CH 100

In an instant, the heat that had been burning as if there really was fire subsided. 

Dietrich, who had come through the half-opened door and stared at the children with indifferent eyes, turned back and began to move away. 

"Oh...."

When I opened my mouth, blanking out for a moment, he had already disappeared down the hallway. 

“Dietrich!”

He had walked so fast, taking up huge strides with his long legs. 

I was barely able to catch up to him as I run out of breath. Dietrich, whose wrist I took hold of, looked back at me with a completely subdued, calm face. 

“What?”

I would rather he’d be angry, at least I can come up with an excuse but he was looking at me with the same indifferent attitude.

“Are you angry?”

“No.”

“Really?”

Dietrich raised his eyebrow when I asked with narrowed eyes. He spoke apathetically. 

“Why should I be angry?”

“No, I don’t mean you should be angry.” 

‘But why is his aura like that?’ 

I replied stuttering, observing Dietrich’s complexion. I swear, this was the first time I saw his aura run amock. 

In the first place, he wasn’t someone who had ever shown an agitated aura to the point that I could read it. 

‘He was fine even when he fought Asmodeus.’ 

The gray aura rising from his neck looked like a tree struck by lightning.

Nevertheless, there was a great difference between his aura and his expression calmly looking at me to the point of looking cold. 

“You’re really not angry?”

“I already knew that you wanted to leave Lagrange.” 

“Huh?”

“I didn’t think your choice was wrong then. So why should I be angry?”

As I pondered on Dietrich’s calm question, I remembered he had witnessed me hiding in the forest of the withered roses preparing to escape. He had closed his eyes back then as if he didn’t see me. 

‘Then, did I read him wrong?’

Dietrich’s aura had always been difficult to read due to Baal’s influence. 

When I slowly blinked my eyes and observed his aura, it again looked like his usual murky gray aura. 

“I’m glad you’re not angry then.” I breathed a sigh of relief and let go of Dietrich’s wrist. “I thought you would misunderstand.”

“Misunderstand what?”

“Dietrich, it’s not that I don’t want to get away from Lagrange.”

My hair fluttered wildly from the gentle breeze coming in through the window. He reached out his long fingers and tucked my hair behind my ears. 

I laughed gently, finding his delicate touch incongruous from his demeanor funny, and continued, “I can’t deny I wanted to leave in a fit of anger.”

“Anger?”

“You never listened to me at all.” 

Even though I was confident in my ability to suppress the demons of Lagrange, Dietrich hadn’t believed in me. 

‘Well, in the end, he just didn’t want to hurt me.’

“Then, are you saying you originally didn’t think to leave?”

He stroked my chin and asked in a low voice. I nodded hastily. 

“Yeah.”

“Forever?”

“F-forever?”

My eyes widened in surprise at the heavy word that popped out of his lips. 

“That’s right, forever.”

I couldn’t answer Dietrich’s repeated question right away. It must be because the things that happened in the capital made my head too complicated. 

“Your answer.”

He uncharacteristically urged me for an answer, as if he was frustrated with my mouth just twitching. I slowly opened my mouth. 

“Uhm. I don’t think I’ll live in Lagrange until I die.” 

Besides, if I was really Dietrich’s real sister, such a thing was uncommon. 

“And don’t I normally have to leave when I get married?”

“Married?”

“Uhuh. Usually, whether you’re a man or a woman, when you get married you’d leave the house and live outside.”  

No matter how close siblings were, they didn’t live together forever. 

‘Anyway, it’s too rash to decide now.’

At my answer, he just silently stared at me with a sullen look. I got scared for nothing and scratched the back of my head. 

‘Since he’s glaring like that, he really looks like a villain.’

Dietrich was handsome enough to be called a face of a hundred blois, but his atmosphere was so bloody that he didn’t look like a righteous protagonist at all. 

As I stared at his wriggling eyebrows, I remembered the first plan I had made in Lagrange. 

‘I had been thinking if Dietrich would lose in the rose war, I would take advantage of the chaos and run away.’

Even after I became attached to him, that thought remained unchanged for a long time. 

It was because I had felt that meeting Charlotte and being saved by her was the way for him.

In fact, in the ‘Rose Wars of Men’, it was only after meeting Charlotte did Dietrich find the perfect life. 

‘But I don’t think we should just sit idly and wait for her help.’

Dietrich, as if coming to a decision about whatever he was thinking, nodded to himself and turned his back to me again. 

────── 〔✿〕──────

“What?”

As he’d been frozen for a few months, his whole body was aching. 

Yuric rubbed his arm which had lost muscles and frowned, doubting his ears. 

“Hey, my ears must have gone bad while I was frozen. The first decree you issued after becoming the Grand Duke sounded really weird.” 

Dietrich approached the desk in his office without sparing a glance at Yuric who was picking on his ears. 

The documents that had piled up while he was away were taken care of by Yuric to some extent. Organizing the remaining documents, he repeated the order in a nonchalant manner. 

“I ordered a ban on marriage.”

“...I guess I heard it correctly.”

Yuric, who burst into a fit of laughter, rubbed his face. He rolled down from the sofa he was lying on. 

“Why a ban on marriage? There’s no reason to control the population.” 

“Don’t complain about my orders.” 

Dietrich glared at Yuric with an oppressive gaze, just like on the battlefield. Even though his gaze was piercing, Yuric never stopped talking back as he always did. 

“It must be because of Anissa.”

Dietrich’s hand froze at the name uttered by Yuric while grinning. There was no change in his expression but Yuric giggled at the subtle bulging of the tendons popping at the back of his hand. 

“Is there any other reason for you to push such nonsense other than Anissa?” 

“........”

“Why? Is she already getting married? She’s only thirteen years old for her to enter marriage.” 

The southern nobles tend to already hold engagement ceremonies as early as the age of fourteen, but the northern nobles tend to get married a little later than the other regions. 

In addition, Lagrange wasn’t sloppy enough to develop its power through a union of families. 

“Did she fall for a handsome knight somewhere in the capital?” 

Dietrich’s gruff mouth didn’t open again, but Yuric nodded his head, guessing the situation on his own. 

“But doesn’t she need to have her debut first before she could get married?” 

Dietrich, who had only been listening to Yuric murmur, then uttered the words, “Then I’ll also ban debuts.” 

“Why don’t you just go all out? Go on. Hey, why don’t you just ban everyone from dating freely?”

As Yuric clicked his tongue, Dietrich put his hand on the sword’s scabbard while seated. It was then that Yuric seemed to have retrieved his senses and put on a servile smile. 

“Uhm. I mean, I’m just saying it’s a bit much.” 

“There’s a box in Anissa’s room.”

“What about it?” 

Yuric tilted his head at Dietrich’s inexplicable words, but the latter kept his mouth shut.

‘He’s telling me to get rid of it, I see.’

When he gives an order that seems to have an afterword, it means that he should take care of it on his own. 

“Phew. It’s been a while since I’ve seen his face but he ends up ordering me to do everything that I’m bound to be hated for.” 

“Yuric Lagrange.”

“Yeah.”

“You seem to have forgotten how to bark again.” 

“An order. You gave me an order, just now.” 

Yuric gently glanced at him and left the room. 

Whether Anissa was with the triplets or exploring the castle, fortunately, there wasn’t a single rat in Anissa’s bedroom. 

“Sorry, Anissa.”

Yuric slightly bowed his head and muttered an apology while holding the box that was under Anissa’s bed in his arms.

It was insignificant money compared to Lagrange’s wealth, but he felt even more guilty because he knew how much she’s worked hard to raise this money – even if it was working hard at gambling.  

‘Do I just take the money?’ 

Rustle. 

Yuric, who was robbing Anissa’s escape funds, turned his head to the scathing gaze pouring on the side of his face.

“Hello?”

“...yeah.”

A heavy silence that did not fit the bright room filled with scorching summer sunlight descended.

Anissa smiled brightly like a spring rose and grabbed Yuric by the collar. 

“Yuri, it’s been a while.”

“Uh, yeah. It’s been a while, Anissa.”

“I was really worried about you, Yuri.” 

You don’t know what kind of humiliation I had to suffer from the southern nobles, just to thaw your frozen statue. 

As Anissa whispered in a low voice, Yuric sweated profusely and raised his hand. 

Drops.

The bundle of money he held in his hand scattered to the floor. 

“But the first thing you do as soon as you’re free is to steal your younger sister’s money which she worked hard on?”