It took ten years to regain one of the lost things. If it took another ten years to regain the other. Nerea could not find the courage to walk again.

Nerea bit her lip at the reality that hit her suddenly. A complex expression tinged with self-mockery flashed across her face and disappeared.

“I didn’t know the young lady liked goose confit. You usually just ate everything well.”

“She’s not someone with clear standards for what’s delicious or not.”

“Oh my. Aren’t you two eating?”

Nerea raised her eyes. Unlike Heather, who avoided her gaze awkwardly, Alejandro spoke kindly.

“Just watching you eat makes me feel full.”

“I’m fine. Just watching you eat makes me feel full.”

Nerea frowned. Whenever food was scarce on the battlefield, Alejandro would say the same thing. And every time, she would hold out bread and say the same thing she had said.

“That can’t be. You need to eat something to feel full.”

Alejandro raised his glass. Though he only curled the corners of his mouth in a slight smile, his elegant and noble bearing stood out.

“This is enough for breakfast. Instead.”

“…”

“I’ll eat a lot starting from lunch. I’ll probably be very hungry after restoring all this.”

According to her plan, Alejandro would leave this house after restoring everything.

But contrary to her firm resolve, the words wouldn’t come out. Breaking that silence, Heather spoke with an excited face.

“Then Alejandro. Can I watch a little when you prepare lunch?”

“Heather.”

“But young lady. It’s the first time in five years of serving you that I’ve seen you eat so deliciously and so much.”

“Me?”

“Yes. You, young lady.”

The emphasis on addressing her was particularly strong. Nerea looked at her plate, embarrassed.

Goose confit, potato and cheese soup, and soft white bread. She had an unusually good appetite today.

In the past, she especially liked Alejandro’s cooking, but to think it would be like this even now.

Nerea inwardly clicked her tongue and took another bite of the sliced confit. Alejandro smiled with satisfaction as he watched the ends of her narrowed eyes relax. Then he muttered as if to himself.

“There is a secret.”

“What is it?”

The knight’s eyes widening round were seen before Heather’s question. Alejandro held back a laugh that was leaking out.

He was pleased to see the aqua-colored eyes tensing and watching him intently every time he moved his lips as if about to speak.

But the joke ends here. Alejandro spoke casually.

“With good ingredients, you get good food. That’s all.”

“Oh come on. That’s like saying good medicine comes from good herbs.”

“I suppose it can’t be helped? But knight, there’s something I’m curious about.”

Knight. Though the corners of her eyes sharpened as if displeased with the title, Alejandro smiled brightly, pretending not to notice. Transparent emotions flashed quickly across her expression as Nerea answered briefly.

“…What is it.”

“Why did you call me like that when you woke up earlier?”

Ah. Nerea chuckled.

“I had a dream about the day I first met you.”

“In Orlando, no, Kirkley territory?”

Places that were horrific battlefields until ten years ago were all merged and then divided into two pieces, each named Valere and Orlando territory.

It was something that happened when the land, fragmented into very small units due to land-grabbing during the war, was recovered by Castarty, but the knight who had led that recovery didn’t know which area Orlando territory referred to.

Although it was something he knew, Alejandro felt momentarily nauseous.

“Much earlier than that.”

If it was their first meeting, it must have been on the battlefield in Kirkley territory. Alejandro frowned.

Nerea spoke softly.

“When I first greeted you.”

“Ah…”

Alejandro laughed, his Adam’s apple bobbing. He recalled words he had heard since he was very young.

“I heard from my mother. I hardly moved at all, but on the days you touched me, I moved especially a lot.”

“Wow. So you and Alejandro have known each other for a very long time?”

Heather exclaimed in admiration.

“Yes. I heard she was there almost until right before I was born. If she had been there, she would have adored me very much.”

“No. That probably couldn’t have happened.”

The words that fell were suddenly sharp. Having shattered the sweet memory, Nerea looked down at her bowl. She could see the crumbs of bread she had diligently cut and eaten.

“If I hadn’t returned to the baron’s house, you might not have been born.”

Beside her, Heather swallowed an embarrassed breath. With the sound of eyes rolling, Heather suddenly clapped her hands.

“Oh no. I forgot I was supposed to go collect herbs that can only be picked in the morning. I’ll be back shortly!”

Her voice was awkward beyond compare, but neither Nerea nor Alejandro said anything.

The sound of the door opening and closing was heard.

She felt his gaze. Unable to look at his face, Nerea fixed her eyes on her plate. She spoke as nonchalantly as she could.

“The kind baron and baroness wouldn’t have said. That because I insisted on staying longer at the baron’s house, the midwife didn’t come.”

The baron and his wife were soft-hearted. Even when Nerea was four years old and insisted on staying longer at the baron’s house, they had smiled and accepted it.

“The midwife. It would have worked out somehow. Surely the busy acting count wouldn’t have blocked just the midwife’s path?”

It was one night as her due date approached. Half-asleep, she had heard the baron and baroness murmuring in conversation.

She thought it was a dream, but when the baroness’s joking words became reality, she realized they were real.

The baroness screaming in pain, the baron shouting if the midwife hadn’t arrived yet. Even Johan Jenax, who acted all grown up but was bawling.

All that pain ended when Nerea got into the carriage from the count’s family that had come to take her. The woman who got out of the carriage, as if taking her place, was the midwife.

“And because I chose to go to the baron’s house in the first place, you had no choice but to come as a servant without any preparation. The fact that you followed me on the battlefield for two years from the young age of eleven was all because of that. So…”

Nerea paused for a moment. She couldn’t decide whether to say that all the misfortunes of your family were because of me, or to just bluntly tell him to leave.

What was clear was that Alejandro didn’t know this fact, and that he would soon be disappointed in her because of what she said.

Because she was becoming a bad person different from what he thought, after knowing everything, perhaps Alejandro would say he was leaving first.

Her breath was stifled by the heavy atmosphere.

Even the faintest sound of breathing seemed to sound as loud as thunder.

“…Ten years ago.”

It was contrary to expectations. Alejandro’s voice was so calm that Nerea raised her head in puzzlement and paused for a moment.

“Ten years ago, when you had to attend the victory banquet at the imperial palace, I was worried. Because you’re so clueless, I was afraid you’d be hurt by the nobles’ sharp words. But now I don’t have to worry at all no matter which banquet you attend.”

As if that was all, Alejandro looked at her with a cynical smile. His pitch-black eyes flashed as if overwhelming the atmosphere.

“Because now you’ve mastered the art of cutting people with words too, knight.”

Neither Nerea nor Alejandro could avoid each other’s eyes. Under the tightly drawn atmosphere, just as the terrible silence was growing in volume.

“Young lady, would you like to take a bath…?”

It was a thousand times fortunate that Heather, who had come in thinking Alejandro had left his seat by now, brought up the topic of bathing.

If she hadn’t, Nerea might have lost to the endlessly probing gaze.

.

.

.

“I’ve drawn the water. But young lady, can’t we really leave the bathroom as it is?”

As soon as she entered the bathroom, Nerea smiled a little, fully understanding Heather’s request.

Except for the thick herbal scent mixed with the warm air, this newly decorated bathroom was no different from a noble young lady’s bathroom in the capital.

The marble bathtub Heather had so longed for, silk curtains covering the windows, a cedar screen, and even various decorations with beads attached.

And… if Alejandro had prepared this bathroom, there would surely be something behind the screen.

As she reached out and felt around, she soon touched fabric that could be wrapped around her body. Just as Alejandro always used to attend to her.

Now no one attends to her bath anymore. Nerea smiled palely as she entered the tub. Her body relaxed languidly in the warm water.

Suddenly she recalled the bathroom Alejandro had made in the tent towards the end of the war. He had cleverly obtained a wooden tub and even perfumed oils, making it quite proper.

Alejandro, who had carried hot water many times, was happy asking if her body had relaxed, but what she actually liked most was…

“What are you doing now?”

Nerea, who had been smiling at the reverie, came to her senses at Heather’s vivid voice that broke her thoughts.

“…I’m trying to open the door?”

“No, that’s what I mean! Why are you trying to enter the bathroom, Alejandro?”

As soon as she heard those words, Nerea dove underwater. Her red hair floated slowly. The hot water choked her breath and made her ears stuffy.

But it wasn’t enough to ignore the low voice that penetrated the water.

“To attend to her bath.”

It must be because of the hot water temperature. The resolve to send Alejandro away was wavering.

It wasn’t because of the bathroom, nor because he said he would attend to her like in the past.

Somehow, even the burning in her eyes was all because the water was hot.

Meanwhile, the atmosphere outside the door was quite different from inside the bathroom.

“Why are you trying to do that, Alejandro!”

Heather exclaimed in shock as she blocked the bathroom door.

What in the world is going on? She thought he was a good person for cooking and transforming the house in an instant, but to dare try to enter while the young lady is bathing!

Heather snorted angrily.

But the person who was the young lady’s servant didn’t seem to feel anything strange about this situation, just tilting his head once before smiling deeply.

“Then should I do it? Were you going to do it?”

It was strange.

Though his voice was gentle and his smiling face couldn’t be more handsome, it sent chills down her spine.

Was it because he was tall, or because of his eerily handsome face? Heather lost her earlier momentum and mumbled.

“The young lady bathes alone.”

“That can’t be.”

At the immediate denial, Heather raised her eyes again.