The afternoon sun had moved to the west side of the manor.
After finishing lunch, Klein met with Lyra in the study on the first floor.
Lyra hadn't come for matters regarding Karen this time. She brought a stack of papers filled with dense writing—some of the strokes were clearly traced over multiple times, with varying shades of ink that revealed the hesitation and corrections made during the process. There were also several places where things had been crossed out and rewritten with heavy force, as if she were at war with herself.
They were the notes she had compiled while self-studying the basic theory of alchemy during this period.
“I finished the book you mentioned last time.” Lyra stood before the desk, spreading out her notes and pointing her finger at one of the pages. “These few spots—I tried to derive them myself, but the results don't match the reference values given in the book. I'm not sure if I made a calculation error or if my understanding of the formula itself is flawed.”
Klein took the notes and scanned them.
To be honest, Lyra's handwriting was still not very good. A few months ago, she couldn't even recognize all the common words, yet now she could write down a whole page of alchemy notes, interspersed with numerous technical symbols and calculation processes. This progress had already exceeded his initial expectations.
The girl truly had some talent. It wasn't the world-shaking genius type, but something more practical: she had a natural perception of the physical state of materials. It likely had to do with her years of working as a fishmonger in Silver Scale Harbor—people who deal with fish all year round are exceptionally sensitive to changes in freshness, temperature, and texture. When this ability was translated to the handling of alchemy materials, the conversion rate was astonishingly high.
Klein picked up a pen and drew a simple diagram in the margin of her notes.
“You missed a step here. Elemental affinity has an implicit decay coefficient during cross-tier conversion. It was mentioned once in chapter three of the book, but only in a single sentence—”
He flipped to that page and pointed it out to her.
“Just this line. It's very easy to miss. All your subsequent deviations accumulated from this point.”
Lyra looked down, froze for two seconds, and then forcefully drew a line under that sentence.
Her expression didn't change much, but she pressed so hard that the tip of the pen nearly tore through the paper.
Klein couldn't help but chuckle.
“Don't take it out on the paper.”
Lyra looked up, looking somewhat ashamed. “...I read it three times and still missed that.”
“It's normal. The author of this book has a bad habit of hiding key information in the most inconspicuous places, almost like they're writing in code.” Klein closed the book. “The fact that you could derive it to this point on your own shows that your fundamentals are solid. There's no shame in missing a decay coefficient; I missed it the first time I calculated it back then, too.”
Half of that was comfort, and half was the truth.
Lyra nodded, but as she went to put her notes away, she hesitated.
“Mr. Klein, I also wanted to ask—” She carefully chose her words. “Can I start getting into practical work soon? I mean... even if it's just the most basic material processing.”
“What's the rush?”
“It's not a rush,” Lyra said softly. “It's just... if the things I learn stay only on paper, I won't know if they can actually be of help. To help Karen.”
Klein glanced at her.
Every bit of this girl's effort eventually turned toward the same direction. Like a river, no matter how many bends it took, it eventually flowed toward the same sea.
He thought for a moment but didn't answer immediately.
If such an obsession were placed on anyone else, he might find it too heavy—heavy enough to be worrying—but Lyra was different. The drive she carried wasn't blind or feverish; it was clear-headed. She knew how difficult Karen's condition was, she knew the little she had learned was far from enough, and she likely knew better than anyone how probable it was that “curing Karen” was just an empty hope.
Yet she was still learning.
Klein set down his pen.
“Starting next week,” he said. “We'll begin with potion ratios.”
“If you need any materials, just ask Raymond.”
The corners of Lyra's mouth twitched as she tried to suppress a smile, but her eyes were already shining.
“Thank you.”
She packed up her notes and paused again at the door, looking back at Klein as if she wanted to say something more, but in the end, she just nodded again and gently pulled the door open.
...
Meanwhile.
On a bench at the end of the first-floor hallway, Ophelia adjusted her sitting posture for the third time.
But she simply couldn't sit still.
A book lay on her knees, open to page forty-seven, but she hadn't processed a single word in the last twenty minutes.
She closed the book, opened it again, and then closed it once more.
The sunlight outside moved a short distance, and a patch of light crawled from the armrest of the bench onto the back of her hand. She glanced at the light, then pulled her gaze back to the pages.
Page forty-seven. Still page forty-seven.
“Madam!”
An overly energetic voice came from the other end of the hallway.
Martha came trotting over carrying a tray of freshly baked snacks and plopped down on the other end of the bench. Her skirt brought a small gust of wind that nearly flipped a page of the book on Ophelia’s knees—had she actually been reading, the progress on that page would have made her quite happy.
“Are you waiting for the Master too?”
“I'm not waiting,” Ophelia said. “I'm reading.”
Martha glanced at the closed book on her knees.
“Oh.”
Ophelia flipped the book open.
Martha set the snack tray between them, stuffed a piece into her own mouth, and said indistinctly, “Would you like some, Madam? They're fresh out of the oven, Daisy's handiwork.”
Ophelia took a piece and took a bite. It was almond-flavored and baked to perfection. Crumbs of the flaky crust fell onto the book pages, and she brushed them off gently with her fingertips.
“The Master is acting strange today,” Martha mumbled while chewing, suddenly dropping that line.
Ophelia’s chewing paused for an instant.
“...In what way?”
“Well, during lunch,” Martha thought about it with a wrinkled nose, “I saw his waist move when he sat down—that kind of careful movement, like he’d twisted it. Even when he stood up later, he pressed his hand against his waist.”
Ophelia focused intently on the book on her knees.
Page forty-seven.
Her right hand unconsciously tightened on the edge of the book for a moment.
“He must have been at his desk for too long,” she said. Her tone was flat.
“I guess so,” Martha nodded. “The Master has been hunched over on the third floor studying those things for three days; his neck and waist definitely can't take it. I told Mr. Raymond earlier that we should advise the Master to take a break—”
“Mhm.”
“But he should be resting today, right? He seemed in good spirits; he even had an extra half-bowl during lunch—”
“Mhm.”
“It's just that waist of his; it looks quite painful. Madam, should you remind the Master to let you give it a rub tonight?”
Ophelia flipped a page.
Page forty-eight.
Her gaze landed on a line of text, but she didn't see a single word of what was written there.
“...I'll keep that in mind.”
The topic finally slid past under her best efforts to play it cool. Ophelia breathed a sigh of relief in her heart—the act of sighing itself made her feel bewildered. What was she relieved about? She hadn't done anything wrong.
...Probably.
Martha ate two more pieces of snacks, wiped her hands, and suddenly let out a sigh.
“Sigh—”
Ophelia’s attention was pulled back by the sigh. “What is it?”
“Nothing. It's just seeing you and the Master like this, and Daisy and Big Tom being so good together.” Martha rested her chin in her hand, her eyes drifting toward the window. “Madam... do you think I should find someone to marry too?”
Ophelia turned to look at her.
Martha had snack crumbs on her cheek and was looking out the window with a serious face, a look that would be hard to associate with a “maiden waiting for marriage” in any other setting.
Ophelia’s mouth twitched slightly.
“What kind of person do you want to marry?”
“Well, definitely—someone like the Master.” Martha seriously counted on her fingers. “Gentle, doesn't lose his temper, good-looking, and especially focused when he's researching things—”
“You're listing things based on Klein's mold.”
“Exactly! It's such a good mold!” Martha said righteously. “Madam, tell the truth, before you married him, did you ever imagine the Master would be like this?”
Ophelia didn't answer.
Before she married him?
Back then, she would never have imagined that in just a few short months, she would become like this.
“Madam?”
Ophelia snapped back to reality.
“...Klein is a good husband,” she said. She only said that much.
But when she looked down, she found that she had closed the book again at some point.
Martha tilted her head and looked at her.
“Madam.”
“Yes?”
“From just now, you've been listening to the sounds from the study, haven't you?”
Ophelia’s fingers paused on the book cover.
“I haven't.”
“You have.” Martha wore a rare shrewd expression—though it was ruined two seconds later by another snack being stuffed into her mouth. “Every time there's a sound from the study, your ears twitch.”
“My ears didn't twitch.”
“They did.”
“...A knight's ears don't twitch randomly; only an elf's would.”
“Then yours did.” Martha said with a mouthful of snacks, her eyes curving and her voice sounding sticky. “Madam, are you—jealous?”
Ophelia looked at her.
“...Jealous of what?”
“Of that young girl—Lyra, right? Being in there alone with the Master—”
“That is teaching.”
“I know it's teaching. But you're uncomfortable.”
Ophelia opened her mouth but found she couldn't find a suitable angle to refute it—because Martha was too blunt, so blunt that she left no room for rhetorical maneuvering.
She was indeed uncomfortable.
But what that discomfort actually was, she hadn't fully broken it down herself.
It wasn't a lack of trust. She trusted Klein, and she trusted Lyra. Everything between them was clean; she had never doubted that for a second.
But she just—
Didn't want him to stay alone with another woman for too long.
Once she caught this thought, the tips of Ophelia’s ears began to burn.
The heat spread from her ears to the back of her neck, like being brushed by an extremely fine feather. She hadn't felt like this when facing sea monsters, when facing the difficulties of imperial generals, or when facing any enemy.
Yet she was left speechless by a single sentence from a maid.
“I am not jealous,” she finally said. Her voice was flat, her speed steady, and her back ramrod straight—this was her standard reaction when handling any situation she couldn't manage, the same posture she took when facing an unknown threat on the battlefield.
Martha watched the honorary knight of the Empire deny being jealous while in a combat-ready stance, then contentedly stuffed the last piece of snack into her mouth.
“Fine, fine, you aren't.”
Ophelia fell silent for a beat.
“...And even if I were.”
Her voice was very low, almost like she was talking to herself.
“That would be normal. It is normal for a wife to care about her husband's... arrangements. It is very normal.”
Martha’s chewing slowed for half a beat, her eyes wide.
She was about to say something—
The study door opened.
Lyra walked out clutching her notes, nodding politely to Ophelia as she passed the bench. Ophelia returned the nod with a natural expression and composed posture. Her back remained ramrod straight.
Lyra walked away.
Ophelia looked down at the book on her knees—it was still page forty-eight, and she still hadn't read a single word.
Then she stood up, tucked the book under her arm, and walked toward the study.
Her pace was just a tiny bit faster than usual.
Martha watched her back from behind, the last bit of snack crumbs still in her mouth, her face practically shouting three words—
“Told you so.”
Klein was tidying up the books and notes on the desk. He heard footsteps and looked up, slightly stunned to see Ophelia standing at the door.
“What is it?”
Ophelia stood by the doorframe, suddenly realizing she hadn't prepared a reason to come in.
She had indeed “charged” over. But what she would do or say after charging, she hadn't thought about at all during the short dozen steps from the bench to the study door.
“...Are you done teaching?”
“Done.” Klein put his pen back in the holder. “Lyra is making fast progress; I'll arrange practical work for her starting next week—why are you standing at the door? Come in and sit.”
Ophelia walked in.
She sat in the chair opposite Klein and placed the book on the desk. Klein glanced at the page number.
“Page forty-eight? You only read two pages this afternoon?”
“This book is written very densely,” Ophelia said without changing her expression.
Klein didn't press her, but the corner of his mouth curled into a tiny arc—the kind of arc that said he knew everything but chose not to say it.
“Does your waist still hurt?” Ophelia suddenly asked.
Klein’s hand paused on the desk for an instant.
He wasn't quite sure how to answer that question.
But Ophelia didn't need an answer.
She looked at him, her golden pupils deepening slightly in the afternoon light.
Then she looked away.
“I'll give it a rub for you tonight,” she said. Her voice was plain, as if she were arranging a routine task.
Klein glanced at her and saw that she had turned her face away in embarrassment again.
He didn't laugh out loud. But he tried very hard.
“Alright,” he said. “Thank you, Madam.”
Ophelia picked up the book on the desk and flipped it open.
Page forty-eight.
This time, she was actually reading.
Even if she still couldn't process a single word.
Rate on N.U.
