Does this mean he came to trust me?

Neris was slightly perplexed. It’s not that she would betray Cledwin. But isn’t this burdensome?

As if we became sworn friends just because I saved his life once.

No, is it even appropriate for someone of his status to have sworn friends in the first place?

Judging from how he nearly died this time, Cledwin must not yet be as flawless as the impression Neris had of him in the future.

Then wouldn’t a relationship with someone as wicked as her be rather poisonous to him?

At such a young age, if he develops wrong values about good and evil, who would take responsibility?

If Neris’s current thoughts were spoken aloud, Cledwin would have laughed in disbelief. Who’s calling whom young and preaching about values?

He didn’t know that Neris had returned from the future, nor that she was actually much older than him, so he truly would have reacted that way.

But his permission wasn’t needed for her to think freely.

Various thoughts complicated Neris’s mind. After a while, Cledwin finished his communication and came out, slightly raising his dark eyebrows at Neris’s sidelong glance.

“What?”

“You disrupted my concentration, senior.”

“Good.”

Cledwin sat down opposite Neris again. The length of library reading room tables varied by year of manufacture, and the Zacharia Library’s tables were quite short, being the same age as the building.

So there was only about as much distance between Cledwin and Neris as three books placed end to end.

“I was planning to give you this today.”

“What is it?”

Cledwin handed Neris a cream-colored envelope. It was an envelope that seemed to have appeared from nowhere. Neris received it and opened it.

Inside were documents several pages long. As Neris quickly read through them, her eyes widened in surprise for a moment.

She skimmed the documents to the end in the time it took to take three or four breaths, and now looked at Cledwin steadily with calm eyes.

“Why are you giving this to me?”

“A gift. Don’t you like it?”

There was no way she wouldn’t like it. It was an excuse to be away from Rohez, her hometown village where Baron Nine might bother her at any time throughout the summer vacation. Even with her mother.

“When did you talk to Parrisher?”

Beautiful Parrisher, not geographically far from Rohez, but beyond Baron Nine’s sphere of influence due to the lord’s political leanings.

The Baroness of Parrisher usually stayed in her father-in-law’s domain, Wikaster County, but spent summers in the scenic Parrisher.

The documents stated that this summer, Neris’s mother had been selected to work as the Baroness’s maid.

Though short-term employment, it included room and board for both mother and daughter during that period.

Neris knew something of the personalities of the Baron and Baroness of Parrisher. They were people with both strong pride and self-esteem.

Enough to believe these conditions at face value. And enough to guarantee her mother’s safety while by the Baroness’s side, at least.

Cledwin slightly raised the corners of his mouth.

“I didn’t talk to them. I just made some adjustments to the application Lady Trude submitted.”

“My mother submitted an application?”

Especially for positions attending to nobles, there was never public recruitment. Nobles preferred to receive recommendations for servants through connections. Like how Heather became Valentine’s maid.

But how could her mother, living in the rural village of Rohez with few friends, know about such a position opening up…

Around that time, Neris fully understood Cledwin’s words.

Right, he probably didn’t directly tell Parrisher to ‘give a job to so-and-so’.

He must have made the existence of such a job reach Neris’s mother’s ears as if by chance, created an environment conducive to submitting an application, and ensured that the names of more qualified and experienced applicants were all removed from the documents the Baroness of Parrisher actually received.

Cledwin might trust Neris, but Neris didn’t yet fully trust him. So, although somewhat worried, she had planned to just go down to Rohez this summer.

Trusting in Baron Nine’s pride. Hoping with a mixture of faith that he wouldn’t trample on the mother and daughter too severely, given his personality of not targeting Neris again after she had already been punished at school.

However, even if Baron Nine stayed put, Angarad wouldn’t. So Neris was prepared for some level of harassment.

If things got really bad, she would use the Elandria family name, though it was disgusting, so the situation wouldn’t deteriorate to the worst.

But Cledwin had fundamentally solved that problem.

“…Thank you.”

Until now, she hadn’t requested help regarding Baron Nine, so Cledwin must have known well that Neris didn’t fully trust him yet, despite having joined hands long ago.

A hand casually extended in a situation where he could have gotten angry or even become suspicious of her, leaving her with nothing to say. Neris thanked him in surprise.

Cledwin said, still with a slight smile:

“It’s a birthday present.”

Birthday?

‘Ah.’

Come to think of it, today was her birthday.

Because she hadn’t been properly celebrated for so long, her birthday had long since changed from an anticipated day to a cumbersome one for her.

The Elandria family didn’t even know Neris’s birthday properly, and when she was the Crown Princess, her birthday was merely an excuse for the royal family to receive bribes in the form of gifts for the Crown Princess from the nobles.

She had never received heartfelt congratulations, let alone gifts that seemed to have been chosen for her.

When her mother was alive, she was the only person who truly celebrated Neris’s birthday, but since her birthday fell during the semester, she couldn’t receive direct congratulations.

So Neris had lived almost 20 years without really being aware of her own birthday.

And yet he knows it.

She didn’t know how to react. Neris thought she must have forgotten how to even say thank you when being congratulated.

‘Thank you for celebrating.’

It was a simple three words, repeated countless times verbally in front of nobles, but why wouldn’t it come out of her mouth now?

As if something was stuck in her throat.

Neris reluctantly acknowledged, a moment later, that it was a kind of emotion.

Cledwin himself probably just said it casually. What’s the big deal about knowing her birthday when he must have thoroughly investigated Neris?

And whatever he handed over, if he was going to give it today, what’s wrong with calling it a birthday present? In fact, even if he had given it a week ago, he could have called it an early birthday present, couldn’t he?

But it had been so long since she had received something that made her happy on her birthday.

It had been so long since someone remembered her birthday without any political necessity.

The familiar smell of books filling the library gave Neris a little breathing room.

A chance to take off the mask of ‘strong and flawless Neris Trude’ that she always wore, and recall the appearance of ‘fragile and trusting in people’s sincerity Neris Trude’ that probably hadn’t been revealed since childhood.

That’s why. Ignoring, for just a very brief moment, the thirty-year-old Crown Princess Neris screaming that this shouldn’t be happening, that she would be used again.

Neris gave Cledwin a gentle smile. And she thanked him again, with a similar but slightly different meaning than before:

“Thank you.”

After all, what’s the big deal about smiling once?

It was by chance that clear sunlight touched Neris’s smiling face.

Books are sensitive to sunlight. So the amount of light entering the library was limited. However, to save candles and for ventilation, the building couldn’t be without windows.

The sunlight that entered through that small, distant window shone golden, illuminating Neris’s face.

Cledwin thought her smiling face was like a small flower.

How amazing is the vitality of wildflowers that bloom anywhere, breaking through wind and rain, even stone? Flowers that bloom dazzlingly white and heartbreakingly blue petals without anyone to care for them.

But who can say that flowers that grew so tenaciously ‘could do so because they were originally strong. It probably wasn’t difficult for flowers’?

In fact, the individuals that failed to bloom have all died. The individuals that bloomed had no choice.

Because they had to live somehow. Because they would die otherwise.

It is human’s self-centered aesthetics to find their mere act of survival beautiful, but isn’t the freedom to feel that beauty given to everyone?

Cledwin knew why he was here. Having saved the life of the only member of the Grand Duke’s family, she deserved compensation.

Since she didn’t ask for it first, he brought what she might need. It wasn’t a big deal to make some simple arrangements with the straightforward Parrisher Baron’s family.

Yes, it was just common compensation. Until he briefly recalled her eyes that looked like they might cry.

Her face, eyes widening in surprise while receiving a few insignificant documents, was quite cute. Since Neris usually hid her expressions quite well, Cledwin could tell that she liked the gift.

When it actually happened, he thought she might put up unnecessary guards again. So Cledwin added that it was a birthday present.

See, there’s a reason to give a gift, right? Since he had learned about her birthday during previous background checks anyway, it would be strange to pretend not to know…

Then that small face twisted slightly for some reason.

As if a stone or tree had realized it was alive for the first time in a very long time, and that fact was very unfamiliar, awkwardly.

Such an expression was far from Neris’s usual dignified and ladylike demeanor, but Cledwin thought this suited her better. The weak smile that appeared shortly after, too.

Unfortunately—why it was unfortunate, even the intelligent Cledwin didn’t know—’that’ expression soon disappeared. Neris spoke with her usual calm face.

“Thanks to you, I’ll be able to spend this summer well. If my mother makes a good impression on the Baroness, she’ll have a way to earn money every summer from now on. How should I contact you if anything comes up in the summer?”

“I’ll let you know how once you get there first.”

There will be a lot of time to think in the quiet Parrisher. Time to make plans, and time to execute the plans that have been made.

Neris nodded, finally looking forward to the upcoming summer vacation with peace of mind.