Chapter 27.2

“How long will you be here, sir knights?”

“Until we find him.”

“What if you don’t find him? He could’ve run away.”

“Do you find our presence here a bother?”

“Yes. Being such high-up people like yourselves, we have to be, say, more cautious around you.”

“Ha! It sounds like our standards of cautiousness are quite different with each other’s.”

Franz’s eyes flashed.

Those eyes, which were shaped strangely like Bertram’s, seemed to pierce Anna sharply.

“Or maybe… you find us a bother because you know about Bertram?”

His words, too, were penetrating to the heart of the matter.

In a hurry, Anna tried to lift a water cup to her lips to control her expression, but his hand grabbed her wrist first.

“Hic—”

“Answer me truthfully.”

Franz’s face approached, closer and closer.

Suddenly, the restaurant doors opened with a loud bang.

Carla burst in with a lamp in her hand.

“Anna! What the heck are you doing, I told you to soak the pickles and go to sleep!”

“Mom!”

“…Sir Knight, sir. If I may ask what you’re doing to my daughter. Why can’t you hold down alcohol if you aren’t holding a woman’s wrist?”

Franz immediately let go of Anna’s wrist and stood up.

“It appears I’ve made you misunderstand. As belated as this is, let me introduce myself officially. My name is Franz Gerhart. I am the third son of the twelfth Duke of Gerhart and a knight escort.”

“The twelfth? You sure have gone on long. You could build a village with just the graves of your ancestors.”

“….”

She stood unshaken even after hearing the words ‘duke’ or ‘knight.’

Franz inspected Carla carefully.

Perhaps she was about forty years old. She was a beautiful woman with green eyes beholding experience amidst long curly auburn hair. Though she looked like she had both strong pride and a strong personality, Franz believed in the strength of his looks.

There was nobody in high society who didn’t melt away into a puddle if he began introductions with a smiling face.

“I’d like to clear up the small misunderstanding, but before that may I have your name, madam? We cannot stay under the roof of your house without knowing who we’re being indebted to.”

However, it did not work.

No—in fact, it appeared to make Carla mad instead. Her eyebrows furrowed.

“Sir Knight. Don’t you try to wheedle yourself out of this by acting pretty.”

“…Sorry?”

“Anna, you go back in already. If you stay here any longer, who knows if you’ll get your wrist eaten up by a knight.”

“Just a moment! I’m not acting pr-… no, I mean, it’s a misunderstanding!”

Carla grabbed and twisted Franz’s wrist, and in the midst of that, Anna bowed her goodbyes to the soldiers only and hurried out the restaurant.

Franz attempted to shake off Carla’s hand, but it was not easy. Every time he resisted, the muscles in Carla that was used to carrying sacks of flour all by herself writhed and clung together like leeches.

“So you like grabbing wrists, but not getting grabbed yourself.”

“…I apologize for my earlier disrespect, so please let me go, madam.”

“Yes, then so I will. This countryside dunce who dares to grab a knight’s wrist goes by the name of Carla Wirth. It feels like all your appetites must have dropped from my crude entrance, so shall I bring you some alcohol?”

“Your daughter has brought us some already.”

“That’s no alcohol, that’s just juice.”

Carla took off a bottle of alcohol that had been placed up in one corner of the restaurant like decoration and brought it. The moment she uncorked it, a pungent smell shot into the air.

“The traditional drink of our village is the apple wine, but since we have such valuable customers today, I’ll have to bring out the fancy red wine.”

“Red wine? But I can hardly smell its scent.”

“That’s ‘cause I add brandy every time it evaporates some.”

“Then that’s neither wine nor brandy!”

Pretending not to have heard, Carla poured the wine into cups, provoking the soldiers by saying, ‘even my daughter can drink a bottle of this, so that should be nothing to you folks, right?’

And in the meantime, Anna was just beginning to climb up the hill after escaping the restaurant and packing up some foodstuffs to eat.

According to what the villagers had said, Bertram had stayed inside the quarters next to the farm the entire day to avoid his pursuers.

Anna pounded on the window, which had not a glint of light seeping through it.

“Mr. Bertram, are you there?”

“…Miss Anna?”

Bertram opened the door.

Perhaps because he’d been crouching all along to hide, it looked as if he had crawled out on his knees. At the dissonance of this action to his image, Anna couldn’t help but laugh.

“Ahaha, were you doing your best to hide?”

“Someone told me not to come out of the quarters today. He said that they’re taking turns distracting my pursuers to hold them up.”

“My mom has them in her firm grasp at the restaurant right now. I ran here in case you were starving yourself waiting for my food. Though I suppose even you wouldn’t be that inflexible.”

Out of her basket came dry foods that you could eat over several days, and lastly she brought out some stew that was still steaming hot and placed it on the picnic table.

Bertram lifted the bowl of stew and swallowed its contents. He had not even the time to use the spoon Anna belatedly handed to him.

“Wait, did you really skip dinner waiting for me? I’m sure I asked the workers to get you something if they saw you!”

“I did not starve. However, I was continually waiting for your meal, Miss Anna.”

“Ah…. T-there’s no need to flatter me like that! It’s not like my cooking is something worth waiting for, anyways!”

“But it isn’t empty flattery. And you have come, just as I was hoping.”

Bertram looked round at Anna.

Eyes like a wintry lake, void of any emotion.

At first, they may look cold, but if you calmly continue to gaze into them, your heart rather grows easily.

They were different from Franz’s sharp blue eyes.

As much those eyes were reflecting Anna, Bertram too must be filling his eyes with Anna’s face as well.

“Mr. Bertram, did you wait a lot for me?”

“Yes.”

“Not for the meal, but me. Anna Wirth.”

His answer came without a single hesitation or wavering.

He responded impossibly clearly once more.

“Yes. The one I was waiting for was you, Miss Anna.”