Weren’t You the One Who Was Dying? Chapter 25

“Finally!”

The train bound for Regen let out a boo sound as it departed.

The noise of people talking mixed with the sound of the train running along the rails and drifted through the air.

As it curved along the sea under the afternoon sunlight, wide plains spread out before us.

A broad plain between low mountains that turn red in late autumn. For now, they were still green, and the train cut through them as it raced toward Regen.

Whether he was keeping his word about not following me anymore, or whether he was simply busy, Ehit didn’t come looking for me today.

‘I’ll be going to another city for a few days.’

I didn’t know where he was going, and I didn’t care. But one thing was certain.

Today—when Ehit wasn’t in Bellachen—was my chance to finally go to Regen without worry and find out what my eldest brother had done.

‘Elzers, please be there today.’

Of all my brothers, I was most lenient toward Elzers. Just the fact that I was willing to hear him out showed that.

All I could do was hope that Elzers wouldn’t stab me in the back.

After getting off at Regen, I walked around the plaza for about twenty minutes. Near the Ruth Academy where Elzers stayed, there were many students who had just come of age.

This must’ve been a season without academy exams.

Watching people laugh freely, their faces full of carefree smiles, I searched for Elzers.

He finally appeared after I’d spent three hours combing through places he was likely to go.

“Dapflen…?”

As I was sitting on the steps in front of his house, taking a break, I heard his voice. A man with slightly messy hair, glasses, and light brown hair called my name.

If he cleaned himself up a bit, he’d actually look quite handsome—but Elzers always seemed determined to hide that.

Behind his glasses, his dark green eyes wavered as if he felt guilty.

“Elzers?”

“Dapflen, what’s going on?”

No matter how I looked at it, his voice sounded like someone hiding something.

His clothes were dusty, as if he’d been wandering around all day, and the way his eyes kept darting around made it even more suspicious.

“I’ll ask you straight out.”

“Not here, Dapflen. Let’s go inside.”

Elzers grabbed my arm as he spoke. Just as I thought—he knew exactly what I was about to ask.

His house felt emptier than the last time I’d been there. There were few items on the shelves and bookcases, and not much furniture.

Once inside, Elzers poured tea into a cup and set it in front of me.

As always, he was gentle and kind—but I couldn’t match that kindness today.

“You must be tired from coming all the way to Regen. Drink some tea first.”

“It’s fine. Seeing you today makes me less tired.”

“Sorry… you came not long ago too, didn’t you…”

“You knew?”

“Huh? No, not really.”

He waved his hands in flustered denial, then let out a long sigh as if giving up.

Since he seemed to already know what I was going to say, I got straight to the point.

“What exactly happened, Elzers? Why did you borrow that kind of money? And why use Cloyden as a guarantor?”

“Dapflen… it’s just…”

Elzers opened his mouth as if to speak, then finally covered his face and said in a broken voice,

“What do I do…?”

 

 

****

 

 

“I told a lie—or rather, several lies. Without even realizing it.”

This was Elzers’s story.

As soon as the news of my engagement to the Cloyden family spread, people kept asking him things like this.

‘What’s it like to have the duke as family? He must give gifts, right? I hear high-ranking noble families always do.’

In that moment, Elzers couldn’t bring himself to say, No.

‘Yeah, haha.’

‘Wow, Elzers. I’m jealous. So what did you, the duke’s brother-in-law, receive? A watch? A leather belt?’

‘Uh… yeah. A watch, something like that.’

‘A watch? Like a Kelling watch?’

‘Y-yeah. Kelling. That one.’

‘I’ve never even seen one in person. How is it? Is it really as good as they say?’

‘…’

‘Huh? Elzers?’

‘…I saw it for the first time too, and it really was different.’

People projected their expectations about what a duke’s brother-in-law should be like onto Elzers.

The problem was that Elzers didn’t even know how expensive a Kelling watch was—and yet he went along with their expectations.

‘Really? Show it to us just once!’

‘Show it?’

‘Yeah. That wouldn’t be hard, would it?’

‘…No, sure. I’ll show you.’

I listened to Elzers’s story with my hand over my mouth.

At that point, he paused and let out a heavy sigh.

“I don’t know why I lied like that, Dapflen. I always thought I wasn’t the type to show off… so why did I do it…?”

But I thought I understood why.

Inner vanity.

Elzers had always lived modestly without showing off, but everyone has at least a little vanity inside them.

The Aileta family was noble, but not wealthy, and Elzers had probably convinced himself from a young age that he didn’t desire luxury.

Because of that, he wasn’t used to dealing with the vanity he’d suddenly let slip out.

‘The price… what? One watch costs this much…?’

Elzers found out too late that a Kelling watch cost more than five years of his scholar’s salary.

Buying one was impossible, so in the end, he decided to rent one from a luxury rental shop for just a day.

Up to that point, it was still manageable.

The real problem was….

‘Lord Aileta. This is not the watch we rented to you.’

‘What? What do you mean…?’

On the day he returned the watch after showing it to his colleagues, it had been replaced with a fake.

‘By tomorrow, you must either return the genuine item or pay an amount equivalent to its price. Otherwise, we will have no choice but to request an investigation for theft.’

‘No—this is the watch I rented. It really is.’

‘At the time of rental, you personally checked the hologram and serial number inside the watch, correct? The item you returned has neither.’

He asked his colleagues about the watch, but they all looked genuinely confused.

“Haah…”

As I listened, my head began to spin, and I pressed my fingers to my temple.

“So I borrowed money first. I didn’t have that kind of cash right away. The rental shop designated a lender, so I borrowed the watch’s price from them.”

“Why on earth did you borrow from them? You should’ve gone to the central bank!”

“The bank said the review would take three days. They told me if I didn’t pay immediately, they’d report me for theft.”

Elzers answered with a tearful face.

At this point, I could roughly guess what had happened.

That private lender naturally charged far higher interest than a bank, and with each passing day, Elzers’s debt grew.

“I’d never been in a situation like this before, Dapflen. I was desperate. Really desperate.”

That was when he was told that if he used Cloyden’s credit, they’d lower the interest rate and extend the repayment period—so he wrote the IOU using Cloyden’s name.

“Dapflen, what do I do? I tried to gather the money, but it’s not working.”

“Did you sell everything you had at home too?”

“Yeah. Even then, it’s not enough to cover the principal. What do I do now… Delphi, what should I do?”

Elzers, who’d looked miserable the whole time, finally buried his face in his hands and sobbed.

Money he couldn’t earn even in five years. There was no way such a sum would suddenly appear.

Unless someone struck a gold vein and shoveled gold out of the ground, it was impossible.

‘Then…’

Watching Elzers cry, I quietly sank into thought.

“Delphi…”

“Stop crying, Elzers.”

“What should I do, Delphi? Huh?”

Looking at Elzers as he repeatedly asked me, I answered with a determined expression.

“What do we do? We find that watch again.”

 

 

****

 

 

 

 

Elzers’s room, rearranged to at least look presentable.

The wooden door opened, and his colleagues entered. Three men came in behind him, laughing good-naturedly.

“So, Elzers! You got a Roséan Bennet leather belt?”

“There are only a few of those in the empire. I heard the prince likes the Bennet model best, even among Roséan belts.”

“Haha, it’s nothing special.”

“Show us already. Wow, so this is the belt. It’s amazing.”

“Is it? Haha.”

“Yeah. I was worried when you said you lost the watch, but to get another gift so soon… Cloyden really doesn’t give you time to feel down.”

One pair of eyes secretly watched the scene from inside the wardrobe.

Mine.

In the dark closet, sitting with my legs tucked in among the clothes, I carefully observed everyone’s expressions.

‘Elzers said he only showed the watch to his colleagues. And he returned it the very next day, so the timing was short.’

The fact that a fake had been swapped in meant someone knew the watch was in Elzers’s house.

Either a thief broke in overnight after getting information somewhere, or a daytime visitor stole it.

Honestly, the latter wasn’t unlikely.

‘Let’s see…’

Holding my breath, I peered through a small gap in the closet, examining each person carefully.

The three visitors were the same people who had been at Elzers’s house when the watch first went missing.