Just then, Gelda came in and scolded him.

Plam grumbled as he quickly moved his body away.

“What do you mean whispering? I was just asking how the night was.”

“Uncle was badmouthing the captain!”

However, Gelda frowned at Lily’s tattling, shouting without hesitation.

“What? You did it last time too, still haven’t fixed that bad habit?”

“Oh, Captain, you wouldn’t believe this mischievous little one’s words… oof.”

Plam’s dark brown head bent forward under Gelda’s deft touch.

Lily, sitting on Plam’s thigh, giggled while stamping her feet. The dishes hit by her feet and Plam’s large movements clashed with the table, making a loud noise.

It was a noisy and chaotic scene. But strangely, it wasn’t unpleasant to watch. Helena continued her meal slowly amidst it all.

She could even taste the food well. In the past, no matter how precious a meal she was served, it always tasted bland like chewing water.

Her sense of taste, which had been gradually returning since Futoa, was now fully back.

Finding it fascinating, Helena stuffed tomatoes into her mouth bit by bit.

Ian watched her intently. Then, before Helena could bring a new piece to her mouth, he stabbed a tomato with his fork and held it out to her.

As if he were an affectionate lover feeding her food.

“…What are you doing?”

“You seemed to like it.”

“I have hands too.”

“So do I, that’s why I’m just showing you.”

Ian lightly shook the fork as if telling her to open her mouth.

Helena stopped eating at the unexpected exchange. Ian then withdrew the tomato and instead handed her a glass of water.

Helena’s face reflected in the water glass was perplexed. She was a bit suspicious of him looking at her so calmly, but she drank the water.

And a few seconds after putting down the water glass, she understood his intention.

‘So this is what he was aiming for from the start…’

A sense of fullness she hadn’t been aware of suddenly rushed over her. She might have gotten indigestion if she had eaten any more.

He seemed to have already figured out her meal portions. He noticed she was overeating before she did herself. As he always had.

Helena slowly looked over the man before her with her gaze. From his finely spun silver hair to his lavender eyes.

“I’ll wait in front of your room every breakfast time.”

Ian smiled as their eyes met. It was a soft smile like the morning air holding the sun.

Helena felt like she was suffocating from the muted tenderness.

But the breath rising from within, tickling her throat, was warm.

So she thought again.

This is not an unpleasant choking sensation. Rather, rather…

Helena took a long breath. As if the answer lay in her heart, as if she could exhale that warm tickle mixed with her breath.

Ian watched her silently and reached out his hand.

Then he wiped the oil from Helena’s red lips with his finger. Helena unconsciously held her breath.

The moment his firm skin passed over each wrinkle of her lower lip, as if caressing it.

“Whew, is it still mealtime?”

Sakin appeared suddenly, wiping sweat from his forehead. Helena felt grateful to him for some reason.

It was difficult to scrape together and define sensations or emotions that weren’t even clear.

She buried the things Ian had left with her for a moment, grateful for Sakin’s intrusion.

“Sit here, Sakin.”

“Ah, thank you.”

Helena pulled out the chair that Plam and Lily had left empty earlier. Sakin promptly sat down on it.

His blue hair tied up brushed against Helena’s hand holding the chair back. It was cool, as if it had held the outside air for a long time.

“Looks like you had a lot to do since morning.”

“No, it’s just that the dining hall is too far away.”

Sakin licked his lips as he brushed back his bangs stuck to his forehead. Having shown his face just as mealtime was about to end, he looked quite hungry.

As soon as he finished greeting the chef saying he would eat well, he took a big bite of a sandwich, filling his mouth.

Helena placed the new glass of milk Ian had handed her in front of Sakin and asked.

“But Sakin… Wasn’t your lodging building in Zone 3?”

Sakin, who had just swallowed with one gulp, emptying his puffed cheeks, opened his eyes wide.

“Oh, you have a good memory. Zone 3-C, that’s right.”

Then he focused on eating again. Helena heard a small sigh from Ian beside her.

She pushed the large salad plate and soup bowl in front of Sakin as well.

“…Eat a lot.”

You’ll get hungry soon if you wander around again.

As far as she knew, it was only a 3-minute walk from Sakin’s room to the dining hall.

The next few days were a repetition of similar routines.

Once Helena woke up, she started her morning with Ian’s greeting, as he had proclaimed.

The clear morning air, the sycamore tree-lined path to the dining hall, the man walking beside her matching her pace.

These were things that were gradually seeping into her daily life. The lingering warm sensation and Ian’s traces from before.

‘I shouldn’t take it for granted.’

She kept reminding herself, but it wasn’t as easy as she thought. He had fixed too many things for her. Even her seat in the dining hall was like that.

Helena sat between Ian and Lily, but unlike the first day, Lily sat on her left and Ian on her right. Now Helena’s arm didn’t bump into Lily’s.

‘But you make it feel natural.’

Helena felt like she was melting from the silent consideration pouring out. It wasn’t even poison, yet she kept melting. It was such a strange feeling that she almost wanted to freeze instead.

After breakfast passed like that, she would go around various parts of the guild. Meeting new people and learning small tasks. At the end of the day, she would finish by having dinner again with Ian, Sakin, and Lily.

However, unlike in Futoa, now there was time when she was apart from Ian. Because of this, Helena had to worry about what to do when she was alone.

⌜What? What to do in leisure time, you ask? Well, you should do whatever you want to do. Did you think I was such a terrible boss that I would regulate even that?⌟

⌜That’s such a stupid question! Who in the world worries about such things? I have so many things I want to do, like eating ganache cake until I burst all day, riding on a rhinoceros’s back, wearing the prettiest dress in the world and dancing at a ball!⌟

The expressions of Gelda and Lily, who had acted as if they had received all sorts of strange questions before, flashed through her mind.

‘What I want to do…’

Helena sat at the desk in her room, resting her head on her arm, and stared blankly out the window.

The coniferous trees jutting sharply through the forest mist looked just like the spires of Evergale itself.

‘What did I want to do there…?’

She must have done something. Her days were always so busy that twenty-four hours were never enough.

She was constantly occupied with work or social activities, and she faithfully attended the social gatherings hosted by her mother-in-law and the nobles of Evergale to satisfy them.

When Eugene was too busy to inspect the territory, she would sometimes secretly go around and check herself.

‘Because I didn’t want to let any harm come to him in any form.’

She tried to handle as much as she could by herself.

When her thoughts reached this point, Helena suddenly realized.

Even the things she thought she had done because she wanted to, because she desired to, were ultimately all for the sake of others.

Even swordsmanship, which she had taken some interest in, was something she started because Sir Argyle recommended it, not because she took up the sword on her own initiative.

So she needed to find it now.

‘If I stay like this, I feel like I’ll keep thinking of you… of the past whenever I have free time.’

Helena raised her upper body from her arm and took out paper and writing tools from the desk drawer.

The inkwell that had been provided was almost dried up, so she barely managed to slide the pen tip onto the top of the blank paper by gathering the ink.

Living in a log cabin next to Basil’s grave would be too lonely now. She was a person who disliked being alone more than dying. Now that she knew that, there was no need to deliberately choose solitude.

Just as she put a dot next to the number, the ink ran out completely. She tried scratching the pen tip on the paper, but only scratch marks remained.

Helena stared blankly at it for a while, then put the paper back in, blaming the ink for no reason. Her mind was as blank as the white paper.

Something will come to mind next time.

It was earlier than usual when she opened her eyes.

The sky was still bluish, but Helena got up diligently to prepare for the start of the day.

She put on a white tunic dress dried in clear weather, and over it, she wore a blue twill one-piece dress in an apron style.

Before putting it on, she buried her face in the fabric and smelled the scent of bright sunlight. She liked it.

The woman standing in front of the mirror still had an expression close to expressionless, but she felt good inside.

Next, Helena rubbed the ends of her red hair and tied it with a blue string the same color as her clothes. Not because she wanted to look neat, but simply because it was convenient for activities.

‘…There’s no one to look good for anymore anyway.’

The nape of her neck without hair felt empty after such a long time. The feeling of air directly touching her skin was unfamiliar.

But if she recalled that she always used to braid or tie it up in the past, perhaps feeling this way now was even more strange.

After finishing her grooming, Helena was about to leave the room immediately but stopped in front of the side table. The holly brooch caught her eye.

After a brief contemplation, Helena put on the brooch and went outside.

The sky had already brightened a bit more. The clouds soaked in the morning glow looked like a watercolor painting with too much water spread.

‘Was the sky this beautiful even when I was only looking at the ground?’

Helena walked while absentmindedly staring at the clouds. Then she stumbled and almost lost her balance.

“Careful.”

At that moment, someone caught her body as it tilted forward.

Helena instinctively grasped the arm wrapped around her waist like a support. She could feel the temporarily raised veins under her palm, taut from the effort of supporting her.

It was someone she could recognize just by their shadow now.