IBOSML 05

Chapter : 05

“Compared to that old man, sitting beside Papa would be much warmer and cozier.”

The duke joined in as well.

I puffed out my cheeks while looking at the two of them.

“But Papa and Oppa are weak.”

Weak enough to lose to paper cuts and doorsteps!

“T-that’s—!”

“That’s actually a fair—”

“Mary said so. She said Grandpa is super cool and the best.”

It wasn’t that I disliked the two of them.

But right now, removing the death flag hanging over that old man came first.

“Elisha wants to sit beside cool Grandpa. Can’t I?”

The old man said nothing.

As his silence dragged on, everyone else became nervous instead.

Ian even started making clicking noises with his teeth.

“E-Elisha. Actually, Grandfather dislikes—”

“Hmph. Do whatever you want.”

The old man waved his hand dismissively, as though annoyed.

Smiling brightly, I toddled over to his side.

Soon, we arrived at the dining hall.

The kitchen must have been warned in advance.

Finished dishes were already being carried into the hall one after another.

The servants looked flustered, but they still placed my chair and footrest beside the old man’s seat.

Holding onto the armrests, I slowly climbed up myself.

After settling in properly, I called for a maid.

I wanted my chair moved closer to the table.

But the maid standing behind me simply froze in place.

“Mary?”

Was she nervous?

Mary’s hands were trembling violently.

She startled easily and got frightened over little things, so the old man apparently terrified her.

If she hated it that much, she didn’t have to come.

“I-I can do it.”

Mary grabbed the back of my chair.

But perhaps because she applied force awkwardly, the chair tilted forward instead of sliding.

“Oh my!”

“Uh?”

“You shouldn’t ruin all the food prepared with such effort.”

Thankfully, before disaster could strike, the old man caught me.

His hand was rough—but warm.

I turned to look at him.

The old man immediately reddened and sharply turned his head away.

“Don’t misunderstand! It’s not because I found you admirable or anything!”

For someone saying that, his hands had moved awfully fast.

“Okay.”

Anyway, sitting beside him had succeeded.

I picked up my fork and grinned.

I’m definitely going to save you.

The old man—Elisha’s grandfather—died when Ian was eleven.

The tragedy began when he traveled from the frontier to the capital.

While leading extermination squads against magical beasts in the borderlands, he came to report the terrible conditions there to the imperial family and request reinforcements.

During that trip, he also visited the estate where his son lived.

“…Since you never once contacted me, I assumed I’d only hear news of your death.”

“Is that truly how you speak to your father after all this time, you pathetic fool?!”

He didn’t stay long.

His relationship with his son was terrible.

He decided to immediately leave the capital and return to the frontier.

But he never reunited with his extermination squad.

Instead, he died on Tenen River Bridge.

The moment he crossed the bridge, hundreds of bombs planted beneath it exploded simultaneously.

Since the timing of his visit matched the original story exactly, that incident would inevitably happen as well.

The problem was—

Even if I warned Grandpa, there’s no way he’d believe me!

Grandpa disliked not only his own son, but Ian and me as well.

Which was understandable, considering his estrangement from the duke had begun because of his free-spirited daughter-in-law.

In this situation, even if I suddenly told him, You’re about to die, there was no way he’d listen.

If anything, he’d probably think I hated him and was cursing him.

And even if everything somehow worked out and he survived, his relationship with the duke might completely collapse.

So I decided on another strategy.

“Grandpa!”

A strategy where I constantly followed him around and interfered with his work, delaying the timing of his departure from the estate.

The true target of the bombing incident wasn’t Grandpa at all.

It was a slave merchant.

Later, after the culprit was captured, he confessed that he had done it because he couldn’t bear the rage of having his child kidnapped by slave traders.

In other words, Grandpa was merely an innocent victim caught in a tragic accident.

Which means the explosives will still go off whether Grandpa crosses that bridge or not.

My plan was simply to keep Grandpa here until news of the incident arrived.

…The problem being that I had no idea exactly when that would happen.

Still, the strategy itself was simple.

“Grandpa! Wait a sec!”

“…What now?”

When I chased after him while shouting energetically, Grandpa stopped walking and turned around.

I hurried over and presented the thing I had hidden behind my back.

“I brought this ’cause I wanted to give it to Grandpa.”

It was the head chef’s special cookies!

I figured nobody disliked chocolate chip cookies, so I brought them but—

“…You expect an old man like me to eat something this overly sweet?”

It backfired.

“T-then I’ll bring something else!”

“And are you planning to run around and spill things again while fetching it? Forget it.”

Grandpa practically snatched the cookie from my hand.

Every time he bit into a chocolate chip chunk, wrinkles appeared and disappeared between his brows.

Still, he finished the entire cookie.

“…It wasn’t as bad as I expected.”

“Then should I bring another?”

Grandpa’s face twisted instantly.

“No!”

…So he really hated it that much.

Watching the old man stride away quickly, I scratched the back of my neck awkwardly.

I felt like this strategy required more research beforehand.

After that, I gathered information from various servants while continuing to follow Grandpa around.

“Mary said Grandpa made flower crowns and gave them to Grandma.”

“So?”

“Then does that mean Grandpa is a flower crown master?”

“…No. Well, not quite to that extent.”

“Grandpa is amazing!”

“Ahem.”

“That’s why Elisha wants to wear a flower crown made by Grandpa too!”

Whenever he came outside the mansion, I lured him toward the flower garden.

And when he stayed inside—

“I heard this is a book Grandpa wrote. Is it true?”

“Well, when I was younger, I did all sorts of things.”

“Grandpa is incredible!”

“It’s nothing special.”

“Mary said books are written by amazing people. So Grandpa must be amazing too!”

“…Is that so?”

“Yes! But I don’t know what this means. Does Grandpa know?”

I followed him around carrying books Mary handed me, trying to steal as much of his time as possible.

But eventually, the inevitable arrived.

“Why is this so late?”

The reports Grandpa submitted had finally been reviewed by the higher-ups.

“You turned in the report late, remember? Even so, the upper ranks processed it quickly. The official order has arrived, so please take it.”

The moment his objective was finally resolved.

“But are you truly leaving?”

“…Did you think I planned to keep staring at your face any longer? I’m done here.”

I followed Grandpa downstairs, then hid behind one of the pillars beside the railing.

I didn’t trust myself to control my expression.

Thankfully, the father and son failed to notice me and entered the study together.

What do I do now?

I clenched the hem of my clothes tightly enough to wrinkle them.

Then suddenly, my gaze dropped to Grandpa’s feet.

He was wearing dress shoes.

Come to think of it, when he first arrived at the estate, he was wearing military boots instead of those—

Ah!

I remembered.

A way to stop him.

I immediately started running.

Glenn entered the study behind his son.

His son offered him a chair, but Glenn refused.

He planned to take the necessary documents and leave immediately.

But then his son suddenly said something unnecessary.

“Won’t you stay a little longer?”

“Are you finally near death? Why are you saying things you never normally would?”

“Elisha seems to like you.”

Glenn snorted.

“Hmph. The child simply doesn’t know any better.”

If she ever learned how her mother died, she would obviously come to hate him.

Just like this son of his did.

“Just hand over the documents already.”

He stuffed the papers his son gave him carelessly into his coat and left the study.

All the people important to him were back in the frontier.

There was no one new here worth keeping.

He immediately headed to his room to prepare his gear—

Only to discover that it was missing.

“It’s gone!”

The study was directly below his room.

Apparently irritated by the shouting, his son came upstairs.

“What’s missing?”

“My military boots! The boots!”

“…Didn’t you perhaps misplace them?”

“Do I look like some senile old fool? I know I left them right here! Right here!”

“But aside from you, who would even touch those boots? Honestly, they’re not exactly the sort of item someone would want to steal.”

The boots were as old as the years themselves and carried a musty smell.

They had been designed to protect feet from the acidic blood of magical beasts, which meant ventilation was terrible.

Glenn disliked his son’s tone, but couldn’t find a rebuttal.

He merely let out a low “hmph” and shut his mouth tightly.

At that moment, a maid came running down the hallway.

I distinctly told them not to run indoors.

Glenn glared at her.

“What is it?”

The maid trembled violently in front of him.

But it wasn’t because she feared him.

“Young Lady! Young Lady has disappeared!”