Chapter 189: Secret Track – Pantile Rising
A lone girl was offering prayers at a grave since early morning.
In the early morning graveyard, due to the rain that fell before sunrise, the plants were wet, and the gravestones were also damp and darkened.
The skirt hem of the girl praying at the gravestone was soaked, but she showed no sign of minding it at all.
“Young Lady.”
The girl turned around at the reserved voice calling her.
She gave a wry smile at the speaker’s expression, which seemed to say, “I apologize for interrupting.”
It wasn’t as if she had been praying for anything particularly important. Besides, it was closer to giving a status report than praying.
While giving the report, she had indeed prayed for her friend’s future, but well, that man was the type to calmly and composedly walk only paths that left people dumbfounded.
Most hardships were likely his own fault, so she thought he should just suffer to his heart’s content. He’d probably crush them underfoot anyway.
“This. It is a letter received en route by someone from a trading company that travels back and forth with the Orclaugh Kingdom.”
A letter? The girl tilted her head inwardly, not letting it show on her face.
Due to her work and position, she received a large volume of letters daily, but for her closest subordinate to hand her a letter here, in the middle of her prayers, was strange.
It wasn’t that she was offended by the interruption of her prayers; she was simply puzzled.
After all, the subordinate herself wore an apologetic expression.
Well, fine.
As the girl accepted the letter, she was about to ask her female subordinate who it was from, but she was struck speechless.
Noticing the change in the girl’s expression, the female subordinate gave a wry smile. Her face seemed to say, “I knew this would happen.”
In response, the girl complained inwardly, Of course I’d make this face!, while somehow managing to move her frozen jaw.
“That idiot…”
She couldn’t properly form the rest of her words.
She tried to open her mouth to continue speaking, but the corners of her lips twitched and wouldn’t move.
“Young Lady, since you’ve received a letter from your missing friend, why not just smile honestly?”
“Hey now, don’t underestimate your master, okay? I found out where he was long ago.”
The subordinate tilted her head.
If you knew, then why are you here? Her face seemed to ask.
The girl, about to answer honestly, managed to swallow her words at the last moment.
She had almost blurted out that she thought he’d disappeared without a word because that was all the value she held for him.
“Ah, well, it’s that thing.”
She averted her eyes from the curious gaze directed at her hesitating master.
“When he comes back after getting dumped in less than a month, it wouldn’t hurt to have at least one friend here to welcome him, right?”
“I see. With him, that certainly could happen.”
He is, after all, the natural enemy of sensitivity. The girl felt pity for her friend, who was understood this way by her subordinate.
“But well, the fact that he sent a letter probably means that wasn’t necessary.”
Though it might be a letter full of complaints once I open it.
The girl twirled the letter in her hand and said to her subordinate.
“Well then, let’s head home at once and read it.”
Aren’t you going to read it here and now? To her subordinate’s unspoken question, the girl replied.
“I don’t have a hobby of stumbling over after reading letters, you know. Thank you for bringing it, but I’ll read it while sitting in a chair.”
Urging on her subordinate, who nodded with a wry smile, the girl started walking.
After taking a few steps, she suddenly looked back.
“So, that’s how it is. Forgive me, but it’ll be a while before I visit again. My Smile-dono.”
Saying that, the girl walked away.
From the gravestone, she thought she heard laughter befitting the epitaph, “My Smile.”