ALL NOVEL
Chapter 349
Some guy.
According to Lumen, the ‘some guy’ that Lydon was walking around with was an ordinary villager. He seemed like a nice guy, judging by the way he smiled the whole time he was walking with Lydon.
As soon as Cadel heard that, his appetite dropped, and he returned to the inn, crunching on his bread. He lay down on his bed and told himself not to think about it. But only for a moment. As the night wore on, he felt a tremendous sense of betrayal from the fairy who still hadn’t shown a single wing.
“Another guy? Are you kidding? What kind of guy is he? What, is he better than me? Is he more fun?”
Of course, he was the one who gave Lydon the free time in the first place. But that didn’t mean he could go out and play with other humans. Cadel snickered, unaware that he was unusually sensitive to Lydon’s interpersonal relationships.
“You said you couldn’t be without me at any given time, and it looks like you’re having the time of your life. ……Huh, the more I think about it, the more ridiculous it is. You’re going on a date with him, and you dare abandon me?”
As time went on, instead of calming down, his frustration level increased. Somehow, he noticed that Lydon was less clingy at meals. He thought it was strange that Lydon would walk away after they finished eating instead of coming over to play with him again.
Unable to overcome his growing sense of betrayal, Cadel stormed out of the inn as soon as daylight broke, determined to see what the ungrateful fairy was up to or he would collapse with an anger disorder.
Finding Lydon in town was much easier than finding the others. As a fairy who didn’t hide his identity, he was bound to be seen, so Cadel could just grab any passerby and ask them for Lydon’s location.
The questioning of the locals led him to a bakery he’d seen in passing. Cadel pulled the hood of his robe tightly over his head and glared at the bakery’s entrance.
‘I can’t believe it. He actually fell for the guy who gives him food?’
His fists unconsciously clenched and unclenched. Taking a short, deep breath, Cadel shook his head and stepped inside the bakery.
“Welcome!”
The man behind the counter greeted him warmly. Cadel tilted his head slightly and narrowed his eyes to study the man’s demeanor.
‘Is he the manager? Or the clerk? Maybe the manager and clerk. ……I don’t see Lydon.’
Judging by the man’s hat, it seemed more likely that he was the manager and clerk. Cadel pretended to inspect the baguette and picked apart the man’s features.
‘…… Seems like a bright guy. Well, he’s a businessman, so he can’t be too unsociable.’
He was a simple-looking man with a bright smile, and it was clear from the way he looked that he’d take Lydon’s dirty jokes in stride.
‘By the way, ……they said they saw Lydon come in here. Did he leave already?’
Not unless he had hard evidence. It wasn’t in his nature to be wary of strangers, so Cadel looked around the store cautiously.
“’Léthier! Come quickly!”
An all-too-familiar voice called from behind the counter. Turning quickly, Cadel saw the man responding to the voice, peering into the space between the counter and the side room, speaking.
“What’s going on, Mr. Lydon? We’ve got a customer here right now, so I’m…….”
“What does that matter? I’m more important, come to me! Quick!”
“Haha……. Umm, sir. I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to step away for a moment, but I’ll be right back!”
The man made his excuses to Cadel, who stiffened with the baguette in his hand, and Léthier moved on to what Cadel assumed was the kitchen. It wasn’t until Cadel was alone that he muttered something that sounded like boiling water.
“You’ve got to be kidding me…….”
He shouldn’t be this upset that his subordinate was spending time with someone else. Wasn’t it Lydon’s way of emphasizing his importance? Even as he realized that this was all unnecessary meddling, Cadel’s body betrayed his will.
He stumbled over the counter with a combative momentum, as if he were being dragged by his anger. The baguette he held seemed like a weapon in his ferocious momentum. Cadel’s eyes glared murderously as he stormed into the kitchen where Léthier had disappeared.
“Lydon!”
The bellowed, revealing the panicked faces of the two men in the kitchen.
“Darling……?”
“Si, sir…….?”
When Cadel finally found Lydon, he was wearing an apron and had flour all over him. As he squeezed out the cream, which was overflowing onto a black sheet that he couldn’t tell if it was burnt or not, Lydon looked uncharacteristically flustered and surprised.
Léthier, too, seemed somewhat surprised by the unexpected visitor, but it was none of Cadel’s business. All he could see now were the two men’s hands overlapping on the piping bag.
“What are you doing here?”
“Uh…….”
“Well, sir, if you just walked into the kitchen like this…….”
Turning away from the stiffened Lydon to stare at Léthier, Cadel harshly removed his hood.
“I apologize, my subordinate seems to have gotten himself into trouble again, I lost my cool for a moment, I’ll take Lydon away before he gets into any more trouble.”
“Are, are you, by any chance, Mr. Cadel, the commander of the Scarlet Scales Knight Order?”
“Yes.”
He answered stiffly and walked in front of Lydon. Then he grabbed the hand that was still holding the piping bag and scooped up the baguette he had brought.
“Hold it while I pay. I apologize for the disturbance. I’ll pay for all the trouble Lydon put you through.”
“What? Oh, no, you don’t have to, please take the baguette as a service.”
“I can’t take it for free, and I’ll make sure it never happens again…….”
Cadel paused and looked back at Lydon, for he had moved away from him and stood beside Léthier, and what Lydon said next was enough to make Cadel’s eyes roll.
“I’m not going! I’m staying here.”
“……What?”
“I need Léthier.”
Cadel stared blankly at Lydon, mouth slightly open, then lowered his gaze and scratched his chin. After a moment’s silence, as if gathering his thoughts, Cadel raised his sunken eyes and spoke in a low voice.
“What…… kind of bullshit is this?”
Cadel’s expression hardened as Lydon, who had boldly declared his intention to stay in the kitchen, stood his ground. Cadel’s icy glare was fixed on him. Lydon couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen Cadel give him that look, and it had a more sinister vibe to it than when he’d broken his promise and gone to play with Garuel. Speechless, Lydon’s lips twitched.
Why? Why would he suddenly show up and be so angry? Something in Cadel’s mind that he couldn’t quite fathom, Lydon gave up trying to answer and kept his mouth shut. He was afraid to speak up, lest he offend Cadel and earn his hatred. Unfortunately, his silence only served to inflame Cadel’s anger.
“What do you need Mr. Léthier for, so you can learn to bake here and open a shop? Did you find your calling in the war? Tell me, Lydon, why are you keeping your mouth shut?”
Even Léthier, who was standing next to them, fidgeted and glanced back and forth between the two men. A nerve-wracking battle between a cowering fairy clutching a baguette in the kitchen and a famous knight commander pressuring his opponent with a cold tone of voice that contradicted his pretty face. It felt unreal.
“I’m just…….”
“Do you want to open a shop or something? Do you want to settle down here? Do you think you can live without me? Do you want to…… what, travel alone with Mr. Léthier? I’ll try to make it work, Lydon, if that’s what you want.”
“No! Why are you doing this, Cadel?”
“Why are you doing something you’ve never done before, getting people on edge?! Why have you been hanging out with Mr. Léthier for days? Tell me.”
“It’s…… a secret.”
“……Secret?”
A secret. It was Léthier who was most shocked by Lydon’s remarks, not the party or Cadel.
‘Are you out of your mind, Mr. Lydon, to keep your reasons a secret in this atmosphere?’
A few words of conversation were enough to give it away. Cadel wasn’t worried about Lydon running amok in his shop, he just didn’t like the idea of Lydon spending time with a stranger. Though even that didn’t make much sense to Léthier, who had always viewed their relationship as one of commander and subordinate.
“Yeah, and you can’t even tell me why…….”
Léthier exclaimed urgently, seeing Cadel’s rapidly losing his cool.
“Mr. Lydon was making a dessert for you!”
“……Excuse me?”
“Hey! Don’t you dare say that!”
It seemed safer to betray his promise to Lydon than to let Cadel be provoked any further. Léthier turned away from Lydon, who looked back at him in disbelief, and explained to Cadel.
“He said he enjoyed the tarts I made for him and wanted to make the same ones for you, and since the Scarlet Scales Knight Order are all benefactors, of course I should share the recipe with him, but Mr. Lydon’s dexterity isn’t as good as I thought it would be……. He just kept failing, so we spent more time together..”
“…….”
“I thought I could get it done today, though, so if you don’t mind, could you…… wait a little longer……?”
Léthier asked cautiously, watching Cadel’s expression. Cadel listened to the explanation with a stony face at first, then slowly tilted his head in response to his words, and finally sighed heavily, pressing his hand to his forehead as he finished. Then he muttered in a low voice.
“I’m really……. really……. really sorry…….”
Léthier dutifully explained the recipe to Lydon for the umpteenth time, then left the kitchen to deal with the customers.
It was lunchtime, and he could hear the hustle and bustle of customers outside. This was a good thing. If Léthier’s shop had been quiet and he could afford to keep an eye on Lydon, he would have been unable to resist the impulse and run out of the store.
‘Shame on me…….’
Why did he do that? Why didn’t he notice something strange earlier? How could he behave in such an indecent manner to a villager he had never met, who was not even his subordinate? If he could, he wanted to turn back time right away and make the atrocities that happened a while ago never happen.
‘How hard does a blow have to be to cause partial amnesia? I think it would be better for Mr. Léthier to have no memory of what happened.’
Cadel rubbed his still heated cheeks in frustration at the absurdity of his thoughts. Lydon was the one responsible for all of this, but Cadel couldn’t bring himself to take it out on him. Lo and behold, he was covered in white powder. A cute little fairy with white powder all over his face, working on dough no bigger than his hand.
“Hang in there, darling. I think I’m really going to succeed this time, and if I don’t, I’m going to tear Léthier apart.”
“What did Mr. Léthier do wrong?”
“I’m doing exactly what he told me to do! And I keep screwing up, so he’s the one at fault.”
How did he come to think of making the tarts himself? His fairy was truly adorable from head to toe.
Of course, these were Cadel’s mere musings, and if Léthier, who had been subjected to Lydon’s whims and tantrums for days, had heard them, he would have voluntarily erased them from his memory.
“They say the weighing can’t be off by a gram. Isn’t that a very inflexible job?”
“Yes, it is. Isn’t the original ingredient supposed to be persimmon?”
“Isn’t that what you think, darling? I don’t know why you have to go to so much trouble for something that’s just a bite away. It’s annoying.”
“Is that for making cream?”
“Yep. It’s cheese cream. Do you want to try it?”
“No, I want the finished product.”
Cadel sat across from Lydon, making small talk and watching the tart come together. Lydon’s plans for a sneaky surprise had fallen through, but he seemed quite content with his time with Cadel.
He carefully sliced the strawberries, which were tiny for his size, and chilled the baked tart before topping it with cream. Cadel was more excited than Lydon as he placed the last strawberry on top.
“It’s done!”
“That’s amazing, Lydon! This is the best.”
The finished tart was perfect, ready for the store shelves. Cadel could assure that this was a completely unbiased opinion. Cadel shared with Lydon his delight at the tart’s completion and regretted that he couldn’t photograph it.
‘In the original world, I would have made an entire album of this tart.’
He was happy that Lydon had made something for him. As far as Cadel was concerned, this was more of a metamorphosis than an evolutionary development.
“Come on, darling. Is it good?”
“I haven’t even found a fork yet.”
Quickly rummaging through the kitchen, Lydon found a knife and fork and held them out in front of Cadel. His face, slightly flushed, studied Cadel’s expression. Cadel took the piercing stare in stride and took a big bite of the tart.
He’d worked so hard on it, he was ready to rave about it without so much as a frown if it tasted like shit. And thankfully, he didn’t need to exert his love power.
“……!”
“What do you think? Is it good? It’s good, right? It should be good!”
“It’s really good……! You should try it!”
“Mmm, no. It’s all Cadel’s.”
“No. I can’t be the only one eating this.”
Cadel picked up a piece of tart and waved it in front of his nose, and the reluctant Lydon couldn’t help but taste it, and his eyes grew wider and wider as he mumbled his complaints.
“Delicious!”
“Isn’t it? You’re talented.”
“It’s better than Léthier’s.”
“Really? You want me to open a shop for you?”
As Cadel lavished him with endless praise, Lydon soaked it all up, his spirits soaring. The two men sat down and devoured the entire tart, then talked for a while longer, thanks to Léthier’s generosity in coming in late and offering drinks. In return, Cadel counted out all the bread left in the store and gave Léthier a full day’s work.
The amount of bread was considerable, so he gave most of it to Lydon, who rode through the village and asked the residents to share it with him, then carried the rest back to the inn. The rest was to be distributed to his subordinates.
‘I didn’t know Lydon had a talent for baking. He’s good with magic, he’s got a cute face, what the hell can’t he do? Should we really open a shop somewhere? But it’s a bit too crowded…….’
Cadel’s head was filling up with a never-ending supply of plates. He was seriously picturing Lydon running a bakery when a voice from behind him made him jump.
“What did you buy so much of?”
“Yozen……!”
Yozen stood nonchalantly, catching the bag of bread that was about to spill, as if he was now used to Cadel being surprised by his appearance. It took Cadel a beat before he sighed in relief and steadied the bag.
“I owe the baker a favor. I bought a lot of bread. I brought it to share with you.”
“The others are still outside.”
“Is that so? Well, then you can eat first. Let’s go inside.”
Cadel casually grabbed Yozen’s arm and pulled him along. Yozen had no intention of returning to the inn just yet, but he couldn’t refuse Cadel’s offer, so he followed.