A Gentle Noble's Vacation Recommendation

Lizel had recently, finally found a place that suited him for reading.

About a ten-minute walk from the inn, on a side street one turn away from a busy road, there was a quiet, calm café. In this country people didn’t drink much tea, so it wasn’t even on the menu, but the coffee was good enough to make up for it.

Lizel, as always, preferred the terrace where he could watch people, but the strong sunlight was blocked by an extended roof, and the place was built to let the breeze pass through nicely. As long as he was drinking iced coffee, it never felt particularly hot.

He tucked the hair tickling his cheek behind his ear and turned the page with a gentle touch. In the book, a boy trembling with fear was crying, choking back sobs as he kept running from his approaching biological father.

(It feels kind of nostalgic, and yet a little off somehow.)

Reaching for his coffee, he thought that as he took a sip.

When had that been, he wondered. Probably before he’d even turned ten—there was a time Lizel had been kidnapped once. It had only been possible because all sorts of bad luck and timing lined up at once.

Even now, thinking back on it felt strange: so many different events overlapped in a way that made the impossible possible. For that brief span of time, Lizel must have been incredibly unlucky, and the hostile noble who had him kidnapped must have been incredibly lucky. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to call it miraculous—someone as well protected as Lizel getting kidnapped was simply impossible.

(Someone who hated Father so much, they hired professional assassins? Thieves? Something like that, and those people kidnapped me, if I remember right.)

Maybe the reason his memory was a bit hazy in places was because of the fear he’d felt.

Noble children were taught countermeasures against kidnapping from an early age, and of course Lizel had learned them from his father as well. Being an obedient boy who listened to his parents, he had put those teachings into practice and quietly waited for rescue, just like a good child should.

Having his hands and feet tied had hurt, but he’d let them tie him without fuss. His stomach had growled while the man who seemed to be his father’s political enemy ranted like a madman for what felt like forever, but Lizel had listened properly to what he was saying. When the man kicked the nearby wall to threaten him, he’d been startled, but he hadn’t cried.

Given that Lizel had remained oddly laid-back even while being kidnapped, it was inevitable that he’d get on his captors’ nerves. Now he could probably at least manage an earnest act of frightened trembling, but expecting that much from him at that age would have been cruel.

“You’re mocking me too, huh…? As expected of that man’s son!!”

It was when the man, grinning like a lunatic, grabbed him by the front of his shirt and dragged him down to the floor.

The door suddenly slammed open with such force it seemed it would break, and light poured into the dark, wide room.

“Sorry to keep you waiting, Lizel. You must have been scared, right?”

The footsteps that crossed the threshold without hesitation were ones he knew well—his father’s. Even as the man was on the verge of wrapping his hands around Lizel’s neck to strangle him, Lizel felt relieved and turned his head that way.

But when he turned and saw his rescuers, Lizel blinked in confusion. His father had stopped a few steps away, and around him stood familiar figures—members of the ducal estate’s direct territorial guard, the security corps—forming a ring. Yet they all wore a completely unfamiliar air, silhouetted against the backlight as they stared in at him.

The father Lizel knew back then (and who hadn’t really changed even now) had always been gentle. If their eyes met, he would smile and reach out his hand. If Lizel spoke to him, he would listen and pat his head as he talked—a mild and kind father.

The security corps had all been easygoing types as well. Led by a young man with a friendly smile, they were the sort of group that would stride cheerfully through town, white uniforms fluttering behind them.