房客(糙汉)何璐程曜坤

Up until just a few minutes earlier Benevirau and Burushi were running around like crazy looking for the young lord, but all of a sudden, without even finding him, they simply stopped.

Neither of them even bothered to tell her what they learned which made them calm down!

"Do they think I just don't care or something?"

The gardener frowned, muttering to herself as she was continuing to rearrange the hedges in the garden, helping herself with the earth magic spells.

"I didn't even have time to have a word with him, don't they understand how awkward this situation is for me?"

She continued complaining in a quiet voice while turning the maze into a nice open area that the black-haired boy would be able to use to rehabilitate while taking in the fresh air.

No one actually asked her to do that, but she has decided it was the right thing to do after learning about the young master's condition a few days earlier.

In the first place, no matter what she did with the garden, it could be rearranged back into place as thanks to her spells, she was able to move the plants around without damaging or harming them in the slightest.

"Haa... honestly... maybe it is better that he is gone...? What would I do if it would turn out that he wasn't serious before...?"

The woman breathed out heavily and her shoulders slumped down as she thought about her situation.

*whoom*

"...whoom...?"

Suddenly, a rather unexpected sound got the gardener's attention, and she repeated it while looking over her shoulder in an attempt to localize its source.

"...eh...?"

And she didn't have to look for long – a watermelon-sized murky-black orb was hoovering in the very center of the area that she opened up by moving all the shrubs around, around seven feet above the ground.

"Umm..."

The brown-haired woman looked around with a bothered expression, but there was no one around to tell her exactly what that thing was supposed to be.

"Hey, you! Get out of here!"

Since it could very much be an enemy, or at least an intruder, the brown-haired woman waved her hands and called out, trying to chase it away to see what it would do.

"..."

But there was no reaction from the orb to any of her actions.

"This is the last warning – I will attack you, you know? Will deal with you as it is described in the military textbook."

The young woman declared, pointing her index finger at the silent orb that was just staying in the same spot without budging in the slightest.

"Alright – this is what you wanted...!"

The gardener declared, raising her voice and reaching back her hand without actually casting any spell, just to see whether there will be a reaction...

…

...but the murky-black orb didn't even flinch...

"...tsk... fine – whoever or whatever you are, you wanted this. Stone..."

*WHOOOOOOM*

*WHAM*

Just as the brown-haired young woman in muddy overalls was casting her spell, the orb turned into a large disc-like shape and something fell and slammed right into the ground covered only with a perfectly trimmed grass.

"...WALL! STONE WALL!"

That made the gardener panic and she hurriedly changed her incantation halfway, changing it from an offensive one right into a defensive one.

*RUMBLE*

As she did, a three-feet-wide, six-feet-tall, seven-feet-long wall emerged from the ground, separating her from whatever the murky darkness had spat out.

"...uuurrrghhhh... there... was supposed to be a bunch of shrubs here..."

As the brown-haired young woman was hiding, the black-haired boy that fell out of the shadow gate hovering in the air groaned in pain as his landing wasn't what he expected in the slightest.

"...?"

Hearing the voice, the gardener furrowed her brows and stepped to the side, and peeked from over her cover.

"EH?! It's you! What are you doing here?!"

Once she spotted the boy laying flat on his stomach with his face half-buried into the grass, while only twitching slightly.

"...doesn't matter... could you please just help me o... huh...?"

Reacting to her shocked voice, Zoemi groaned in pain and moved his head to actually see the person that talking to him, and his eyes widened once he saw the gardener's face looking at him from over the stone wall.

"Arreta...?! What are you doing here?! Huh?! Did... did I mess up and jumped over to the Auequas estate?!"

The black-haired boy gasped in disbelief, immediately recognizing the brown-haired young woman as the youngest member of the Aueqas family who faced him during the tournament for Ehmi's hand.

"Wha...?! It is you! Wha... what happened?! Where were you! Lord Benevirau and miss Burushi were worried sick!"

Arreta gasped after confirming that it was indeed the young master of the Banemor family, and rushed out of her self-made cover to help him get up.

"Ah, since you know about them both then maybe it is the right place..."

Zoemi breathed out in relief, letting her pick him up.

"Eh...?! You are stone cold! What in the world were you doing?!"

The brown-haired young woman gasped in shock with a tiny bit of worry mixed in once she grabbed the boy and put his arm over her shoulders.

"You are no nearly as tall as I thought you were - your big attitude during the duel sure made me confused, now it makes sense."

It was actually Zoemi's first time getting so close to Arreta, so he raised his brows, honestly surprised when it turned out that even when she was standing tall, he himself still had his legs in an awkward position, basically touching the ground with his knees.

"Shut up! I was wearing platform shoes, alright!? Do you want me to drop you right back? Because I will and I will not tell others that you are back so they will find you in the evening at the earliest!"

Arreta blushed and scoffed angrily.

"Working hard to keep up the reputation of the short people, huh? Thanks for the help, but say. What are you doing in my territory?"

Zoemi snickered with a weak smile as Arreta was dragging him toward the mansion...

"...!"

"Hmm?"

He also raised his brow as he felt the woman flinching at his later question.

"...you said that the Banemor territory would take me in if I ever wanted to leave the Auequas family... were... were you not serious about it...?"

The brown-haired young woman asked in a worried voice and there was no trace of her earlier feistiness.

"I was completely serious – although I was sure that you would not take that offer. Do you want to tell me what changed...?"

Zoemi shook his head and smirked, before tilting his head and asking curiously yet politely.

"...grandma got into some weird deal with the queen and wanted to marry me off to Reyolen Haliu Ikarveth..."

Arretea's expression darkened but she did answer the question without much hesitation.

"Reyolen Haliu... wait...! Ikarveth?! Isn't that this middle-aged red-haired teacher in the Aspakeony Academy?!"

"Who's middle-aged?! That man is turning fifty-nine! I am not going to marry someone over twice my age!"

Zoemi gasped to which Arreta responded furiously, clearly misunderstanding the boy's point.

"It was already bad enough when the man I was supposed to marry was younger than me by mire than a decade, but actually trying to pair me up with some old geezer...? I really thought that grandma was thinking about my future and all, but that's clearly was not the case..."

The brown-haired woman lowered her head and muttered dispirited.

"..."

|You all think that she is being honest...?|

Zoemi observed Arreta for a moment before thinking the question towards the sentinels hiding within his shadow.

"(Hard to say. Ths one is odd. She is good at fighting – she beat up a group of robbers who snuck into the mansion when mister grandpa wasn't here. But she is really naive in other areas.)"

"(Sheltered girl. Realized that she was controlled and doesn't know what to do. Not dangerous.)"

"(Should be kept away from bad people since she seems like the type to fall for the first person that shows interest in her regardless of their intention.)"

The sentinels answered quite honestly.

|...what was that last part...?|

Zoemi raised his brows and asked in surprise.

"(I volunteer to keep an eye on her.)"

"...!"

The black-haired boy thought that his sentinel will clarify why it is worried about Arreta's love life, but what he got instead was even more surprising.