Chapter 56
When the assistant mentioned another cat, the Northern Grand Duke perceived it as a threat.
He feared that the assistant, who had a weakness for cats, might thoughtlessly follow any brazen cat that appeared and tried to seduce him.
The assistant was one of the most important pieces forming the Grand Duke’s territory, and the possibility of losing him to another cat was a serious risk for the Grand Duke.
The Grand Duke had to take this issue seriously. Therefore, he never neglected to smell the assistant after returning from absences to check if anything had happened while he was gone.
This was to eliminate any external threats to his peace at the first sign.
This behavior continued even after learning that affection itself guarantees continued stability, regardless of external threats.
It was because he found great pleasure in burying his nose in the assistant’s neck to smell his own scent on him, or reading the assistant’s activities during his absence through the faint scents left on him.
The fact that he could read the assistant’s activities through scent meant that it was common for other beings’ scents to be detected on the assistant.
The assistant socialized with many humans and met many for work. His family members, the weak-willed administrator he often had lunch with, the kitchen staff, the tax collector, finance officer, and others. The Grand Duke smelled many human scents on the assistant.
However, the Grand Duke had never been particularly conscious of this.
Because.
They weren’t cats.
From what the Grand Duke had observed, the assistant did act quite friendly towards humans, speaking in a gentle voice. But the assistant only became overly excited and flustered in front of the Grand Duke in his cat form.
The Grand Duke’s assistant was consistently and exceptionally weak only for cats.
Due to this obvious preferential treatment, the Grand Duke didn’t feel particularly threatened by humans. The only ones the Grand Duke needed to be wary of were cats.
Dogs were also not a subject of concern. Wasn’t that dog even out of his mind?
Of course, it was annoying that the assistant had to accompany that creature during work hours when he should have been with the Grand Duke… but that was the extent of his feelings.
The Grand Duke had never considered dogs as a threat factor related to the assistant.
But.
And yet.
“Um… Your Grace. I’m very late, aren’t I?”
The Grand Duke saw the assistant approaching timidly.
‘He smells of dog.’
The assistant was reeking of that dog’s scent. It wasn’t just a smell that had rubbed off from working together all day, but a scent that seemed deliberately applied.
The assistant, who returned late after standing up the Grand Duke during time they should have spent together, smelled of dog scent that was undoubtedly intentionally applied.
The Grand Duke tried to think calmly about the current situation.
In fact, this was similar to the situation the Grand Duke had envisioned when another cat was mentioned. Of course, there was the enormous difference that the other party was a dog, not a cat.
Being a cat sensitive to danger, various interpretations of this crisis situation naturally came to the Grand Duke’s mind, such as misjudgment, that he should have considered dogs as a threat factor and been wary of them too, or how to deal with this dangerous situation.
It was natural to identify dangers and devise ways to deal with them, as this was extremely important.
But the Grand Duke found it hard to concentrate on this important and obvious task.
Because.
‘My mood is… worse than I thought.’
He was in a really, very bad mood.
The Grand Duke recalled the scene he had witnessed earlier in the day, of the assistant and the dog together.
The scene of that weird dog getting friendly and close to the assistant as usual, and the assistant’s blue eyes gazing at that dog.
And following that, what he could infer from the smell – the assistant touching the dog, the dog marking his scent on the assistant as if marking his territory, the two of them together…
The Grand Duke stopped his train of thought there. His mood had become unbearably bad, making it impossible to continue thinking.
It seemed that not only was his mood worse than he had thought, but it was bad in a slightly different way than he had anticipated. It was truly a terrible feeling.
‘Why?’
What was the difference between an unknown cat and that dog? How was this situation different from what he had envisioned?
The Grand Duke pondered deeply but, perhaps because it was an emotion he was experiencing for the first time, he couldn’t easily identify the difference.
But one thing was certain.
This terribly unpleasant emotion meant that the Grand Duke was now in a dangerous situation.
If so, getting out of that danger should take priority over trying to understand an emotion that couldn’t be easily identified.
The Grand Duke immediately began to think of ways to remove this risk factor.
‘First, I need to separate the assistant from Ralph Steiner. Immediately exclude the assistant from related work, and remove Ralph Steiner from the territory…’
And in the midst of making plans to effectively eliminate the danger.
The Grand Duke suddenly met eyes with the assistant who was looking at him.
“Your Grace… I’m sorry… I didn’t realize it had gotten so late…”
The assistant, gauging the Grand Duke’s emotions and speaking in a small voice, and.
At that moment, a thought other than ways to overcome the danger blossomed in the Grand Duke’s mind.
How much effort the assistant had put into this work. How excited the assistant’s voice had been when talking about how beneficial this would be for the Grand Duke’s territory if successful. How much time the assistant had spent worrying about how to proceed with this work better.
The assistant considered this work extremely important.
So that guy…
‘He would be terribly upset if this falls through.’
As this thought occurred to him, the Grand Duke’s busy planning mind came to a screeching halt.
The Grand Duke didn’t want to lose the assistant to another being. He was a serious threat to the Grand Duke.
The Grand Duke should rightfully remove the danger that had befallen him. He needed to eliminate the danger as quickly and effectively as possible to maintain peace.
But…
‘If in that process, that guy’s feelings get hurt.’
If what the Grand Duke did to prevent losing the assistant to another being ended up upsetting the assistant.
‘That too…’
The Grand Duke finally realized. The threat here wasn’t just about the Grand Duke losing the assistant.
The assistant’s distress had also become a threatening matter to the Grand Duke.
“Your Grace… Are you very angry? I’m sorry, Your Grace…”
The assistant murmured timidly, gently placing a hand on the Grand Duke’s back.
Feeling the slightly lower body temperature than his own through his fur, the Grand Duke thought.
He could neither lose the assistant nor hurt the assistant’s feelings with his own paws.
So the Grand Duke.
Became at a loss for what to do.
For the Grand Duke, who had lived a life where everything was clear, this was an extremely shocking situation.
In this confusion he was experiencing for the first time in his life, he could only stare at his assistant.
Blankly.
* * *
‘The Grand Duke is acting really… strange…’
Ruan recalled the events of the previous night when the Grand Duke’s strange behavior began.
Honestly, when he first encountered the black cat with only its eyes gleaming in the darkness, Ruan had expected the Grand Duke to be angry.
Ruan also knew that the Grand Duke had been in a bad mood all day. Even without the ears and tail showing, living with the cat every day made it impossible not to notice.
So originally, he had planned to quickly eat his late-night snack, return to wait for the Grand Duke, and then vigorously shake the new fishing rod made by the dwarf to improve his mood. But he got distracted by the shocking revelation that his business partner was a dog…
Not only did he fail to improve the Grand Duke’s mood, but he even broke the Grand Duke’s routine of spending time together after patrol.
Ruan had truly intended to sincerely apologize and do his best to improve the Grand Duke’s mood.
But the Grand Duke’s reaction was different from what he expected.
Far from being angry, rather…
‘He seemed to lack energy.’
The Grand Duke had remained quietly curled up without any notable reaction until late into the night. Then, as dawn broke, he left in that same state to maintain his routine.
‘What on earth is going on…’
A cat lacking energy was a really serious problem.
Was the stress too much after all? Or was he sick somewhere? As Ruan was worrying,
“Ruan.”
A familiar voice called him. When he turned around, Julia was standing there, fully armored despite the early hour, seemingly on her way back from the castle walls.
“Ah, Mother. Are you coming in?”
Ruan greeted her with a deliberately bright expression. However, Julia’s expression as she received the greeting was far from bright. Puzzled by the usually stoic knight commander’s troubled and bewildered face, Ruan asked,
“Is something wrong?”
At Ruan’s question, Julia, who seemed to be considering how to broach the subject, opened her mouth.
“Well… I heard a very strange rumor…”
“A rumor?”
Ruan looked at Julia, thinking ‘Aren’t rumors always around and always strange?’
“Of course, I know you’re not that kind of person, but…”
After hesitating for a long while even after starting, Julia closed her eyes tightly and blurted out,
“A rumor… about your… infidelity has spread.”
…What?
