CBOM 36

For a while, Sophien stayed glued to Leto all day long.

She watched him constantly, twenty‑four hours, so he wouldn’t be able to think of anything else.

“Young master, I’m going to step away for a bit. The maids will stay with you, so don’t go outside — read your books.”

But it wasn’t Leto who was getting bored and impatient; it was Sophien.

Before Rivanu’s group arrived she hadn’t been this strict with him, but given the circumstances there was no other choice.

Unsurprisingly, the surveillance didn’t last long.

“Is there any book you need?”

When it came to Leto’s studies, Sophien spared no support.

All she did was buy him a few books to read, but in this tiny village there wasn’t even a bookstore — to buy books she had to cross the mountains.

Still, merchants would come from outside once a month, and Sophien would use that opportunity to cross the mountains and visit other fiefs. Admittedly, she liked the excuse to get some fresh air.

“No.”

“I’ll pick some out myself.”

“…Fine.”

Even so, she didn’t slacken on the rules.

“Young master, what did I tell you?”

“Don’t go outside. Wherever you go, always take a maid with you. Never set foot to the east, and if anyone comes, don’t open the door.”

“All right.”

She planned to slip out despite her warnings, but she couldn’t help worrying — so she repeated herself several times.

She nagged him so persistently that Leto, this time, was sure he wouldn’t follow them as obediently as before.

“Our trust was already broken once. If you disobey me again, I don’t know what I’ll do.”

“Don’t worry. I won’t disappoint you.”

“Heh. Good. I’ll trust you then and be back shortly.”

Until that day, the young master had never disappointed her. Sophien trusted him to an extent — and, more importantly, her greedy love of luxury was flaring up so badly she couldn’t stay here any longer.

“Make sure you watch him well.”

“Yes.”

“If you make the same mistake as last time, I won’t let you off.”

The maids stiffened and answered crisply.

Trusting Leto and trusting Rivanu’s group were two different things, so Sophien left the maids in charge of watching him — with a few thinly veiled threats to make sure they did their job.

After Sophien left, Leto’s routine became monotonous.

He didn’t move from his room: he reread the same books, ate the meals the maids brought, then read again.

The maids took turns standing guard by his side, so he couldn’t do anything else even if he wanted to.

That day, nothing was different from usual, but through the window Leto could see Rivanu, Grace, and Esi outside enjoying tea.

Pretending to read, Leto kept stealing glances at them. Sophien had told him to stop paying attention — they wouldn’t help — but it was harder than she thought.

Of course, because of Sophien’s repeated warnings he had no thought of rash action. He’d gotten away with it this time, but if he made the same mistake again…

“Ugh.”

At the thought his face went pale.

It felt like a sin to even look at them, so Leto quickly turned his eyes back to his book.

Grace had worked herself to prepare a place for Sophien to stay.

Since it was a villa there was no underground prison, so they picked a storage room tucked into a corner.

It was scarcely cleaned, full of cobwebs and dust, and the only furniture was a single broken bed with springs poking out. Being a corner storage room, it was cold and shaded — almost like a proper cellar.

It wasn’t ideal, but it would do.

They reinforced the door and removed the small window.

After checking everything was ready, Grace left the storage room. Then—

“Grace!”

“Hmm?”

“I just kept an eye on Sophien secretly — she went outside, y’know?”

Esi came running from a distance.

“She’s been watched a lot, but she must’ve found it suffocating.”

Grace scoffed. She felt stifled just having stuck by Leto for a few days, and so she couldn’t imagine how suffocating their control must be for Sophien.

“So?”

“When do you think she’ll come back?”

“Huh… what?”

Esi blinked, embarrassed. Grace asked to time Sophien’s return so they could catch her and move her here, but Esi seemed flustered.

“Why?”

“She’s already out cold.”

“Huh?”

“When she went out I got anxious and clouted her on the back of the head a bit…”

“Is she okay?”

“She’s fine.”

Esi grinned.

“I almost wanted to smack her more thinking she was an abusive parent, but she dropped immediately so I felt a bit disappointed.”

“Oh….”

“For now she’s heavy so we couldn’t move her right away, so I hid her well in the bushes…”

“Then come with me.”

“You sure?”

“Huh?”

“I mean, are you okay seeing someone collapsed?”

“…Maybe the person who knocked them out shouldn’t be the one worried about that?”

“Ah… ha ha ha…”

Esi laughed awkwardly.

“Come on. It’s fine.”

So Grace and Esi together moved Sophien into the storage room. They tossed her in, locked the door carefully, and left.

Leto went to check what they were doing and saw the maids taking turns watching the child, unlike last time.

Maybe they’d been properly scolded — they stared fiercely as if flames would leap from their eyes if anyone approached.

After a quick check, Leto reported everything to Rivanu.

“But I don’t know what to do with those maids.”

“Hm?”

“If we just leave them, who knows what they’ll do while Sophien is away?”

“I don’t plan to leave them be.”

“What?”

“If we threaten them with the Duke, they’ll have no choice but to comply.”

Rivanu said flatly.

“These people live by clinging to the powerful. If we show them someone more powerful than Sophien, they’ll cling to that.”

“…What about punishment?”

“I didn’t say we’d forgive them. We’ll use them cleverly.”

Grace got chills. The Leto she knew was generally gentle, but the expression on Rivanu’s face now was cold as ice.

Startled by how different he seemed, Grace hesitated — Rivanu, noticing, added hurriedly:

“I— they’re bad people!”

“Indeed…”

“Grace doesn’t like that sort of thing, so I wanted to deal with it properly.”

“Me?”

“Yes. I felt uneasy about not handling that mage properly while we were at the Duke’s place. This time I want to do it right — me.”

They hadn’t started with the expectation of capturing Grino. They only wanted to stop more innocent victims from becoming experimental subjects because they knew how painful such experiments were. So they planned to fix that first.

Grace hadn’t expected Rivanu to care so much.

“Is that all?”

“Does there need to be another reason?”

“No. I was just a little surprised.”

“Really, that’s all. I didn’t want even the slightest gap where we could make a mistake.”

Fine. Grace nodded casually that she understood.

Seeing her calm, Rivanu — who had been watching awkwardly — asked carefully, “Do I seem strange?”

“Huh? In what way?”

“Just… in this situation, I wonder what others think. I’ve never really fit in with others.”

The only “others” Rivanu had known were probably his parents, tutors, and the maids.

“You don’t seem strange.”

So Grace answered lightly.

“Really?”

Rivanu breathed a huge sigh of relief and laughed.

“Why, what seemed strange?”

“Nothing…”

“Then why ask?”

“Just… wanted confirmation.”

“You want to be reassured about everything. Just do what you want, young master. I’ll follow whatever you do.”

“Everything?”

“Yes. Whatever it is.”

He could grow up good and harmless, or, if things went wrong, become a proper villain — Grace didn’t care, as long as she wasn’t harmed.

‘Well, if someone’s going to stab me in the back, I’ll hit first and run.’

Of course she didn’t think that would happen. The way he looked at her now was utterly blind devotion.

But Grace didn’t realize that that blind devotion was itself misdirected — and that she had just given that devotion a justification.