"Young master, here all all the compiled reports from last incident" Hans put the stack of clipped files and papers on the table, "Is there anything else that you need, young master?"
"No, that should be all for now"
Cale took one of the report paper and briefly skimmed over the texts... And as he expected; None of it had went outside of his predictions.
Slip
He turned over to the next page and skimmed it over too.
Almost all of his chess pieces are already placed and all that he needed to do now was to wait for the final pieces to be dragged and placed, fully encircling the enemy king and trapping him inside with no way of escaping.
That also meant that-- huh?
Cale caught an odd sight from the corner of his eyes.
"Hans," Cale put down the paper he was holding down to his lap, "did something happen?"
"hm? What do you mean, young master?"
Hans, who was pouring a new batch of brewed tea onto Cale's cup, hummed in confusion. His hands carefully placing the cup back to the porcelain saucer.
"You had a stupid grin on your mouth just now," Cale leaned over to his side, his mouth curled up in amusement. "Did something good happened?"
Hans took the teapot and set it down to the ceramic tray that was on a trolley next to him. He didn't even noticed that he was grinning, he thought he was just smiling as he would usually do.
"Was it that obvious young master?"
"Quite much,"
.
.
.
"The young master seems to be a lot more cheerful lately." One of the maids that was standing in front of the office door whispered to her friend. "But today, he seems to be especially happy!"
"Seems like it wasn't just Hans who had a good day today..." Another mumbled,
"Did we miss something?" The last pondered, "wait, are we even allowed to eavesdrop like this? Won't we get into trouble?"
The three maids were relatively new to the Henituse mansion, and they almost had never seen the rumored eldest young master of the Henituse's family until just a few months ago, when he had just gotten back from the eastern continent from doing a task from the crown prince.
But at that time, the eldest young master was.. a bit different than he is now.
Not in terms of appearance or anything of the like, but, more like, the air he was excluding.
He was still very nice,
Everyone else who had worked in the manor longer than she had even cooed on the Henituse's, especially the eldest young master, was way nicer than any of the other nobles they had met. And she even experience that kindness first hand.
But she just can't get the feeling of unsettledness when she had met him for the first time. Like, there was something wrong about how he smiled.
There also seemed to be a wall of invisible detachment from the young master when she was talking to him, as if his mind was wondering to a far away place even though his body was there. And how he was looking at something else no one ese could.
Yet it was different this time,
The young master actually seemed to be smiling when he was smiling, and laughing as he was laughing. It was refreshing, in a sense.
And she was glad,
"We should get back to work," She straightened her back and dusted her white apron, "Or Sir Ron might scold us again"
It had happened before, and it had ended with them having to do more work even though their shift had already ended.
"Aww, okay~"
. . .
"Human,"
Cale had ignored the call of the little blob earlier since some of the maids were standing in front of the door. But now they had went away, He finally answered it, "What is it?"
The Blob didn't reply immediately, like it was pondering it's own question even though it had been calling for Cale several times already. Cale waited, but his hands and eyes were still busy with the papers that Hans had brought for him.
"Are you sure you're alright?"
When The little blob finally decide to voice out his concerns, Cale noticed the Skepticism laced over it's tone, "you should just rest,"
Rest?
No, Cale didn't have the time to rest just yet.
He had to keep on pushing-- he can't stop now. Not when he could finally see the end of it all.
Then again, It's worries was not unfounded. He could also already feel his body falling apart slowly. Deteriorating from the fatigue, from the dead mana, and... "Human?"
The blob called out to him again,
"Yes?"
"Wasn't your dream to have a slacker's life?"
Slacker?
"That's what you had always told me before,"
Ah,
It was something like an epiphany,
"So why can't you just sit still and do what a slacker is suppose to do?" Because it probably had to do with the fact that he was not the 'Cale' the little Blob was familiar with.
Did the Cale that the Blob had grew up with had such a dream? That was the first time he had heard of this. And it was a rather... interesting dream for the other him to have. Does the other him have nothing else he wanted to do?
"..."
The Blob flew and landed next to the pile of papers on the table. It's blue eyes were as bright as ever, "...Human?"
What could he say in this situation?
"Sorry, but I have to do this" Was what he said, but the two of them had a completely different understanding of that one sentence.
One thought it as a useless sense duty,
The other simply thought of it as his own selfishness to get what he want.
It was only one sentence, yet, it had a different perception depending on the individual.
.
.
.
"Just please don't get hurt again human,"
"Of course,"
"Promise me!"
"...yes"
A little Illust for the previous chapter-end part. As usual the picture can be found at my Instagram, please check it out! ....φ(︶▽︶)φ....
<Err, might wanna skip it if you aren't comfy with disturbing images>