GDTEA Chapter 110

If You Want to Save Her

Countless doctors, renowned herbalists, and general stores claiming to sell rare medicines came and went through the Count’s estate without rest, but Count Chelonar’s complexion only grew more haggard.

“……How is it.”

“I’m sorry, Count. We cannot determine the cause at all.”

“Despite taking medicine for three days, there’s no improvement whatsoever.”

“All the diagnoses given by the doctors who’ve visited so far have been wrong.”

“We can’t even tell whether it’s congenital or caused by poisoning……”

No matter how many times he asked the same question, the answers that came back were all negative and desperate.

Count Chelonar, fallen into despair, sat alone in his office, clutching his head as he swallowed his agony.

Knock knock-.

“Count.”

“Has something else happened to Eryl?!”

When the head butler cautiously entered, Count Chelonar reflexively jumped up and shouted.

Seeing his master engulfed in fear, the head butler quickly waved his hands.

“No, Master. A letter has arrived, so I brought it.”

“……Ah. Leave it.”

The Count slumped down weakly.

“The thing is…… it’s a letter from the Imperial Palace.”

“……The Imperial Palace? From His Majesty?”

The Count received the letter with a lethargic hand.

At his haggard complexion, the head butler hesitated before forcing himself to speak calmly.

“And the child you mentioned—the knights just brought them.”

“Child……?”

“Yes. The child who suddenly appeared today at the free clinic set up in the District D commercial area.”

“……The child who only treats young children, you said?”

Count Chelonar looked up at the head butler, pausing in the middle of opening the letter.

The head butler nodded with a hopeful expression.

“Since the young lady has been continuously examined by strangers for several days and is frightened of adults, wouldn’t she open her heart to a child her own age?”

“……Right. First and foremost, it’s most important that Eryl doesn’t get scared.”

Count Chelonar smiled faintly as he thought of his daughter, who wouldn’t hurt even if placed in his eye.

However, as soon as the Count checked the letter’s contents, his face hardened stiffly.

[Request attendance at meeting regarding Grand Duke Gwendhill’s death declaration]

“……”

The letter crumpled miserably in Count Chelonar’s hand.

The Count gritted his teeth in rising fury. His only young daughter, every night, would leave the estate in an unsound state and walk the unfamiliar streets barefoot alone.

And yet they were telling him to leave such a daughter’s side and come to the capital. Moreover, it was a forced summons for the detestable power struggle.

“M-Master……”

Bang-!

Count Chelonar, filled with rage, struck the desk with his fist.

“To the Imperial Palace at a time when something might happen to Eryl!”

The five-year-old treasure of the House of Chelonar, Eryl Chelonar.

One day, suddenly, a strange illness befell Eryl. Every night, Eryl would disappear from the estate.

It was too wide a range of activity to be called sleepwalking. If they guarded the door, she’d go through the window; if they sealed the windows, she’d use secret passages hidden in the room; when even those were blocked, she even set fire to her room.

“How can they tell me to leave when every night the child searches for me……!”

Stricken with an illness that was not just peculiar but eerie, Eryl escaped her room every time to search for him, her father. Even though she couldn’t recognize him when he was right in front of her, Eryl would wander around constantly searching for her father with hazy eyes.

“……Damn it, damn it!”

When it was already difficult enough to protect his daughter afflicted with mental illness, how could he leave her side to go to the Imperial Palace in the distant capital?

“Master. We will care for the young lady with even greater devotion. Please don’t worry and go.”

Before being the father of his only daughter, Count Chelonar was the leader of the Neweiton Empire’s neutral faction.

That position was by no means light.

Especially at this point when the Emperor and the noble faction were in conflict over the death of Grand Duke Gwendhill, who had been the Emperor’s faithful sword and shield, the burden on the neutral faction was considerable.

“If Master’s seat is vacant, rumors about the young lady will surely only grow.”

“……”

He was right.

But how could he leave his daughter, who was losing her vitality day by day, alone in this estate?

Count Chelonar sobbed. Never had the position of leader, which would become the center of new power, felt so burdensome as in this moment.

“……Master. Since the letter has arrived, you must depart this evening.”

It was a summons to attend a meeting sent from the Imperial Palace.

It must mean the agenda of this meeting was important enough to hurry.

“……”

Count Chelonar couldn’t answer immediately.

The affection of raising a young daughter alone was great enough to cloud his decisiveness.

As the head butler fidgeted anxiously at his master’s suffering appearance.

“Excuse me, Master.”

Along with a knock, the head maid entered with a troubled expression.

“What is it?”

“A letter just arrived secretly.”

“A letter?”

The head butler received it from the head maid first and examined the letter.

It was a red envelope without any family seal or distinguishing marks. The peculiar thing was that it bore the sweet scent of candy that children would eat.

“Master, this seems……”

The head butler’s instincts, honed by age, warned of danger.

The head butler hurriedly set it down before the Count.

Count Chelonar also frowned and opened the letter envelope. Then empty candy wrappers tumbled out from inside the envelope.

They were all candies that had been placed throughout Count Chelonar’s estate for Eryl.

“……Ha.”

[If you want to save your daughter, come to the Imperial Palace.]

As soon as he saw the seal stamped after the brief sentence saying they would wait, flames blazed in the Count’s eyes.

The one and only scorpion emblem in the Empire.

“Bridend……!”

Darhan Bridend, who had visited suddenly and brought cake as a gift for his daughter.

The moment suspicion turned to certainty, Count Chelonar immediately left his office.

“Uung…… Papa?”

Kneeling before his lovely daughter, the Count smiled tenderly.

Whatever price he must pay, he would protect this daughter. Swallowing that vow, the Count lightly kissed his pale daughter’s forehead.

“I’ll be back.”

Leaving behind the child who dozed off drowsily, always lacking sleep, Count Chelonar signaled to the head butler with his eyes.

“If anything happens to Eryl, if she shows even the slightest improvement, contact me immediately.”

“Yes, Master.”

Just as the sun had set, Count Chelonar left the Count’s estate quickly with his guard knights.

Watching his master depart, the head butler let out a deep sigh. Until Count Chelonar returned, Eryl’s safety was solely his responsibility, so his shoulders felt heavy.

For starters, from tonight onward, how to weather the crisis would be the first challenge.

“Head Butler.”

“Hmm? What is it, Sir Heitz?”

Heitz, the vice-captain of Count Chelonar’s knights, approached with an awkward expression.

“That, the kid you mentioned?”

“Ah, yes. Did you get them cleaned up? Then right away to the young lady……”

At the head butler’s words, Heitz squeezed his eyes shut.

“Actually, the kid disappeared in the brief moment I looked away.”

“What?”

It was when they brought the grimy orange-haired kid brought by the guards to the bathroom to wash them.

[I can wash myself. I do well on my own.]

The problem was looking away for a moment because the kid was so sharp-witted.

Who would have expected them to run away when they had left all their belongings and clothes and entered the bathroom?

“Haah…… Then for now, Sir Heitz, please search outside the estate. I’ll search inside.”

Though they brought them as a doctor, they were still just a child.

Thinking it was just more work, the head butler entered the estate.

Meanwhile, Tein, the very person causing trouble for many, was skillfully hiding and moving around inside the palace-like estate.

[When running away, run as light as possible. It would be nice if you could take your belongings, but when that’s not feasible, you must know how to abandon them decisively.]

It was a teaching from his proud and respected grandmother.

Tein, having firmly tied up the adult-sized gown that dragged on the ground, desperately searched for an escape route.

“I must hurry. Teacher is worried.”

Ren was slow-witted, so he couldn’t keep entrusting Teacher to him.

Protecting Teacher was Tein’s duty. He had to keep the promise he made with Virena.

“But this place is too big. There are too many doors.”

Tein puffed out his cheeks full of dissatisfaction.

To a child experiencing a noble estate for the first time, everything seemed like a maze. Instead of the exit he wanted, he’d thoroughly toured all sorts of rooms.

Moreover, the huge estate was somehow lonely and frightening.

“……I must hide!”

At the sound of footsteps in the distance, Tein immediately opened the door right in front of him and entered.

Click. Having gently closed the door, Tein blinked at the room’s scenery.

It was a colorful and charming room.

“Uung……”

And on the room’s bed, a girl was sleep-talking while hugging a large doll.

Reflexively holding his breath, Tein tiptoed toward the girl.

The very young girl, with a face like a baby angel, was sleeping with her face scrunched up as if in distress.

“D-Daddy…… Daddy…… Eryl, Eryl is here. You can’t leave Eryl behind…… Daddy, Eryl hurts so much……”

At the words that she hurt, Tein placed his hand on the girl’s forehead.

“She has a mild fever.”

As she groaned as if having a nightmare, Tein recalled the bag he’d left behind, when voices could be heard right outside the door.

Tein startled and urgently hid under the bed.

Being a noble estate, fortunately there was no dust as they even cleaned under the bed.

“……”

The moment Tein covered his mouth with both hands, the door opened and maids entered.

“Now, from now on we’ll guard Lady Eryl here all night.”

“Yes!”

As the maids made a solemn resolution, Tein’s eyes wavered.

Seven years of life, the greatest crisis.

Moreover, not much time remained before the child’s stomach clock would ring.

****

At the time Tein was hiding under Count Chelonar’s daughter’s bed, Sharti had arrived near the Count’s estate wearing a robe with Ren.

“It’s certainly because nobles live here—there are many watchful eyes.”

Ren pressed his hood down deeper.

He felt strange somehow. The gloomy atmosphere surrounding the Count’s estate kept seeming to touch something within him.

“Looks like doctors really did flock here as rumored.”

Sharti hid his pale face inside his hood while calmly watching the guests lined up to enter the Count’s estate.

“Seeing long lines form every dawn, they must all be quacks.”

Ren spat out sharply, trying to shake off his sunken mood for no reason.

In contrast, Sharti calmly organized his thoughts.

‘The guards who took Tein said so. That it was Count Chelonar’s order.’

There was no way Count Chelonar would directly order them to bring an outsider, and a young child at that.

Though his heart still pounded and his hands trembled intermittently, Sharti tried to maintain composure.

‘Tein is a smart child.’

After all, wasn’t he Vireta’s grandson? Moreover, if he’d been caught and dragged away by guards, there would have been quite a commotion and his bag would have been missing too.

The patients at the free clinic also said that though the guards came looking, the atmosphere wasn’t particularly oppressive, reassuring him.

‘If Tein followed obediently, they must have brought up the patient.’

Through the facts that Count Chelonar’s daughter was five years old and that at the free clinic he only treated young patients, the situation roughly took shape.

Sharti exhaled deeply and steadied his mind.

“Are you going to enter directly?”

Ren, who could now understand just by looking at Sharti’s eyes, immediately asked for his opinion.

Sharti hesitated for a moment before nodding.

“I’m worried about Tein. Seeing that they haven’t sent him back even though night has fallen, there must be a problem.”

He never dreamed that because Tein was too smart, he was extending his own stay in the estate.

“Just in case, let’s at least get in line…… Hmm?”

In Sharti’s view as he watched the Count’s estate entrance, a familiar figure came into sight.

That jiggling belly and the load piled high on his back.

“Isn’t that the general store merchant who visited that time?”

Sharti and Ren looked at each other.

He was a temporary helper who could deliver in detail the ‘information’ they most lacked right now.