"However, there's a condition."
I didn't think much of him before, but he's really petty. Does he have to add one more thing to feel satisfied?
I answered demurely.
"Please tell me."
"Don't meet Chait Pollin."
"What...?"
Why is Chait coming up here?
As if reading the doubt in my eyes, he said again.
"Don't meet him."
"...Why?"
"Because I don't like it."
...Is he an elementary schooler?
Well, if Corellia is the Corellia I know, Ian would be able to safely treat his illness anyway without Chait's help.
"..."
Strangely, my mouth wouldn't open.
I knew that going to find Chait wouldn't be particularly welcome to him since I had hurt him and just left, but even a false answer of "I will" wouldn't come out.
'Just say you understand and move on!'
Another me in my head was about to die from frustration. I just stupidly gaped.
"Ha."
Ian suddenly looked at the ceiling and sighed.
"I didn't know it would be this miserable..."
It seemed like he was talking to himself.
I stood there awkwardly and shook my head.
"Well, you never know what's ahead in life, and just saying you won't meet someone doesn't mean it'll go as you want... right?"
He looked straight ahead again, propped his chin, and raised one eyebrow crookedly.
"So we might run into each other by chance... don't you think?"
A deflating sound came from between Ian's red lips.
"Devastating."
"..."
"I'll send a message to the Bringston family. That I'll send their daughter, so please take good care of her."
He sank deeply into the back of his chair. He looked drained.
Since it was uncharacteristic behavior for him, it felt like I should apologize.
But that bastard dared to try to steal my first kiss in this life without warning, so let's call it even.
I made a mental trade-off and said this to him instead of an apology.
"Thank you. For treating me well."
"...Me?"
"Yes. Actually, I was worried, but I didn't know you'd treat me so kindly."
"I was kind..."
He muttered behind the hand propping his chin and chuckled.
"Funny."
...It is a bit like that, isn't it?
When someone who usually does well does poorly once, it's so unlikable, but when someone you thought was complete trash acts human, they look like an angel.
I suppressed my carefree inner thoughts that wanted to burst out and expressed my gratitude to him.
And then, I brought up things I hadn't been able to confirm last time.
"And about that woman you mentioned before."
"Hmm?"
"The woman called Corellia..."
Every time I said that name with my mouth, my heart pounded.
"Do you happen to know where she is now?"
Thump thump.
I could feel my heart running a 100-meter sprint.
Ian pondered thoughtfully before answering.
"I don't know."
"Ah..."
I felt completely deflated.
"That day, when you discovered me during your escape—seeing her near that location was the first and last time."
"Oh, then Your Highness's illness..."
Ian was still experiencing holy power collision. This meant that when he met Corellia, he hadn't been able to completely cure his illness. And the fact that he couldn't currently contact that Corellia meant...
"Yes, I still don't know how to treat this illness."
"...!"
Corellia had vanished without a trace without curing Ian's illness!
Why? If that Corellia is the heroine I know—that is, Arkidne's saint—she shouldn't have been unable to treat Ian's illness.
Ah, maybe Ian has Helias's holy power instead of Arkidne's?
Or maybe the Corellia Ian met is indeed a third party unrelated to the heroine.
A sigh escaped through my teeth in disappointment.
Ian looked at me as if he couldn't understand my near-desperate reaction.
"That's exactly it. That kind of behavior from you confuses people."
"..."
He doesn't know Corellia's whereabouts. Ian's illness remains the same. Then what was I trying to leave here for, even getting a broken engagement?
'Should I... cancel the broken engagement?'
No. It's not like I'm Turkish ice cream. Let's not engage in pointless hope torture.
Ian was observing me as if studying me. I quickly composed my expression.
"I was just thinking about something else for a moment."
"Bringing up broken engagement talk a minute ago, and now you're lost in fantasy."
Very leisurely, aren't you? His last words were obvious sarcasm even for someone as oblivious as me.
"Then why did Corellia want to meet Your Highness if she wasn't going to cure your illness?"
"I didn't go there to treat my illness in the first place. I went to find out the cause of this illness."
His voice was slightly choked.
"She said from the beginning that she didn't have the ability to cure the illness I have. More precisely, she said she had the ability to cure it, but we weren't compatible."
Not compatible?
Corellia is Arkidne's saint.
And Ian probably definitely has Kahiten's holy power.
Then what's left is...
'Helias?'
Oh, that's the worst.
Currently, only Emperor Helias can change vessels with Helias's holy power.
'Hmm, this is strange. Then even now, and even in the original work, Ian's chances of curing his illness were close to zero.'
Because the imperial family and the north have an even worse relationship than with the temple.
'If Ian's holy power is compatible with Helias, how could he have possibly cured his illness?'
Maybe in the original work, Ian hid his illness and lived his whole life. If that's the case, it's both terrible and somewhat impressive.
A loser hiding his strength might be manageable, but a strong person hiding illness is quite a difficult position.
From the way I quickly discovered his episodes, the pattern doesn't seem consistent, and it doesn't seem like pain he can endure just by bearing it.
How could he have been described as perfectly fine in the original work without a single line of description?
Questions led to more questions.
And I reached one conclusion for now.
'Hmm, I'm useless!'
The information I had was meaningless to Ian.
Since both Chait and Corellia have Arkidne's holy power, serving as a bridge between them would also be meaningless.
'I'm... really useless.'
I unconsciously looked at my thin fingers. Hands without a single muscle, with barely any holy power.
The feeling of powerlessness is always bitter no matter how many times I experience it. Why am I so weak?
'Being weak and always trying to do something, things usually go wrong.'
As I remained silent, Ian muttered.
"...That expression really confuses people."
It was the same kind of muttering as before.
My broken engagement was decided. Ian sent a broken engagement letter to the Bringston Marquis family, and I also mustered courage to send a greeting/reflection letter starting with "How are you, Father?" to Marquis Bringston.
There was no reply.
Too bad. If I received one more letter of abuse, I felt like I could live a long, healthy life regardless of the original work or anything else.
'To go look for Corellia, I'll eventually have to go through the Bringston family.'
I was hoping the Bringston family would abandon me. In the past, Marquis Bringston had been more interested in Selena than Leticia, so the current Leticia who had caused such a big incident would truly be a thorn in his side.
'If by any chance they kick me out, I'll say thank you and leave to search for Corellia.'
I steeled myself with new resolve and prepared for another farewell.
Casey cried saying who would she play poker with now without Miss, and I introduced her to a new card shark, saying the Grand Duchess would be perfect.
From the way Casey's tears dried up, it seemed she didn't quite like her opponent.
The cook who had been wary of me while making tasteless food but later bonded with me over skewers said he was planning a barbecue party this summer but who would he have it with if Miss left, so I paired him with a maid who had disliked me.
Both were petty people caught up in prejudice and stubbornness, so they seemed like they'd get along very well.
The Grand Duchess was about to flip the dinner table saying after dragging it out for 10 years it ends in broken engagement, but sat demurely as soon as she made eye contact with Ian. Whether this should be called maternal love, anyway the Grand Duchess controlled her anger very well when it came to Ian only.
Jes had a strangely welcoming atmosphere about my broken engagement, so I just secretly high-fived him and coolly finished our farewell.
Even though it's a broken engagement I wanted, it's strangely hard to leave.
Honestly, I hadn't been here long enough to say I'd grown attached like in Delin territory, so it would be more accurate to say I just didn't want to return to the Bringston Marquis family.
Just because the broken engagement was decided didn't mean I was immediately kicked out of the castle. So I stayed at Kahiten Castle until preparations for going to the capital were finished, spending time searching for clues about Corellia's whereabouts and sorcery.
As everyone probably expected, my incompetence was such a skill that I found absolutely nothing.
I was going to take our Macaron with me... but after digging through Leticia's memories and creating big data about the Bringston Marquis family, I decided it would be better to leave him here.
Macaron would stay with Casey's retired parents at Casey's family home until I found Corellia and returned.
While it takes about five hundred years to grow attached to people, you can grow fond of animals after just one day together, so I hugged Macaron and cried a little.
I suddenly remembered sending away a black cat long ago, which made me even more miserable.
Casey said to spend even a little more time with Macaron while he was nearby, but I thought it wasn't right for someone who would soon leave to fuss over an animal that didn't understand the situation.
So I'd been avoiding Macaron recently. Even when he came to me throwing meow-meow punches, I pretended not to notice, and even when he cried meow-meow, I pretended not to notice. When he did the kneading he'd never done before, tears welled up but I still turned my head away.
"Meow."
But today's Macaron was particularly persistently clingy. When I tried to ignore him, he even showed his claws.
"Kyaow!"
"Ouch."
I glared at Macaron. Because I'd been deliberately avoiding him, I hadn't noticed, but looking closely, Macaron's appearance was terrible.
"Where have you been rolling around and playing to get covered in so much dust?"
I brushed off Macaron's grimy fur. Brown fur flew around as if it had been waiting, dropping a huge dust clump.
"Huh?"
Among them, a white piece was stuck between a particularly large dust clump.
"This is..."
On the piece of paper with dust brushed off, this was written:
Miss Rea, please save me.
The writing was running. If someone saw it, it would look like a horror movie poster title written in blood.
Though it was just one sentence, I immediately recognized whose writing this was.
'Roche?'
The fact that this was rolling around somewhere in pieces covered with dust meant...
'Roche, is he in Kahiten territory?'