Chapter 30

< — Damian — > (1)

TN: The highly anticipated title: Damian is finally here! Also: Poll over.

"Young master, I am Ashin, the administrative secretary. Do you remember me?"

Damian briefly looked up and down at Ashin before giving him a stiff nod and entering the carriage. His coldness is not inferior to his father's.

'This is why they say you can't feign blood...'

Perhaps the Duke was just like this when he was a child. With his black hair and red eyes, Damian was a miniature Taran Duke. There was probably no need to use the royal family's magical treasure to determine his ancestry.

No one would be able to say that the little lord was not of the Taran Duke's blood.

'Whew...this is just my fate.'

He hated long-distance trips. He would be extremely satisfied if all he had to do was routinely go back and forth between Roam and the house. He couldn't help but sigh when he thought about having to sit next to that dreary little kid for a long time.

"I see you've been healthy and comfortable in the meantime. You've grown a lot, I almost didn't recognize you."

Ashim spoke amiably in a bland effort to elevate the mood. It wasn't something he usually did but he didn't want to be taken as a thug and Ashin found the little Taran duke that looked exactly like the Taran Duke whom he knew as the scariest man in the world, to be extremely prickly.

Also, it was the truth that he almost didn't recognize him.

'Whew...what eight year old is like this? He looks like he could be three to four years older. My nephew is ten years old but even he is smaller than our little lord.'

Even when the little lord was six years old, he had a burly physique so there were already signs of it back then.

Just like how a fox and a tiger were of different sizes.

'If he keeps growing like this, won't he end up with a huge frame? Completely different from what's on paper.'

"...what is it?"

"Huh?"

Ashin felt pleased with himself as the mouth of the little lord had finally opened.

"You know with your rank, you didn't have to pick me up personally."

"Ha...ha-ha."

Right. Someone of his status usually wouldn't have to. Although he didn't think those words were something that would have come out of an eight year old's mouth.

'Let's put aside him remembering me... he remembers my rank?'

The Taran Duke's bloodline must have something different. When he thought of it that way, he felt it was unfair and could also understand.

Even the current Taran Duke was like that. As a knight and as one of the best, his brain was excellent.

'The world is originally unfair.'

He realized this the day his childish innocence was broken.

"It was the order of his Grace the Duke."

Damian's eyes grew a little bigger.

'Why?'

His expression seemed to be was asking.

"I believe young master has already heard the news. The Taran Duke now has a Lady of the House."

Damian nodded his head. He usually received news about the Duke in a relatively detailed manner.

In order for him to take over in the future, the Duke intended for him to know about everything.

No matter how long he had left the house and no matter whether he was in a boarding school that was cut off from outside news, it was all so that the Duke would never hear the words, 'I didn't know'.

Damian memorized the letter that had been sent, word for word.

"These are just my thoughts but since both of you now have a mother-son relationship, I think both of you should get to know each other as a family."

'Mother-son relationship, you say?'

Damian inwardly questioned. His father was not such a delicate person. The idea that the Duke would want them to have a strong mother and son relationship did not make any sense.

Perhaps he and the Duchess would bite and tear at each other and the Duke wouldn't be interested until one of them died.

"He didn't say anything else?"

"Ah...he...wanted you to...not be rude to your mother. Said you should show proper respect..."

'Well that's that.'

Ashin had simplified it but he had delivered the warning. He just had to stay there quietly without being nervous.

Even though he was the successor, he was still illegitimate. Which meant he shouldn't needlessly get on the Duchess' nerves.

Even if the Duke didn't warn him, Damian had no intention of confronting his stepmother.

After all, the consent of the Duchess was absolutely necessary to elevate his status.

"Is she pretty?"

"Huh? Ah...I have only seen her a few times..."

'You only needs to see someone once to know if they are pretty or not.'

Due to Ashin's hesitant response, Damian came to a conclusion.

'She must not be that pretty.'

Damian's interest in his stepmother was only to that extent, after which he folded that thought.

Looking at it from his stepmother's point of view, Damian didn't expect to be welcomed and expected that while he was in Roam, they would only meet a few times.

He would live as quiet as he were dead. If she didn't want to see his face, he would lock himself up in the room and she harassed him and it was tolerable, he planned on just enduring it.

Damian was not very surprised when he heard that the Duke was getting married. He expected that the Duke had only done so because it was around time for him to get married.

Damian was grasping the cold temperament of his father that was only moved by necessity.

Even if the Duchess were to give birth to a child, Damian's status as the successor would not be shaken.

His father was never a good father but he was someone that one could have firm belief in.

Damian's attention then switched towards the Academy. The sudden summon at the beginning of the semester had messed up his schedule.

He was initially worried about leaving and falling behind since he didn't know when he would be returning. At worst, he would have had to give up on the entire semester.

'At most, I'll be there for a week.'

It would take about three weeks if the journey back and forth was included.

If he didn't want to fall behind when he returned, he couldn't let any of his time be spent in vain.

Damian had already filled the trunk of the carriage to the brim with books.

< — Damian — > (1)

TN: A little change: I will start using Milady instead of your Grace for some parts. A little abrupt but the change needed to happen. I traveled and had no wi-fi. Finally got it set up today so here!

The news of the Taran Duke's marriage had come from someone's mouth and was passed from mouth to mouth before reaching the high society.

It only came up in people's conversations. There was no one that had attended the wedding so only the rumor had blown up because people did not know any other way to satisfy their curiosity.

Kwiz was of course, also curious and had put in a lot of money and time into satisfying that curiosity.

Since the woman that became the Duchess was a princess, it was hard to find anyone eager to investigate into it.

No matter how much he dug into it, he couldn't find anything. The only accurate information was her name and age.

There was no one that knew even a little thing about the princess.

However, if it was considered a harvest to get her description from the maids in the palace that waited on her shortly before she married, then it was a harvest.

And so he became more unyielding. He was convinced he had an information source that was capable in its own way but it took them digging around for months and coming up with nothing to wake him up.

"What is going on? It's not like they fell from the sky."

Kwiz lamented the absurdness of it all. It wasn't just Kwiz that had tried to find out about the princess.

The Royal Intelligence Division had also dug into Princess Vivian by investigating her detached palace but in the process, the manipulation of the palace maiden's roll call was revealed.

The palace was turned inside out on the large scale and the head proprietors were held responsible and severely punished.

Kwiz dispatched someone to the village that the princess had lived until she was twelve years old and entered the palace but even the person that had been close to the mother-daughter pair shook her head, saying she'd never heard of it.

After digging and digging for several months, he got his hands on the letter that the princess' mother had sent to the palace before she died.

"No clue from this too..."

Kwiz sighed after reading the short letter on the old piece of paper.

All it said was that she'd slept with the King one day and gave birth to the princess. There was nothing revealed about their relationship and nothing that gave hints about her mother's identity. Her mother didn't even sign her name.

"Could it be... her mother was a commoner...?"

He was slightly suspicious but it didn't seem like it. Even though it seemed like that old geezer played around with whatever woman available, he had a preference.

It was unlikely that he would embrace a common woman with rough skin and hands that were coarse from labor.

"Do you really not know anything, Sir Krotin?"

Kwiz asked Roy, his nearby guard that liked to disappear, the same question he'd asked countless times already.

"I don't. Even if I knew, I don't."

His irritating and discourteous manner of speaking caused the adjutant standing next to him to scowl.

Compared to him, the Crown Prince's expression did not change although one couldn't know what he felt inside.

"Even something else is fine. Just how the hell did those two meet and marry?"

I'm curious to death!

Looking at Kwiz's frustrated expression because of his unsatisfied curiosity, Roy secretly snickered.

'I know.'

It was quite enjoyable to know the secret that someone else was struggling to know.

"Come to think of it, you have a duel tomorrow, right, Sir Krotin?"

"Yes."

Factions of Counts hostile to the Crown Prince did not dare to directly confront the Crown Prince, so they picked a fight with the rigid Roy.

When he refused in his usual manner of speaking, flinging a few words at them, they would throw down their gauntlet to the ground saying he'd insulted them. (1)

And Roy gladly accepted. He had never once avoided a fight brought to him.

"Do I take it gently? I mean for the duel tomorrow." [Roy]

Kwiz burst into laughter.

"Is that a new joke? What kind of joke is that? You don't have to think about me, just fight to your heart's content."

It wasn't like Roy wanted to fight personally but sending a knight of his family while they were assuming he would be fighting was an unbecoming sight so he was looking for an opportunity to crush them.

He could easily handle the knight than proposed the retaliation duel, it was their fault for serving the wrong master.

But because he was worried about causing an accident, he asked the prince. If an accident happened, it wouldn't be a matter of the prince's face but his lord would beat him to death.

"Got it."

'I got permission~.' Roy laughed contentedly.

The Crown prince would continue torecall this day in the future for a while.

It was the beginning of the 'Mad Dog' Krotin. (2)

***

When news of the Duke of Taran's marriage arrived, quite a lot of women felt their hearts break.

Anita was surprised but unlike those women, she just felt a little bitter. She had already married three times and had never even dreamt of marrying the Duke of Taran.

She was satisfied with being the lover that he didn't forget and came to see from time to time.

'When he is tired of his new bride, he will contact me.'

She kept her composure and waited but instead of getting contacted, she received a yellow rose.

She gaped spiritlessly at the bundle of yellow roses in front of her for an entire day, then got herself sick from stressing over it for ten days.

When she was barely able to even move her body, a question arose in her mind.

"Just why?"

No matter how much she thought about it, she hadn't made any mistakes.

She'd never contacted him, asked him about his whereabouts or even mentioned their relationship.

Rather, when she heard the news that he was married, she'd stayed away even more.

She just couldn't understand his breakup declaration.

Removing his lover because he was married? He was never such a conscientious gentleman.

She suppressed her heart that wanted to immediately run to his manor and ask him why.

Because she knew that once she did that, she couldn't take it back.

In the past, she'd heard of a woman who had stormed into his manor after being notified of their separation but after that incident, she never saw that woman in the noble circles again.

After thinking about it over and over again, she came to the conclusion that it was the one who had become the Duchess, Princess Vivian.

The new bride must have learnt of Anita's existence and urged him to break it off.

And since he didn't have that of an attachment to Anita anyways, it was obvious he'd just agreed to his wife's request.

Anita began to investigate into who Princess Vivian was. At first, everything was as it seems.

However, the facts that were revealed to her little by little was so interesting that at some point, Anita began hunting day and night for information about Princess Vivian.

Anita investigated into her and her unique senses did not let any sort of information slip.

The first thing that caught her attention was the record of Princess Vivian attending the victory ball. The princess that was practically trapped in the palace and did not know anybody attended a victory ball.

Any woman would wonder; what about her dress? Her make-up? Her hair?

It was akin to randomly casting a net into water and reeling the fish in one by one; little by little, things about Princess Vivian were revealed.

She found out that the princess used to disguise herself as a maid and frequently left the castle. For the dress, Anita concluded the princess had to have procured it personally.

Princess Vivian wasn't a princess that knew nothing about the world. Anita placed a portrait on the table and watched it without moving for a while.

It was a portrait based on descriptions of Princess Vivian that she'd obtained after handing out some bribes.

When Anita first saw it, she was relieved.

The person in the portrait was far from his taste. After reaching the conclusion that the marriage was just a marriage of convenience, she slept well.

But after a while, Anita's heart became restless again. Yes, she wasn't his taste but wouldn't it be more likely for him to fall for her because of that?

Men were usually attracted to new things. She began to get worried about this unusual point of the princess that liked to cosplay as a maid.

'Even if he's interested in it for a while... it shouldn't take long to cool off. At any time and who knows, he may come find me.'

She comforted herself while her anxiety grew even more. He hadn't ever seen a woman that he'd sent a yellow rose a second time.

After she received the yellow rose, Anita barely had any days where she'd slept properly.

'He only married because he needed to. He's a man that does not know how to love a woman.'

While looking at Princess Vivian's portrait, Anita constantly repeated those words in her head.

He was someone who drifted from one woman to another without ever settling down. It was hope based on the false premise that his heart wouldn't ever be caught by a woman. It was also her pride.

Just thinking about that actually happening filled her heart with anxiety.

'I have to see the real Princess Vivian.'

She wanted to calm her anxiety by meeting Princess Vivian and confirming that she wasn't in his eyes.

'Do I go to the North and confirm it without him knowing...?'*

If she didn't take the 'gates', a carriage there would take several months. She couldn't even bear the thought of doing that.

To use the Northern 'gate', one had to gain the approval of the Taran Duke and no matter how formal the process was, she was afraid of the backlash if he ever found out.

It would be better to just wait for the two to return to the capital.

'Why did she pretend to be a maid and leave the palace? What did she do outside the palace? Did she have a lover...?'

A lover. That was very possible.

Finding Princess Vivian was going to be the real starting point from now on. Her initial intention of just checking out Princess Vivian's face was gone.

Translator's Corner:

1. So simple trivia: to throw down the gauntlet means to issue a challenge to a duel.

2. The previous translator translated this to 'Crazy Dog', I prefer 'Mad Dog.'

*If you've forgotten who Roy is...he is Hugo's knight sent to the Crown Prince's side as a guard.

*Who was excited to see Anita again?! Just me? Ok.