I Thought I Didn't Have Long To Live!

Chapter 57 (Just focus on me)

The next day, Doha, who came to Kandel’s mansion, was greeted very warmly with Lariette. Even though hebhadn’t contacted her for a few days, she was cheering as if it had been a long time.

“Doha! How have you been doing? I couldn’t contact you, so I looked for you for a long time!”

The way he roamed on the sofa was like a dog that didn’t know what to do. It was almost as if I could see a wobbly tail.

“Why did you look for me like that, Rie?”

Because of magic training? Doha added with a bitter smile without realizing it. Then Lariette answered with her eyes open in a triangle as if she was saying something like that.

“There is, but… I’m worried. You’re a friend I’ve always been in contact with, but if things don’t go well after we parted like that.”

The last time I saw Doha was the day I dealt with the assassins who came to him, so I couldn’t help but worry. In particular, the face I saw just before leaving looked particularly serious, so I was even more concerned.

Lariette raised her eyebrows and spoke in a worried voice.

“So, did you find out who was behind it and catch it? Were you busy with that?”

Behind Doha muttered a little in her mouth.

He remembered the thorny conversation he had with Gibralfaro yesterday afternoon. Thinking of him, who acted as if he knew Doha’s mother, gave him strength.

He had a sly smile on his lips, and he was accustomed to lying.

“Yes. It’s all taken care of, so don’t worry about it.”

“How can I not care, between us!”

“… What is our relationship?”

Doha bit his lip, bewildered by the words that were spit out against his will.

Standing in front of Lariette, strangely, unintentional words kept coming out. Things he wouldn’t normally say.

Doha cautiously turned his gaze to her, fearing that she might have caught on to his strange state. But when her face came into view, it felt like my heart was pounding.

“Hey, you’re my best friend! Am I the only one who thought so?”

It was because the expression on her face was without even a single worry, let alone any doubts. The other option was a look that didn’t even recognize its existence.

Lariette grumbled jokingly, “Am I the only one thinking that way?”

Doha naturally rolled up the corners of his mouth, but he couldn’t control the strength in his hand holding the sofa.

He said with a beautiful smile, with a clear blue vein on his arm. It was a resolute voice, as if speaking to himself.

“Yes, we are close friends. Very close.”

Lariette laughed, saying it was good to hear that they were best friends. She couldn’t even imagine that Doha’s mood would be so terribly dirty.

With this kind of feeling, it seemed that he would not be able to smile naturally. So, Doha made a decision to restore his mood.

“I’ll hold your hand.”

He murmured in a low voice and grabbed Lariette’s hand without hesitation. Because it was such a sudden action, Lariette trembled in surprise.

“Ah, healing. Thank you as always, Doha.”

“No problem, Rie.”

As the divine power flowed from their clasped hands, Lariette realized the reason and thanked him.

These days, the symptoms of the disease have not been very conspicuous except for the heart beating too fast. Even though it has already been two months since I was sentenced to three months.

Lariette regarded her condition in a fairly good condition as a virtue of Doha’s healing. In fact, she was not wrong because the flow was surprisingly stable thanks to his tidying up of the twisted mana circuit.

On the other hand, Doha was experiencing extreme emotional agitation, unlike the casual response.

I just held your hand and my heart raced like crazy. It was beating so loud that it felt like a heartbeat could be transmitted from the skin that touched her.

My body was hot and my throat was dry. In this situation, Doha instinctively lowered his head, thinking he would go crazy if he even looked into her eyes.

‘Am I really crazy?’

Without it, this reaction made no sense. Until recently, he had hugged her without too much trouble. But, he only holds her hands? Doha kept asking questions, but in the end did not find an answer.

‘What if she hears this sound?’

I was nervous that Larriette could hear the pounding sound.

However, when she hears it, she would misunderstand his feelings for love, and she would distance herself from him. It was a situation I couldn’t even imagine.

But surely Larriette will. She’s the kind of person he knew.

Doha clenched his molars once and asked any questions to turn her around.

“What did you do yesterday, Rie?”

“Yesterday? Well, shopping downtown!”

Lariette said as she recalled the things she cherished in her closet. I couldn’t answer that I had already bought things for when I left later, so the answer was very simple.

“With whom?”

Doha asked, narrowing his eyes. Again, an irrelevant question came up.

“Alone!”

“… Are you really alone?”

“Yeah, I did it myself. Oh, but I met a friend in the middle and we ate together. I went to a Danube style restaurant downtown and it was delicious!”

Lariette was excited and chatted about the food she ate. However, Doha’s attention was focused on ‘friends’.

friend, friend. He really thought it was a word he didn’t like. That person and you are also friends. The only difference was that ‘closer’ was attached.

The back of the blonde man who had placed his hand on Lariette’s shoulder and was walking with her, almost hugging her, was still dazzling in his eyes. When I remembered that scene, a fire burst out of my chest automatically.

“Friend, who?”

“Yes?”

At the sudden question, Lariette rolled her eyes and met Doha’s gaze.

He still had a dazzlingly beautiful smile, but his golden eyes gleamed horribly. If he finds out who it is, he won’t be left alone.

“Ah, Er…”

Lariette opened her mouth without thinking much, but stopped speaking.

Asrazan caught her, even if she couldn’t help it, she couldn’t tell Doha her story. It was obviously Erze who asked me not to talk about her elsewhere.

So Lariette smiled awkwardly and turned around.

“Well… that’s. Doha, it’s a friend I don’t know very well. Oh, are you done now? The divine power has stopped.”

For Doha, it was a questionable answer.

The love story with Duke Kandel was talked about without asking, so why is she hiding it? You don’t trust me now?

Complex thoughts scrambled in my head. Just as I was about to ask another question about it, a knock sounded just in time, and Halstein came in.

“Lady, a letter has come to you.”

“Ah, thank you.”

Lariette respectfully accepted the letter, even though she was puzzled by the act of carrying the letter while she was with the guest.

In fact, it was Halstein, who was wary of Doha, who came in looking for an excuse to somehow disturb the situation where they were alone.

He wanted to be with her all the time, but he couldn’t, so Halstein swallowed his disappointment and said his greeting and left.

When she checked the sender of the letter, Lariette’s face brightened like a flower in full bloom. Doha’s eyebrows twitched again at it.

Doha quietly pretended to drink tea in front of her and secretly turned his gaze to look at the letter. His face hardened as he read the writing on the letter.

<The companion of the soul, Erze.>

Erze. It was a male name. Judging from the fact that she even mentioned ‘E’ earlier, it was clear that he was the guy I met yesterday.

A sharp jealousy engulfed Doha again. It felt like the teacup I was holding was about to break because of so much force in my hand.

“Soul, companion?”

Doha asked in a low, subdued voice. It was not polite to look at someone’s letter, even if it was just the surface, but courtesy was not important to him, whose head was engulfed by jealousy.

“Ah, my friend and I get along so well. There was nothing incompatible with each other. We don’t like cucumbers, we have the same dislike, and the same food we like….”

Lariette smiled brightly and continued to show things that fit well. Doha’s face grew colder as it went on, but unfortunately, she was so engrossed in the thought of Erze that she did not notice it.

“So you don’t know how much fun it is to be with Erze. Another thing that is related  is…”

“Stop.”

In the end, Doha couldn’t stand it and cut Lariette’s words.

Unknowingly, she was excited and praised our wonderful princess, but she looked at him in embarrassment at the cold voice.

And what she was faced with was Doha’s bare face with the pretentious mask removed. With no smile on his face, his fiercely blazing eyes looked like those of a wild beast.

“At least in front of me.”

A growl-like voice continued.

“Focus on me, Rie.”

Don’t think of another bastard. Doha barely swallowed the last words.

Lariette was startled and swallowed her saliva. Doha, who always had a pretty smile, was even more embarrassed.

‘Are you mad that I only talked about other friends so much?’

Not knowing that Doha was thinking of Erze as a man, she just thought like this.

In other words, just as she felt sad when her best friend had another friend when she was young, Doha was concerned that Lariette might have a friend who was closer than him.

Doha, who could not even imagine that he was being treated like a child, looked at Lariette’s bewildered face and bit his lower lip.

Although there was no reason to be angry, my heart felt heavy because I felt like I was being angry with her. However, it was difficult for him to explain the reason for his apology now.

“… I’m sorry, Rie. I was overdoing it.”

“No, no. All right, Doha. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen you, but I’m even more sorry that I said something so different.”

Lariette responded by waving her hand. She was determined to be closer to him in the future so as not to offend him.

Doha apologized for a while longer, and Lariette waved her hand for a while longer. As it repeated itself, in the end, both agreed not to apologize further.

After that, classes resumed. It was a time to learn more elaborately the secret that I had only learned through the last time.

Doha is also very good at teaching, and Lariette’s talent is so good that her skills have improved quite a bit in just a few hours. It was not yet noticed by professionally trained knights, but at this speed, it seemed that she would reach that stage soon.

After class. Doha refused to see Lariette off and left the Duke Kandel mansion.

His mind was still too complicated. His heart was tickling as if I was in a good mood, but then again, my stomach was clogged and cramped.

“Whew…”

Doha paused for a moment in frustration and let out a sigh. He didn’t know why he was doing this or what he wanted to do. No, to be precise, I would pretend I didn’t know even though I knew it.

‘… Huh?’

A strange thing caught in his eyes as he stared blankly into the distance. Someone who had come out of Kandel’s mansion while hiding himself was looking around.

The level of stealth was quite high, and it seemed that it was a Kandel knight wearing an outfit similar to that of Lariette’s escort I had seen last time.

He continued to look around and saw that no one was there and moved. This was because, as soon as Doha found him, he hid himself with divine power.

‘That direction….’

Doha looked in the direction the knight was going with a cold gaze. But he was the one who turned his head casually.

‘I don’t need to look into Duke Kandel’s circumstances.’

As long as it didn’t damage Lariette, he doesn’t need to know.

* * *

At that time, the Imperial Castle of the Kharshan Empire.

After the meeting, Asrazan was walking down the hallway with a firm expression on his face. The escort was bitten by a bad mood.

‘There was a riot to let me go somehow.’

Meetings always repeat the same thing. The nobles, led by the Dukes of Illington and Blanche, struggled to send Asrazan to the battlefield, and the emperor secretly wanted him to join the war while pretending to remain neutral.

The Danube Kingdom was a small kingdom, but the quality of steel produced there was excellent, and the people received compulsory military training from an early age, so their power was quite outstanding.

To say that he would do nothing but support to wage a war against such a kingdom was no different than telling him to go and die.

Of course, Asrazan was confident enough to win without such support, but he didn’t want to.

Now, I didn’t want to walk around in the midst of that kind of chaos anymore, and I didn’t want to take the lives of many people with the hand that the curse had disappeared.

I just wanted to be with Lariette.

‘Lariette.’

How lovely is her name that rolls on the tongue. I only thought of one word, but flowers bloomed from my devastated heart. I wanted to go home and kiss her beautiful forehead, bridge of nose, and lips.

The heavy footsteps became light in an instant. The lips, which had been hardened, also became looser.

And then, behind him, a sign came closer. It was a small body, similar to Lariette.

A slender hand approached Asrazan’s shoulder. Recognizing this, Asrazan turned around. Resolutely so that no matter who it is, they didn’t dare touch him.

The other person’s eyes widened, not knowing that he would dodge so suddenly. But soon, as if curious, a plump voice continued.

“Sir Asrazan, I’m glad to see you here again!”

Illustration 

Her platinum hair fluttered as the wind blew in through the window. The pink eyes that resemble Lariette’s hair also shone brightly.

As if she had just jumped out of a painting, Sheria, a beautiful woman, looked at Asrazan with a bright smile.