I Don’t Trust My Twin Sister

I thought of trust as a word without form and without container. Trust means blind faith in another person. But I decided for myself that this feeling would be the lowest. In a situation where I couldn’t trust anyone, whether it was my family or my fiancé, I felt that trust was a mirror that coldly reflects the reality of being abandoned. Standing at the end of the mirror, I looked only at the hem of Ian’s clothes and concluded that it was the same person. And I thought to myself that if I trusted him, I would be betrayed.

So even after signing the contract, meeting Ian was limited to when I really needed him. That’s probably why I was forced to hold on. However, it was he himself who eventually broke down that wall.

“I told the maid to prepare a change of clothes. Once the rain stops and the situation is sorted out, we have to move. There is a high probability that the mountain road will collapse if the wagons move rumble in the rough road conditions.”

His voice, approaching me like this and taking the first steps in what I had to do, was so kind and affectionate that I couldn’t stand it any longer. I had to not trust him, I had to give him my trust. In the end, I had no choice but to withdraw the voice that I had denied myself endlessly.

“I like this man.”

It was strange that this man suddenly opened his mouth. He was once a man with no contact. Each of them lived somewhere, but there was no meeting and no connection. The fact that such a person was worried about me came to me in a new way.

“So, after a while, the guys who attempted the attack wake up…” he stopped talking. Because I spread my palm and put it on his cheek.

Ian looked at me slightly surprised. The red eyes were cute. He saw that those eyes that had always been looking at me like a boy who liked to play pranks were angry and worried about me. I was bewildered now. It was nice to be able to show various sides of myself.

“Lowrence?”

His big palm covered the back of my hand. Somehow I laughed. The sound in his heart that he had once admitted seemed to resonate and cover his body. He moved his mouth softly at my smile.

“Why all of a sudden…?”

I looked at his face as he looked up at me obliquely from below with my back bent. I bowed my back. I didn’t know why. It wasn’t a reciprocation or an action that had any meaning. I just wanted to. I raised my other hand and wrapped it around Ian’s cheeks. The wind blew and brushed the hair around my ears. Naturally, the end of it flowed past Ian’s face. I put on a pleasant smile. It doesn’t matter now. I just wanted to express it that way.

* * *

After receiving a report from the adjutant that the guy who appeared to be the leader of the raiders had woken up, he got up and moved his body. As we looked at each other in embarrassment and awkwardness, the adjutant’s report came very warmly. Ian approached me with a slightly calmed face and smiled. What’s so good about this man, wasn’t he laughing too much? But his smile was good, so I smiled too.

“What’s good?”

“Yeah. Our relationship has gotten a little stronger.”

“It’s done. Well… that’s a big deal.”

“In resume, since my lovely fiancée expressed her feelings first, I deserve to be moved.”

I pictured that man running around in the castle alone. Hmmm, he seems to fit well with something, but it is awkward. But somehow, I liked this guy because of myself. The thought made me feel better. He forced the corners of his mouth to twitch and opened his mouth in unison.

“So, what happened to the tyrannical knights and the person who seems to be the captain?”

“Oh, that one?”

Ian turned his steps and came closer to me, leaning back slightly and whispering in my ear.

“I haven’t told anyone yet because it seems like a rather important issue…

“What…?”

I swallowed my saliva. Were there any major issues? As he turned his head slightly, Ian grinned and removed his face.

“It feels like biting a big fish.”

“Do you?”

“Huh.”

What did he mean? Anything special revealed? I looked at Ian, who smiled meaningfully, and he took out a disk and something round from his waist and handed it to me. It was a gold coin. There was no special pattern, and at first glance it looked like a gold coin. However, it was slightly smaller than that and darker in color. It was so subtle that a person who hadn’t handled gold coins for a long time would not be able to detect it. But I’ve had quite a headache over this in the past, so I’ve been able to categorize gold coins pretty confidently by country.

“What is this?”

“It’s counterfeit money”

“Counterfeit?”

“Huh.”

What was counterfeit money? This? What kind of counterfeit money didn’t look so counterfeit?

“…Why is this counterfeit money?”

“To briefly explain, I heard that some counterfeit money was being secretly made in other countries for several years and I was investigating. At that time, a disc, or water used for making gold coins, was found in a small provincial town. It looked exactly like this and .”

I couldn’t understand exactly what it meant, so I just stared at him. Ian pointed to the disk and opened his mouth softly. 

“In less than ten years, the Empire alone confiscated ten of these discs. And no more discs have been found. But I found this disk in the arms of that guy, who seems to be the captain. This is one of them.”

Ian spread his two fingers and folded one of them, opening his mouth.

“One is that once again the guys who make counterfeit money with these discs are starting to spread their wings, and the other is…”

He paused for a moment, then slowly opened his mouth with a face that looked quite complicated. The rest of his fingers were bent.

“The storage of the imperial family where this disk was retrieved and stored was robbed, or…”

I brought out the words that followed.

“…Does that mean that the high-ranking nobles involved in this case are looking after you?”

He smiled slightly.

“That’s it.”

Regarding counterfeit money, the law was strict and the punishment itself was quite high. Was it the minimum death penalty? This was because gold coins were the currency used throughout the continent and were a key commodity in trade. The currency used by each country was different. Therefore, the value of each currency was influenced by the rise and fall of the country. But more than that, the country’s gold mines had a big impact on determining the value of the currency. I didn’t know the details, but it’s enough to say that the value is determined by the difference in the gold content that went into one gold coin.

By the way, gold coins made in the empire were highly valued for trust in the empire and national reputation, but in addition, they had the highest value on the continent due to their high gold content. For this reason, the Treasury Bureau, which manufactures, stores, and distributes money, tends to purchase gold after setting the number of gold coins produced each year. A gold coin was completed only when there was a disc from which the gold coin was printed and an imperial seal to be embroidered on it. All of these productions were under the jurisdiction of the Imperial Treasury Department.

“It’s been about 5 years since the disk of counterfeit money was found. I’ve been investigating for a long time, and I thought I pulled out the roots 5 years ago, but this money was discovered again.”

“Could be a ‘why did the authors have this stuff’ trade. I’ll have to hear the details, but I’ll know.”

He flicked his chin and nodded lightly at him asking if he would like to go with him, then flicked his finger at Benson, who glanced this way. He quickly approached and bent his back. Ian stared blankly at him as he suddenly approached. I thought Ian was quite tall too, but he was shorter than Benson. Benson was not unusually large. Ian’s eyes moved up and down and he spread his fingers.

“Who is this person?”

“Del Benson, S-class mercenary.”

“Benson?”

His face contorted. Yes, such a reaction is normal. Benson faced Ian with a shy face because he was in front of a ruffian who did not hesitate to beat nobles and break into their mansions and damage their property. Ian’s eyes narrowed.

“Why is this human here?”

“I hired him as an escort for Ersia.”

“Ersia’s escort?”

A whistle was heard. He glanced at Benson and Ersia with a puzzled look for a moment, then smiled and nodded his head.

“Is that so?”

Did Ian understand my intentions right away? Or did you think it was something else? Either way, I thought he was pretty quick-witted.

“Well, please, Del Benson, can I call you Benson?”

Benson nodded his head, sweating profusely. Why was he so nervous? HH grabbed his outstretched hand and bowed his back uncharacteristically.

Ian tapped Benson on the shoulder, then he said he would go first and moved away. Are you saying you won’t listen to what’s going on in the family?

“I… miss.”

As I was staring blankly at Ian’s back, I heard Benson’s voice. He turned his head. Benson was wiping the sweat from his hands. It was the first time he had ever seen a nervous face.

“Are you familiar with Ian?”

“…I can’t say I know him, but he’s like a nightmare to me.”

“Is this Ian?”

“Yes. Archduke Berdian… So that man is a nightmare. I’ve met him before. We were enemies back then, so it’s only natural that he doesn’t remember.”

“Are you two old acquaintances? Enemies?”

Benson moistened his dry lips with saliva and nodded.

“I’m a mercenary with a weak point, so I participated in any fight that took place anywhere as long as I paid a lot of money. I once participated in a battle where nobles fought factions among nobles in a small provincial town. At that time, he came to the opposite camp. I remember it.”

“Ohh… so?”

“Well, after that it was one-sided. I could feel the strength of the Berdian family.”

Benson closed his eyes as if to recall.

“I single-handedly crossed the battlefield and took down 200 people. It was a battle with both casualties and wounded. I also participated in the battle, but I couldn’t last ten seconds against that man. He’s a formidable man. Maybe he’s stronger now. ?”

“…Ian?”

I stared blankly at him as he stepped on a puddle and grumbled. Is that man such a monster? It was true that the Berdian family was at the pinnacle of the martial arts and was the center of all martial arts. It is true that Ian held the position of head of the household at a young age in such a place, but I had never seen what kind of abilities he had or how strong he was.

“Ah, so what about that wall of fire from earlier…?”

If you think about it, the situation changed after Ian appeared today. When asked about his doubts, Benson answered calmly.

“I heard that with the Berdian family’s unique ability, they can handle fire since they were young. I didn’t know exactly what kind of ability it was and how destructive it was, but I could definitely feel it today. A wall of high-temperature flame that evaporates even falling rain… Even the royal mages wouldn’t be able to do that.”

Being a magician… A family that handles fire, that intrigued me. I looked at Ian’s back quietly. He was a boyish man who liked to prank. His dangerous abilities were invisible to him. He wondered if he was misinformed.

“By the way, what do you want to say…?”

“Ah. It’s nothing special, Ersia seems very tired, so please escort her a little longer. She may be anxious, so you can say something to cheer her up.”

“All right.”

—————————————————————

Translator Note:

Want to read more?