I stared blankly out the window as the morning light broke.
‘What on earth was that?’
I had finally gotten the first-hand look I wanted, but I couldn’t pull myself together.
‘Lucas, why did you stab my friend?’
Just imagining it made me so angry that I had to take deep breaths to calm down.
I kept reminding myself that it was just a novel.
If I didn’t, I felt like I would call Lucas in right this second and recreate the scene exactly as it was written.
“Are you awake, Count?” a servant asked from outside the door.
Holding my head in both hands, I called out, “Summon Sir Tayros.”
“Pardon?”
“Hurry. Tell him it’s an emergency.”
The servant gave an affirmative reply from outside the door and ran off to find Tayros.
I needed to see him perfectly fine with my own eyes immediately. I couldn’t handle this anxiety.
A short while later, Tayros burst into my bedroom, panting heavily.
“What—what is it?! What happened?!”
“…….”
Tayros was perfectly fine.
Thinking it was a dire situation, he had come fully armed.
Aside from the sweat dripping down his face from running over so quickly, he was completely unharmed.
At the sight of him looking so robust, the volatile anxiety inside me slowly began to subside.
When I just stared at him without saying a word, Tayros grew uneasy.
“What… what’s wrong? Why are you acting like this?”
“Let’s eat.”
“What?”
“Let’s have breakfast together. That’s why I called you.”
“Didn’t you say it was an emergency?”
“Yeah. Having breakfast is a pressing and important matter.”
My anxiety vanished entirely.
I stood up and washed my face with the water the servant brought. Tayros looked dumbfounded.
“Did you seriously call me here on an ’emergency’ just to eat breakfast together?”
“Yeah.”
The servant brought my clothes.
Just as I was about to take off my top, I realized Tayros was still there and signaled him with my eyes to step out.
Tayros walked closer, clearly intending to demand an explanation, but his face stiffened the moment he got a clear look at me.
“Why is your face so pale? Did something happen?”
“…….”
I couldn’t exactly tell him that I had just witnessed a past timeline where he almost died.
It was a novel inside a dream.
A story.
No one would believe it.
Yet, here I was, believing a story that no one else would credit.
“It’s just… I had a nightmare. Seeing you makes me feel better. I’ll get dressed and head down shortly. Go to the dining hall first and eat with Leon.”
“Hyacinth Pation. Tell me the truth.”
Tayros pressed me.
His menacing, threatening expression was so ugly it was almost entertaining.
I forced a loud laugh and said, “You sure love to throw the Count’s name around so casually. Why are you being so serious?”
“If you’re going to punish me, just tell me why and get it over with. I’ll take it gladly.”
Tayros didn’t smile.
My laughter slowly faded.
Tayros stubbornly demanded an answer.
To think a bear-like guy like him would fight Lucas and almost lose his life…
“Even if I tell you, you won’t believe me.”
“I will. Because it’s coming from you. Because it’s coming from the lord I swore my loyalty to, I will believe whatever you say.”
Tayros stood as unyielding as a tree, looking back at me.
A line from the novel flashed through my mind.
‘Had I really relied on him like a brother in place of my missing older brother?’
I suppose I did.
The only reason I could afford to focus less on the knight order and pour my energy into managing the fief was because I trusted Tayros.
I trusted him completely.
I trusted that no matter what I said, his faith in me would never waver.
He was my knight, my close friend, and my brother.
“…….”
The Hyacinth in that novel was me.
It really was me.
If Tayros were to get hurt, I would absolutely act that way.
My belief that this world was inside a novel solidified.
However, there was no need to make Tayros suffer alongside me by letting him know that.
I decided to tell him a half-truth.
“I’ve been having dreams lately… pretty severe nightmares. Yesterday, I dreamed that you almost died, so that’s why I called you. The dream felt too real. Seeing you perfectly fine puts my mind at ease. I’m sorry for summoning you so suddenly.”
Without a shred of suspicion, Tayros immediately accepted the half-truth.
“You can call me whenever you want, but please don’t call it an emergency next time. Just in case, I left the entire knight order on standby before rushing over.”
“I’m truly sorry about that.”
That meant every single knight was currently armed and waiting for orders, preparing for a crisis.
I felt terrible for making them exert themselves for nothing first thing in the morning.
“It’s your knight order, so there’s no need to feel sorry.”
Tayros called a servant and instructed him to deliver a message to the order to stand down.
The servant ran off to deliver the word.
Just as I was about to ask him to leave so I could change, Tayros suddenly threw a question at me.
“Hey, so listen. Is that why you’ve been calling that slave to your room at night? Because of the nightmares?”
The question pierced right to the core of the matter.
Startled, I scanned his expression to see if he knew something.
Seeing my guarded reaction, Tayros became startled in turn and began to stammer.
“N-no… I just asked because you’re doing things you never used to do. Since when did you ever care whether someone was pretty or handsome? I was shocked when I heard you called him to your bedroom. You’ve never done that before.”
He didn’t actually know anything.
He was just questioning it because my behavior had been bizarre lately.
“It’s something like that.”
Once again, I only told him half the truth.
Tayros found peace of mind through that alone.
“Ah, got it. Man, I thought you actually had that kind of taste. So you just slept together because you were scared of the nightmares.”
I was tempted to just let him run wild with his misunderstanding, but the phrase “that kind of taste” bothered me, so I asked, “What exactly do you mean by ‘that kind of taste’?”
“The kind of taste where you like a guy who looks sultry and acts like a sly fox.”
“…….”
“Do you have any idea how much he turns on the charm and smiles with his eyes whenever it’s just the two of you? I was genuinely stunned the first time I saw it.”
I was completely at a loss for words. I couldn’t even counter it.
Every single word he said was true.
Lucas was pretty, handsome, and carried a sultry air—and he absolutely acted like a fox around me.
To put it bluntly, he had the exact face of a tyrant’s most favored concubine.
“That’s not my taste…….”
“Right? If you keep having nightmares, just call a priest to give you a blessing.”
“Yeah. I’ll do that.”
‘Sorry. Actually, that is exactly my taste.’
Relieved, Tayros left the room, telling me he’d see me in the dining hall.
I should have been happy that things were resolved smoothly, but realizing once again what a fool I had been only made me more miserable.
