WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Haruto
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ The Pushover Young Lord in a Romance Fantasy Won't Take It Anymore ◈
Chapter 61: He Really Does Like Her That Much
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Lucia put on the Black Lion uniform that had been neatly folded in one corner of the tent.
Then, out of habit, she brought a sleeve to her nose.
Sniff, sniff.
She had spent the night being run ragged after the fierce battle without even properly washing. What if she smelled of blood and sweat?
It was an unconscious habit born from always keeping herself clean as a young lady.
Realizing how silly it was, Lucia lowered her arm.
This was not a social gathering. They were in the middle of the Ashen Forest. So what if she smelled a little?
When she stepped out of the tent, she spotted a figure in the thick darkness.
“You’re out.”
Astin stood beside the entrance.
He began walking ahead, and Lucia followed.
As they passed between the tents scattered throughout the camp, she saw a small fire and a pair of simple chairs.
Two elven soldiers stood watch there with straight backs.
Night watch had originally been the elves’ responsibility.
Astin had volunteered to take the third watch in their place, and Lucia had joined him as his adjutant.
“Good work.”
The handover was brief and simple.
The elves gave them shallow bows before returning to their tents.
Astin and Lucia sat facing each other across the campfire.
Crackle, crackle.
Lucia cautiously glanced up at Astin.
Normally, his face would have made her feel nothing but reassured. Right now, though, she found it painfully awkward to look at him.
‘Of all times...’
Everything that had happened in her dream moments ago remained vivid.
The time, place, and even the situation were so similar that she could not help comparing them.
Astin quietly added a dry branch to the fire and stirred the logs with a poker.
It was an ordinary silence, no different from usual.
Yet now, that silence was unbearably awkward.
Lucia parted her lips, then spoke as casually as she could.
“You seem to have stood night watch quite often, Young Lord. You look very used to it.”
It was a pointless question meant to break the silence.
Astin answered calmly.
“Yes. I have plenty of experience.”
He had stood watch until he was sick of it in his previous life, continuing until he took over as the duty NCO.
Swallowing the bitter memories of military service, Astin looked directly at Lucia.
“Isn’t this uncomfortable for you?”
“Oh, not at all. I’m not alone, and the fire is warm. Things like this become memories too.”
“No, I mean the expedition, not night watch.”
“Ah.”
Lucia let out a small laugh.
“Do you regret it? Do you miss high society in the imperial capital?”
She had given up the comforts available to a young lady and entered the Ashen Forest.
For an ordinary young lady, it would not have been strange to spend every night weeping in an environment like this.
Lucia shook her head without hesitation.
“To be honest, this is the easiest I’ve ever found it to breathe.”
Astin’s lips twitched upward.
“The imperial capital is too suffocating. More specifically, that damned social scene makes me feel like I can’t breathe.”
‘Stop going on about me being the star of high society. I don’t want to hear it. I feel like I’m suffocating.’
“Everyone wanted me to be nothing more than a pretty doll. No one cared about what I was really like inside. Somehow, I became the so-called star of high society, but when did I ever say I wanted to be that?”
To Astin, Lucia as she was now looked far more natural than Lucia dressed in a gown.
“So thank you, Young Lord. For taking me out of that suffocating greenhouse.”
Her silver hair fluttered in the wind, and a sincere, unguarded smile bloomed on her face.
Astin smiled back.
“As I said before, you don’t belong in high society. The battlefield suits you better.”
“Why does that sound so nice?”
“High society is not necessarily a safe place, either. In the long term, joining this expedition may be safer.”
This world was destined to be consumed by destruction before long. It would be better to gain real combat experience now.
That future was what Astin had in mind when he said it.
“Right? The scheming in high society is no joke. They poison people at the drop of a hat, so young ladies with many enemies tend to avoid social events.”
The darker side of noble society was horrifying, but Lucia had missed his point slightly.
“Ahem. I see.”
“What is that reaction? Don’t tell me you didn’t know?”
“I know well enough how terrible the scheming in high society can be.”
Someone who had once been close to him had died that way.
Astin did not say it aloud.
“Whew. I guess I’m suited to field work after all. Even in the Ashen Forest, I feel like I can finally breathe freely.”
“Would you like to formally enlist in Cardenos while you are at it?”
How many times had she heard that offer already?
Lucia covered her mouth with the back of her hand and chuckled.
“I’ll think about it, Mr. Recruiter.”
Resting her chin on her hand, Lucia gazed at Astin’s profile.
The flickering red firelight played over his cheek and bold features.
Crackle, crackle.
Astin’s face trembled faintly in her vision.
The face she had seen in her dream until moments ago overlapped with it like an afterimage.
“...”
Embarrassing thoughts filled her mind, and she quickly looked away.
Silence lingered between them for a while.
Feeling awkward, Lucia rubbed her arm.
Whoosh.
The campfire flickered in the night wind.
“Eek...”
Lucia’s shoulders hunched.
She had put on a coat, but the Ashen Forest’s night air was cold enough to seep into her bones.
Rustle.
Astin, who had been sitting across from her, silently rose to his feet.
Lucia looked up at him in confusion.
Thump.
Something heavy settled over her slender shoulders.
It was Astin’s cloak.
“Keep yourself warm.”
Lucia looked back and forth between Astin and the cloak covering her shoulders.
Astin’s warmth remained inside it, and she felt warm the instant it draped over her.
“...But you’ll be cold, Young Lord.”
“Don’t worry. I have a Sun Ring.”
Lucia’s nose twitched. Astin’s familiar scent faintly lingered inside the cloak.
It carried a faint scent of sweat, yet for some reason, she did not find it unpleasant at all.
She felt foolish for worrying earlier about whether her own clothes smelled.
The sensation of his large, rough hands intertwined with hers in the dream. His warmth and scent now wrapping around her shoulders.
The afterimages that kept coming back to her made her unsure she could keep a normal expression.
Lucia could not even lift her head. She pulled the cloak up and buried half her face in it.
“Thank you...”
Her muffled voice seeped through the fabric.
Lucia brushed her nose over the cloak, then glanced at Astin.
“This is incredibly warm.”
“I warmed it with my Sun Ring. If you get any colder, stay right beside me. I can be quite useful as a human heater.”
...Sharing each other’s warmth.
The more this went on, the more her lucid dream circled through her mind. Even the brazenly exposed flesh from it was etched into her vision.
Lucia’s body grew hot. She was about to start feeling too warm.
Was he oblivious, or was he doing this on purpose? Astin’s gaze remained fixed on the burning logs.
For some reason, that made Lucia feel annoyed.
She quietly dragged her chair closer to his.
Too embarrassed to share their warmth completely, Lucia deliberately kept a small distance between them.
Swish.
Lucia draped the other end of the cloak over Astin’s broad shoulder.
Their shoulders nearly touched, but did not quite.
“Let’s share it.”
“This will make it inconvenient to move.”
“We’re on night watch anyway. We won’t need to move.”
After saying that, Lucia unconsciously touched beneath her left eye.
She stayed like that for a moment, then felt a gaze from beside her.
Astin was staring at her with an odd expression.
“Ah. A spark didn’t hit me. I think my eye just stung because of the fire.”
“...”
Astin nodded without another word.
Lucia tilted her head, then did not think much of it.
He occasionally wore that blank expression.
Just as Lucia pulled the cloak taut and settled into her seat again, something slipped from her uniform pants pocket.
Tap.
A small piece of paper fell by Astin’s feet.
“...?”
Astin looked down. He bent over and picked it up.
It was a palm-sized letter sealed tightly with red wax.
Astin turned the envelope over, and his brow furrowed.
Familiar handwriting was scrawled crookedly across its surface.
The handwriting was his own, so he recognized it immediately.
It was the letter he had given Lucia before they parted at the ball.
The red seal bore signs of having been opened and stuck back together.
‘Why is this here?’
Astin glanced at Lucia. She still seemed unaware, and he felt relieved.
Had she been carrying it around like a charm?
Astin leaned over as naturally as possible.
Then he slipped the letter back into Lucia’s pants pocket.
As if nothing had happened, Astin spoke casually.
“You’re not very cold anymore, are you?”
Lucia smiled faintly and nodded.
Astin nodded back before picking up the poker.
The moment he looked away, Lucia adjusted her pants pocket.
‘Honestly... He has no idea what I’m feeling.’
She had hoped to use the letter as a natural opening to talk about what had happened then.
Still, this was nice in its own way. She had learned about Astin’s quiet consideration.
Most men would have teasingly joked about it or tried to confirm her feelings.
But Astin had held his tongue and protected her dignity.
That was the kind of man Astin was.
He seemed like he had a teasing side, yet he always put consideration first.
Lucia liked that about him.
“Nngh! Ha, I think I’m completely awake already.”
Lucia stretched, then let out an impish giggle.
“How much longer until our watch ends?”
“About sixteen minutes.”
“Already? An hour really goes by quickly.”
She was secretly disappointed. At times like this, she wished time would pass a little more slowly.
Lucia quietly looked at Astin’s profile.
It was nothing new, but she always felt an invisible wall beyond that dry expression.
He was calm and kind, yet at crucial moments, he would take a step back. There was a strange distance between them.
It seemed he could not forget a former lover he had lost.
Lucia wanted to close that distance a little more.
“Young Lord Astin.”
“Yes.”
“You remember what I asked when we first met, right? Whether we had met somewhere before.”
Astin stopped moving the poker and turned toward her.
“Even if we haven’t met in this life, perhaps we were close in a previous one?”
“...”
“You looked very familiar. Maybe we were lovers in a past life, or even married...”
Had that gone too far? Regret washed over her as soon as she said it.
Astin stared at her with his lips slightly parted.
For some reason, he only looked at her without saying a word.
Then Astin smiled silently.
His smile somehow looked bitter, and Lucia could not take her eyes off his face.
Suddenly, memories of the dream and the words Astin had spoken on the terrace came to her.
Lucia simply wanted to cheer him up.
“High mountains... deep valleys...”
A song slipped from her lips.
“Silent... ridges...”
Her clear, jewel-like voice did not suit the grand military song at all.
It was a low-pitched tune she had never sung before, and she had little confidence in it.
Feeling embarrassed, she first glanced at Astin’s expression.
His golden eyes had gone wide as he looked at her in surprise.
Had she sounded all right?
“Everything is fine, but it’s not ‘ridges.’ It’s ‘mountains and rivers.’”
“What?”
“The lyrics are wrong. It’s not ‘silent ridges,’ but ‘silent mountains and rivers.’”
“Ah... ‘Silent mountains and rivers,’ like that?”
“Yes. And after ‘deep valleys,’ you need to pause for about half a beat before continuing. Like, ‘High mountains... deep valleys...’”
“Mm, military songs are really difficult.”
“They become easier once you keep singing them.”
In a low, calm voice, Astin guided her through the lyrics and rhythm.
As he calmly led the melody, Lucia’s initially hesitant voice gradually grew stronger.
She lowered her voice even further so she would not wake those sleeping nearby.
Even as Lucia hummed, she could not take her eyes off Astin.
His masculine Adam’s apple bobbing whenever he spoke.
His blond hair falling loose here and there over his brows.
His thick forearms visible between the wrinkled folds of his sleeves.
The scent of sweat and a man’s body drifting over with the heat of the fire.
His golden eyes, tired but still steady, and the clear, sharp lines of his face...
He looked so infuriatingly handsome that she giggled without realizing it.
When she had the dream, she had wondered whether she liked him that much.
‘I really do like him that much.’
At this point, she had no choice but to admit it.
She had truly come to like this blunt man.
“Young Lord Astin.”
“Yes.”
“Tonight, dream about me too.”
Whether she liked it or not, she was the star of high society.
A love where she only gave way did not suit Lucia.
Footnotes:
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