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Episode 4
“I guess I’ll just sit and wait for now. I can ask a maid later.”
She had no intention of calling a maid right away. It was basically a signal telling him to clean things up quickly in the meantime.
Still in fox form, Serge perked up his ears and looked at Rayleigh. After glancing around cautiously, he started walking toward the door.
Just as Rayleigh was thinking things had wrapped up nicely, she suddenly felt something was off.
“Huh?”
The fox’s movements looked unnatural.
His left hind leg was dragging slightly, like he had sprained it.
He might have slipped and hurt himself while being forced to transform.
Rayleigh jumped up and rushed over to the baby fox. Unless he was in a berserk state and about to attack her, she couldn’t just leave an injured patient alone.
Serge flinched, clearly on guard. She spoke gently to reassure him.
“I’m not trying to hurt you. Hey… your leg’s injured, right?”
Rayleigh pulled a handkerchief out of her pouch.
“If you overdo it with a sprained leg, it can get worse. You could end up with a chronic injury.”
She didn’t have a splint, so she couldn’t immobilize it properly, but tightly wrapping it would at least reduce the strain.
The baby fox just looked up at her quietly and didn’t resist.
She wrapped the handkerchief firmly around his left hind leg.
Her hands moved smoothly. She was used to treating her own injuries.
“There. All done.”
Serge stared at his leg for a moment, then started walking.
He was still limping a little, but the tight wrap seemed to help. His steps looked steadier.
The fox picked up speed toward the exit, then suddenly turned around.
“…Yip.”
After that, he bolted out of the reception room.
“Was that his way of saying thank you?”
Smiling, she watched until his gently swaying tail disappeared from sight.
Once she was completely alone—
“Haa…”
Only then did Rayleigh finally let out a breath of relief.
For someone whose goal was to pretend not to know the family secret and eventually run away, what had just happened was a huge crisis.
“If it gets revealed that I know the family’s secret, there’s no way I’d get out safely.”
No matter how careless he might seem, the duke was still the head of a powerful noble family.
In the worst case, she’d be silenced permanently.
Even if she kept her life, she might be locked up and never allowed to leave the family.
If that happened, she’d go down with them when the family was destroyed.
That kind of future was absolutely not an option.
As long as Serge’s magic remained unstable, she would keep running into that little black fox unexpectedly.
“But he didn’t seem that dangerous.”
In the original story, the focus was on beastfolk losing control and becoming violent, but thinking back calmly, that was because the demonic power had grown much stronger over time.
By the time the original story began, monsters were rampaging more and more, and demon hybrids like beastfolk were also affected.
Right now, monster outbreaks weren’t that severe yet, so the Elestine father and son were probably still fine.
If things had been truly bad already, the Elestine family would have been exposed and destroyed much earlier.
“So the important thing right now is that I keep pretending I don’t know who they really are.”
From now on, she had no choice but to keep acting like an oblivious wife and daughter-in-law, even if it wasn’t in her nature.
Just as she finished organizing her thoughts, the duke’s aide, Yuan, rushed in.
“I’m very sorry, young madam! There was a mistake. The young master was in the study, not the reception room.”
“It’s okay. If you’re busy, I can greet him later.”
“No, it won’t take long. Please wait just a moment. I’ll bring the young master as soon as he’s ready.”
Seeing the usually calm and composed Yuan looking flustered made her feel a bit sorry for him.
“He must have it rough, serving such a troublemaker of a master…”
After waiting about ten minutes—
“The young master has arrived.”
It seemed she would finally meet her husband in proper human form.
Maybe because she’d already met him as a fox, her initial nervousness had faded.
Rayleigh stood up properly to greet Serge.
The reception room door opened, and Yuan appeared first.
But the person she was actually waiting for, Serge, was nowhere to be seen.
“Huh?”
Yuan turned back with an awkward expression.
“Young master.”
Moving in a way that perfectly embodied the word “hesitant,” a boy slowly appeared from behind Yuan.
Rayleigh was startled.
He looked nothing like what she had imagined after seeing his father.
His black hair was the same as his father’s, but thick, strong prescription glasses completely distorted his face, making it hard to tell what he really looked like.
Behind the lenses, she could still see that his eyes were golden, just like Walter’s.
She knew they were the same age, but his frame was slightly smaller than hers. Even accounting for the fact that boys grow slower than girls at that age, he looked extremely frail.
It seemed that the beastfolk’s unstable magic had affected his growth as well.
“Well, looks aren’t everything. What matters is his character.”
Hoping her husband had a gentle personality, she greeted him politely.
“Nice to meet you. I’m Rayleigh. I’ll be living here in Elestine from now on.”
“H H hello…”
The boy replied to her greeting in a timid, halting voice.
“P Please take care of me… I’m Serge.”
“Nice to meet you too. I hope we get along well, Sir Serge.”
“Y yes…”
After that, the conversation died completely.
There were plenty of normal topics they could’ve talked about, like the long journey or how she found the ducal residence, but none of them came up.
Trying to break the awkward silence, Rayleigh spoke again.
“While I was coming to the east wing, I saw the central garden, and it was really beautiful. I’ve never seen such a well-kept garden before. I’m honored to be able to live somewhere so wonderful.”
“Thank you…”
He replied with his head lowered, barely managing to speak, still clinging to Yuan’s clothes like a lifeline.
He had almost zero social skills.
Watching this, Yuan quickly stepped in to smooth things over.
“The young madam must be very tired after traveling such a long distance. You’ll be having dinner together with His Grace later, so shall we end the greetings here for now?”
At that, Serge lifted his head, his eyebrows drooping in concern.
“A Are you tired? Then… we can talk later…”
“Thank you for being so considerate. You must’ve been busy too, Sir Serge. Please rest well until dinner, and we’ll meet again with the duke.”
“Y yes…”
“I look forward to getting along with you!”
After bowing politely once more, Rayleigh turned to leave the reception room.
Then Serge called out to her.
“Um… um…!”
“Yes?”
When she turned back, the boy flinched.
Still, as if forcing himself to be brave, he slowly opened his mouth.
“The garden… please feel free to look around… if you want…”
“If you’re t tired… you don’t have to…”
It seemed he had carefully thought about her earlier comment about the garden and was now responding to it.
His words were awkward and unpolished, but his sincerity came through.
“Thank you. I’ll happily take you up on that and look around at my own pace.”
“Y yes…”
That seemed to be the absolute limit of his social courage. Serge lowered his head again.
“Yeah, someone that shy probably can’t suggest showing me around or taking a walk together.”
Now she finally understood why Walter had called his son “a difficult one.”
Still, the fact that Serge had mustered the courage to respond at all made her feel warm.
Thinking that shy was much better than rude, Rayleigh left the reception room.
From behind his thick glasses, a golden gaze lingered on her back.
As he walked her out, the aide Yuan added apologetically,
“The young master is a bit… shy around strangers.”
Calling it “a bit” felt like an understatement, but Rayleigh simply nodded.
“Everyone has different personalities. I’ll try to get closer to him.”
“Yes. Please become a source of strength for him.”
Knowing the family’s situation, Yuan looked less like a subordinate and more like someone genuinely worried about Serge.
“Will you be returning right away? Or would you like to take a walk in the garden, since the young master suggested it?”
“Since I’m already here, I think walking around the garden sounds nice.”
“Yes. If you need anything, please ring the bell over there. A maid will come to assist you.”
Yuan explained quickly, his tone sounding a little anxious.
“Is something urgent going on?”
“Ah, actually…”
His expression darkened slightly.
