Marriage With A Suspiciously Demure Husband [Novel] Chapter 142

Marriage With A Suspiciously Demure Husband – Chapter 142

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In front of Rendil, I pretended to be fine, pretended to understand, and brushed it off as smoothly as possible, but inside, I was anything but fine.

But it was also so incredibly like Cailus that I didn't know what to do, making it hard to manage my facial expression.

Since he was a sharp man who could catch even the most subtle changes in my expression, I paused for a moment, let out another sigh, composed my racing thoughts, and hurried my steps.

"Then, My Lord, I will go clean up and return."

Syd bowed deeply to me, bending at the waist, and quickly disappeared.

I smiled, gave Syd a nod of acknowledgment, and stood in front of Cailus.

"I heard you went to have a chat with Rendil."

"How did you know?"

"Syd said he saw you passing by."

"Ah… that's right."

I answered like that and carefully examined Cailus's expression.

It seemed to have changed subtly, or maybe not.

"Aren't you going to ask what we talked about?"

At that, Cailus chuckled softly.

"What did you talk about, then."

As I simply glared at him for a long while, Cailus lowered his head a bit more to get a better look at my expression.

I let out a sigh and opened my mouth.

"It was nothing much. I just cursed you out a little bit."

But facing Cailus's face up close, my resolve weakened.

Because I felt like I would have done the exact same thing if I were in his shoes.

I had a strange conviction that we would succeed this time, but he must have been extremely anxious deep down.

Even though he didn't show it to me.

I reached out and needlessly fiddled with his clothes.

And then, I told him what I really wanted to say.

"Thank you for protecting me."

I smiled warmly, looking up into Cailus's widened eyes.

The North had now passed its long, harsh winter and was slowly waiting for spring.

At the same time, the cleanup of the corruption was completely finished.

Except for the Free Villages, which had practically been reduced to ruins after failing to withstand the monster invasions, everywhere else was recovering rapidly.

Among them, the Duchy, which had suffered frequent monster invasions, showed the fastest recovery.

Perhaps because of that, the citizens of the territory were anticipating spring more eagerly than ever before.

There was another piece of good news.

I hadn't had a single nightmare since I woke up.

I was finally freed from the agony of thrashing in my sleep, from the unbearable anxiety of being unable to tell the boundary between reality and dreams.

It seemed that glimpsing into the long past during the time I was unconscious was the final one.

However, I still hadn't figured out who had turned back time, or how it was even possible.

Thinking that perhaps the Master of the Magic Tower might know, I requested a visit, but the answer was always a rejection.

The reason was that he was too busy to meet.

I requested a few more times, but the answer was still a rejection, and Rendil told me to drop the question entirely, saying it was something that only happened in imaginations.

So I didn't submit any more visit requests after that.

While the North was peacefully wrapping things up, there were places that were not.

From the news I heard while organizing the North for two months, the capital was still in an uproar.

To be exact, the Imperial Family.

The resentment of the imperial citizens was barely dying down, but it became known to the entire world that when the situation grew severe with monsters and worshippers, the Temple blocked the distribution of purification stones and supplied them exclusively to the Imperial Family.

Since Zed later changed his mind, and Lily supported us until the very end, even at the cost of turning her back on her lover, I was going to bury it.

It wasn't hard to figure out later that the informant was Cailus.

Anyway.

And so, the Imperial Family was hit with another typhoon.

Eventually, this spring.

The Emperor stepped down from the throne in disgrace.

Naturally, the authority of the Imperial Family plummeted as well.

Zed hastily succeeded him, but the public resentment did not die down easily.

Watching this unfold, I eventually asked Cailus to subtly leak to the world the fact that Crown Prince Zed and his future Crown Princess, Lily Dayworth, had participated in the war.

Because the Imperial Family took a much bigger hit than I thought, and more than anything, I had no desire to completely cut ties with Lily.

I didn't want to expend any more emotional energy on this.

Besides, the Emperor had brought great disgrace upon himself and the Elkium Imperial Family, a mark that would remain in history forever, so we decided to call it a day with that.

After many twists and turns, Zed took full responsibility and was rapidly normalizing the Imperial Family.

Perhaps his sincerity had finally reached them, one day, the former Emperor, Ethios Berid Elkium, visited the Duchy.

That alone was surprising, but he personally apologized to Cailus and me.

We haven't heard any news since then.

Because Zed kept his words to an absolute minimum, only letting it be known that the former Emperor and Empress were living in seclusion.

"Hazel."

"Yes?"

"So, when are you going to hold the wedding?"

Frost still fell in the mornings, but it was quite warm during the day, making it feel as though spring was finally arriving.

With the guild now returning to normal, I was busy looking through piled-up documents when Annie rested her chin on her hand and asked.

Annie had been staying at the Duke's castle ever since she came to the North.

Saying something about wanting to genuinely rest now since she had made a lot of money.

Even though Hizan was now with Annie, and I had also given up on running away after a year, she continued to stay on as my maid.

Still pretending not to know me in front of other people, of course.

"The wedding…"

The wedding, which we originally planned to hold after handing over all the information to the Imperial Family, had been postponed indefinitely, and we couldn't even bring ourselves to restart it.

"Shouldn't you start preparing now so you can have it before spring passes?"

"Yeah, that's true, but I can't even dare to start preparing again. I was overflowing with motivation back then, but it seems to have died down a bit…"

I muttered, pressing my chin with the back end of the pen I was using to sign documents.

"So you're not going to do it?"

Ginger, who had been behind the study, suddenly popped out and revealed herself.

"No, we are going to do it, but…"

"Or are you thinking of running away again? I'm still in favor of it. There's plenty of people here to help, so just say the word. Your mind might have changed."

"That's right, after going through all that suffering, your mind could change again."

Annie said while practically rolling around, half-lying on the sofa.

Her face was brimming with playfulness.

The two of them were still extremely terrified of Cailus, but it wasn't like that—at least when I was around.

They seemed to have a firm belief that I would protect them from Cailus no matter what happened.

"What are you saying… I'm not running away anymore."

"Ooh."

Ginger teased from the side.

"Ahem, anyway, I'll think about it again after I take care of these urgent matters. You'll help, right? You too, Ginger?"

I let out a pointless fake cough.

"But of course. You're going to hold it in Ferrarium, right?"

"Probably."

The wedding.

The thought that the guest list might change a bit made me slightly depressed.

When I grew quiet, Annie lay flat on the sofa again, humming as she filed her nails, and Ginger sneakily slipped out for a date when Egman happened to visit.

I lowered my gaze again to deal with the documents first.