Chapter 12

Such a stiff, righteous tone.

If Lyssel was going to let this whole circus slide again like he always had, Iberin was about to shut it down—

"Your Highness!"

The nobles bowed in unison toward the space behind Iberin.

Rotte had brought Lyssel.

It had been a while since she'd seen him.

But instead of feeling glad, Iberin tensed, worried he was about to say something that would make this worse.

For some reason, his gaze stayed on her for a long beat.

"?"

The nobles seemed to notice it too, and looked faintly thrown.

"Your Highness…?"

When someone carefully called his name again, his eyes finally left Iberin and moved to the nobles.

Iberin strode over to him and reached out a hand.

The instant she did, Lyssel took a step back.

A small pfft of a laugh escaped from somewhere in the cluster of nobles.

Iberin froze, and when she looked over, the nobles were watching her with a mix of mockery and contempt.

It was like they were saying,

What made you think you had the standing to act up?

Iberin's head dropped.

The servants' faces twisted with something close to rage as they glared at the nobles, but in a class-based society, talking back to your betters wasn't tolerated.

If the servants stepped in to take her side, it would only blow up bigger.

They knew that, which was why they were staying still.

If Lyssel hadn't been there, she might've gritted her teeth and bulled through somehow, but for now, the biggest deciding voice was Lyssel's.

Iberin squeezed her eyes shut and had no choice but to back down.

He hadn't exactly thought highly of her either, so she figured he'd just let it pass.

But what came out of Lyssel's mouth was not what she'd expected.

"What's so funny?"

"…Pardon?"

The nobles who'd laughed clamped their mouths shut and looked at Lyssel.

"Also, I have nothing to discuss with any of you."

"Excuse me?"

"Go home."

Iberin blinked, slow.

What is this.

No matter how she looked at it, Lyssel had just taken her side.

She glanced at Rotte, standing behind him, and Rotte was beaming.

The nobles flailed like they'd had a fire lit under them.

"Y-Your Highness."

"I've already heard everything. I left your overreach alone because dealing with it was a bother—not because I authorized you to treat my house and my people however you pleased."

"Y-Your Highness! We deserve death for our offense!"

The nobles dropped to their knees and pressed themselves to the ground. Only now you're sorry?—it made her sick to look at.

And they weren't apologizing to her.

Iberin raked them up and down with an irritated look.

Watching them grovel at her feet was satisfying, sure, but it gnawed at her that they were doing it because of him, not because of her own clout.

Ether was still gripping the hem of her dress and showing no sign of letting go, but he seemed to have grasped, at least roughly, that these people had been awful to Iberin.

"H-Hey…"

Ether spoke up at the nobles.

The nobles, scrambling for any angle and probably calculating that pleading to a small child might soften something, immediately pivoted and started begging Ether.

But Ether shrieked at them,

"…Don' bothuh my mommy! She's my mommy!"

It was the first time he'd called Iberin mommy.

Iberin had been holding still, waiting to see what he'd say, and her face flooded with overwhelming emotion.

"You— you— bunch of nasty maggots!"

But the next part forced her to gawk.

"E-Ether."

Nasty maggots, of all things.

She said his name softly. Ether locked eyes with her, firm and bright, and gave a beaming smile.

"Mommy, Ether will protect you!"

So sunny. So unbearably sunny.

I guess I should be grateful it wasn't anything worse?

Iberin's face, which had stayed perfectly composed through the nobles' insults, finally went red.

After getting clobbered by mother and son in succession, the nobles still wouldn't drop the damages issue and kept pushing.

Lyssel looked like he'd had it with their absolute brass.

"I've already said I won't be paying out any more damages."

Instead of walking it back, he doubled down—nailed it shut.

He had no intention of taking back what he'd said.

That's when Count Alketa—who'd been the rudest from the start and the one Iberin had been keeping an eye on—crossed a line.

"It's not as if Your Highness even wants to guard the Forest of the World Tree. You're cursed and can't survive without killing, so you slaughter monsters—and you can't even do that properly, which is how the damage spills into our territories!"

Has he lost his mind.

Not just Iberin—even the other nobles who'd come with him looked stunned and fidgeted in place.

She glanced at Lyssel. His already cold eyes had gone glacier.

The moment that gaze locked onto the count, the count clearly took the hint and clamped his mouth shut—but every word was already out in the open.

What was Lyssel going to do here?

Iberin watched like she was eating popcorn, fully invested, silently rooting him on.

Give them at least one good hit!

But Lyssel didn't move the way she'd hoped.

"Fine. I'll pay damages."

What?

Iberin blinked, dumb.

Count Alketa looked equally floored and parroted it back like an idiot.

"You'll pay damages?"

"Isn't that why you came. I'm tired, so if there's nothing else—"

"WAIT just a damn minute!"

Iberin shot her hand up and shouted.

"Why would you pay damages! You just said you wouldn't! You're going to let them keep bleeding us dry?! No way, absolutely not!"

"…Did you not hear what Count Alketa said?"

"What. About how some moron throws cheap personal jabs and pins everything on you?"

"M-Moron!"

Count Alketa raised his voice indignantly, but Iberin breezed right past him and turned to Lyssel.

"So what if Lecashe is cursed and kills monsters in the World Tree's forest!"

It wasn't even an actual curse, and they weren't doing anything harmful to society.

Like fools, the Lecashe had kept their heads down for too long.

Sure, maybe they'd been afraid of how the world saw them.

Maybe they'd lived by the instruction to stay out of the Emperor's sight and chew on the meaning of their existence out here.

But she was not going to sit and watch them swallow this kind of treatment on top of it.

My baby!

When he grew up, getting treated like this!

Over my dead body!

Iberin was roaring inside, but on the outside she kept her breathing steady and answered as evenly as she could.

"You haven't killed anyone, have you."

"The point of what he said is—"

"Point my foot. Since when is future murderer a charge? Anyone here ever heard of it?"

She swept a look across the servants, and they all answered in chorus: No, ma'am!

"You hear that? Murder is one thing, but future murder? His Highness Grand Duke is just a decent nobleman who hasn't killed a single soul. Generation after generation of Lecashe have been the same. And on top of that, you're going to charge damages because he can't even kill monsters properly?"

Iberin sucked in a ragged breath.

"Your Highness, you might as well just behead these things right here."

"What?"

The Grand Duke's eyes went round.

The nobles flinched and shrank in, terrified the Grand Duke might actually snap and start swinging a blade.

"I mean, they're treating people like they're murderers—that's offensive. Might as well kill them while we're at it."

Iberin fixed the nobles with a look like she'd well and truly snapped.

"H-Ha, haha…"

That's when, out of nowhere, Lyssel let out a small laugh.

What, why is he laughing now—but the servants, especially Rotte, stared at him in shock and rubbed their eyes again and again.

Rotte had spent close to half her life here and had never once seen the Grand Duke laugh, which was why she was so stunned. The other servants were stunned for the same reason, plus one more—they'd kept their distance from the vaguely terrifying Grand Duke for so long that seeing him laugh hit them with: oh, he's human after all.

The nobles were just as shocked, but Iberin's next line scattered them like roaches.

"What's it going to be? You getting your heads chopped off here?"

The question came out elegant, but the words were anything but.

---

Iberin was just thrilled.

She'd landed a hit and chased the nobles off, and Ether had called her mommy!

"Ether."

"Yes?"

"What did you call me earlier?"

"Mommy, mommy…"

Ether's cheeks flushed a beat too late as he answered.

Iberin squealed and stomped her feet in delight.

"You're going to call me Mommy from now on?"

"Yes. You're my mommy in the first place. Ether did wrong this whole time…"

He rubbed his cheek against her and snuggled into her arms.

Drunk on joy, Iberin pulled him in tight.

"No. Mommy was the one who did wrong. Ether didn't do anything wrong."

"No, Ether did wrong."

"Nooo."

"I shoulda called you mommy soonuh, but I was scared…"

"See. Mommy scared you. Mommy did wrong."

"No… you didn't…"

The two of them went back and forth—you did wrong, no, I did wrong—endlessly and pointlessly, but both of their faces were glowing.

The servants watched them with the softest expressions.

Only Lyssel kept looking at them, studying.

Then Tami carefully stepped up to Iberin.

"Lady Iberin, before anything else, Master Ether should probably get cleaned up…"

Right—she'd run out so fast that Ether was still covered head to toe in paint.

She burst out laughing.

"Hngg."

Ether seemed to realize the state he was in when Iberin laughed, and let out a small whine.

"Wash me, pwease."

Looking like that, he'd said he'd protect her, and cursed out nobles. If she'd been in his shoes, she would've died of secondhand cuteness.

"Let's take a bath together."

"Yes!"

She had paint on her too from holding Ether, so she needed to wash up anyway. As she started moving, she noticed Lyssel still standing there.

He didn't seem to be making any move to leave, and Iberin gave him a curious look before slipping past him.

Lyssel turned to follow her with his eyes as she walked by.

He clearly hadn't expected her to just brush past, and his face was openly thrown.

The truth was, Iberin had been very aware of him.

He was the kind of looks she happened to be into, so her eyes kept drifting back to him, but she'd pretended otherwise.

She was the one who'd promised to back off after he drew the line.

And the way he was looking at her—like a pitiful little dog with something to say—made it pretty clear it was Lyssel who had something on his mind, so she'd doubled down on ignoring him.

{He'd been annoying, and she wanted him to be the one to come to her this time.}(#bwgbi95txgjp)