INRWH 08

Chapter 08

“Here, take this.”

After finishing swordsmanship training, Winter had lunch with Meidillion. Then she held out the pale lavender envelope she had been carrying the entire time.

“Take this to Allison, the finance manager at Jenima Trading Company, 421 Globine Street.”

“Yes, understood.”

Meidillion nodded earnestly. Looking at his smooth, innocent face, Winter emphasized,

“You have to hand it directly to that person.”

At those words, Meidillion looked up. Confusion filled his round eyes.

“I-Is it something important?”

Winter smiled brightly.

“Of course. It’s a love letter.”

The moment he heard the words love letter, Meidillion’s expression stiffened ever so slightly.

His little head spun with complicated thoughts.

A love letter? Who’s sending it to whom? And why make me deliver something like that?

“Understood.”

With a heavy nod, Meidillion left the duke’s estate, leaving behind the humming Winter.

The letter in his hand felt unusually heavy.

421 Globine Street. To Allison.

He kept repeating Winter’s instructions in his mind so he wouldn’t forget when, all of a sudden, a puddle caught his eye.

Come to think of it, it rained recently.

Several carriages had passed through, leaving the puddle muddy and cloudy. Like someone under a spell, Meidillion looked back and forth between the letter in his hand and the puddle.

An irresistible temptation crept into his mind.

“…Should I just drop it in?”

If he pretended not to notice for just a moment, the ink inside would bleed into the water, making the contents impossible to read.

If he said it was an accident and apologized, wouldn’t Milady forgive him? After all, a big, heavy letter like this falling into a puddle was just one of those unavoidable things.

“…No. I can’t. What if Milady ends up hating me?”

Startled by his own thoughts, Meidillion hurriedly shook his head.

Letting out a long sigh, he hugged the letter tightly against his chest, afraid it might fall.

“Good thoughts… good thoughts… good thoughts…”

Muttering quietly as though praying, Meidillion quickened his pace.

Globine Street was quite a distance from the duke’s estate, even along the main road through the Imperial Capital Plaza.

Still just a little boy, Meidillion walked without stopping until he finally arrived at No. 421.

He stared at the three-story trading company building before marching confidently inside.

Stopping the first person he saw, he asked,

“Excuse me, who’s the finance manager Allison?”

“Uh… well…”

The furry-looking man carrying three large boxes stacked together glanced around. Behind him, a woman flipping through some documents raised her hand.

“I’m Allison, but who are—”

Curious about which child could possibly be looking for her, Allison stopped mid-sentence and stared in stunned silence.

Her intelligent gray eyes, usually so calm, widened in shock. The glasses perched on her nose slowly slipped downward.

Nor was Allison the only one.

To the point where even visiting customers thought something strange was happening, every single person inside the trading company turned to stare at Meidillion.

“T-That’s impossible…”

Horrified by what she was seeing, Allison murmured to herself.

The little boy standing there holding a letter looked astonishingly similar to the late Emperor.

“W-What? What is it? What’s going on?”

The furry man couldn’t see little Meidillion because of the boxes in his arms and kept asking in confusion.

But no one present was in any state of mind to answer him.

Passing by the man spinning in circles with his boxes, Meidillion walked over to Allison, who was still standing there with her hand raised in complete shock.

He couldn’t believe that the person Milady was sending a love letter to was this woman.

She looked far too old and didn’t seem remarkable in the slightest!

“Letter delivery.”

Holding the envelope out rather bluntly, Meidillion spoke.

Acting on instinct, Allison accepted it. Only then did she finally close her hanging mouth before quickly reaching out.

“W-Wait a second, little one!”

She caught Meidillion just as he was about to leave and forced herself to speak calmly.

“W-What’s your name? How old are you? Where do you live?”

But with each question, Meidillion’s expression darkened.

He remembered every single word of Winter’s serious warning from before.

“Our pretty Mei. If a stranger comes up to you asking your name, pretending to be friendly, or offering you candy, what should you do?”

He had been too busy thinking about how pretty Milady looked as she stroked his hair and whispered to him, but even in his absentminded state, Meidillion had remembered every word she said without missing a single syllable.

Without hesitation, he slapped Allison’s hand away with a sharp smack.

Then, wearing a cold expression, Meidillion declared,

“Get lost.”

Having repeated exactly what Winter had taught him, Meidillion left the trading company with a proud look on his face.

Seeing that expression head-on, Allison gasped and covered her mouth.

“D-Did you see that? Did you all see that?”

Everyone who had witnessed it nodded in unison.

“We did. Of course we did. There’s no way anyone could have missed it.”

As their eyes met, they all silently screamed the same thought inside.

He looks exactly like His Late Majesty!

That was because Jenima Trading Company had secretly been founded by the former members of the late Emperor’s covert royal guard.

For years, they had been searching for the missing prince, Meidillion.

“What? What’s going on? Tell me too!”

Having finally set down the boxes, the furry man hurried over.

But by then, no one else was in any condition to explain.

“Hurry! Open the letter first!”

At someone’s shout, Allison looked down at the envelope in her hands.

With a tense expression, she broke the seal.

Several people crowded around to read its contents.

As they carefully read the letter with trembling hands, every single one of them froze with grim expressions, as though by prior agreement.

That night, the moon rose outside the window.

Golden eyes, the same color as the moon, reflected in the glass.

Holding a cup of milk, Winter chuckled softly.

“Miss. That’s enough pretending to be the Duke. You should go to sleep. If you stay up too late, you won’t grow any taller.”

After making the bed, Nayla spoke calmly.

Turning around, Winter clicked her tongue with a pout.

“Tch. Fine. Good night, Nayla.”

She obediently climbed into bed after finishing the glass of milk in one long gulp.

Nayla narrowed her eyes suspiciously.

It was unusual for Winter to listen the first time.

Still, she had no proof of anything.

“…Yes. Good night to you too, Miss.”

Tilting her head in confusion for a moment, Nayla eventually left the room.

As expected, the moment the door closed, Winter opened her eyes.

She slowly sat up in bed and quietly looked out the window she had been watching the entire time.

Then the signal she had been waiting for finally came.

Flash.

Flash.

Flash.

Three flickers of light appeared beyond the outer wall.

Winter grinned.

Early the next morning, Winter dragged Meidillion all over the duke’s estate.

Thanks to the medicine Isel had given her, Winter had recently regained some of her energy. She had even started exercising again after putting it off for so long.

“Huff… huff…”

“Milady, should we take a break? You don’t look well at all.”

Of course, after taking such a long break from training, her stamina had become even worse.

Watching Winter’s lips turn pale after running only a short distance, Meidillion frowned with concern.

Leaning on her knees and gasping for breath, Winter looked at his gloomy face and asked,

“Y-You… why are you… perfectly fine…?”

“I’ve been training hard all this time.”

“From now on… train… even harder…”

As expected of the future mastermind of this world, Meidillion’s stamina had grown by leaps and bounds. Running this little wasn’t even enough to tire him.

Feeling both jealous and proud, Winter patted the boy on the shoulder.

Of course, her hand trembled pitifully the entire time.

“Phew… Sitting down feels like I’m finally alive.”

“Are you feeling better now?”

“Yeah. I seriously thought I was going to die back there.”

After chugging the water they had left beside the training grounds, Winter plopped down on the ground.

Meidillion sat beside her, looking troubled.

“Please don’t say things like that.”

The word die was clearly frightening to a child.

Finding him adorable, Winter laughed softly and thoroughly ruffled his hair.

“Don’t worry so much. I’m not going to die from running.”

There was still some time left before her death.

Taking a deep breath, Winter glanced toward the back of the training grounds before suddenly jumping to her feet again.

Her body, which had practically no stamina, screamed in protest, but she still had plenty to do today.

She hadn’t been running around all morning for no reason.

“Mei.”

“Yes?”

“How about we explore somewhere new today?”

Without even looking where Winter was pointing, Meidillion nodded.

To begin with, he had never once objected to anything Winter wanted to do.

The two little children walked side by side around to the back of the building.

It happened to be the time when food supplies were being delivered.

Watching mountains of goods coming through the duke’s rear gate, Meidillion stared in amazement with his mouth hanging open.

Lately, Duke Vladimir had been gathering every rare delicacy imaginable for the sake of Winter’s fragile health.

Because of that, goods purchased from numerous trading companies arrived at the estate several times a day.

“Wow! What’s this? It looks so strange!”

Walking up to one of the carts while workers busily carried heavy sacks, Winter exclaimed.

A servant who noticed the duke’s young lady quickly answered,

“Ah, that is… the fruit of the Mona Flower.”

“Hmmm, I’ve never seen anything like it before. Where did it come from?”

“It was acquired through Jenima Trading Company.”

At those words, the two children’s expressions changed in completely opposite ways.

Meidillion immediately frowned deeply, while Winter beamed as though she had been waiting for exactly that answer.