Between Your Letter and My Reply

Chapter 129

“It seems like it will take some time, so why don’t you go back for today? You have to come back in two days to hear the results of my golem investigation anyway. Though I can’t guarantee I’ll have a solution within two days…”

“It’s okay, Soliel! It doesn’t matter if it takes longer!”

Lilliana hopped in place a few times and bowed to Soliel.

“Then I’ll see you again in a few days! You can take your time with my request. Ah! But it shouldn’t take too long either! Please do it moderately slowly, and also moderately quickly!”

“What kind of expression is that?”

Lilliana left Soliel’s shop with a giggle. She was quite pleased with today’s harvest. If her request to Soliel went well, it would ease her worries a little.

Damian, who was standing outside, said to Lilliana as she emerged with a beaming face, “I don’t know what it was, but did things go well?”

“Yes!”

“That’s good to hear.”

Lilliana walked briskly and said to Damian, “Hey, Damian.”

“Yes?”

“Where do you think the princess that Knight Stern couldn’t find was, and what was she doing?”

Damian’s steps slowed at the unexpected question.

“What do you mean?”

“What do you mean, what do I mean? I’m literally asking where you think the princess was and what she was doing.”

“I’ve never thought about that before.”

Lilliana nodded at Damian’s answer.

“I thought you’d say that. Then think about it now. What do you think?”

The question only flustered Damian. He disliked the fairy tale of Knight Stern’s adventure in the first place, and now he was being asked to think deeply about it.

It was a rather difficult question in many ways. And Damian’s imagination wasn’t very rich, so he couldn’t come up with anything.

However, he felt that Lilliana wasn’t asking just for the sake of asking, so he tried to think seriously. But it was difficult to come up with a plausible story.

“Wouldn’t she be living well somewhere? If life was difficult, I think she would have returned to the kingdom.”

“What kind of answer is that?”

“That’s the limit of my imagination.”

Lilliana thought about it for a moment and found Damian’s answer quite agreeable.

“That’s true. Even if she wasn’t living well, she wouldn’t have gone back if she liked her life better than the palace, right? I see. Then what could she have been doing?”

Damian didn’t understand what Lilliana was talking about, but she seemed to be lost in thought, so he just kept quiet.

***

Bang!

With the sound of a gunshot, the wooden block placed on the tree trunk flew away. Lilliana raised both hands and exclaimed, “I did it!”

Then, with a slightly flushed face, she looked at Damian.

“Damian! I hit it!”

“Well done,” Damian said, clapping his hands. Lilliana twirled the revolver’s trigger guard with her finger and boasted in front of Damian, “Am I getting good now? Am I as good as my teacher?”

Damian placed three wooden blocks on the tree trunk at regular intervals. He walked over to where Lilliana was, took out his gun, and fired in rapid succession without hesitation.

Bang, bang, bang!

Lilliana wasn’t sure if Damian was even aiming, but the three wooden blocks fell over dramatically. Lilliana asked Damian with a dumbfounded look, “What do I have to do to be able to shoot like that?”

“If you can shoot that well, you’ll be able to get at least two medals.”

“Hmph…” Lilliana made a frustrated face.

“By the way, you’ve recovered a lot if you can shoot a gun like that. It hasn’t even been two months since you got your prosthetic arm.”

“I’ve been working hard at rehabilitation. And what am I going to do if I can’t even do this much?”

“Your recovery is amazing. Are you a spirit too?”

Casey, who had been lying on a picnic blanket, joined their conversation.

He was munching on snacks and scribbling something in a notebook. Watching the two practice shooting from time to time, Casey looked quite leisurely.

Lilliana looked at Casey and asked cautiously, “Brother, don’t you have anything to do?”

“What do you mean, anything to do?”

“Well… I’m taking university lectures from time to time, and I’ll be going to the atelier to work soon. But you… you don’t have anything to do.”

“What do you mean I don’t have anything to do? I’m protecting you.”

“You’re saying you don’t need to do that since Damian is here. In the first place, Damian was hired by me on the premise that you weren’t here. If Damian is here, you don’t have to be. If you’re that worried, you can work in shifts with Damian.”

At those words, Casey turned his eyes to Damian. Damian shrugged and said, “Lilliana has a point. Why don’t you do something too? Leave the information network to Ms. Annette.”

“Hmm…”

Casey pondered for a moment, then nodded.

“Well, that’s not a bad idea. But I don’t really have anything I want to do.”

“What do you mean you don’t have anything you want to do? You could learn something as a hobby, get a job and earn money, or find a place you want to visit…”

Lilliana listed a few examples, but Casey shook his head at each one.

“I don’t have anything I want to do. So I’ll stay by Lily’s side.”

That answer not only irked Lilliana but also rubbed Damian the wrong way.

That was emptiness. A vessel that couldn’t hold anything. He could tell because he had been the same. Damian knew all too well how much it made life dull.

Damian crouched beside Casey and asked, “Is there really nothing you want to do?”

“No.”

“What about things you like?”

“I don’t know.”

Casey blinked as if he had never thought about such things. Damian frowned slightly and asked again, “Then, what do you want to be?”

“…Do I need to have something like that?”

“Do you have a goal in life?”

“To wipe out all the guys who bother Lily.”

“What are you going to do after that?”

“I don’t know. More importantly, why do you keep asking these things?”

Seeing Casey getting tired of it, Damian said with a wry smile, “I think I understand why we get along.”

For some reason, Damian found it a bit comforting that there was someone else like him.

Damian thought that living without anything you wanted to do, wanted to be, or had to do was quite lonely. Others might not know, but at least Damian felt lonely.

But Casey, who had to live a much longer life than Damian, didn’t complain about this monotonous existence.

But even if there were no complaints, it didn’t mean he felt fulfilled.

Therefore, Damian said to Lilliana in a slightly serious tone, “Then how about Lilliana decides?”

“Decides what?”

“Something for Casey to do. I don’t think Casey’s current state is desirable. And I think Lilliana feels similarly. So it wouldn’t be bad for Lilliana to suggest something.”

It was as if she had hired him as a bodyguard.

“Why should Lily be the one to decide?” Casey protested, but the two ignored him.

At Damian’s suggestion, Lilliana crossed her arms and fell deep into thought before saying,

“Even if you tell me to find something brother is good at… Honestly, excluding the two years I lost my memories, I’ve only been with brother for a few months, so I don’t even know what he’s good at.”

Lilliana narrowed her eyes and looked at Casey.

“What are you good at, brother? Cooking?”

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