The Butterfly Swallows the Fog
The words from Liner had made Ganish’s shoulders drop completely.
Judith’s eyes narrowed into sharp slits the moment she heard them.
“Oppa, just wait until I take my friend down for pulling that stunt on her!”
“Stunt? It’s coming straight from the heart.”
Liner’s smooth tone made Tilia laugh softly as she met his gaze.
“How have you been keeping in Ontaroa?”
“Yeah, sure. Living it up.”
Grey raised his glass to the pre-dinner wine and gave his third son’s face a close look.
No amount of clever talk could fool everyone, but it never fooled his mother’s eyes.
At first it might have been just a joke, yet the moment Tilia answered his eyes, Liner’s words stopped being jokes.
He was clearly surprised at how much more beautiful the Tilia he had missed had become.
The strange tension that seeped from the way he idly turned the fork in his hand was impossible to miss.
“I’m glad you’ve been doing well. I was worried sick even while Judith was pretending not to be.”
Unlike him, Tilia’s voice stayed perfectly calm.
She asked Liner in an even tone.
“How was Ontaroa, Father?”
“It was good. Even though it’s right next door, the atmosphere with Aksis is completely different. I had fun.”
Grey finally let out a small sigh of relief the instant Liner’s usual teasing topic came up.
Who does that kid take after? The eldest follows the knight path like their father, the second is similar, but Liner chose the merchant road instead.
Trade business, he says.
Grey forced himself not to sigh too loudly at the table where guests were present.
Yet the reality was harder than he imagined.
Just the thought of his son who had run off to Ontaroa pretending to enter the knight academy, then suddenly enrolled in the business school there, was enough to make his head spin.
“It’s a country of art and freedom, Ontaroa. It was so open compared to Aksis that I was shocked at first, but once I got used to it, it became fun. Ah, come to think of it, there was an incident like that too.”
Without a clue how much her mother’s heart was breaking, Liner spilled out the amusing stories from Ontaroa.
A story of how he almost ended up chasing a married woman there because he failed to understand the nuance of the words.
Judith and Tilia, ears perked up and listening with innocent faces, made Grey’s irritation boil over.
“Liner, you laugh while telling the story of getting slapped on the cheek by a woman!”
“Can’t I tell it while crying, Mother?”
Grey looked at the shameless Liner with a face full of disbelief and unconsciously tightened his grip on the knife in his hand.
At that, Liner flinched and slid his body sideways with a quick motion.
“Mother, even if I die, I want to get my diploma first.”
“I wish you had gone to your grave illiterate instead.”
Judith and Tilia burst into laughter like any kids their age during their playful exchange.
Yet even while the children were joking, Grey’s heart burned.
As if Tilia had noticed the subtle shift in Grey’s expression, she quickly changed the subject.
“But Ontaroa’s language is so difficult, isn’t it? The grammar system is the same as Aksis, though.”
“Um, it’s easy at first, but the more you study, the harder it gets. I guess it’s hard to speak naturally.”
Grey looked at Tilia with gratitude for listening so seriously to his useless son’s story about the language.
Then he suddenly realized her eyes were actually shining.
A certain interest and curiosity that had been invisible before was clearly visible on her face.
Grey’s expression hardened as he alternated his gaze between his son explaining the methods of studying Ontaroan and the girl listening to him so attentively.
Impossible.
Even without that, a lump of worry settled deeper in her already uneasy heart.
It can’t happen that those two end up together. It just can’t.
Grey scanned Tilia’s face with a restless expression.
In truth, Tilia herself could be called the most perfect girl in the world.
There was simply no one as clever as her anywhere.
But…….
The real problem wasn’t Tilia herself, but her family.
The moment Grey remembered the abandoned mine that was the true reason he had summoned Tilia today, a sharp pain ran through his head.
Tilia was fine, but he had to avoid becoming related to that cheap Baron Ambrose by any means.
Just thinking about how he would be harassed by the entire count family and how the household would be ruined if they were linked through pretense made his breath catch.
“Tilia seems to be very interested in Ontaroa.”
At that moment, Liner’s voice slipped out as he casually looked at Tilia.
“Would you come visit me later? Since I’m planning to buy a separate house for the seniors, there will be quite a few empty rooms.”
That brat. Grey glared at his son who was blatantly flirting.
“Thank you.”
But just before Grey could kick Liner’s ankle under the table, an appropriate refusal came from Tilia’s mouth.
“After I graduate, I’ll visit with Judith.”
“Oh? Is that so?”
Grey lowered his foot with a smug smile while watching Liner accept Tilia’s refusal so smoothly.
Tilia maintained her calm and composed expression.
That proper attitude made Grey feel a faint sense of guilt mixed with relief in his chest.
***
The Wells family carriage was not as comfortable or quiet as Ambrose’s.
Tilia leaned against the clean backrest of the carriage Grey had lent her and gazed out the window.
The long daylight still hadn’t fully faded outside.
Yet deep storm clouds had gathered in the chest of the Tilia who was looking at him.
Tilia’s dark expression brought back the words she had heard at the Wells family estate just a moment ago.
“Tilia. I’ve been worried whether it’s right for me to tell you this story, but I decided you should know anyway……”
The story Grey had told her in the hallway under the pretense of giving her a dessert gift was shocking.
“The gold mine business that Baron Ambrose is so heated about right now is nothing but a scam. Ours is an abandoned mine with no profitability, so we can sell it cheap, but when I heard that the most people who promised the largest investment money among those fooled by the broker are connected to Baron Ambrose……”
“That broker guy has a history of taking the investment money and then shutting down the company without even closing the mine. Originally, it doesn’t make sense that a gold vein was found in a closed mine. I called you urgently to tell you to pull out your feet before it’s too late.”
Without talent, at least no greed, or no drive at all.
Tilia let out a sigh from the bottom of her stomach and gazed at the street where the sunset was setting.
***
Hah. Tilia took a deep breath and looked at the door of the office that was opening abruptly.
Father, Baron Ambrose had refused her request to meet, but when she mentioned wanting to talk about her business, he immediately ordered her to come up.
“Yes. Come in.”
The moment the door opened, Bradley spoke the main topic with an expectant face.
“You wanted to talk about your business? Did you hear something from the Wells family?”
Tilia tried not to show her disdain on her face as she slowly opened her mouth.
“Yes. Father asked if the Wells family was planning to invest in the gold mine business.”
“Tsk. So that rumor has already spread that far? People shouldn’t gather like this!”
Bradley clicked his tongue with an irritated face as if he was always in a good mood.
“It was information bought from a famous information guild at a high price. Anyway, everyone seems to have a nose for the smell of money.”
Bradley leaned back in his large chair as if burying his head in it and looked at Tilia.
“Watch. My father will make a big fortune this time. Everyone will think the mine is really worthless, huhu, without knowing there’s a gold vein flowing inside it!”
Tilia stared at her father’s cheap smile with a calm gaze.
“Hold on. Did the Count of Wells know that fact? No, that can’t be! Does the Count ask how much expected profit there is? If the Count realizes it’s a treasure trove and doesn’t sell the mine, it’ll be a disaster!”
“……No. He said it was judged as a worthless mine with no profitability, so he would sell it even at a low price.”
“Good, good. That’s right, that’s right. A fool who doesn’t know how to take risks can’t become a big rich man! It’s good. There’s no place for the Count to meddle!”
Tilia lowered her gaze while watching Bradley laugh alone and calculate the money that would fall to her.
Should she just leave pretending she knew nothing and go?
She felt a deep avoidance desire, but she couldn’t.
Her family would collapse only after she safely entered the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
At the very least, the family had to remain a non-existent weight on her feet until after she graduated and went abroad.
Tilia swallowed her irritation and impatience and kept speaking with difficulty.
“Father, is that information about the hidden gold vein in that place really confirmed?”
“It’s true! Don’t you know how much money I spent to obtain this information?”
“Just because you paid a high price for it doesn’t prove the information is true, does it?”
Bradley’s mouth was still smiling, but his eyes were growing cold.