ALL NOVEL Chapter 6 - Typical Preparations
Two weeks later.
While making preparations to depart, I waited on the chance my fiancée might visit.
What should I say to her if she comes? How should I apologize? How would she react?
Such thoughts cluttered my mind during those days.
“Butler.”
“Yes, my lord.”
“Has any letter from her arrived yet?”
“Regrettably…no, none has arrived yet.”
“I see.”
Even though I would be leaving the capital tomorrow, my fiancée who despises me had not visited, let alone sent a letter.
“I wasted time.”
What should I say? How should I apologize? What tea and sweets should I serve? Should I inform her of my condition? How should I react if she gets angry? How should I react if she cries? What if…she tries to stop me?
The time I spent agonizing over such things was all a waste.
“…Butler. From now on, can you transcribe what I say to deliver to her?”
“Of course.”
Though she would not be hearing it, I quietly cleared my throat.
“My lady. I acknowledge the validity of any feelings you harbor towards me and respect any actions arising from those feelings.”
“My lady. Please understand that I depart due to circumstances I cannot speak of. I will not ask for forgiveness, understanding, or for you to remember me. For I have no right to make such requests of you.”
“I depart hoping you find someone who can make you happy.”
After quietly transcribing the contents, the butler soon stopped his pen and asked another question.
“Are you sure this will suffice…?”
“For me…no, that should be enough. Anything more would be a waste of time and ink.”
The butler quietly left to send the letter, and I took out the sweets I had intended to serve her and gave them to the raven instead.
Thinking they were quite expensive, I assumed the raven would enjoy them, but I was mistaken. Instead of eating the cookies, the raven immediately flew into a rage.
“Hey, you foolish idiot!”
“I’m just curious, but are ravens inherently such angry creatures?”
“Looking at you, even saints would lose their temper!”
When you think about it, why get angry over something that was no one’s fault? She simply did not respond to my letter about visiting. So she did not visit.
And I simply made preparations to welcome a guest while eagerly awaiting her arrival.
I wrote the letter and prepared to welcome a guest, and she simply did not respond or visit. Just that, so why the rage?
“Fuck…! Aarrgh…! This vexing imbecile! Why are you groveling to someone who isn’t even family?!”
“More than anyone else, she has the right to despise me.”
“What…?”
“I…”
Something seemed caught in my throat, making the words difficult.
“Of my own free will, I killed her sister. Right in the midst of battle, I pierced her chest and crushed her heart.”
“That’s…”
“That is also why I had the butler transcribe the letter to her. To write a letter with the hand that crushed the heart of her own blood relative would be the highest deception.”
The raven seemed at a loss for words.
“…I do not have the right to take offense over such an act.”
As the lord of her own noble family now, she had every right to reject my request.
“Rather, I am glad. Glad to see the sister of a dear friend has grown into her own.”
“That expressionless delivery really lacks conviction, you know?”
“To add falsehoods for the sake of ‘conviction’ is called fraud.”
“At any rate, you’re quite the eccentric old man. One of a kind.”
It occurred to me that there was little difference in that I too had little time left to live.
“It feels rather strange for a raven that can speak human words to call me eccentric.”
There were a few things I had learned from frequently conversing with this raven recently.
This raven had quite the refined palate.
This raven excessively considered my position.
And this raven had an excessively foul mouth.
“By the way, what have you been doing this whole time?”
“Even if I depart tomorrow, I cannot neglect my duties as lord.”
“…Ah! That’s it, that’s it!”
The raven suddenly started clapping with its wings and chuckling to itself in amusement.
“Yeah, this is what I’m talking about!”
“May I ask what you mean by that?”
“Isn’t it such a common pattern? Telling me to suffer in the void you’ll leave behind!”
I expressed my confusion at the raven’s words.
“I cannot comprehend what you’re saying.”
“Even if your facial muscles are frozen solid, you’re still hardworking, aren’t you? You’re telling me to struggle through the influx of work after you’re gone! Not knowing what to do, with no one to teach me, even staying up nights! In that process of making mistakes, feeling the void you left – you want me to suffer, don’t you?! Am I right?!”
It only became more incomprehensible. The raven’s cawing would have been easier to understand at this point.
“…I have prepared manuals to aid my sister when she inherits the lordship. There are also retainers to guide the inexperienced young lady. There will be no confusion, no floundering, no need to stay up nights.”
How to manage the family’s assets, the family’s knights, the businesses owned by the family, matters regarding events the lord must oversee, and even how to manage subordinates – I had meticulously written down everything I knew.
“Why the hell…? No, you don’t want to see those brats floundering without you, do you?! They need to make mistakes to feel the void you left, you idiot!!!”
“I genuinely hope there is no void left by my absence, and that my sister does not make mistakes.”
“Your love for your sister is truly admirable, fuck. Has that sister ever even made you a cup of tea for all your troubles?”
“…How foolish. This is not for my sister’s sake. Let alone for my own.”
I took out a document regarding the family’s businesses and showed it to the raven.
“This is for the sake of these people.”
“What…?”
“The responsibility for a lord’s mistakes falls on the many subordinates. And the ripples extend to the many families tied to those subordinates. For I know well how a single thoughtless mistake could become a great calamity.”
The raven quietly bowed its head.
It is only natural for there to be confusion when any position changes hands.
“…While I cannot easily define what I gain from doing so, if the purpose was to derive self-satisfaction from witnessing the mistakes after my absence.”
If it was an act of deceiving myself that you are foolish and I am superior by exploiting the other’s inexperience.
“Then it would truly be a despicable and selfish act.”
There could be no more cowardly act than ignoring the ripples from such actions and the people who would suffer because of them. Moreover, if there was someone who would commit such acts simply to prove their own worth in that manner, that person would deserve to be treated as trash.
“…You’ve grown into quite the admirable nobleman.”
“You speak as if you knew me in the past.”
“Well…I can roughly gauge it from the dregs of this family, can’t I?”
I wished that after my departure, everyone could live the same tomorrow as yesterday, or an even better tomorrow than yesterday, as if nothing had happened.
The raven seemed to understand as it began nibbling on the rich butter cookies I had offered. And watching it eat reminded me of someone from the past, filling me with a bit of pride.
Just as the raven was finishing the last cookie, there was a knock at the door.
“What is it?”
“My lord, a reply has just arrived from her ladyship.”
“Enter.”
The butler handed me a black envelope with elegant gold patterns engraved on it.
“My lord, her ladyship surely took her time carefully choosing her words. So please do not be too vexed…”
“I have no reason to be vexed, butler.”
With a slight sense of anticipation, I opened the envelope.
And inside was simply a blank sheet of white paper.
Not a single word could be found on that pure white paper. While the paper itself was high quality, it did not even contain the most basic salutation.
The pure white paper, blank like everyone’s minds in this study, soon incited rage from the butler and raven.
“That bitch!!!”
“…Is this not too much, my lord? No matter what, how could she do this to you?”
Even I could understand why they were enraged.
This blank paper was an unspoken message telling you there are no words for the likes of you, so begone at once.
“Do not be angry, butler.”
“If not for your assistance, would that young wench even be in a position to become lady of the house?”
“…Butler. Would you kindly add one more line to that letter?”
It seemed I would need to revise the letter.
“That as she wishes, I too shall never find happiness again.”
With a gloomy expression, the butler nodded and quietly left the study.
“Hey, at least get angry! That’s why everyone sees you as a fool! Why the hell are you like this?”
“…There is no need.”
I currently felt no sadness, anger, or regret.
“A deceased friend taught me how to kill the surging emotions and bury them in a corner of my heart.”
“Hey, wait, that thing you said about…”
“I can easily bury this much within my heart.”
The emotions I killed and buried could rot away like actual corpses.
And nourished by those rotted emotions, there was one massive tree that had grown.
The name of that tree was ‘Familiarity’.
Today, a new branch had simply grown on that ‘Familiarity’.