TRHK Chapter 3

The man spouting incomprehensible things did not seem favorably disposed toward me at all. Perhaps he was angry about the interruption to his rest.

I made a quick excuse, already planning my retreat.

"I—I'm sorry for disturbing you. Please deal with me some other time."

At that, the man's expression shifted in a peculiar way. I couldn't identify what I'd said wrong, but his continued unfavorable reactions were making me uneasy.

If this man happened to be the 'red-haired knight' from the original novel, I had managed to earn his dislike at the very first meeting. Approaching blindly, captivated by his appearance—that had been the fatal mistake.

For now, a tactical retreat.

"See you again later."

I bid my farewell and fled, skirts sweeping behind me.

Even in the midst of my escape, that flawless, beautiful face kept floating unbidden through my mind. I had truly never seen anyone who looked like that before. Though to be fair, I hadn't had the opportunity to meet many people in general.

The tangle of complicated thoughts slowly dissolved as I entered the manor.

"Ha ha, so what happened with—"

"That man now—"

Rounding a corner, I heard the voices of maids chattering as they cleaned the corridor. Eifel was easy enough to spot among them, laughing and talking right along with the rest.

When our eyes met, Eifel startled slightly—then smoothly turned her head and pretended she hadn't seen me at all.

"Where have you been wandering around again?"

Another maid who'd spotted me spoke in a provoking tone. She didn't seem to actually want an answer, so I ignored her and kept walking.

Fortunately, none of them seemed to have any intention of throwing brooms or mops today. The effort of returning them in kind over the past several days had apparently been worthwhile.

"I'm heading up to the noblewoman now."

Eifel's voice came from behind me. So it was her turn to attend the elderly madam today. The other maids commiserated as though she were walking to her doom.

"It's you today, Eifel? That's rough."

"Don't say things like that. The head maid will give you an earful if she hears."

As it happened, we were headed in the same direction, which made it look as though Eifel was trailing after me. A sigh drifted from behind.

'She really does hate it that much.'

My rest period was nearly over, and I'd been about to find the head maid—but I stopped mid-staircase and turned. Eifel startled with a sharp hh.

"Shall I go to the noblewoman instead?"

"...Why would you?"

"You seem to dislike it."

It was genuinely beyond my comprehension. Compared to my mother, the elderly noblewoman was not a difficult patient at all.

Eifel had been watching me with a guarded expression. When she seemed to register that I was sincere, her face shifted to something dazed.

"If you would... I'd be grateful, but."

"In exchange, tell the head maid I've gone to the noblewoman. My rest time is over."

"Ah—alright."

I took the water pail and towel from Eifel's hands and climbed the stairs.

Attending to the elderly noblewoman consumed the whole of the afternoon. When I returned to the room, Eifel was sitting on her bed and greeted me with an awkward air.

"You're back?"

Sharing a room with someone who wasn't my mother remained a profoundly strange experience every time. It was all the stranger because this was the first time Eifel had spoken first.

"Thank you for earlier."

I spent a moment trying to work out what she meant before realizing, belatedly, she was talking about the noblewoman. Curiosity got the better of me.

"Why do you dislike attending her?"

"Well..."

Eifel answered with a reluctant expression.

"The smell... And she never says anything at all..."

It was true I'd never once seen the noblewoman speak. And it was also true that when accidents happened, there was sometimes the smell of waste. So that was why. Even so—she seemed pleased after being cleaned up properly. She listened carefully to everything I said to her.

"Then should I ask if I can be put in charge of her care permanently?"

Somehow, the noblewoman's situation reminded me of my mother. Of course, the people here would never dare spread rumors that the noblewoman was cursed—not the way they had with her.

Eifel had been staring at me, seemingly surprised. When she realized I was sincere, her expression shifted to something faintly bewildered.

"Would you really be alright with that?"

"Yes. I'm happy to."

"...You seem a little different from before. Before, you were more... how to put it. Off-putting."

That stung a little. I hesitated, not knowing what to say—and then Eifel gave a small laugh. It was the first smile she'd ever shown me.

"Maybe I've been carrying too many prejudices."

I didn't know what prejudices, exactly—but in any case, I couldn't tell her the truth. That I wasn't the original Maylin, but a different Maylin entirely. She wouldn't believe me even if I said so.

Hmm. The air between us seemed to have softened considerably...

I settled onto my bed, hesitated a moment, and spoke.

"I have something I want to ask."

"What?"

"Do you happen to know anything about a red-haired knight?"

Eifel, who'd been settling in to sleep, turned to look at me at the unexpected question.

"A red-haired knight? Why?"

"Just—I want to get to know him better..."

Eifel regarded me for a moment with an unreadable expression. Then she told me everything she knew by way of rumor about the red-haired knight.

She didn't know his exact name, only that it ended in something-ron. Young, handsome, and skilled.

I thought of the two red-haired knights I'd seen.

Both had the builds of knights, and both were good-looking—but the man I'd seen beneath the shade of that oak tree had an appearance that was difficult to compare to anything else at all. Beauty of the sort you'd think should only be permitted within the pages of a novel. His personality, however, seemed rather less appealing.

"Do you know anything about his character?"

"Honestly, I didn't listen closely enough to say. I have a boyfriend, you know."

I couldn't fathom why she'd suddenly brought up having a boyfriend. I thought briefly about what a normal person's reaction to that would be, then clapped my hands together.

"Congratulations."

"...Are you mocking me right now?"

Apparently that wasn't the right response. Fortunately, Eifel snorted and let it go. Once she laughed once, she laughed readily after that.

"Anyway, my boyfriend is also a knight—should I ask him to arrange a meeting? Between you and that knight?"

My eyes went wide.

"You could do that?"

"It depends on whether the other party agrees, but the asking itself isn't difficult."

"Thank you!"

Eifel seemed to be a good person. I shouldn't trust her completely—I reminded myself of that even as something warm turned over in my chest. I'd been badly burned before, too.

We talked a little longer and then fell quietly to sleep.

"Hello."

"Hmm? Yes. Oh—good day, my Lady."

The knight who had helped me out of that difficult situation with the merchant was named Seyron. His ponytail was the same as before, and so was the faint flush on his cheeks—nearly as red as his hair.

"You said you had something to say to me..."

He'd been summoned abruptly to a storage room, and he was visibly ill at ease.

Eifel had said the red-haired knight in the rumors had a name ending in something-ron. This knight's name was 'Seyron'—so he was almost certainly the one she'd meant.

I felt relief looking at Seyron, who seemed considerably less dangerous than the other red-haired knight—while also noticing a faint, puzzling trace of something else. Disappointment, almost.

Was it because that other man's appearance had been a genuine shock to someone raised in a forest? Perhaps, on some level, I'd wanted one more look at that face. Not that another person's beauty was going to help me save the body of the original Maylin—my body now.

'Which is a completely irrelevant thought,' I informed myself, and moved on.

"Ah, please have this."

I held out the paper bag I'd been carrying. Inside was bread bought with the modest wages of a maidservant—fresh from the oven, its smell warm and enticing.

It had been Eifel's tip. If you want to get close to someone, start by looking after them and being kind—that was what she'd said. After which, for some reason, she'd immediately started talking about her boyfriend again.

"This is for me?"

Seyron's already-flushed cheeks deepened another shade.

"Yes. My name is Maylin."

I'd been waiting for my opening and rushed the introduction.

"Ah, I know. Lady Maylin is quite well known..."

"Am I?"

"Yes. You are so—so very beautiful..."

This red-haired knight spoke in such pretty ways. If this body hadn't shared a face with the one from my previous life, it would have meant nothing to me—but by some unfortunate coincidence, we were identical, and the words left me oddly embarrassed.

"And so I, I also at first—hh! hhh—"

Seyron was stumbling through his sentence when his breathing went abruptly ragged. I looked up in startled alarm to find him turned away from me, hh, hhh, laboring to steady his breath. Watching him carefully, it looked like a hyperventilation episode.

"Are you alright?"

"I—I'm f—hhh, it happens sometimes, hh, hh—"

I immediately took the bread out and held the empty paper bag out to Seyron.

"Hh—wh, what's this f—hhh—"

"Put your mouth against it and breathe."

Seyron didn't quite seem to understand what I was making him do, but he did as he was told and breathed into the bag. It deflated and swelled, deflated and swelled, and gradually his breathing steadied. Something like wonder spread across his face.

"How did you—"

"My mother had similar symptoms."

Long illness brings many other problems along with it. I smiled at the thought of everything I'd learned caring for her, and looked up—and Seyron made a sharp, strangled sound, inhaling with a hh!

"Hh, hhh, hhh—I, I, this is too much, I should really—hh—"

"..."

He really was quite badly afflicted. I watched in vague, hollow bewilderment as Seyron practically fled the storage room. Still clutching the baguette in one hand.

Getting close to Seyron proved genuinely difficult. Not even the kind of difficulty I'd anticipated.

I had expected my own stunted social skills to be the problem.

"I'm—I'm also glad to see you again, La—L—hic! hhh—"

What had initially seemed to be hyperventilation only when I smiled steadily worsened. Eventually, merely meeting him in passing was enough.

"La—Lady Maylin! Hhh—"

Gone before he'd finished the sentence.

"..."

How was I supposed to get close to someone like that? I'd been in the middle of planning yet another encounter near the training grounds—and today, too, I stood and stared in a somewhat dazed state at Seyron's retreating back as he fled.

"Maylin, was it?"

Eifel's boyfriend—the knight Hwirozen, the one who'd summoned Seyron for me—spoke up.

"That one's a lost cause. He simply can't handle your face."

What was wrong with my—

"You'd be better off meeting Kahron instead. His temper is foul, but he's not the type to go weak in the knees over a woman's looks. Ha-hah!"

He laughed as though he'd told a magnificent joke. I asked, puzzled.

"Kahron...?"

"Ah. There's the other red-haired fellow."

The other red-haired fellow. Unless there was yet another red-haired knight I didn't know about, he had to mean the knight who'd been lying beneath the oak tree.

Kahron... So his name also ended in '-ron,' then.

Hwirozen's laughter faded gradually when he saw my expression turn serious.

"Hey... You didn't take that literally, did you? Stay well away from Kahron. I wasn't joking about the temper."

Having already been in his vicinity once, I was not entirely ignorant of that.

"Give my regards to Eifel."

Hwirozen disappeared shortly after, and I was left alone.

...Kahron.