Chapter 151

Chapter 151 Tea Party 2

“Hm? Did Tanya make this?”

“Can’t believe you can tell from just the taste . ”

He smiled shyly .

“I guess . Anyways, why did you call me?”

“I have a report . Not strictly a report, but something I need to tell you . ”

I finished the tea and put my cup down . When I looked back to Dida, he was sitting on the edge of his seat .

“You don’t need to be so stiff . ”

“Well, you’re the one who is making that expression . ”

“Ah…”

I laughed at Dida pointing out my flaws .

According to what he said, I seemed to have tightened my expression out of habit .

“Sorry . What I was going to tell you that Dawson has left the knights’ order . ”

Dida seemed to have encountered Dawson quite a few times when he was with my grandfather . During the Boltique event, he was also caught alongside him .

“…I see . ”

Dida reacted much more calmly than I imagined he would .

It was almost as if Dawson’s actions were obvious .

“You’re calmer than I thought you’d be . Did you…already know?”

“No, I didn’t . But I couldn’t help but have a hunch about it . ”

“Why?”

“Before leaving home, he asked me: ‘What, really, is a so-called knight?’”

“He, the knight, asked you, who wasn’t a knight at all?”

“He said ‘You and Ryle fit my mental description of a knight better than I do’ . So I didn’t really understand what he was saying and answered that I had no idea about that kind of thing . ”

“Ah…”

“He said that by focusing on reputation and pride, he ended up departing from the poise that a knight should possess . ”

“How did you respond to that?”

“What even is the poise that a knight should possess? That’s what I asked . Because no matter how hard he worked, you can only become yourself . I think a better question is ‘To achieve my goal, what should I do, what should I work hard at?’ From him, I couldn’t feel that he was trying to do anything for himself, or that he was trying to become a strong version of himself . In fact, the feeling I got from him was that he was pursuing idealism without even understanding his own position . That’s why he was so obsessed with the title of a knight, and proud of his own class . But that’s what most children of nobility are like anyways . ”

“Harsh . Did you tell him all of that?”

“Basically . After that, he said ‘After coming here, I’ve thought about all sorts of things . I have committed grave sins . Since I can’t go back in time, then my sins will extend into the future indefinitely . If it were just myself then I wouldn’t care as much, but I’ve tainted even the idea of knighthood itself . That’s why I need to atone for it . When I’ve finally finished doing that, I’ll recall my own hopes, the kind of poise that I hoped for, and set out to find it again . ’”

“Oh…well, that sounds great . ”

“Milady, you’re quite calm in the face of all this . I think that for him, it was quite the major decision . ”

“It’s because I don’t really care about that . ”

“How cold . ”

“That’s what I think of myself too . But that’s the only way I can express it . Hearing that he expressed his ideals…so what? As long as he doesn’t do anything to me or this territory, I don’t care what he does . Because, to tell you the truth, I think that everything in the past shouldn’t matter anymore . ”

“So you’ve forgiven him?”

“…I can’t pretend that everything back then didn’t happen . I’ve changed because of all that as well, in both positive and negative senses . But that’s in the past too . Rather than let myself be limited by that, I have more important things to do . ”

In each busy day, all that seemed like an infinitely distant past . It almost seemed as if it had happened to someone else .

Compared to feeling restricted by something like that, something much more important waited for me in the future .

…But the whole incident still left a deep mark in my heart .

Although I had already healed, there still remained a wound, some kind of psychological trauma