Chapter 34

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Chapter 34

Melody was called the village cutie but in fact, she wasn’t very welcomed before that. It was because of her mother.

Thinking of it, it was only natural that she was hated as no one in the neighborhood would like to live with a dangerous criminal.

But, there was a problem here.

The thoughts and attitudes of the adults here were passed on to children, so children would sometimes say mean things to Melody or play childish pranks on her.

「 Mel. 」

Isaiah was the only boy in the village who took Melody’s side. Whenever Melody would hide on a wall near the vegetable garden and cry because she was upset with the children bullying her, Isaiah would always come to see her.

「 This is the jerk, right? This b*st*rd did that, right? 」

And, he never came empty-handed.

After coolly beating the child who bullied Melody, he would drag them along.

「 Hic. 」

Melody was startled to see the boy’s face who had come with Isaiah and stopped crying. There was blood dripping from his nose.

‘Just how hard did you hit him…!’

Isaiah thought that Melody’s action of stopping the cry was her expression of ‘joy.’ He grinned with a smug face.

「 Now, you do the same to this b*st*rd. 」

Isaiah pushed the boy who had been dragged in front of Melody.

「 …The same? 」

「 That way they won’t bother you again. 」

Isaiah wrinkled his face as he looked at Melody only having one shoe on.

The case was really like this. The other pair of Melody’s shoes came off and rolled over when she fell down in the middle of the town. When the village boys saw this, they laughed at her and threw her other shoes to the chestnut tree in the distance.

Her shoes got on one of the large chestnut tree’s branches that even adults barely climb.

「 Do it quickly! Show me what he did to you! 」

At Isaiah’s urging, Melody walked over to the bleeding boy. The boy flinched his feet. He was so afraid of Isaiah that he couldn’t even run away.

She gazed down at the boy’s brown shoes; it was very shiny. She then remembered that these shoes were said to have been given to this boy by his parents as a birthday present. His parents were said to be living far away.

The boy would grab this and boasted to anyone in the town — that he cherished it very much.

Melody withdrew her hand that had barely reached him. Though the boy was hateful, she didn’t want to do it like this.

「 I told you, do it quickly. What are you going to do when adults come?! 」

Feeling frustrated, Isaiah forcibly took the boy’s shoes and placed them in Melody’s hands. She took turns looking at the terrified boy and Isaiah, and eventually reached out to the boy.

「 T-take it. 」

The boy looked at Melody with a look of disbelief, but soon he snatched his shoes, grabbed them deep in his arms, and began to run away.

「 Where are you going! 」

As Isaiah hastily tried to catch the boy, Melody grabbed his arm tightly so he couldn’t in the end.

「 Stop it, Isaiah! 」

He just sighed as he looked at the little girl clinging to his arm.

「 Really, you’re kind that you’re being bullied like this. 」

「 It’s not like that. 」

「 If not, what is it? 」

「 I don’t want it like that. 」

「 You have to do it even if you don’t like it. That way they won’t bully you! 」

「 … 」

She didn’t reply.

Isaiah nagged her with a few more words, but he sighed in the end and pinched Melody’s cheeks.

「 It can’t be helped then, because I can protect Mel. If someone bullies you, tell me everything, all right?」

「 But, the doctor would hate it. 」

Isaiah’s face turned blue for a moment when she referred to his mother. He might get scolded again for beating up the village children for being the doctor’s son.

「 I-it’s okay! I’m going to be a knight! How would the doctor know! 」

The boy pretended to be strong and raised this nose. His appearance was somehow funny, and Melody laughed until there were tears in her eyes.

「 Little Mel. Go home quickly. 」

The boy glared at Melody with a slightly displeased face.

Then, he turned around and started running towards somewhere. When Melody asked him where he was going, she only heard him say, ‘You don’t need to know! Go home now!’

That evening.

She had dinner with her mother and quietly returned to her room. She thought that she was a little sleepy, so she laid on the bed for a while before hearing a knock on the window.

Melody stood up and glanced toward the source of the sound.

「 Who… ?」

However, no one was there. Perhaps, the window wasn’t closed properly and was swayed with the wind…?

Melody got out of the bed and walked over the window. As she thought, the window was indeed slightly open, though the knocking wasn’t caused by the wind.

「 …Your shoes. 」

She carefully picked up an old pair of shoes lying on the window sill. This was what she lost during the day. Melody quickly raised her head, and she could see a boy running hastily through the darkness. It was only a silhouette, but she could tell — it was Isaiah.

“…Mel?”

His careful call made Melody look back at him.

“Mel, is it really you Mel…?”

The boy asked that he was almost shoving his head into the carriage’s window. At that, the other startled knights and squires hurriedly tried to take him off, though Claude raised his hand to stop them. He was also wondering what kind of relationship he had with Melody.

Melody was still cautious even with the fervent call of the squire. Hearing him calling her ‘Mel,’ she thought that it seemed to be Isaiah. She couldn’t be sure as his face was half-covered with a helmet.

‘…Did he know I was wary?’

Isaiah took off his helmet and slightly grumbled.

“You’re being too much.”

She saw his playful smile when he took off his helmet. His skin was a little more tanned and his hair was messed up with sweat, still, his smile didn’t change as much as before.

“Isaiah!”

Melody unwittingly called out his name and stood up from her seat. Because she wasn’t tall, her head didn’t bump against the ceiling of the carriage.

“Come here, little Mel.”

As he opened his arms wide and called her, Melody quickly opened the carriage door. He quickly embraced her. The feel of the cold armor he was wearing was awkward, though the sound of his laughter in her ears was the Isaiah Melody remembered.

Maybe, nothing seemed to have changed even after Isaiah came to the capital — except for him being taller and a little bit bigger.

“Isaiah, you are very tall.”

She needed to gaze up with her standing at the carriage’s feet. He was much bigger than her in the past, but was he happy with his story with her…?

The boy grinned and pulled Melody’s cheeks slightly.

“Mel is always short. Have you grown taller?”

“I did!”

“Oh, Mel is pissed.”

“No.”

“What do you mean no?”

Saying so, he poked Melody’s chin with his fingertips and smiled softly.

“When Mel vomits, her chin would be slightly strained. Who are you trying to fool?”

Melody quickly covered her lips with both hands. Come to think of it, Isaiah knew her very well, more than her mother knew of her… Perhaps, a stranger knows her best.

“Even so, aunt…”

The moment when Isaiah was about to bring up her mother, Claude raised his voice and spoke to the knight behind Isaiah.

“Can I take Sir’s disciple with us for a while? It seems like he had some relationship with our guest.”

“Of course, Sir Valdwin.”

“Thank you. Also, I would like a place where we can say hello to each other.”

“Yes, I will call the people inside.”

Claude smiled at his kind reply, and the knight pushed Isaiah’s back, saying, ‘Know that you will go back on eating eggplants if you disrespect the Duke’s people.’

“Melody, sit down.”

Eventually, she returned to the seat opposite him at Claude’s words. He nodded slightly at Isaiah. He told him that he was allowing him to get on the carriage. In addition, he even showed kindness when he slightly moved towards the window for an unfamiliar guest.

“Oh, then I’ll ride without hesitation.”

Isaiah stepped into the carriage and greeted him with a slightly stiff tone.

He turned his head to and fro, leaning over his large body as if thinking where to sit. Although Claude quickly gestured for him to sit beside him, Isaiah immediately went straight to Melody and plopped down his butt.

“Mel, it’s narrow. Move a little bit.”

Besides that, he even added words by telling a lady to move a little more. Claude thought, ‘Isn’t it too rude?’ Isaiah showed him the capital’s courtesy in his own way.

“Oh, thanks for the ride, Duke.”

He nodded slightly, and Melody slapped his arm.

“It’s not Duke, but Young Master, you fool.”

“Hey, did you just call me a fool?”

“It’s because Isaiah still doesn’t watch for his behavior. Young Master is a high ranking noble.”

“But, why is that high-ranking Young Master with you?”

“That.”

Melody hesitated for a moment, unable to respond carelessly. Would her answer be of any concern to him…?

Both the noisy Isaiah and Claude who was bullying her were only looking at her without saying anything. Someone should come forward after this long silence; the silence was maintained.

It was fortunate that the slowly moving carriage stopped just in time. A knight who had been contacted at the entrance led the three to the Central Prison and the neighboring knights’ reception room. It seemed like he wanted them to have a comfortable conversation.

Claude offered Melody a seat upon entering the reception room. Sitting down as she was told, he sat down next to her, and with a gentle smile, he invited Isaiah to sit down as well.

As soon as they were seated, an errand boy brought refreshments on the other side of the wide table.

“Goodness, it’s chocolate!”

Isaiah took a handful of chocolate and stared intently at Claude.

“Duke’s Young Master, can I pack some chocolate? I will give some to the bastards I’m training with…punks? No, that… what is it? Anyways, everyone is hungry for sweets.”

“Then, I ask you to bring more.”

“Indeed!”

It was amusing to watch him pouring the chocolates into his pocket, so Melody laughed at him.

“I don’t think Isaiah really changes at all.”

Even in the village, he always helped his friends who were in trouble as well as her. He always shared delicious things.

“Isn’t that obvious? Because I tried to become a knight in order not to change. Oh, right…”

He jumped up from his seat as though he had remembered something.

Melody thought, ‘Is Isaiah going to get more chocolate?’, but fortunately he didn’t. He had an unfamiliar serious expression on his face, then he kneeled on one knee on the floor just like the knights she saw in a storybook.

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Claude was staring up at Isaiah and grinned back. Somehow, he found Isaiah’s smile to be somehow unpleasant.

“It was too late of me to say thank you, Duke’s Young Master.”

“It’s just chocolate.”

“No, I was talking about taking care of Mel for a little while. It is only polite to say thank you.”

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