Rex lay in bed, listening to the dense sound of rain on the roof.
It wasn’t particularly loud, but it was thick enough to be irritating.
He had barely managed to suppress the images from Dragon Valley, but the rain pulled him back.
“…”
Rex simply sat up and leaned against the headboard.
Since he couldn’t sleep, he would close his eyes and rest.
The rain showed no signs of stopping.
It kept falling, unhurried, as if trying to drain all the rain accumulated throughout the winter.
It wasn’t until near dawn that he finally drifted off in a daze.
When he opened his eyes again, the room was still gray.
Rex thought he hadn’t slept long, but with a glance at the clock on the wall, he saw the hands were pointing close to three in the afternoon.
“Huh?”
He paused, sat up, and rubbed his face.
Before he even finished descending the stairs, he heard voices from downstairs.
Seweina sat in a chair by the fireplace, legs crossed, holding a cup of tea.
She had somehow found a set of Hilda’s casual clothes—a dark gray knit sweater and black pants.
The clothes were a bit tight on her, revealing the firm lines left by years of training.
Her sword rested casually against the armrest of the sofa, the patterns on the blade glinting in the firelight.
Hilda sat across from her, holding her own teacup, listening to Seweina speak.
The atmosphere between them was much more harmonious than he had expected.
“Good afternoon, My Lord.”
Hilda looked up first.
“Good afternoon.”
Rex walked over and sat by the fireplace.
“Why didn’t you wake me up this morning?”
“Because you looked very tired.”
Hilda stood up to pour him tea.
“I didn’t want to disturb your rest.”
“What were you two talking about?”
“Nothing much.”
Seweina uncrossed her legs and rested her elbows on her knees.
“I just asked her what she thought of you. But your maid’s lips are as sealed as yours—she wouldn’t say a thing.”
Seweina leaned back, a hint of helplessness in her voice.
“I kept at it for a long time, and all she said was four words: ‘No comment.’ She repeated those four words over and over, without even changing a punctuation mark.”
“Then we started talking about cooking. That, she was willing to talk about. She taught me a lot—how to match spices, when to flip the meat. After all these years of cooking, it’s the first time I learned that you need to heat the pan until it smokes before frying meat.”
“You never heated the pan before?”
“No. I just put in oil and meat and heated them together.”
Hilda took the opportunity to add from the side:
“Your Excellency the Governor has a good foundation. It’s just a few habits that need adjusting.”
Rex finished his tea, stood up, and prepared to push open the door to check on the farmland.
As soon as his hand touched the doorknob, a voice chased after him from behind.
“It’s still pouring outside. The rain hasn’t stopped. If you go out now, you’ll be soaked through in less than a minute.”
Rex looked through the glass on the door.
The yard was already full of puddles, and the farmland in the distance was completely obscured by the curtain of rain.
“By the way, a mailman came this morning. Said there was a letter for you. I accepted it for you.”
Seweina nodded toward the table.
Rex walked over and saw a letter carefully pressed under the teapot.
The seal on the envelope bore a familiar crest—a scale crossed with a longsword.
A personal letter from Li Ya.
He tore open the envelope.
Li Ya’s handwriting was as neat as ever, every stroke written with care, as if she were composing a formal document.
But the content was clearly not official work.
[~~Dear~~ Rex —]
[When you see this letter, I am already on my way to you. Thanks to you, the Merchant Guild’s operations regarding Silverfrost Ore have fully returned to normal. Those Federation bastards finally sent troops to guard the transport lines.]
[I brought some things you like, but I won’t tell you what they are. You’ll find out when I get there. Ha ha.]
[— Li Ya]
The letter was short, with no unnecessary pleasantries.
“Who sent it?”
Seweina’s voice came from behind.
“Li Ya. The friend I mentioned before.”
“Oh?”
Seweina responded with an unchanging expression.
Although her expression didn’t change, Rex noticed that she switched the direction of her crossed leg.
The switch was very natural—so natural it seemed deliberate.
Rex didn’t pay it any mind.
He walked to the staircase, then suddenly went upstairs and downstairs for a look, confirming something before coming back down.
“What’s wrong, My Lord?”
“…Do we have any spare rooms?”
Hilda thought for a moment and shook her head.
“No, My Lord. The Governor is staying in one room. Now there’s only a study and another storage room left.”
‘Oh no…’
That was the only thought Rex could manage at the moment.
At that moment, on a muddy road dozens of miles away from the Ancient Castle, a carriage was slowly moving through the rain.
Inside the carriage, Li Ya lifted a corner of the curtain to look at the gray sky, a faint smile on her lips.
She had deliberately dressed in a cream-white long skirt for seeing Rex, with a large emerald brooch pinned at the collar, her hair neatly styled, pearl earrings hanging from her ears, and she had even touched up her makeup.
The carriage jolted violently.
Li Ya was thrown sideways, her shoulder hitting the carriage wall, but she didn’t even frown.
She calmly smoothed out her skewed skirt, sat back properly, and continued looking out the window.
Beside her was a small leather suitcase containing a few changes of everyday clothes, clearly indicating she planned to stay for a while.
Li Ya leaned against the carriage wall, closed her eyes, listening to the rain and the wheels.
The carriage moved slowly on the muddy road, but she wasn’t in a hurry.
She had all the time in the world; Rex wasn’t going anywhere anyway.