Chapter 41

Pandemonium had broken out at the Duke of Harun’s estate. The apple of the Duke’s eye, the precious jewel he wouldn’t trade even if he put her in his eyes—Lady Harmiel—had run away, leaving behind nothing more than a single letter.

An emergency alert was issued across the Harun estate. An emergency alert of this scale was usually reserved for times of war, but Duke Mentus had lost his mind and issued the command without even seeking permission from the royal palace. If word of this reached the King’s ears, the worst-case scenario would be execution.

“Find her! Find her! Search every corner of the continent, I command you to find my, my daughter!”

“Understood!”

Naturally, the loyal soldiers and knights thought it was absurd, but they could not refuse the Duke’s order. Though he was raving like a madman right now, they knew he was usually more brilliant than anyone else, so they figured the Duke was just temporarily overexcited and would calm down shortly.

However, that was only something people said when they didn’t understand how fiercely the Duke doted on Harmiel. The safety valve in the Duke’s mind had already been shattered into dust.

“Uoooooh!! If you don’t find my daughter, I’ll kill every last one of you!!”

At this rate, a daughter running away was going to trigger a continent-wide war and send a bloody wind sweeping across the land. But the Duke didn’t care. The mere thought of his daughter not returning or coming to harm somewhere else made him feel like he was about to grab the back of his neck and collapse on the spot.

A war? He was even willing to march on the border all by himself. As long as his cute daughter Harmiel was there.

“Calm down, dear.”

The Duke, who had been rampaging like a crazy ogre just moments before, gasped for air and his shoulders heaved as a woman who looked the spitting image of Harmiel walked in. If she hadn’t, he surely would have died of suffocation before he could even go look for Harmiel.

“Sob, sob, sob. For that little child to run away, it’s all my fault. I shouldn’t have done something so useless!”

“It’s all right. It’s not your fault.”

The woman speaking was Heria, Harmiel’s mother. In truth, she knew that this runaway incident was entirely the fault of her husband, Duke Mentus.

You should have exercised some moderation.

How severe must it have been for a kind-hearted child like her to decide to run away, knowing full well it would worry her parents? It wasn’t as though she wasn’t worried herself, but calming the husband right in front of her took priority.

“Darling, let’s cancel the emergency alert first and send a message to a place that seems likely. In my opinion, she probably went to the Duke of Celion’s estate.”

As his beloved wife spoke so calmly, Mentus slowly regained his sanity. Come to think of it, issuing an emergency alert was a bit excessive even by his own standards.

“Mhm, let’s do that. But the Duke of Celion’s estate? Why on earth would that child go there?”

“Because her close friend, Lady Armienne, is there.”

“I’ll contact them immediately.”

“Cancel the emergency alert first.”

Heria couldn’t help worrying about the future whenever she saw her husband—a man who was normally so smart—behave like a single-celled organism the moment anything to do with their daughter came up. What if he ended up killing the person their daughter wanted to marry one day?

The Duke quickly wrapped up the chaos he had stirred up and contacted the Duke of Celion’s estate. The speed at which he handled the aftermath was nothing short of astonishing, proving once again that he wasn’t lacking in competence.

Click—

As the communication connected, a blunt male voice rang out.

[Who is it?]

The moment Mentus heard that voice, he flared up again and shouted. If he had a single fatal weakness, it was his daughter, and if he had a natural enemy, it was the owner of the voice coming through the communication magic orb.

[You bastard. You filthy, petty scoundrel. Hand over my daughter right now!]

Heria massaged her temples at Mentus’s reckless outburst. At this point, she decided to just tune him out. She knew how much her husband loathed Duke Ventor.

[What kind of dog drool are you barking now? Why would your daughter be here? Go search your own mansion properly.]

Duke Ventor replied because he genuinely didn’t know that Harmiel had run away, but from Duke Mentus’s perspective, it sounded like this bastard was mocking him, causing his blood pressure to boil over.

[You must think my daughter is so precious that you’re hiding her without telling me, but it’s not going to work!]

[You lunatic. You’re beating the drum and clashing the cymbals all by yourself. Why don’t you go open an orchestra, Mentus?]

Just as Mentus was about to yell back, the sound of a door opening echoed from the other side of the communication orb, followed by a brief silence.

[………]

Then, suddenly, the voice of Duke Ventor came through the orb, accompanied by the sound of someone collapsing to the floor as if they had fainted.

[What?! Armienne ran away, leaving behind nothing more than a single letter?! Argh!]

Thud.

Click.

The communication was severed on the spot, and Duke Mentus quietly put down the magic orb. For the first time in his life, he felt a twinge of guilt toward Ventor.

We were currently riding in a carriage heading toward ‘Aqua,’ the city waiting for us with its hot spring inn.

“You really didn’t have to run away with me. Especially because of me.”

I smiled at Miel’s worried voice and shook my head.

“No, no. I’ve always wanted to try it at least once anyway.”

It was the truth. Having never run away from home even once in my life, I had decided to take this chance to try it out. Of course, I had brought along all my money and everything I needed so it was only a runaway in appearance, but hey, what did it matter?

It’s the mood that counts.

I still didn’t know why Miel had run away. When I tried to ask her, she looked like she’d rather I didn’t press the subject. Well, she’d probably tell me later once we got into the hot springs together.

Hmm…

Imagining getting into a hot spring together with her once more sent the blood rushing straight to my head. If this kept up, would I actually die of a hemorrhage once we got into the actual springs?

“Mom, where are we going?”

Aria finally showed some curiosity now that she had finished all the snacks she was eating. Until just a moment ago, she hadn’t reacted to a thing while being carried around, entirely focused on eating.

“We’re going to a hot spring inn.”

“A hot spring? If it’s something yummy, Aria wants to eat a whole bunch of it.”

Suppressing the sudden urge to dissect the brain of an Aria whose thoughts revolved entirely around food twenty-four hours a day, I slowly explained what a hot spring was.

“That’s right. A hot spring is a spring where groundwater is heated above the average temperature by geothermal heat and wells up to the surface. To put it simply, you could say it’s a slightly special bathhouse.”

If you asked how I knew about it in such a scholarly way, it was simply because it was a term I happened to remember from my college days. I definitely hadn’t just copy-pasted it straight from an internet encyclopedia.

Just as I was about to go further and explain the health benefits of hot springs, the carriage ground to a halt, having seemingly arrived in ‘Aqua.’

“We have arrived, Young Lady.”

As the coachman gave a heads-up and opened the door, I stepped down from the carriage and handed him a small pouch.

“I don’t know how long we’ll be staying, so just use that to make yourself comfortable for the time being. I’ll be in touch through Yul, so make sure you report to Yul regarding where you’ll be.”

“Oh my, this is so much! Thank you very much.”

Receiving the coachman’s greetings, I made my way toward the inn Yul had reserved. Whether it was out of consideration for me or because she simply had the means to pull it off, the inn Yul booked was a high-end establishment that fell on the expensive side even within ‘Aqua.’

To think she kept a place like this booked all year round. Could Yul actually be secretly wealthy?

Before we could head inside, Yul naturally stepped in first to handle the check-in procedures, and an attendant soon began guiding us to our room. The moment everyone was about to step together into the assigned room, someone emerging from the next room spotted us and spoke up.

“Oh my? If it isn’t Lady Armienne? Hehe.”

My head involuntarily turned toward the source of the voice, and my pupils dilated sharply the moment I recognized the person’s face.