LADBITW Chapter 9

They ascended together to Killian's bedroom, which had been prepared for rest.

Lietta, who had no idea what Killian was thinking, answered his casual questions innocently with a chattering ease, entering his bedroom with the clear-conscienced air of one who had nothing to hide.

From the bedroom entrance that connected to the corridor to the windows, from the door leading to the bathroom to the door connecting to the office, and even over the bed itself—Lietta moved with meticulous care, her hands glowing faintly as she prayed with genuine devotion, consecrating each space to ward against illness and demons and to bestow blessings.

Her manner was clean and reverent.

Killian leaned against the wall with his arms crossed, watching in silence as the small, beautiful woman moved busily here and there through his bedroom, trailing a pleasant fragrance in her wake.

Last month, when that woman had sat expressionlessly on his bed in a sheer slip, his heart had remained unmoved.

But seeing the same person now, dressed in such modest, proper commoner's clothing, moving with such vitality through his room—it stirred something unexpectedly unsettling within him.

Just watching that earnest face improved his mood.

She prayed quietly with downcast eyes, and the soft white light surrounding her hands moved from her body to the walls, to the windows, to the bed.

Even her unfamiliarly plain attire added to the mysterious atmosphere.

She bustled about busily, yet remained serene and tranquil.

It was unusual how she'd entered his very bedroom yet showed not a trace of cloying attention or even a subtle glance his way.

Lietta had no such thoughts.

She was aware that he watched her intently, but thought nothing of it.

Just hours ago, she'd been observed working while surrounded by more than a dozen chattering women. She assumed this might seem curious to an ordinary person.

Lietta paid no mind to Killian's observation and worked with thorough dedication.

She poured in genuine effort that would have rivaled even a high-level consecration priest. The density of consecration that wrapped around the bedroom was nearly equivalent to a barrier.

Even to Killian, who was no expert, he could sense that the consecration was quite effective from the way clear, pure light seemed to settle and permeate wherever her hands passed.

At last, Lietta turned toward him.

"For about a month, most demons or illnesses should be unable to enter this bedroom. The effect will begin to fade after about a month, but if you permit it, I'll return to replenish the consecration."

Was she naturally arranging regular meetings?

"Mm."

He nodded, commending her efforts.

"You've done well."

Lietta smiled faintly and bowed her head. She stood quietly beside the bed headboard.

...Right beside the bed, no less.

Killian felt conflicted.

He'd been about to suggest sharing a glass of wine first.

But surely not immediately?

Lietta simply stood there, looking at him.

Without approaching, she somehow drew him toward her—a form of temptation.

It was the first time he'd experienced such allure from someone who didn't so much as lift a finger, yet still reached straight into his chest.

She'd performed the consecration without a single glance, as though such thoughts never crossed her mind.

Standing there in almost ascetic stillness, simply looking at him...

To him, it felt like an unfamiliarly compelling invitation.

Not a temptation that conveyed I want you, I need you—but rather one that seemed to ask, Don't you need me?

Hesitating with the blasphemous feeling of harboring impure thoughts toward a chaste priestess, Killian took a step and moved toward her.

As the distance closed and Lietta gradually had to look up at him, she blinked.

Killian gazed down at her quietly, then raised his hand toward her exposed white throat—

"Ah."

Seeing his hand, Lietta smoothly stepped aside.

Killian's hand stopped in midair.

Where Lietta had stood, the bell cord hanging beside the bed now appeared.

"...?"

While Killian paused in confusion, Lietta bowed politely at the waist.

"Then please rest comfortably."

"...What?"

Killian was momentarily flustered by Lietta's words.

Thinking the distance too close, Lietta believed she'd blocked his path. His lordship must be trying to pull the bell cord to summon the butler.

Lietta had no doubt whatsoever that he wanted to send her away with the butler so he could rest. She stepped back from beside the bed.

Then she offered her farewell.

With a face free of any suspicion, cleanly.

"I'll take my leave now."

The realization that he might have misunderstood came only after regrettable words had already tumbled from his mouth.

"It's late. Stay the night."

Lietta smiled softly, as though she'd expected as much.

"I will. Thank you."

Killian, who'd been regretting his impulsive words, was even more flustered by her calm, easy answer.

Lietta hadn't dreamed of such an implication.

Unfortunately for him, his words sounded to Lietta—who had established her policy for dealing with Killian—much like his earlier "stay for dinner."

Set aside polite refusal and immediately follow orders.

For Lietta, she'd simply responded the same way that had worked well throughout the evening.

With the unconscious baseline assumption that he had no need for a woman like her, combined with her experience from a month ago when she'd first come to this bedroom wearing only a slip and had been guided to another room without incident.

Missing the confusion on Killian's face, Lietta demurely lowered her head and looked up at him meekly, thinking His Grace the Grand Duke would pull the bell cord to summon the butler.

However, Killian remained frozen, showing no sign of pulling the bell cord. He didn't immediately summon the butler either.

A strange silence.

Lietta suddenly thought it rude of her to stand there waiting for the Grand Duke of Axias to do something for her.

She decided to act appropriately, like the perceptive subordinate she was. After all, she wasn't ignorant of where to go or whom to find. The butler would be waiting outside the room or somewhere nearby.

Lietta smiled slightly and bowed again.

"Thank you for your thoughtfulness today in many ways. Sleep well."

Fortunately, Killian didn't make himself more foolish than that.

The hand he'd awkwardly extended moved to his forehead.

He covered his eyes and pressed down firmly.

"...Yes. You too."

He managed to answer without too much awkwardness.

When Lietta silently opened the door and emerged, Ern, who'd been waiting in a chair at the far end of the corridor turning pages of a book, rose with some surprise.

The butler, who'd noticed Killian's peculiar gaze following Lietta, was startled when she walked out neatly dressed without incident, but soon skillfully hid such reactions.

Lietta bowed in greeting to Ern, then raised her clear face and stated matter-of-factly.

"His lordship said to stay the night."

Ern's eyes widened.

He immediately grasped the true meaning of the words Lietta hadn't understood.

And how she'd interpreted them.

How could a twenty-six-year-old adult woman be so oblivious—not a six-year-old girl!

The beautiful woman who'd clearly stirred his master's heart stood demurely with an innocent face, blinking her sky-blue eyes.

What kind of miscommunication had occurred was obvious.

Ahhh... The first woman in so long that he'd taken a liking to...

Ern agreed with Leonard's assessment internally, feeling utterly dismayed and melancholy.

Unaware of Ern's somehow gloomy atmosphere, Lietta was guided to the same guest bedroom as last time and lay down on the cozy bed with a satisfied feeling.

She'd endured mental labor all day, walking from the East Annex to Killian's bedroom, meticulously laying consecrations everywhere. The intensity was two or three times her usual workload, so as her tension released, drowsiness washed over her.

She'd lightened the burden on her heart, if only a little.

She'd eaten delicious food to her fill.

Though sleeping away from the home she'd grown accustomed to over the past month, her mind couldn't have been more at ease.

When she'd stayed here before, she'd lain awake in a daze all night.

'Is Axias livable?'

Yes, indeed.

Very much so.

Lietta silently elaborated on the sincerity she hadn't fully conveyed.

A place where she had a home that could house her daughter's memorial tablet and where she could light candles.

Her husband who'd departed last year had at least received a funeral, so Benjamin the cemetery keeper at the communal graveyard would look after his grave out of memory of him in life.

But her daughter, whom she couldn't even properly send off let alone give a funeral—she'd buried only in her heart.

Lighting candles before it each day.

Lietta was gradually putting down roots in this land, in the house that bore her name.

A good land where even unlocked doors didn't invite thieves.

Neighbors who naturally knocked on the doors of new residents and looked after strangers.

Lietta thought of the door to the Sevitas house that had remained closed with no visitors for so long.

After her husband died of plague, for such a long time...

And then as Casarius began threatening her, for another long while...

Not one of the once-kind neighbors had visited Lietta's house.

Lietta lay with her hand on her chest.

The place where her daughter's keepsake had rested before she gave it to Killian.

Instead of lighting a candle before the memorial tablet today, Lietta closed her eyes and offered a brief but heartfelt prayer.

The Axias she'd experienced over the past month had been warm.

Though prices were higher than Sevitas, it wasn't beyond expectations, and it was a place that fairly compensated labor. There were no beggars on the streets, and people were cheerful and kind.

Axias Castle was the same.

The warm, bustling atmosphere of the East Annex, and the energetic dinner with the knights.

And that smile like a lie that had momentarily appeared on his face.

'I love you, Your Grace the Grand Duke!'

That had been truly funny.

And.

Killian's casual gesture of pouring milk for the small cat that approached him without hesitation...

He was a good person.

Someone less frightening than she'd thought.

It was a good place.

His lordship must have made it so.

Lietta blinked quietly.

'It's late. Stay the night.'

It belatedly occurred to her that Killian's last words might have been open to misinterpretation, but Lietta soon concluded that couldn't be and laughed softly at her own ridiculous thought.

No matter that they were both "lords," it was too much of a misunderstanding to compare him to that person.

The bedding was growing warm.

Soon sweet sleep poured over her.

Long after Lietta had fallen into deep slumber, Killian tossed and turned, unable to sleep.

He finally gave up on sleeping, sat up, and opened a book.

It was Imperial War History, which he'd read dozens of times to the point of memorization, but it wouldn't enter his head.

Soon he abandoned that too, tossing it onto the drawer beside the bed.

Lietta in her modest, proper dress kept circling through his mind. Amusingly, he barely remembered Lietta in her slip.

She pressed the front of her chest every time she bowed.

A woman who'd been married, yet with such an innocent face.

Killian glanced at the bed headboard where her hands had passed.

That face with eyes quietly closed, hand against it, had been pretty.

The expression when she'd blankly hidden her sorrow while talking about her dead husband had been pitiable.

'Shall I lay consecration on Your Grace the Grand Duke's bedroom as well?'

...Wasn't she a cunning woman?

It wasn't his fault he'd been momentarily deceived.

'Ah, my lord!'

The flushed face with tongue slightly extended to bite came to mind, and Killian laughed softly.

Amusing.

Though he'd never experienced devastating love, he wasn't fool enough not to recognize that sensation.

He knew it was an emotion that became tiresome once it progressed.

He didn't want emotions that consumed reason to occupy his mind.

Killian rose from bed.

The method for dealing with such emotions had long been established.

Eventually moving to his office, he sat at his desk, picked up a quill, and began processing the stacked documents one by one.

It wasn't difficult work.

Killian skillfully began withering away the feelings trying to take root.

While Killian worked through the night, catching only brief sleep on the office sofa and oversleeping, Lietta conveyed her farewell through Ern and departed.

Hearing this fact at the office desk, Killian answered "I see" without even glancing at Ern.

He picked up a document he'd marked on the desk, seemingly having cleanly forgotten about Lietta already, his face expressionless. He asked Ern directly.

"When did this report arrive?"

"Which report?"

"The report from Habitus Cathedral recommending consecration for my territory."

The report informed him that Castiner territory, not far from Axias territory, had been devastated by plague within two months.

Therefore, it recommended that Axias territory also receive consecration to strengthen the city's defenses against plague spirits and demons.

"Less than a month ago."

"Really? Early May?"

"Late April."

When Killian had been traveling the empire with his knights, he'd stopped at Castiner territory as well. A large city adjacent to a cathedral, not far from Axias.

On the way back to Axias with Lietta, he'd intended to stop at Castiner territory, but hearing from a local merchant that plague had begun spreading recently and had expanded considerably, they'd avoided that place.

A report that arrived late April.

Meaning they'd completed and sent this report by mid-April at the latest.

Quite fast hands, weren't they?

Killian ordered.

"Summon Leonard."

"You called for me."

"Leonard."

Killian, who'd been leaning against the sofa, set down the report he'd been examining and looked at him.

"When did we stop at Castiner territory before the plague spread?"

"Early March."

"When did the plague begin spreading in Castiner?"

"Early April."

After a moment of silence, Killian laughed softly and held out the report he'd been reading to Leonard.

"This says early March."

Leonard took the report.

It contained descriptions of plague manifestation patterns by plague demons, the damage, plague spread routes, and such.

Leonard flipped through several pages of the report, then answered.

"Well. From what I remember, we stopped at Count Castiner's territory in early March, that's correct. There was no talk of plague then."

"My memory as well."

At least then, plague hadn't broken out in Castiner. They'd been staying there themselves, so it was certain.

However, the report described the process from plague outbreak in Castiner, casualties appearing, to that territory's devastation as events occurring between early March and April.

The terrible situation was ongoing. The plague spread route seemed to be drawing patterns approaching the northern region where Axias was located.

They compared the definite information they knew with the report's information.

Castiner wasn't the only suspicious thing.

Sevitas's plague was also briefly recorded in the report. The timing itself matched what they knew, but the spread pattern recorded in the report was exaggerated beyond reality.

Though plague had spread in Sevitas, it wasn't devastated to this degree. If it had been, they wouldn't have entered Sevitas in the first place.

The information wasn't greatly distorted, but it was subtly adjusted in a direction that rationalized the conclusion.

"Well, dates and spread extent might have some errors or exaggeration."

Killian smiled coldly, looking at the report in Leonard's hands.

"But doesn't this report seem like it predicted plague would spread in Castiner?"

The report from the cathedral expressed serious concern that plague was spreading rapidly.

Expressing worry that plague demons might invade even the large city of Axias territory, recommending consecration from a credible institution, and offering that the cathedral would gladly cooperate if Axias wished.

Killian commanded.

"Plant someone in the cathedral."

He suspected the cathedral.

Leonard, who rarely objected to his lord's opinions, unconsciously denied it.

"Surely not."

He had a brother who was a priest.

"Leonard."

Killian's red eyes narrowed as he raised his body from where it had been sprawled on the sofa. Like a lazy predator awakening. A cold smile appeared on his sharp features.

"There's something I always tell you. To make proper judgments."

"...When something happens... think about who would profit most from it."

"When plague spreads, who reaps the greatest benefit?"

Leonard's expression hardened.