Chapter: 13
She made sure not to scold him for making mistakes so that it wouldn’t backfire when he was nervous, and she gave him a snack as a prize whenever he did well.
When watching them, her grandfather would laugh bitterly while saying, ‘It seems like we’re doing some kind of emergency evacuation drill.’
Everyone would be suspicious if a divorced empress was taking care of a child who had no connection to her, but no one would be suspicious if she stayed with her maternal grandfather and cared for the child of her deceased cousin.
Kaizen was also suspicious when he heard the child’s voice.
“Oh, yeah. I guess I did hear that he left an infant before he died. But why are you looking after him?”
“There was no one to take care of him except for my grandfather. And I couldn’t just leave all these responsibilities to my elderly grandfather.”
When she ran away, she decided to head in a different direction from her grandfather, so as to not be found by Kaizen and his knights.
She couldn’t meet her grandfather after she ran away, hence she was worried about his well-being.
She was eventually going to get caught, so Kaizen told him to stop being stubborn and inform him about her whereabouts, but her grandfather never answered.
Kaizen spits out with exclamation.
“Your grandfather said he would rather die from torture than tell me where you were. Even at that age, he sure still has a great spirit.”
“Did you find my grandfather? What did you do to him?”
As Astelle shouted in surprise, Kaizen replied with a puzzled look.
“Your grandfather is safe. I just asked for your whereabouts. Did you think I would just torture and kill an old war hero?”
It didn’t seem to be a big problem after all.
Astelle was inwardly relieved.
“Where is my grandfather now?”
“He’s in Dents Castle. Don’t worry about it. I asked them to treat him with courtesy.”
Dentz was on the way to the capital from here.
“While I was traveling towards the east, I found out about your whereabouts, and since you weren’t that far away from where I was. I thought it would be nice to come to see you in person.”
After finishing his explanation, Kaizen still looked curiously at Theor.
“If you don’t mind, can we talk alone?”
Kaizen glanced at the knight standing by the door.
As the unfamiliar knight approached, Theor was frightened and hid behind Astelle’s skirt.
Astelle took Theor’s hand and said while looking into the child’s eyes.