In This Life, I Will Raise You Well, Your Majesty! - Chapter 48

“Ugh.”

Patrick groaned at the hand that was shaking him strongly and lifted his heavy eyelids.

“Mm?”

A maid was looking down at him.

Startled, he looked around.

He even found a group of maids watching him.

“W-What are you doing?!”

As Patrick raised his torso, a maid with a bitter face squeezed out an answer.

“When I came here to do my morning routine, my lord was lying on the ground, so I woke you up…”

Patrick’s eyes fluttered from side to side.

He seemed to remember why he was here.

And then.

“Hiiyyy!”

Patrick stood up and shouted.

“I-I saw a ghost! I saw it clearly, a female ghost with her hair loose was here! Right here…!”

Pointing to the towering lion on the side where he had fallen, Patrick seemed half-insane.

Nobody believed him, the people present even showed a little bit of contempt.

He grinded his teeth.

Then he approached one of the women standing far away from him, not the maid in front of him, and grabbed her arm and dragged her away.

“Right, let’s talk about it. You were the one who was with me until the end yesterday, right?”

“W-When did I do that?”

“You disappeared in the middle, but since I was found around here, you may have passed by here. Did you not see something? Anything?”

“I don’t know!”

“Oho! Think carefully!”

As it was such an eerie thing that he couldn’t understand, the desire to seek other people’s consent became urgent.

From the standpoint of the woman who was being questioned, resentment was inevitably added to her shame.

It is said that he was normally timid and couldn’t speak loudly, but those were just excuses. He often targeted and harassed many knights and servants.

Those people usually acted like they understood him, but in reality they looked down on him and talked behind his back or made fun of him depending on how they felt.

“L-Look! Didn’t that ghost stand here like this? Just like this!”

Feeling that the eyes of those who looked at him were getting thinner and thinner, Patrick approached the lion statue and tried to imitate what he had seen, urging the maid once more.

The amethyst, which would normally sparkle and illuminate the central hall, is also less lit and casts a gloomy shadow today.

Because he had been drunk, there was an increasingly unpleasant smell every time Patrick moved.

“Why are you being like this? Please let me go!”

The woman slapped his hand that was holding her harder.

Patrick, who was short and was in bad shape, stumbled straight ahead and stretched his arms out to grab anything.

Tak!

Fortunately, something hard caught his hand.

Patrick leaned on it to get his body back up and started yelling at the girl who dared to throw him away.

Chaenggrang!

Suddenly there was the sound of something breaking.

“Hiiiiyyyyy!”

The terrified cry did not come from Patrick.

Patrick saw the pale faces of the two maids in front of him, the maid who woke him up and the maid whom he had pulled, and then turned his gaze down to the direction they were looking at.

“H-Hooh…?”

Patrick pursed his lips and let out a strange moan.

Then he raised his head and looked between the gaping jaws of the lion statue on which he was leaning.

To be exact at the large amethyst sphere that the dignified lion should hold between its jaws.

It’s gone.

Patrick’s gaze dropped down.

Right.

He didn’t see it wrong.

The sphere that should be held in between, the sphere that had never fallen out of those hard jaws…

Had fallen to the floor and shattered.

The maids sneaked away, distancing themselves from him and backing away.

In any case, it was clear that Patrick had touched it when he had just reached out his hand to keep himself from falling.

“No, I didn’t do it!”

Patrick said in denial first.

He tried to catch the two maids closest to him, but as if they had already known he would do that, they had already escaped out of reach.

“It wasn’t meee!”

Patrick cried and screamed.

No one gave him an answer.

***

Shortly after falling asleep, Elisha opened her eyes.

She vomited blood the day before and collapsed, and after being ill all night, she barely slept at dawn…

She couldn’t help thinking that the air in the castle was all turbulent.

“2nd Empress, shall I prepare water for washing?”

Dorian, who was waiting, quickly approached.

Elisha nodded. Dorian finished the preparations quickly, but not in a rush.

Leon moved slightly without waking up, and Elisha got out of bed and washed and changed clothes.

Then she went to bed and looked closely at Leon.

Vera took the clothes that Elisha was comfortable with and said that she would keep them tidy and organized. Therefore, Elisha was left with only some dresses.

She surrendered herself to Dorian’s hand and went outside when she had finished dressing.

The meeting hall of the castle, which is used to receive noble guests who come from outside and is unfamiliar with the Duke, was empty at the moment.

Instead, a little further apart, Perry and Miller of the 1st Knights stood vigilantly.

When they found Elisha, they bowed their heads.

Elisha, who nodded in return, did not think their appearance was strange, and stepped forward naturally.

As if she already knew where she was going.

In fact, Elisha did not know where to go.

And that’s when the commotion begins.

After passing through the hallway, Elisha, standing on the spiral staircase, moved slowly down.

As she moved, the murmur from beneath her became clear.

“I didn’t do it! I was just, just…!”

“Stop! That’s enough!”

“Father, I-!”

“My lord, it would be best for you to remain quiet for now.”

When Count Guillaume stopped him instead of taking his side, Patrick looked at him with a grudge.

But Guillaume didn’t even blink.

It didn’t matter what Patrick’s judgement was like right now, or whether he really made a mistake or not.

The sphere, which symbolizes the Duke’s work, was broken.

It has already happened.

And, in fact, by itself, it did not do much damage to the Duke. However…

“Isn’t this really ominous?”

“That’s right. The successive dukes loved that lion statue, and as long as the light of the amethyst does not go out, the Duchy’s prosperity will continue indefinitely.”

“Just like yesterday, I guess…”

…The problem is after that.

The dark fortune created by an invisible image, rather than a clearly visible calculation, increased in size with every word people added.

Guillaume frowned at this.

The accident happened early in the morning and the only witnesses were the maids of the castle!

At that time, it should have been right to inform the Duke or Guillaume himself and ask for a follow-up.

Not whining around and waiting for someone as stupid as Patrick to accept the claim that it is not his fault!

In the meantime, the Western aristocrats who had left their territory for a long time planned to return last night, but the situation suddenly changed.

It was around that time that the report came to Guillaume.

The maids, who quietly stepped down after seeing the nobles take their positions, announced this matter here and there.

And by the time Guillaume hurriedly came out, the situation had already grown to this point.

There was no way that the report that had come to him did not go to the Duke, so he was not embarrassed by the sight of the Duke arriving one step ahead of him with trembling shoulders.

However, no matter how strong the bond, Patrick’s behavior of trying to keep his Father Duke from speaking harshly to give him face and finally tolerate and forgive him by holding other Western nobles, who are allies he has formed according to his interests, is terrifying!

It is unfortunate as a subordinate that the person who inherited the Duke’s lineage is immature even at this age and lacks the ability to read the flow…

There is no way they can give up and accept it easily.

The most Guillaume could do at the moment was to avoid the imminent crisis, rolled his hair thin, and read the situation like a wary rat.

For the first time, Guillaume had to feel humiliated under the Duke’s name.

He even thought that at this point, the Duke was shaken not because the sphere was broken, but because the vulgar person before him, who couldn’t even think of the Duke’s blood, was born.

All of this was already destined to happen someday.

That is, now, in front of all the Western nobles, the worst of the worst scene unfolded.

Shrak! Shrak!

One could hear the hem of the dress rubbing against the floor.

Everyone gathered in the central hall tilted their heads back and looked up.

The silver doll that had been seen at first glance through the elegantly curved stairs slowly revealed itself.

“2nd Empress.”

The sound of someone murmuring inflated like a bubble, then popped and disappeared.

As a signal, complete silence fell on the central hall.

It is true that the 2nd Empress was a precious guest from Barossa, but there was no reason for the Western nobles to withdraw.

Yet, as they should have been, the Western nobles watched the 2nd Empress and awaited her next move.

The 2nd Empress looked down at them.

She didn’t even nod out of formality to greet them.

Without leaning against the handrail of the stair railing, with her back straight in the center.

Slowly, just as she looked down at the swings.

She went down the stairs one by one.

Shrak! Shrak!

The hem of the dress swept down the floor, repeating the sound that had already irritated people’s ears.

“Ah…”

A small sigh flowed from among the Western nobles.

They realized why that trivial sound that they must have heard somewhere was so unfamiliar.

Ordinary ladies hold the skirt so that it doesn’t drag when they move, and they usually move more carefully in front of those who are unfamiliar.

But the 2nd Empress did none of this, as if the sound of the dress sweeping the floor was the sound of her footsteps.

Naturally, the arms hanging down to the side of the waist and what should be held in the empty hands are not the skirt but something else.

The Western nobles, who looked up at the 2nd Empress, took their breaths involuntarily.

Guillaume was one of them.

They waited for the 2nd Empress to descend completely on the wide floor of the concourse.

This is because the height of the gaze on the same floor is lowered, and when they stand facing each other, the tension should be broken and everything will return to its original state.

However, only when they stand on the same line with the 2nd Empress do they confirm their judgment is wrong.

The gaze from above was unpleasant, but the sky-blue eyes met from the front only made them uneasy.

The end of the thought that Guillaume was following was wide in front of him.