He fell in love at first sight with her extraordinary tenderness, so he gave her a woodcarving sculpture he had made...
The scene was suddenly captured by Duke Cassius. The Duke, who was the first to recognize the possibility that someday a man would take away his precious daughter, naturally goes mad.
"In any case, I would say that he's a character who opens up a new horizon for the duke's foolishness for his daughter."
From then on, Duke Cassius would pick a fight whenever a man of his daughter's age approached Liena. While devising a plan to kill those who seemed promising, Liena stopped him.
Liena doesn't have a relationship with the Crown Prince for nothing. Since he is the Crown Prince, he can date Liena.
Even Duke Cassius can't threaten or deal with the next emperor.
By the way.
"Why are they trying to hide something about Joshua?"
Now that I think about it, we visited, but no one came out to see us. I heard that the butler's wife died a long time ago, but doesn't Joshua live in this house?
Since he's a young adult now, he may have simply become independent...
"It's okay, here's the tea. I also heated the cheese buns in the basket, so help yourselves."
The fragrant smell of cheese buns filled the small room.
I stopped thinking for now and ate buns with bitter black tea and agreed with Mrs. Herman.
The lady was quite talkative. I changed the subject because I thought it would be difficult to achieve my original goal if she kept talking like this non-stop.
"Wow, that decoration over there is cute. Can I take a closer look?"
I was referring to the wooden pieces that filled the cabinet. I looked around the house, pretending to naturally look inside the cabinet.
Why did I enter the house on the pretext that I could wait outside and meet the head butler?
The most important task was to persuade Cassius's loyal followers, so I needed information about the other party. And the place where people shared the most information was the home.
"It's very well done, isn't it? I heard it's the work of this house's owner."
Mrs. Herman approached the cabinet and talked to me, so I couldn't help but focus my attention on the wooden sculpture.
No matter. While I kept Mrs. Herman's attention, Terence and Laura checked other parts of the house.
"The head butler's skills are excellent."
"I heard that wood carving has been a hobby since he was young."
I guess Joshua learned carving from his father. When I looked closely, I noticed that here and there were pieces that looked a bit careless compared to the other pieces.
There were many different shapes, including the sun and the moon, animals, and famous buildings. What can I say, it was simple, but it felt quite charming.
Before I knew it, Mrs. Herman and I were standing next to each other, admiring the work in silence for a while.
"Eh?"
Then something caught my attention.
I carefully took out the human-shaped piece from the small boat.
At first, I thought it was a set with a ship, but there was a noticeable difference in integrity. The human part was clearly Joshua's skill.
At that moment, I heard the door open upstairs.
Terence came to my side in the blink of an eye and put his hand on the sword's hilt.
"Mrs. Herman, have they left? Who the hell are they to come in a group?... Hyuk!"
A young man coming down the stairs saw us and smacked his butt in shock.
The man, whose face was as white as a sheet of paper, trembled and cowered.
"Sorry..."
"No!"
He seemed very scared, so I tried to reassure him, but all I got was a violent response. The man finally went through the door he came out of.
"Huh. What should I do with this?"
In the silent house again, only Mrs. Herman's sighs flowed.
To avoid provoking the man upstairs, she explained softly.
"This is Joshua, the butler's son. I don't know the details, but he's a child who hides from the world because of the shock he received as a child. I've worked here for a long time, so I can have a small conversation with him, but he completely refuses with other people."
"I guess we stayed too long without notice."
"No. I made the wrong decision, thinking that the sound of conversations with new people would be a good stimulus for Joshua."
"Is he always this alert when strangers come?"
It was bewildering. Although Joshua in the novel was an introverted child, he was within the normal range.
"It's the same as avoiding strangers, but... Today he's worse than usual. It's probably because of the knight's sword."
Terence raised his sword.
"Do you mean this?"
"Yes. Joshua can't even touch things like kitchen knives or scissors."
Is his condition so severe that he can't even handle scissors, primarily used to cut envelopes?
Maybe Joshua suffered such a mental illness after appearing in the novel.
Wait, a sword?
Something crossed my mind, and a hypothesis slowly took shape.
"Maybe."
"Is something happening?"
"No, it's still just a guess on my part. Maybe Mr. Joshua's symptoms are..."
But I couldn't fully explain my hypothesis to Terence.
"What are you doing here?"
This was because the owner came home looking angry.
For someone who has always been distant, the head butler showed an unusually emotional reaction.
"I don't know what brought you here, but I feel uncomfortable. Even if I'm a subordinate, isn't it good manners to inform others in advance when you visit their home?"
I didn't expect the head butler to be so angry. But it didn't embarrass me. The more the other person revealed their raw emotions, the colder my reason became.
"He's angry."
"Of course. Because I'm angry."
"Really?"
"What do you mean?"
"People's emotional expressions have more diverse causes than one might think. There are times when I get very angry and irritated, but there are also times when I mask my embarrassment with anger because something I wanted to hide is revealed."
The butler looked up and then turned his gaze to Mrs. Herman, who had a bitter expression on her face.
"Mrs. Herman, you may leave."
Mrs. Herman seemed to think that the atmosphere around the house was unusual, so she suddenly disappeared.
He sat in the chair at the dining table that Mrs. Herman had occupied, and we faced him. The head butler spoke with a calmer expression than before.
"That was a rude remark. My son is not a shame I want to hide."
"I'm not talking about Joshua."
"Then what?"
"The negligence I mentioned was your irresponsibility."
"Are you saying I'm irresponsible?"
"Yes. It's irresponsible to continue to treat as a master a man who left an indelible wound in the heart of his precious son."
The gray eyes trembled violently.
The butler rubbed his face with his trembling hand.
"How did you know? No, rather, it was a sort of accident."
"You know better than anyone that it wasn't an accident. I guess that's what you want to believe."
"......"
"Duke Cassius pointed his sword at Joshua of his own will and with his own hand."
After a long silence, Joshua's father fell silent.
-----------------------------
It was a long time ago.
Duke Cassius found a boy who was desperate to win his daughter's favor by giving her trivial gifts. Although he was a child, in his eyes, he was nothing more than a wolf cub with dark intentions toward his daughter.
The Duke drew the sword he had on his waist and aimed it at the boy.
"How dare you covet her!"
The frightened boy couldn't respond and only trembled. The Duke, who was famous for being frightening, threatened him with a sharp sword that could cut him at any moment, so he couldn't do anything.
Fortunately, the Duke did not wield his sword against the boy. His daughter prevented him from doing so.
Probably the Duke never had the intention of hurting the boy from the beginning. He only did it out of anger because the boy was related to his daughter, whom he loved so much.
The Duke pointed his sword at someone's beloved son for his beloved daughter.
There was an unexpected commotion for a while, but the quiet everyday life returned to Cassius Mansion thanks to the intervention of the main character, Liena.
After that, the boy who was threatened with a sword by the Duke never appeared in the novel. Never again.