TMIAP Chapter 24

The backyard of the Mollette estate received moderate sunlight, but there was plenty of shade for anyone who wanted to avoid it.

Enrique Solivén stood in the middle, between shade and sunlight.

Monica gazed at the man steadily.

Enrique Solivén didn't put his hat back on after removing it to greet Liella, but stood lost in thought for a while.

His golden hair—holding the silk hat gentlemen commonly wore—was slightly flattened, gleaming with moisture absorbed from La Spezia's hot weather.

At length he started as if only now realizing Monica was there and jammed the hat back on.

The careless manner particular to wealthy men, who didn't care about the shape of hair someone had combed and carefully arranged for them.

Monica was slightly startled. It reminded her of Luis Berfeil. Luis had also been quite relaxed, but his hands hadn't been so rough.

'Has he stopped acting now?'

Now that he'd been caught playing Luis Berfeil and Garcia, had he stopped being careful about his behavior?

But Monica understood instinctively.

Luis's manner—courteous-seeming but self-conscious and exaggerated—was completely different from Enrique's manner, which was like that of someone born an aristocrat. They looked similar but were entirely different.

Enrique Solivén took a few steps closer, paying no mind to Monica's thoughts. Now Monica found herself looking up at Enrique from directly beneath his chin. A face she knew well. But an entirely different expression.

"What are you staring at so intently?"

Not that he was trying to be particularly loud, but like men accustomed to everyone focusing on their voices as a matter of course, Enrique's voice held a deep resonance despite its low pitch.

Monica glanced around involuntarily. Enrique opened his mouth as if mocking her.

"I came to ask you something."

The moment he finished speaking, Monica turned her gaze back, and naturally met Enrique's blue eyes.

In that instant Monica realized how idiotic her speculation that this man might be a fraud had been.

There was power in the man's eyes. The kind of resolve possessed only by a precious man born into a very old family with deep history, who had never once knelt before another or bowed his head.

That resolve exerted tremendous force, multiplied several times over by the man's beautiful face.

Even upon Monica.

Truly, no man could wear the word "aristocrat" more perfectly than this.

"What on earth do you want to know?"

So Monica reflexively lifted her chin. She realized belatedly that the gesture was imitating Liella, but even so, she didn't want to lower her head again in front of the man. Somehow she didn't want this innately precious man to catch on that she'd been captivated by him, even briefly.

"I heard you worked at the hospital in Arvidd."

"Martinael explained that in my presence."

"How much do you know about the 'green drug'?"

It was an unexpected question. Monica flinched, then put force back into her eyes.

"If you want that drug, I can't make it."

Revulsion rose instinctively. The man stroked his chin. Sudden anxiety appeared on his face and vanished.

"Can't make it, or won't make it?"

"...Can't."

Monica answered, her mind working calmly. Then she immediately changed tack.

"Surely the son of a distinguished family isn't looking for it because he's a damned addict?"

She spoke with heavy sarcasm, though her fingertips trembled. She expected the man to become angry immediately, but unexpectedly, Enrique hesitated before Monica.

His resolute blue eyes became momentarily pitiful. Monica flinched. Those pitiful, mournful eyes were both too familiar and too strange.

"...What would you do if I said I was?"

"Good heavens!"

Monica groaned.

"My lord, that drug is terrible!"

When the decision was made to stop distributing the 'green drug,' the ones who protested most were the wounded soldiers. They writhed in agony, and sometimes protested by harming themselves.

But the more they did so, the more adamant the higher-ups became. The largest powder magazine on the front lines exploded, and on top of that, supply routes were cut off and defeat loomed darker. There was less and less attention to spare for distributing the 'green drug.'

Addicts secretly demanded that nurses compound the 'green drug' for them. All sorts of things changed hands as payment for one bottle of the drug, from a pack of cigarettes to a gold ring from a mother back home. Some nurses made good money early on.

"It's not a drug a noble gentleman should be seeking!"

The painkilling component aside, the hallucinations were strong. From soldiers who couldn't sleep to those mentally devastated, they couldn't find comfort without the 'green drug.'

They insisted their peace lay in a single bottle of medicine, but it wasn't accepted. Naturally so. What guarantee was there that patients under the influence of hallucinations wouldn't cause another disaster?

Yet at the same time, Monica felt somewhat sorry. She seemed to understand why the man before her—despite being born so arrogantly—showed a subtly embarrassing attitude in front of her.

"...If it's because of the fireworks, you could just avoid fireworks."

That was it. Monica had clearly seen this man sweating cold sweat on the night of that party.

The trembling hands, the rough gasping breath, the sweat pouring as if someone had doused him with water—none of it had been false. From a single firework that sounded like an exploding shell, the large man now standing before Monica had collapsed all too easily.

"Thanks for the advice."

The man clenched his teeth and continued.

"At any rate, if you can't make it, I understand. Let's leave it at that."

Monica knew that expression. It wasn't gritted teeth from anger or resentment. It was the expression of people who had harbored a vague hope, when they learned that hope was farther away than they'd thought.

The man roughly dragged his gloved hand down his face, then gestured for Monica to leave. It looked like shooing away a fly.

She left with a thoroughly uneasy feeling.

'At any rate, answering that I can't make it was right.'

Any nurse who had worked at the hospital in Arvidd at that time would have done the same. If they'd seen the bloodshot eyes of those damned addicts.

Naturally, the kingdom also strictly prohibited manufacturing the 'green drug.'

Even after the war had completely ended, when one nurse secretly compounded and sold it, a pastor and a member of a distinguished family died in a southern church—after which it was even proclaimed by law.

If Monica wanted to keep her small body in one piece, staying far away from any man interested in that drug was the right thing to do.

"Damn it..."

When the man muttered quietly, Monica was already seven steps away, walking with her back turned.

But why? The moment the man muttered that, what entered Monica's vision was the purple dress she was wearing.

The dress Luis had bought for her, saying it was both very pretty and practical.

The reason it was pretty yet practical was all the pockets it had. And inside those pockets...

Monica fingered what was in her pocket. The rough texture of fabric tickled her fingertips. It was the scrap of shirt Garcia had torn off to wrap her knee. The one Mekal had carelessly removed and tossed aside.

"...Is your condition very serious?"

In the end, Monica turned back after barely taking a few steps.

Enrique started and looked back at her. Monica forced her voice to steady.

"Sometimes... there are people whose wounds of the heart are too severe. I thought you might be one of them..."

Would this person be angry at such a weak-sounding phrase as 'wounds of the heart'?

Or perhaps she'd hear something like, 'What do you know, get lost,' or 'Why are you interfering when you can't even make it?'

Even at that moment Monica was debating whether turning back now was right or not.

But the man hesitated for a long time. Then, surprisingly, he nodded.

Monica's eyes widened. Enrique roughly rubbed both hands over his face in a dry wash.

Then he took a step toward Monica.

"I'll ask just one more thing. Is the reason you're asking back like that because you have some willingness to help at least those with these 'wounds of the heart'? For example, even if it means finding a fellow nurse who knows the formula?"

"...Well, that—"

"Even if you say no, once you hear what I have to say, you'll feel at least some inclination to help."

Monica frowned slightly without realizing it.

How could he be so certain? This man really was an insufferable aristocratic young lord. The small amount of sympathy she'd felt was about to vanish suddenly. But the man shook his head once and continued.

"I'm the son of the Solivén family. The second son, but now as good as the first."

Only after a moment did Monica grasp that the latter part meant the Solivén family's eldest son had died.

She tried to express condolences, but Enrique Solivén was faster.

"The Solivén family has been responsible for the kingdom's military, and I'm now a colonel. The rank my dead brother held. Which is to say, I can't escape my military status until I die either."

Ha! He was certain she'd feel sympathy over just this? Monica wanted to snort.

'Right, I suppose it would be laughable. A colonel who turns tail and trembles when he hears cannon fire, the son of a distinguished family!'

But hadn't the kingdom dragged commoners who trembled at even the word "war," never mind cannon fire, and forced them onto the battlefield?

'Considering everything you've enjoyed until now, it seems difficult to complain about being embarrassed in front of people!' Monica wanted to say that, but she held back hard and wondered how she should respond.

But again, Enrique was faster. The man said seriously:

"Do you know that the chain of command is the most important thing in the military?"

"I was a battlefield nurse!"

At her sharp reply—meaning she knew better than anyone—the man answered again without a trace of a smile.

"But what if the chain of command were four?"

What kind of nonsense is this? The man rephrased.

"What if it were four people pretending to be one?"

Monica thought: Is this man high on the 'green drug' right now, talking nonsense to me?