How Can You Pay Back The Kindness I Raised With Obsession?

Her cheeks tickled again, so she turned around.

“Anyway, did you jump all the way here?”

“…”

She didn’t see the Grand Duke’s white horse, so she asked… The Grand Duke, who had been talking softly, tightly shut his mouth. It was about to get awkward again.

“Hazel!”

Luna’s voice calling her reverberated through the forest.

“Wow!”

When she turned her head to the front, she saw the children running this way.

“You can’t go alone!”

Behind them, the Praetorian Guard and Sir Daniel became contemplative and caught up with the children.

“What?”

Luna, who ran first, stopped with three steps left, and she grinned.

“What is it?”

Luna glanced meaningfully at her and the Grand Duke, then covered her mouth and giggled.

“Don’t talk weird to people.”

The Grand Duke warned Luna harshly. I explained her circumstances to Luna, who kept following the Grand Duke.

“I sprained my ankle.”

“Hey, where is the doctor? Doctor!”

“Me!”

“It’s not a doctor’s game!”

“But Hazel said it would get better if I treated her well.”

Luca hopped and blew on her dangling ankle, clinging to the Grand Duke’s arm.

“They don’t care if I get hurt…”

The Grand Duke shortened his stride to match the children and muttered:

“Are you both hurt?”

“Hey, are you hurt?”

“No.”

Luna, still looking up at the Grand Duke with her mischievous eyes, whispered in Luca’s ear. Luna opened her mouth and giggled, and the Grand Duke asked while rolling his eyes in that direction.

“Luca, what did your sister say?”

“Uh…”

Luca grinned as he looked at his brother and sister.

“Brother…”

“No!”

“She says it’s because you’re jealous.”

Luca giggled, and Luna and the Grand Duke began to wrestle like children. Meanwhile, Hazel laughed without stopping.

She thought she knew now. This bickering was actually the Grand Dduke’s way of playing with his younger siblings. And even though the Grand Duke acted like he’s sad, she knew that he didn’t want to receive Luna’s worries and Luca’s ‘ho-oh’. He was the kind of person who thoroughly hid his injuries from children.

When he returned from the last subjugation, she heard a rumor that his ribs were broken, so she brought a healing potion to the office. As if the rumors were true, the Grand Duke thanked her and said this while receiving the potion.

“Be sure to keep quiet about this to my younger siblings.”

As he said, the Grand Duke was an adult, not a child. That’s a pretty great adult.

“When distributing luggage and people, make sure not to exceed the capacity. It’s hard to break even more. Come to think of it, is Joe still in town?”

She sat at the end of the wagon and stared blankly at the Grand Duke giving out instructions here and there. He might be a more experienced adult than her, seeing as he conducted skillfully without showing any signs of hesitation, so why was she so concerned? Did he look lonely? Was that the reason? Looking at the back of the Grand Duke, she was trying to dig into the root of her desire to take care of him, but Luca pulled on her sleeve and asked,

“Hazel, Hazel! Are you feeling better because of me?”

She stood up, hiding the empty pill bottle in her hand in her pocket.

“Wow, that’s true! Everything was fine thanks to you.”

She stroked his silver hair and gave him a kiss on the forehead, and Luca boasted to his sister.

“Look. I was kissed.”

Luna pursed her lips disapprovingly, but said nothing. She knew everything, but her eyes were deceiving.

“The wagon will be ready soon…”

The Grand Dke, who was approaching them, narrowed his eyes when he saw her standing there.

“All is well.”

The Grand Duke nodded his head briefly, then continued his words.

“Miss Hazel, get into that wagon with the children. There are not one or two broken wagons, so it will take time to fix them. There are also some injured. We will be staying near here today and leaving early tomorrow, so let’s do that.”

Originally, it was planned to arrive at the Grand Duke’s mansion in the capital today, but the journey became longer by a day. After driving for about an hour, they arrived at the inn where they would be staying today. By that time, the sleepy winter sun had already covered half of the mountain duvet. While the servants and soldiers unloaded their luggage and looked after the horses, she had a snowball fight with the children in the courtyard of the inn.

“Take it!”

“It’s the war!”

“Oh! Got into the clothes! So cold!”

The Grand Duke, who was standing in front of the stable and having a serious conversation with the knight, turned his gaze to her. It was her who was hit by their snowball, so why was he looking at her like that?

“Chestnuts, let’s make a snowman now.”

Soon, smoke rose from the chimney high above the sunset sky, and a delicious smell began to spread.

“The meal is ready!”

When the inn staff shouted, they stopped making snowmen and went into the bar on the first floor. After washing the dirty children’s hands, they sat down at the table where the meal was set. The children looked around the crowded hall rather than the steaming dish and asked her.

“Where is our brother?”

“Why isn’t he coming?”

Her stomach rumbled when she washed her hands, but the children didn’t even touch the forks and knives and looked for the Grand Duke first. Her eyes widened in tears. This desire to share delicious food was love and affection to her. Be unique and affectionate. The Grand Duke should see it.

“Your Highness…”

The guardsman sitting next to him lowered his voice and answered. To be safe, we had to hide from the inn people that we belonged to the Duchy of Blaine.

“I went to speak briefly with the innkeeper. He’ll be back soon, so let’s eat first.”

“We have to eat it while it’s warm…”

“If it gets cold, just ask to heat it up.”

She brought her knife and fork to the large plate of food in the middle. The skin of the large chicken grilled over charcoal was shiny.

“I have legs!”

She cut off one of her chubby legs for Luna and gave Luca, who hated its fat, only sliced its breast meat without the skin.

“Let’s eat this evenly.”

Around the chicken were heaps of boiled peas, whole baked potatoes, and chunks of yellow cheese. She took a small amount of this and put it on the children’s plate.

“It’s hot, so blow on it and eat it.”

“Oh, hot!”

Scared to speak, Luca put a piece of meat in her mouth and spat it out. Luna started rolling the peas she was about to take with her fork when they bounced off her table.

Whoa, these chestnuts.

“The farmer who raised this to eat this deliciously is sad. Luna, wouldn’t it be sad if Luca didn’t eat the beans you carefully raised and played with them?”

“Hmm, that’s right…”

Luna quietly looked at her peas, reflected, then reached out her hand.

“No, I can’t eat this anymore.”

She snapped Luna’s fingers and snatched the peas before she put them in her mouth and threw them away.

“Hmm, it tastes unique.”

Instead, Luna, who scooped up the peas with the spoon she gave her, made her face tremble. It didn’t look very tasty.

“Eat the potatoes. It’s soft.”

“Hmm, this is very well seasoned.”

“The beans taste good… It’s different from what Hazel did.”

“Then let’s have a bite of meat. Just cover it with the taste of meat.”

Luca did as she ordered, popping the chicken into his mouth and chewing it down along with the beans. A couple of months ago, he would have spit out the beans, so it was a huge improvement. They could eat from carrots to peas these days.

In the meantime, the children tasted the ingredients they hated one by one and learned that each has its own charm. At the same time, they learned the fun of experiencing various tastes and textures. Thanks to that, they’d been able to eat Harold’s cooking these days, and now they didn’t mind going out and eating unfamiliar dishes.

“Brother! this way!”

While eating a meal with the children and talking dirty, Luna, who was sitting opposite the door, raised her hand. She looked back and saw the Grand Duke walking into the tavern. He gave Luna a short nod of the head, then went straight to their table and sat next to her. Was it snowing outside? A light layer of white snow lay on the shoulders of the Grand Duke’s wolfskin cloak.

Ah… really.

She wanted to pretend she didn’t know, but she kept getting nervous. Why, was there such a thing? If you’re a stranger on the subway and your shirt collar was turned inside out, you wanted to do it right away, and if you had hair on your back, you wanted to take it off! In the end, she couldn’t overcome the urge of melting that snow.

As she blew, the snow crystals sitting on the gray wolf’s fur blew and fell away. Still, there was still a long way to go before her stomach felt better, but his shoulders suddenly moved away. When she raised her head, the Grand Duke was looking down at her with eyes as if he had suffered something bad.

No. Blowing air into your ears, it’s not that kind of perverted thing!

She pointed her hand at the snow piled on his shoulder.

“I want to shake it by hand too, but the rules are…”

The rules said she couldn’t touch him so she just blown it. The Grand Duke narrowed his eyes as if to say something sensible.

“Witch, what is magic?”

“Oh, of course I can use magic, but it will take an hour to move the snow crystals one by one.”

“Then it will melt by itself in the meantime.”

The atmosphere he exuded was neat and seemed like he would hate getting a speck of dust on his body in everything, but the Grand Duke was more easy-going than he looked. He didn’t pay attention to the snow on his shoulders and started eating the chicken in large chunks. How long has it been since she turned my head to her plate?

“Ha.”

The Archduke took off his cloak and laid it on his lap.

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Translator Note:

Next week there will be a double release hehe

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