4 (2) – 9


    Cami followed us along a short path into the back of the L?rrich mansion’s rear garden. They kept walking until they reached a small building.


    The walls of the building were white and featureless. It barely seemed suitable as a storeroom and was hardly fit for anyone to live in. There were several windows, but they were all located on the sloped roof so she couldn’t peer inside. There wasn’t a chimney either, so there couldn’t be a firece inside.


    As she was led inside the hut, it was surprisingly warm, as if it were designed to keep out the cold.


    The source of that warmth was the vast amount of manastonemps that lit up the interior, making it as bright as if the sun was still hanging in the sky. In all four corners of the room as well, there were magical heating tools. Just how many manastones were being consumed to keep this room warm throughout the winter?


    Thanks to the extravagant use of manastones, stepping inside the hut felt like leaping forward in time into spring. Cami could scarce believe howfortable it was inside, no firece could replicate this.


    But what surprised her the most was the scene she beheld in the cabin.


    It was as if she were looking at a field of snow, from which a beautifully sweet aroma wafted in the air. Besides the old looking shelf sitting next to the door, the hut had no other features.


    Her vision was dominated by the wholly white flowers that sprung up all around her.


    “Just what is...?”


    A greenhouse. She remembered hearing about these once before. It was a small building that was warmed and lit with magic tools to keep the same climate year-round. Because it naturally cost a small fortune in manastones to maintain, it was rare to see one outside of the confines of a rich florist’s business or in the garden of some aristocratic hobbyist.


    “You really are carefree, huh? Even though I’m a man, you followed me to this corner of the garden with no one around. If I were a bad guy, wouldn’t you be in trouble?”


    As Cami blinked in surprise, looking at all the flowers, us’ joking voice came from behind her. It was a threatening joke in poor taste, but Cami didn’t turn around.


    “I didn’t make a mistake when apanying you. Since you are all bark and no bite, after all.”


    “Harsh as ever, huh?”


    With a smile, us overtook Cami and made his way further into the greenhouse. Reaching the centre, he stopped in his tracks.


    “This ce here, y’see, is my secret little hideaway.”


    “...Haa?”


    us’ voice sounded slightly higher pitched than usual as he said that, his back to Cami.


    “When I was still a kid, Father said he would buy me whatever I liked, so I asked for a flower garden that would stay in bloom all year round. Ain’t it great?”


    “Quite.”


    It was certainly true that the field of blooming flowers was a sight to behold. If she looked down at her feet, it was easy to forget that she was actually indoors.


    Looking closely at the beautifully white and delicate looking petals on those flowers, she could see a slight red tinge at the base. The petal’s colour transitioned from red to a light pink and finally to pure white as it stretched out towards those rounded tips.


    – I’ve seen these flowers somewhere before.


    Cami frowned as she bent over, looking closely at the flowers stretching out in front of her. It was a flower that she had never seen in the royal capital...


    “The flowers growing in here are my favourites. They smell good, right? They’re one of the most important ingredients in the perfumes made here in Blume. They’re Sehnsucht. In thenguage of flowers, they represent ‘desire’.”


    “That’s right... They were on the biscuit you gave me.”


    Cami remembered when she met us for the first time, as well as the flowers with which he decorated his baking.


    “You never really took it, though.”


    “I crushed it, actually.”


    When Cami said that, usughed.


    Hisugh today really was different from usual. Despite not liking his usual attitude much, something about it still bothered Cami.


    “The flower begins to bud during winter, then when spring hits they bloom all at once. This town really is amazing in spring, y’know? The streets are just awash in flowers. It’s not just Sehnsucht, there’s all sorts of colourful flowers.”


    The trees that were nted along the sidewalks of town, the flower beds lining the square that were now buried in snow, the flower gardens in all the public spaces, and the potted nts that sat in the gardens of all themon homes.


    When spring came, they would all bloom into life as one. The people of this town nted the spring seeds and awaited the thaw, as if praying for an early change in season.


    As much as the town was covered in snow now;e spring, it would be simrly adorned with flowers. Just how beautiful would it be?


    “I like this town in spring. Even from the windows up here, you can see flowers blooming everywhere. The white walls of the houses are covered in flowers too. When the snow melts away, the streetse to life with people as well. The whole ce bes brighter. I’ve always loved seeing this town like that.”


    Cami couldn’t tell what kind of expression us was making with his back turned to her. She wasn’t even sure that he was talking to her at all.


    Perhaps us wasn’t really expecting Cami to say anything in response. In fact, he might not want to hear one at all. Maybe the only reason he brought Cami along was because he didn’t want to feel as if he were speaking to a wall.


    “If this ce bes another mining town, the flowers won’t bloom anymore. Uncle and Franz are obsessed with excavating as much as possible. Flowers are weak and unbing, apparently not fit to represent the pride of the L?rrich family. My uncle has always been pushing to make this ce more like Einst.”


    The modest and taciturn town of Einst. A town that resembled a barracks, obsessively ordered where people lived and worked like a regiment. They would follow the orders of their leader to the letter; left, right, left.


    Cami had learned that all the townspeople of Einst still retained their own beliefs, thoughts, and feelings. But the impression others still had of the town was one of a monolith, where the people were equally made of stone.


    “The people in this town just won’t go for something like that, y’know? You saw it in the young musicians you met, right? How they’re still hiding and ying despite everything? When people try to ban them from doing something, it only makes them want to do it more. Even if there might be trouble if the truthes out, I don’t think it’s such a bad thing to go against these taboos.”


    “...Quite.”


    Cami spoke, though she wasn’t sure that he had heard her.


    Those people they had met in town, us’ ‘teachers’ from all different ages and walks of life, had embodied that rebellious ethos. It couldn’t have been a coincidence that they only ran into us’ teachers like that. Perhaps, most of the people in this town had taught us something over the years.


    What’s more, those young musicians... Even though they feared the repercussions they might face from the vigntes if they were caught, as far as Cami could recall, they didn’t seem to have any guilt or remorse over actually breaking the traditions at all.


    “Making this ce look like Einst must seem like an easy thing to do if you’re sitting up in an ivory tower, but that shoe just doesn’t fit. When you let people in this town live as they please, great things can happen. The whole perfume industry here started as someone’s hobby, after all...”


    As us’ words trailed off, he stared up at the roof. Those twinkling manastonemps illuminated the brown curls of his hair.


    “This town... I don’t want it to change.”


    “If that’s how you feel, then you ought to im the session.”


    Cami ced her hand on her hip as she stared at us’ back. He just continued looking at the roof in silence, not giving her any response.


    But, Cami felt frustrated just listening to hisints without offering any sort of solution.


    “You are the eldest son, are you not? And Gerda is backing you, yes? If Baron L?rrich hasn’t yet decided on his heir, then you have more than a good chance.”


    “Father wishes to have Franz inherit his title. In fact, he has been raising Franz as his heir since he was a kid.”


    “Why on earth would he bring up the second son as his heir from the beginning?”


    In Sonnenlicht, inheritance was usually decided by the right of primogeniture. Although it wasn’t thew, it was seen asmon sense to raise and educate the eldest child with the intention of having him inherit his father’s titles andnd. Any young brothers born afterward were, to put it bluntly, a spare. It was only in cases where the older brother is useless or a miscreant, the younger brother is some kind of genius, or some other reason where it wouldn’t be logical to have the eldest sit in the position of sessor, would the younger brothere to the foreter in life.


    As Cami asked the natural question, us simply shrugged.


    After a while, he finally turned around to look at Cami. A bitter smile was stered on that pale and thin face of his.


    “I used to be quite sickly as a child. I barely had enough strength to stay on my feet, and I never left the estate because of how dangerous it would be to my health. That’s why my father gave me this ce, because I didn’t have enough strength to walk all the way to see the flowers myself.”


    As a young boy, us was so ill and weak that the doctors surmised he wouldn’t see his tenth birthday.


    That’s why the family pampered and spoiled us, whilst Franz received the strict education as the heir apparent of a noble family.


    In order to raise Franz as an ideal lord, superior to the rest, he faced a severe regimen of sses and study every single day. The training was as strict as anyone could expect given the position he was being raised to fill. But just how did the young and exhausted Franz feel when he saw that older brother of his, who was indulged and spoiled merely for existing?


    However, he would be the inheritor. Consoling himself with the fact that his older brother, us, would one day die and secure him in that position, he carried on.


    Yet us, the boy who was supposed to have died, lived on.


    After he reached the age of ten, when he was expected to pass away, us in fact slowly regained his strength and vitality.


    When he eventually became as strong as any other boy his age, voices started toe out of the woodworks rmending us to once again be the heir apparent.


    “Because I’m a genius, I can do things better than most people can. Even though Franz is ardent in his studies, I can usually learn something in half the time it takes him. When I was a young boy, people often said that I was brilliant for my age. I could figure out what people were thinking straight away, seeing through their politeness to understand their real thoughts and attitude. So... I do understand why there are people who support me in bing heir. I wouldn’t be a bad bet at all.”


    Cami listened in silence as us ended with a sigh.


    She didn’t like it. As a person, Cami felt far more sympathy for Franz’s position than us’.


    Having to see his brother pampered like that from an early age, then eventually threatening to rob him of his very reason for being... Cami saw a parallel between Franz and us’ problems and her own history with Liselotte.


    Cami just couldn’t understand what us was thinking. She knew us had his own problems which he was deeply troubled by, but Cami couldn’t empathize with him and wasn’t about to offer insincere words offort.


    “If I seed though, what will happen to Franz? Just what will he do if the only thing he had been raised up for his entire life is suddenly taken away?”


    He’d be bitterly disappointed. And of course, he’d despise us. It would be frustrating. He’d feel like he was suffocating. Cami knew those feelings all too well.


    “That guy has a few things wrong with him and is a little twisted. He can only see himself in how hepares to others and doesn’t know about anything other than inheriting the barony. He isn’t the kind of person who would ever want to work under me, but I can’t see him doing well out in the world either. But since I’m a genius, I wouldn’t have any trouble finding a living anywhere. There’s no need for me to seed the House.”


    Saying that, us suddenly pped his hands together. Then with augh, he looked back at Cami.


    “Alright, that’s how the story ends! That Alois guy can just go ahead and endorse Franz as the sessor. Thanks for listening to me drone on like that.”


    As he said that with a frivolousugh, us began to walk back towards Cami, who was still standing at the entrance. He spoke as if a weight had been lifted off his shoulders, but that smile of his still skewed strangely.


    “Are you leaving?”


    As us made to leave in silence, Cami red at him.


    Cami sympathized with Franz. She couldn’t understand us’ point of view, and in a way, she was envious of him.


    – No, but that’s the very reason I can’t stand it.


    “Hmph,” with an angry snort, Cami’s mouth bent in annoyance. With her hands on her hips, she thrust out her chest as she spoke out to us, who tried to go past her and leave.


    “This story is not over at all. There is something that I want to say.”


    Despite deeply yearning for something, he was taken lightly. He was pitied, then merely had it handed over.


    In other words, treated as a fool.