***
Throughout the way, Marsha kept glancing sideways, watching Liselotte’s reaction.
Fortunately, Liselotte didn’t seem to notice anything unusual and appeared to follow her without suspicion.
The place they finally arrived at was a smaller, cozier room than expected.
Rather than the tea table, the piano positioned along one wall stood out more.
The pianist who had been waiting in front of it recognized Liselotte and silently bowed in greeting.
Eren, who had arrived earlier and was already seated, stood up and gently pulled out her chair for her.
“You are here. Have a seat.”
As she moved closer to him, the faint, damp scent unique to someone who had just finished bathing brushed against her.
Looking more closely, she saw that the tips of Eren’s hair were not fully dry, with a slight trace of moisture remaining.
When she glanced at him, Eren, perhaps feeling self-conscious, roughly rubbed the ends of his bangs with his fingers.
“Is there still a monster smell on me? If it bothers you, I will go change again.”
“Huh? Did you go on a subjugation?”
Minor subjugations within the North were handled entirely by Ail, and only reports related to the border regions were passed on to her.
If it were a large-scale subjugation, she would have known, but small-scale ones were so routine that they barely even became a topic within House Keilos.
Perhaps bothered by it, Eren lifted his arm, briefly sniffed it, and muttered quite seriously.
“A few appeared within the North, so it was brief.”
“I didn’t know. So that is why I didn’t see you in the afternoon.”
“You looked busy, so I told Ail not to bother reporting it. It was something that would be over quickly anyway.”
‘So is that why he called me?’
Glancing around, Liselotte rolled her eyes as she checked the surroundings, where not a single document was in sight.
Naturally, she had expected they would coordinate what to say for the audience with the Emperor or discuss matters concerning the East.
Or perhaps the investigation schedule for Gelloa Village.
If he had gone on a subjugation in the afternoon, there wouldn’t have been time to discuss it separately, so wasn’t now the right moment?
But on the table, there wasn’t even a single related document to be found, let alone anything else.
Eren, seated across from her, said nothing in particular.
In the meantime, the clear, pure melody unique to the pianist’s performance softly filled the small room.
Marsha approached quietly and served the tea without a sound.
Marsha’s brow, as she poured the milk, was slightly furrowed in a way unlike usual.
Focusing so intently that one could count each drop, Marsha poured, then once the proper amount was reached, her previously tense expression suddenly relaxed.
“Phew, all that practice paid off.”
‘Ah, I see. So she just wanted to show off that she could brew a new kind of tea now? I completely failed to notice.’
Realizing Marsha’s intention belatedly, Liselotte smiled brightly and replied cheerfully.
“Now you can say anywhere that you brew tea well, Marsha.”
“If my concentration slips even a little, it’s useless. I was told I absolutely had to serve it to Your Highness today…”
Suddenly closing her mouth, Marsha glanced at Eren and, flustered, hurriedly poured strong tea into Eren’s cup.
It was the same tea Liselotte usually drank.
“Then please call me when you need me.”
Leaving behind a brief greeting, Marsha hurriedly withdrew.
Liselotte took a sip of the oddly sweet tea and smacked her lips.
“What is the matter with her? Isn’t Marsha a bit strange today?”
“I don’t know.”
Eren answered curtly, feigning ignorance.
“I do not think so…”
Silence settled between the two of them. The piano performance filled the awkward air.
With no conversation, she felt uneasy for no reason.
‘If I read even one more line at this hour, it might help with the trial!’
Her hands, which were always busy taking notes and turning pages, now at rest, left her not knowing what to do at all.
In the end, unable to hold it in any longer, Liselotte sneakily glanced at his strong tea and asked.
“Eren, is something wrong?”
“It’s not as though something has to be wrong for me to see you.”
Perhaps having grown used to it by now, he drank the strong tea without any change in expression.
“Do I need a reason to want to see someone?”
He simply looked at Liselotte calmly.
A face he saw every day under the same roof. What was so special about it?
For some reason, embarrassment washed over her, and Liselotte rubbed her cheek with her hand for no reason.
“We see each other often.”
Eren muttered quietly as he drank his tea.
“You don’t come out of your room very often, Liselotte. You don’t have boutiques brought to the manor like you used to, either. I cannot recall seeing you rest lately.”
“People say rest is for the dead!”
Liselotte replied energetically, clenching one fist.
It seemed he was worried because she had handed over the work she had been handling all along to Ail.
“Rest is for the dead.”
The moment Eren’s eyebrows shot sharply upward, Liselotte quickly waved both hands.
“I don’t mean I will not rest until I die! It is just a joke, like, living diligently makes me feel at ease.”
“If this is because of my work, you don’t need to worry about it.”
“It’s just more comfortable for me that way.”
So even though they were in the same boat, he still cared. Liselotte let out a small chuckle.
“I feel like I can live as much as others only if I am diligent.”
Perhaps it was because of memories from her previous life, when she lived by splitting her sleep.
That made sense, since her starting point had been different from others, and to fill that gap, she had to grind herself down.
Those things piled up one by one and became habits, and it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say they shaped the Liselotte of today.
When she thought about it, even now it wasn’t much different.
To survive here on her own, she had to make full use of everything she held in her hands.
She smiled so broadly her eyes curved and offered a warm greeting.
“Thank you for trusting me and watching over me, Eren. I have really wanted to say this for a while.”
When she was suing malicious online trolls, she had no room to care about characters from a novel.
But now that she had become Liselotte and was facing Eren, she could see herself reflected in him.
Maybe that was why her heart had gone out to him all this time.
From the start, it had been a marriage neither of them wanted, and from the moment she opened her eyes, she was no longer the Liselotte of the past… so she planned to help with the green thread that triggered his trauma as much as she could before leaving.
Was this comradeship… or perhaps like a final gift to a fellow soldier who was surviving a harsh world in his own way?
Perhaps because they were in similar situations, it was unavoidable that she felt concerned and her gaze kept being drawn to him.
Eren looked at her steadily.
“Trusting one’s wife is only natural.”
“You are a bit surprising in that regard, Eren… Were you programmed like this? Is it some kind of preset?”
“I find it difficult to understand what you are saying.”
The slight crumpling of his eyelids reminded her that he was human.
That sight was a bit amusing, and Liselotte burst into laughter.
“I just mean you are kind of cute.”
As if he disliked that remark, Eren’s expression grew even fiercer.
“So you are treating me like a child.”
“It is a compliment.”
By the time her reply ended, the piano performance came to a close.
This much light banter was enough. She had also said what she wanted to say to Eren, so this was sufficient.
When Liselotte rose from her seat, Eren naturally rose as well and escorted her back to her room.
The tea time ended earlier than expected.
Strangely enough, that fact left a cold, unsettled feeling in one corner of Eren’s heart.
‘Why?’
As he held Liselotte’s slender hand to escort her, Eren applied a slight pressure.
For the past few days, he had the distinct feeling that Liselotte might leave him.
It was an instinctive sensation. Just like how, over the past few days, he had sensed the dangers that would befall Liselotte in advance.
That was why he had changed clothes and come to see her the moment the subjugation ended.
He felt he would only be at ease once he saw her face and knew she was by his side.
Standing in front of the door, he caught hold of her as she was about to enter her room.
“Wait.”
Rummaging around in his pocket, Eren took something out and handed her a small case.
“I heard you like magic tools, so I brought this back while I was out on a subjugation today.”
It was a small, horn-shaped magic tool that looked as though it had been made from a monster’s bone.
It was shaped so it could be worn around the neck like a whistle.
When he told Virki it was a gift for Liselotte, it had been made in less than an hour.
Even the scent of ink from the certificate, not yet fully dry, drifted strongly.
If Liselotte smiled, that alone would be enough for him.
He had even made time for her to rest because she said she liked tea time.
Yet for some reason, she looked even more uneasy.
Liselotte’s shocked expression as she stared at the magic tool now was also a reaction he hadn’t anticipated.
“Don’t tell me you went on a subjugation just to pick this up?”
