The Northern Grand Duke and the Cat Are Not So Different

Chapter 19

‘Could it be that the Ruan Daen I possessed was in his unlucky year?’

I’m not sure if such a thing exists in the fantasy world… but how else could things keep going wrong in such strange ways every time?

If it was an unlucky year, I wish I had possessed him after this period had passed. Then… I wouldn’t have found myself in such an absurd situation.

Ruan heard the news that part of the delegation had arrived early while he was putting a spoonful of warm stew in his mouth for lunch.

“They arrived… today?”

Even before hearing who had arrived, Ruan put down his spoon and asked, feeling an ominous feeling creeping up the back of his neck. It was an instinctive action, sensing that he might not be able to eat any more of this stew once he heard the answer.

“Yeah. Apparently, things went so well that they finished all the discussions already. They’re having a banquet there now, and a few members of the delegation came ahead to report, I heard.”

Ruan looked at Stefan, the administrative officer who always ate lunch with him. As Stefan took another spoonful of stew, he added as if just remembering:

“Oh, right. I think your mother and your brother came too?”

Why do ominous premonitions never fail?

Ruan asked with a trembling voice:

“Do you know… when they arrived?”

Stefan calculated the time and answered Ruan’s question:

“Hmm… I heard about it on my way to meet you, so… they probably passed through the castle gates about forty minutes ago? I heard it from Sonya, who’s in charge of gate security today. Since no one can go to His Grace’s office during lunch time… they’ll probably go to report after lunch is over, right?”

‘So that’s why I didn’t hear about it…’

The Duke cat usually took a nap by the window in his office instead of eating around lunchtime. Since the Duke disliked anyone approaching during that time, no one visited the office around lunchtime unless monsters were invading.

But it seemed the delegation had arrived in Reinke just as lunchtime was starting.

Forty minutes… In this rumor-crazed neighborhood, that was enough time to hear at least the “Top Ten Popular Rumors” and then some.

And Ruan could bet the stew he was just drinking that at least three of those ten rumors were about him, and one of them was bound to be that insane princess imprisonment story.

Ruan still vividly remembered how the Daen family members had reacted when he received the ogre corpse from the Duke and the “intimidation using ogre corpse” rumor spread.

‘Even if it costs me my life… I cannot let the one who hurt my sibling go unpunished.’

‘Dying alone is enough for me. I entrust your sibling to you.’

‘This is my fault as the eldest son for failing to protect my sibling. I will go.’

‘Sob, waaaaaah…’

He remembered it all too vividly. That’s why Ruan also knew what action he should take at this point.

Ruan jumped up from his seat and started running.

‘Straight to the office, no matter what.’

It was obvious that if the Daen family members had heard such rumors, they would head straight to the Duke’s office. After all, they were the ones who said they would go and protest to the Duke, risking their lives that day.

And now, as everyone knew, it was the time when the Duke would be enjoying his nap by the office window.

If Julia and Joachim barged into the office like this, they would be able to meet the Duke right away as they intended… and then after that…

Somehow, Ruan had to get to the office faster than Joachim and Julia.

‘I hope they haven’t arrived already…’

Ruan ran with the most desperate heart and most intensely since becoming ‘Ruan Daen’.

And perhaps thanks to that desperation, when Ruan reached the corridor in front of the office, he saw Julia and Joachim just approaching the office door. Just as the knight was about to knock on the office door with a grim and solemn face.

With his breath caught in his throat, Ruan shouted as loudly as he could:

“Wait a moment!”

And at the moment Julia and Joachim stopped their hands reaching for the office door and turned their heads towards Ruan upon hearing his voice.

Since his possession, Ruan’s legs, which had rarely moved vigorously enough to be called ‘running’, couldn’t handle the sudden exercise and gave out. Naturally, Ruan, the owner of those legs, fell violently at the same speed he had been running.

Crash bang!

“Ruan!”

Julia and Joachim shouted in surprise at the sight of their youngest suddenly appearing and falling as if rolling.

And… all that commotion woke up the Duke who had been taking a light nap in his office.

More precisely, hearing sounds and sensing something that seemed like trouble for his aide, the Duke quickly rushed out of his office.

Needless to say, the two knights standing in front of the office to protest to the one accused of imprisoning and intimidating their lovely youngest sibling wore the most solemn expressions upon seeing the person in question appear, opening the door himself.

And Ruan, who was watching all this scene in a fallen state a few steps away from them… In order not to make all his earnest running in vain, he shouted out first:

“I came to the Duke’s castle of my own free will because I wanted to be by Your Grace’s side!”

At Ruan’s solemn and resolute cry, everyone in the corridor stopped what they were doing and looked at Ruan, who was lying on the floor with only his face barely raised.

Yes.

‘Everyone in the corridor.’

Under the gazes of the Duke, Julia, Joachim, someone from next door, someone from across the street, someone’s cousin from the house opposite, and the in-law’s distant relative from two doors down looking at him.

Ruan wished he could just faint right then and there.

* * *

“Ouch…”

After falling so violently on the stone corridor, there was no way a human’s knees would be unscathed. As the cold ointment was applied to his scraped knee, Ruan unconsciously let out a groan.

“Oh, sorry. Did that hurt? I’ll be gentler.”

Joachim, who was applying the medicine, said with an expression that seemed more pained than Ruan’s.

“You should have been more careful. And you shouldn’t run in the corridors.”

Julia, who was sitting nearby watching her eldest son treat her youngest son’s wounds, said.

Ruan, who had made it his life’s principle never to run even when traffic lights were flashing, looked slightly wronged.

‘I… never wanted to run in the corridors either…’

And he certainly never wanted the title he gained after what might be his only full-speed dash in his lifetime to be something like ‘the Duke’s lover who made a passionate confession even while collapsed in the middle of the corridor’.

Recalling the gazes that had been on him after he heroically shouted that he was by the Duke’s side because he wanted to be, Ruan looked at his knee with a miserable feeling.

He had somehow managed to prevent Joachim and Julia from causing a commotion due to misunderstanding the Duke. It seemed that Joachim and Julia’s ‘misunderstanding’ had been cleared up as well.

However… another misunderstanding had been layered on top.

As Ruan was feeling troubled, thinking about the content of the hot new rumor that would follow the ‘princess imprisonment theory’, Joachim, who was carefully wrapping a bandage around Ruan’s knee after applying the ointment, spoke up.

“Still… you love His Grace enough to run so hard that your legs gave out, right? I… I think my little brother who can do that is pretty cool.”

Joachim’s reaction, which was perfectly accurate to what Ruan had been expecting, made Ruan even more troubled. Regardless, Joachim was muttering things like ‘I didn’t know my little brother had grown up so much… I thought he’d always be a little child… Before me…’ in his own emotional state and inexplicable sadness.

Julia, who had been watching her two sons troubled for different reasons, opened her mouth.

“Ruan. You said you came to the Duke’s castle because you wanted to, right?”

Since it was true, and since he had declared it so heroically, Ruan couldn’t deny it, so he nodded.

“…Yes.”

“Then do you plan to keep staying at the Duke’s castle?”

At Julia’s question, Ruan bit his lip, unable to give an immediate answer.

Initially, Ruan had entered the Duke’s castle because he was worried the Duke might come looking for him at night. He was afraid the Duke might end up wandering the streets naked to come to Ruan.

But after staying at the Duke’s castle, despite the clearly closer proximity, the Duke had never once come to visit Ruan. If so, it would be more rational to think that the Duke’s previous visit had been a special incident and that such a thing was unlikely to happen again in the future.

In fact, there was no reason for Ruan to continue staying at the Duke’s castle.

That was true.

Ruan also knew which was correct.

Nevertheless…

Seeing Ruan hesitating without giving an answer, Julia spoke instead.

“I see. It might be good to stay away from your family if you’re confused.”

At these words that hit the nail on the head, Ruan raised his gaze from the floor to look at Julia.

Julia wore the face of a solid and steadfast knight, as always.