#35. Kalkus Traskan

Of course, she might be reacting sensitively due to feeling indebted for the great help she received and worrying about having to see her mother in male disguise with the Duke.

“Your Grace, the kindness you’ve shown to my mother is as vast and deep as the ocean. How could I ever forget such great and profound grace? However, my house is too small and shabby to receive Your Grace, I really couldn’t…”

Though in the mountains, her house wasn’t that shabby or insignificant.

While it was basically a wooden house in the mountains, her mother had made it into quite a neat and cozy home. Moreover, her mother had quite high aesthetic standards. She had many strange decorative items from who knows where.

But first, she needed to get rid of the Duke. Even if she had to ramble on about anything.

“Stop talking and get on the horse.”

“Ho-horse?”

“Just because you’re walking doesn’t mean I can walk too. I’m a patient who was sick, I can’t walk mountain paths.”

“That’s true, but me riding a horse?”

“It would be difficult to match your walking pace while on horseback, wouldn’t it? So wouldn’t it make sense for you to ride behind me?”

Did he take the wrong medicine yesterday? Or did biting his tongue yesterday loosen his speech?

How could he say such nonsense, yet she found herself at a loss for words?

“I’ll! Run there!”

Rather than ride behind the Duke, I’d rather run.

Actually, rather than truly intending to run, she said it in the hope that he might abandon the idea of coming to her house.

“Hahaha. You?”

Clearly mocking laughter.

“Yes!”

As if defying the Duke’s laughter, Chloe answered even more firmly.

It’s not like I can’t run.

“So it was running after all?”

What does he mean? Ah!

Only then did she remember the Duke’s question about whether she was good at running when he said he couldn’t tell what she was good at.

He’s teasing me. Chloe bit her lip.

“Then run if you want. But you’ll have to run as fast as you can. It’s getting dark.”

The Duke had already turned his horse toward the mountain where Chloe’s house was, pulling one rein. Watching him, Sir Joyce turned his horse in the opposite direction and headed to the village with the coachman.

Chloe glared at the back of the Duke’s head as he started riding toward the mountain.

Though he’s clearly my benefactor who saved my mother, why does he seem so annoying today?

Whoosh. Suddenly, the Duke turned to look at her.

“Hup.”

Chloe swallowed in surprise, lowering her eyes.

“What are you doing? Not running? Should I go first?”

At his provocative words, Chloe found herself glaring at the Duke again before she knew it. Fortunately, he had already turned his head away.

“Sigh…”

With a long sigh, Chloe finally started running. As the Duke said, she couldn’t let him arrive at the house first.

Huff huff.

Just minutes after starting to run, though Chloe had walked this mountain path to her house hundreds of times, she realized this was the first time in her life she had run so fiercely up this slope.

“If I match your pace and it gets too dark, I won’t be able to go down the mountain path, so I might have to stay at your house.”

The Duke spoke peacefully from behind.

Is this person really–! Was he really sick?

Chloe was too out of breath to even reply that that was absolutely not possible. She had to keep running without looking back if she didn’t want to get trampled by the Duke’s horse.

While running uphill with her mind full of worries about how her mother would react to seeing her male disguise, Chloe could taste blood in her throat.

Sweating profusely, Chloe stopped when she reached where her house was visible. She couldn’t let the Duke into the house like this.

She needed to go in first and at least briefly explain the situation to her mother.

“Whoa.”

The Duke also stopped his horse.

“Your Grace, my mother might be shocked if she suddenly sees the master I serve. Could you please wait outside for a moment while I tell her you’ve come? Huff huff.“

Chloe barely finished speaking, panting heavily.

“Alright, I’ll wait here then.”

Fortunately, the Duke readily agreed. Chloe bowed her head and went straight into the house.

She couldn’t keep the Duke waiting long. Given how he was acting today, he might barge in if made to wait too long.

“Mom! Ah…! Kalkus!”

When Chloe entered the house, she was greeted not by her mother but by Kalkus.

“Chloe!”

Kalkus walked toward her with a bright smile.

“You… Right… You’re off work!”

Only upon seeing Kalkus did she remember. Whenever she came home on vacation, Kalkus would come early to wait for her.

I hadn’t even thought about that until now.

She suddenly realized how inconsiderate she had been toward Kalkus.

“Yes, it’s your vacation day. Of course I should be here before you arrive.”

Kalkus had stridden over and was now right in front of her.

“Ah… Right. That’s true.”

Why did she feel so sorry?

“But why do you look like that? You look completely like a drowned cat.”

“Well, things happened. But where’s Mom? I heard she had gotten up.”

“Ah! Chloe, about that… I was going to tell you. Since you’d be coming on vacation soon, I couldn’t tell you until now because I was worried you’d worry too much.”

“Huh? Tell me what?”

Kalkus slightly frowned while rubbing his forehead.

“A few days after your mother got up from her sickbed, she went somewhere. She still hasn’t returned. I had told her everything about how you’d found a job and left, even about you living in male disguise, and two days after hearing that, I think? She disappeared without saying where she was going.”

“What?”

“It was just before someone from the Duke’s mansion came looking for you, I mean ‘Chloe’. Ah! By the way, why was someone from the Duke’s mansion looking for you?”

Chloe felt dizzy at hearing her mother had disappeared. Even though she had recovered, where could she have gone that she wouldn’t return for days?

But she had to think about her mother later. Right now, getting rid of the Duke was the priority. Since he came to see her mother but she wasn’t here, maybe she could send him back right away.

“Kalkus! Duke Wulfaz is in front of the house right now. How I ended up with the Duke, and why the Duke’s mansion was looking for me, I’ll explain the details later. Right now, just remember that he can’t find out I’m a woman. Got it?”

“Hmm?”

Kalkus’s eyes widened and his face filled with confusion and bewilderment.

“Things just ended up like this somehow. He already knows you live in our house, and that you’re my friend, so it shouldn’t be too difficult. But he thinks I’m a man, so…”

“Shh!”

Suddenly turning his gaze toward the entrance, Kalkus cut off Chloe’s words.

“Kalkus…?”

Chloe blinked, looking back and forth between Kalkus’s face and the entrance.

“Kalkus, why… are you like this?”

Though puzzled by Kalkus’s sudden behavior, Chloe lowered her voice to ask.

“Clyne, nothing special happened, right?”

However, bewilderingly, Kalkus asked in a raised voice. First telling her to be quiet out of nowhere, then suddenly speaking loudly — she couldn’t make sense of this erratic behavior.

Besides, Clyne? The name Clyne was more than enough to hear just at the Wulfaz mansion. Why was Kalkus suddenly calling her Clyne too?

Knock knock knock.

But at that moment, the knock made Chloe stop thinking.

“Clyne Liden. Should I wait longer?”

It seems she had kept the Duke waiting too long. He had come all the way to the entrance.

“Ah, I’m coming, Your Grace!”

Walking toward the entrance, Chloe suddenly stopped and turned to look at Kalkus.

Kalkus nodded once. As if asking, ‘You can do this, right?’

“Ah…!”

Finally, Chloe realized why Kalkus had called her ‘Clyne’ earlier, loud enough to be heard.

Kalkus had already noticed the Duke was at the door.

She didn’t know how Kalkus could have sensed the presence outside the door. Moreover, she wondered if he had overestimated the Duke’s hearing when he called her ‘Clyne’ thinking the sound would reach outside.

Well, being cautious couldn’t hurt. Considering the Duke’s terrifyingly developed sense of smell, his hearing might be developed too.

After all, they say the Duke can hear even falling leaves as a Swordmaster.

“Whew…”

With a short sigh, Chloe opened the entrance door wide with the heart of a soldier heading into battle.

* * *

The first thing that caught Hughgray’s eyes through the opened door was a man’s face. Because he was similar in height, their eyes would meet with just a slight lowering of gaze. This was unusual for Hughgray, who usually had to look down completely at most people.

But something even stranger happened.

He had to frown noticeably as soon as his eyes met the man’s.

Lion scent!

The man was emanating a lion’s scent that set Hughgray’s nerves on edge.

Such a strong scent usually meant one of two things. Either the other person was deliberately releasing pheromones, or they were unconsciously releasing pheromones due to their wariness toward a predator.

Which case it was, or if it was both, he couldn’t tell yet.

So it was true after all. I thought there was a high possibility, but seeing it with my own eyes, the feeling…

Was extremely unpleasant. No, more than unpleasant. It was… disgusting enough to make him nauseous.

Unkempt blonde hair flowing down to the shoulders, skin fair like a woman’s, round golden eyes. Despite giving an overall youthful impression, his build was almost as large as Hughgray’s, a man with golden eyes symbolizing imperial blood.

This pretty boy with just a large build wasn’t Kalkus Tarkan, but Kalkus Traskan of the lion beast-person imperial bloodline, the missing First Prince.