GDTEA Chapter 114

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The moment dawn broke, news of Count Chelonar’s absence spread throughout the estate, leaving the atmosphere of the count’s mansion considerably tense.

Due to the reinforced security, knights had been stationed at every corner, and the servants refrained from moving about freely. The identity verification procedures for outside visitors to the count’s mansion had become far more stringent.

Anyone even slightly suspicious was being immediately thrown out.

Thanks to that, the general merchant was trembling enough for Ren’s share as well.

“You said the owner of this estate is a count?”

“Yes, indeed — none other than Count Chelonar himself, the very leader of the Neutral Faction.”

“A noble of count rank is leading an entire faction?”

While waiting for their turn, Ren stood with arms folded, carefully observing the knights visible beyond the count’s mansion garden.

He needed to confirm the knights’ patrol routes in advance, since he might run into them while fleeing with Tein.

“According to rumors going around, His Majesty the Emperor reportedly offered him a marquis title, but the Count declined.”

The general merchant unraveled another tale.

It seemed like he needed to at least move his mouth to ease the suffocating tension.

“He has no desire for power?”

“It’s less that, and more that he abandoned his ambitions after losing the Countess, I’d think.”

“So he’s raising his daughter alone.”

“Yes. So one can only imagine how worried he must be right now. Something has happened to his one and only young lady.”

Since he couldn’t openly mention insanity, the general merchant whispered.

Ren surveyed the interior of the count’s mansion with a composed gaze.

“It doesn’t seem like he considers it a particularly serious problem.”

Ren tilted his head toward the main building.

No measures whatsoever had been taken on the exterior of the estate.

If she had sleepwalking or a mental illness, wouldn’t it be wiser to install iron bars or board up the windows?

For someone supposedly sick with worry, he seemed rather conscious of outside appearances.

“The young lady is still quite young.”

The general merchant smoothed his wobbling jowls.

“They say emotional development is important.”

The general merchant shrugged, as if he didn’t particularly relate.

Ren, on the other hand, immediately understood the moment he thought of Tein.

He couldn’t turn the child’s days into a prison simply because she showed signs of mental illness only at night.

Count Chelonar must have wanted his young daughter to feel as little sense of abnormality as possible — to enjoy an ordinary day without fear or anxiety, rather than dread.

“Count Chelonar, is it……”

He murmured softly, and just as he did, it became Ren and the general merchant’s turn.

The head butler, having verified the merchant’s identification badge that every general merchant carried, fixed a sharp gaze on him.

“You’re the general merchant who came yesterday. What brings you back today?”

“Ah, yesterday I brought an antidote, but today is different.”

The general merchant stretched his stiff facial muscles with great effort and introduced Ren, who stood beside him.

The head butler glanced at Ren.

“This person, I’ll have you know, is a master of folk remedies who has honed his skills through years of experience in a mercenary group.”

“Folk remedies?”

The head butler’s eyebrows twitched.

At the general merchant’s introduction that made him sound like a charlatan, Ren desperately suppressed the urge to avert his gaze and met the head butler’s eyes directly.

‘A master of folk remedies, he says.’

Even by Ren’s own estimation, it was an absurd and peculiar title. But in order to successfully infiltrate the count’s mansion, he had no choice but to follow the general merchant’s suggestion.

[Couldn’t we just say I was hired as a bodyguard mercenary?]

[They’ll ask to verify the mercenary badge. And the rule is that bodyguards are left outside when entering the estate. Oh, and that sword will need to be left behind.]

He had no choice but to trust in the flashy eloquence the general merchant himself boasted of.

“Mercenaries are not permitted inside the estate.”

The head butler of the count’s mansion was unyielding.

Faced with the crisis of being thrown out before he could even show off his silver tongue, the general merchant grabbed the head butler’s hand outright.

“Oh my! Just a moment, Head Butler! Folk remedies are not something to be dismissed. You wouldn’t believe how many clever treatment methods this person knows — there are countless mercenaries who owe their lives to them.”

“So you’re saying they played the role of a physician in a mercenary group?”

The head butler, with a sour expression, looked Ren up and down.

Ren’s attire was certainly of the style commonly favored by mercenaries.

“Yes, yes. And as it happens, they’ve just recently retired from being a mercenary. So! I brought them along.”

The general merchant laughed smoothly.

Then he discreetly gestured to Ren with his eyes.

“The pay would’ve been decent, and if they were skilled, the mercenaries wouldn’t have let them go so easily. Why did you quit?”

“I got tired of it.”

In the instant that the eye exchange with the general merchant concluded, Ren stepped forward.

“I got tired of the lot of them — getting them patched up only for them to come back injured again, getting them treated only for them to come back torn up again. I quit, the whole thing.”

“……”

Having acted with feeling, Ren found himself strangely conscious of Sharti, who wasn’t even present.

It felt as though Sharti was glaring at him from somewhere with wide eyes.

“Show me your mercenary badge.”

“I threw it away.”

The head butler, who had wavered ever so slightly, immediately hardened his expression and grew stern.

Without a mercenary badge, no matter how the general merchant vouched for him, there was no way to trust a stranger.

Just as the head butler was about to signal to the knights, Ren stepped in front of him.

“— Krofl.”

“What did you say?”

This time, feeling a sharp gaze from Vireta somewhere nearby, Ren straightened his back.

With the memory of a nasty flick to the forehead in mind, Ren’s brow furrowed as he barely managed to open his mouth.

“I was a member of the Krofl Mercenary Group. A member named Shukadi will vouch for my identity.”

“Hmm.”

Indeed, with the Krofl Mercenary Group’s limited renown, it would be hard to earn trust.

Reluctantly, Ren brought up another avenue.

“……Alternatively, I’ve been staying in the village of Sedipia to the northeast recently, so you’re welcome to verify through them.”

“Sedipia Village, is it. I feel like I’ve heard that somewhere.”

“Th-th-that, the mountain village that the Tower Master suddenly claimed as his own?!”

“The Tower Master’s village?”

The general merchant, whose prior arrangement with Ren had only gone as far as the Krofl Mercenary Group, stood with his mouth agape.

The head butler’s expression was much the same.

Indeed, merely mentioning the Tower Master carried considerable impact.

And at last, Ren managed to set foot inside the estate safely, just as he had intended, together with the general merchant.

The general merchant, having learned of the connection to the Tower Master, smiled awkwardly and voluntarily fell into step behind Ren.

The head butler gave strict instructions to a servant to treat Ren respectfully — this person had, after all, been residing in none other than the Tower Master’s village.

The servant guided Ren and the general merchant to a guest room.

“You may bathe here first.”

“Why a bath……?”

“Everyone who meets the young lady must be clean and present themselves with a proper, neat appearance.”

How fussy. The general merchant couldn’t bring himself to voice his thoughts and nodded awkwardly.

The moment the servant finished his reminder, Ren immediately began undoing the buttons of his shirt.

As he stripped off his clothes without ceremony, firm, bronzed muscles came into view.

The servant was left speechless at the taut, sculpted physique — something even the count’s mansion knights couldn’t match — while the general merchant couldn’t close his mouth at the sight of the countless sword scars across Ren’s upper body.

“Aren’t you getting undressed?”

The general merchant hastily began removing his clothes as Ren, who had naturally handed his garments to the servant, glanced at him.

Following Ren’s lead, the general merchant lowered himself into his bath, his belly rippling as he sank in, and only when the servant closed the bathroom door and left was he able to breathe properly.

“Phew, my heart was absolutely pounding back there!”

“So it seemed.”

Ren, resting an arm over the edge of the bathtub, swept his wet hair back.

It was plain water without the herbal scent that Sharti always prepared for him, which was a shame, so he made up for it by diligently lathering with soap.

The general merchant, who had looked accustomed to service yet watched closely as Ren managed everything nimbly on his own, shrugged.

In any case, both Sharti and the Ren before him were no ordinary individuals.

“By the way, how do you plan to find that orange-haired child?”

With a servant now assigned to them, they couldn’t freely wander the estate.

Above all, even if it was folk remedy, the treatment had to be flawless.

“Sha taught me, so the treatment won’t be an issue.”

It was folk remedy in name only — Sharti had already taught him the basic treatment procedures and medication prescriptions, all of which he had committed to memory.

However, Ren too was worried about finding Tein, hidden somewhere among the countless rooms of this vast estate.

[Just in case, I packed sweet potatoes too. Tein definitely hasn’t been able to eat anything.]

Once Tein’s location was confirmed, the plan was to slip the potatoes Sharti had packed to him first, then wait for an opening.

The plan after finding the child was nothing elaborate.

It was simply the task of finding the child itself that felt frustrating.

“For now, I’ll move at night.”

Surely they wouldn’t keep the estate fully lit all night.

To Ren, who had been finding his way even in the pitch-dark mountains, a night-time estate was ideal for moving around.

“If you’ve finished bathing, please change into these clothes.”

“……”

Ren stared blankly for a moment at the pink stuffed animal costume the servant had brought.

The general merchant, seeming unfazed as though this sort of thing happened often enough, changed into the stuffed animal costume without hesitation.

A large bear and a plump rabbit — Ren and the general merchant followed the servant, walking in step.

‘……It’s a good thing Sha can’t see this.’

If Sharti had seen, she surely would have broken into a bright, delighted smile — but this was not a side of himself he wished to show.

Ren kept his expression as blank as possible, trying not to dwell on his embarrassing state.

Still, there were some positive aspects to the stuffed animal costume.

‘Of all things, a bear.’

If it was Tein, he would surely recognize him from a distance.

Ren let out a small smirk.

‘But this doesn’t look like a room.’

Having walked quite a while down the first-floor corridor, Ren glanced around.

A noble young lady’s chamber would naturally be on the second or third floor. That was where the view of the garden from the window would be most beautiful.

‘……Is that right?‘

Just as Ren frowned at the sudden sense of déjà vu—

Knock, knock.

The servant came to a stop, gestured to Ren and the general merchant, and knocked on the door.

“What is it? The young lady is in the middle of her meal.”

“The head butler said that scheduling a separate treatment time frightens the young lady, so it would be best to meet near the end of her meal.”

“Ah.”

The head housekeeper who had opened the door nodded.

After looking over Ren and the general merchant in their animal costumes, she opened the door fully.

“Once you’re inside, you are not to say a single word. Please read the room and act accordingly.”

When the door opened, as he’d suspected, it was not a bedchamber.

It was a dining room.

Two children could be seen seated snugly at the long dining table.

‘……Two children?’

He had been told there was only the one young lady of the count……

With each step forward, with each step that brought him closer to the dining table, Ren’s expressionless face began to crumble.

“Young lady, look over there! Your little friends heard you were having a lovely meal and came to visit!”

“Waaah~! Big animals!”

“……?”

“……!”

Stomping her feet and banging the table in delight, Eryl sat at the table — and beside her sat an all-too-familiar little one.

“Now, animal friends — say hello to the young lady~”

The sound of the servants’ applause rang out.

At the same moment, Eryl turned to the little one seated beside her and smiled brightly.

“There are two animals, so you can play with both of them, Tein!”

“……”

Gulp.

Tein, who had been chewing a mouthful of steak, quietly wiped the sauce from around his mouth.

“Ha.”

All the worrying from the night before felt utterly foolish — Tein’s belly was noticeably round and full. The sight of it made laughter burst from him despite himself.

When Ren suddenly burst out laughing, every gaze in the dining room turned toward him.

Ren raised his hand toward Tein, who was blinking at him.

“Hello.”

Quick as ever to read a situation, Tein immediately set down his fork and hopped off his chair.

Then he took Eryl’s hand.

“We’re going to get eaten by the bear. We have to run!”

“Huh~?”

Tein helped a bewildered Eryl down from her chair, then turned to Ren with eyes sparkling.

“This is tag! Everyone has to run!”

Say no more.

The moment Tein began to flee with Eryl, Ren jabbed the general merchant in the side.

At that, the general merchant hurriedly raised both arms high.

“I’m going to eat everyone!”

He was wearing a rabbit stuffed animal costume, but the general merchant’s face was that of a man-eating rabbit.

“Kyaaaa~!”

Eryl shrieked with delight, and the servants snapped to their senses, beginning to play along with the sudden impromptu performance.

Thanks to the general merchant’s sacrifice, Ren was able to chase after Tein right away.

“Ren!”

“Got you.”

Tein, beaming, threw his arms around Ren.

But the joy of their reunion with Tein lasted only a moment — Ren was immediately faced with yet another crisis.