The maid carefully scanned Yelena’s expression.
“I prepared these since I thought they would match well with the dress that your ladyship is wearing today. If they don’t suit your tastes, shall I exchange them for a different pair?”
“No, it’s fine.”
With a shake of her head, Yelena directly attached the earrings onto her ears.
The reflection of the earrings studded with pale green jewels sparkled brightly in the mirror.
***
“Ms. Angel.”
Anna was delighted to meet with Yelena again, for the third time.
Although there was a slight problem with what Anna was calling her, after some consideration, Yelena decided to just leave it be.
She thought it would be better to allow Anna to just call her whatever she liked.
Anna and Yelena began walking together.
“Is there something you would like to do, Anna?”
“Um… I want to eat some candied fruit.”
She was asked what she wanted to do, and instead replied with what she wanted to eat.
As always, Anna’s interests remained the same.
Yelena smiled softly, thinking that this was one of the things that made Anna so cute, and took her to the store.
“Thank you very much. Please come again.”
Moments later, Anna left the store after having selected two sticks of candied fruit.
It seemed like it was a bit difficult for her to hold them both in the same hand.
Yelena, who was holding Anna’s other hand, asked, “Do you plan on eating both of those?”
Anna shook her head.
“I’m giving one of them to Hans.”
Hans, who had recently recovered from a serious illness, had been forced to stay at home instead of accompanying them on this outing.
“It looks like you really get along well with Hans.”
“We’ve promised to get married when we grow up.”
“…”
“…:
“Although it’s a concern that Hans gets sick often and sometimes acts like an idiot, it’s fine. Because from now on I’ll grow up to be bigger than Hans and I can just protect him.”
Yelena recalled the happily married Hans and Anna she had seen in the future.
Anna had been a lot shorter than Hans, who would be quite tall once he was fully grown.
A warm smile hovered at the corner of Yelena’s lips.
“That’s a good plan. But Anna, if you ask Mr. Knight here, I’m sure he’ll be willing to hold onto Hans’ treat for now-”
It was at that moment.
A middle-aged woman came running towards them from a distance.
“E-emergency! It’s an emergency!”
Her cries were urgent.
After scanning her surroundings, the middle-aged woman spotted Colin standing beside Yelena, and immediately rushed up to him.
“A knight! You’re a knight, right? I beg you, please help us!”
“What… seems to be the problem?”
“Monsters have appeared.”
At the word ‘monsters’, the surroundings burst into noise.
“Monsters?”
“Just now, did she say ‘monsters’?”
“Oh my god-!”
Although it had mostly been resolved by now, there was no one who didn’t know that in the past the greatest threat facing the duchy was the monsters.
In an instant, an air of fear had covered the whole street.
“There’s more than one monster, so the guard isn’t enough to deal with them. Please, help us Sir Knight! Please save my family…”
“H-However…”
Colin, who was currently serving as Yelena’s escort, was flustered by this dilemma.
Yelena spoke, “Just go.”
“My lady!”
“I won’t move from this spot, so don’t worry about me and go get them.”
Yelena shooed him away.
At this explicit order, Colin could only reluctantly turn away and leave.
“…I’ll be back soon.”
As soon as Colin had been dragged away by the middle-aged woman, Yelena crouched down onto her heels and began comforting Anna.
“It’s okay, Anna. Everything will be just fine.”
“…okay.”
Anna had lost her father to monsters.
Although it wasn’t like the monsters had appeared right in front of her, the situation itself was enough to stimulate her trauma.
As her sympathetic hand began to stroke Anna’s small back, Yelena fell into thought.
‘For monsters to appear all of a sudden…and in the middle of town at that.’
She knew that even after the extensive operations to subjugate them, monsters still occasionally appeared in their territory.
Even on the night that Yelena had naively thought would be her first time sleeping with her husband, he had been called out of the castle because of monsters.
But since she hadn’t heard of there being any issues regarding human casualties, she had thought that even if they did appear, it would only be in the outskirts of the mountains.
And currently, they were on a busy central street filled with people.
‘Besides, the earlier situation was a little…’
Despite her suspicions, Anna couldn’t have avoided sending Colin away just now.
Everyone here had seen and heard the middle-aged woman clinging to Colin, while begging him to save her family.
If Yelena had refused to send Colin, it was obvious what kind of unpleasant rumours would spread among the people of the fief.
They would be lucky if it just ended with people criticizing the character of the Duke’s wife.
In the worst case scenario, distrust and disgust towards the Duke’s castle itself might spread among the people of the fief, leading to large numbers of serfs leaving their territory.
Of course, even if there wasn’t anyone around them, Yelena would have still sent Colin, but it was undeniable that the situation just now seemed a little too coincidental.
Having reached this conclusion, Yelena’s hand paused mid-motion.
“…”
She might just be leaping to conclusions.
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