Chapter 15 (1/2)

Ernst thought back to the spectacle he had seen earlier that day. Everyone had good faces. Even though they had been completely defeated, all of the militiamen had laughed with fine expressions. Even that leader of the militia who seemed so hard to deal with had let out booming laughter.

In the sunset, the Dunbertian had laughed, his face the nicest of all.

Ernst smiled bitterly, remembering the face the head butler had made when Ernst had asked him to light the fire in his room tonight, too. This manor faced some harsh financial difficulties, it seemed.

Tomorrow, Ernst should check on the status of the finances, too.

He gazed at the swaying flames. A quiet and contemplative feeling rose within him.

There was a quiet knocking at the door. It sounded hesitant, lost, and beaten down.

“Enter.”

His voice, did it tremble a bit? It seemed like he hadn’t settled himself as much as he thought he had.

Ernst prompted the man who entered to sit in the chair. The man’s large body rigidly sat upon the seat. Hmm, Ernst should prepare a slightly bigger one for him.

“I thought over what you told me last night.”

The man flinched, his body trembling in surprise. Where did that bravery from earlier today go, Ernst wondered.

“To love, and to fall in love with someone. I am unable to understand the notion of it; I don’t know what it entails.”

The man hung his head.

“I was happy that you followed me here. Yet if the hunters who had shown me the way had come with me, that would also have made me happy.”

Those reddish-brown eyes captivated Ernst. Ernst’s blue eyes gazed into those eyes which flickered with uneasiness.

“To love someone means to place them above others, is that correct? If that is the case, then inside of me, you would have to have more importance than anyone else? That was what I was pondering over.”

Compared to last night, the candle burnt out much faster than before. A sudden thought popped into his head: they sure prepared a such a tiny one for him, didn’t they.

“I thought about names.”

“Names…?”

The man opened his mouth for the first time.

“That’s right. Names. Before, I didn’t think about people as people. I didn’t realize that each and every person would, of course, have their own name. Yet I didn’t find any problems despite this.”

“…There was no helping it. Lord Ernst had been the Crown Prince. All of the beings around Lord Ernst were beings who acted accordingly to even one movement of the Crown Prince’s eyes.”

The man gave a lonely smile.