I Will Try to Save My Dad - Chapter 8

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 8

It was easy to notice that Theon was lost. An apprentice knight, especially one still in his probationary period, would have no reason to meet the Commander.
Did he even know where the Commander’s Office was?
“Are we… lost?”
“…Yes.”
Theon admitted it honestly.
Looking up at him, I could see his neck flushed red above his shirt collar.
‘Oh no, I can’t let things get awkward before we even become friends.’
This wasn’t Theon’s fault. Someone had thrown him into this like a lion cub tumbling off a cliff—given him only the order to “escort her to the Commander’s Office” without even telling him where it was!
I took Theon’s hand and led him forward.
“Don’t worry! In situations like this, we just keep walking ahead.”
I knew where the Commander’s Office was.
When my arm pulled, Theon jogged a couple of steps to catch up with me, matching my pace.
“We can’t just wander aimlessly.”
Theon seemed to realize something and added to his words.
“…ma’am.”
“Since Sherry is younger than you, you don’t need to be so formal!”
“But you’re the young lady of the Trabel Estate. I’m an apprentice knight of the Trabel Family’s order.”
“Oh. So that sort of thing matters to nobles?”
“Nobles…?”
“I don’t really know about that stuff. My father and I lived alone in a Rural Village.”
I felt Theon’s gaze turn toward me.
For some reason, it felt like he was only looking at my forehead—but that was probably just my imagination.
‘Anyway, if we’re going to be friends, I need to find common ground first!’
When Theon was announced as the Crown Prince, the ones most excited were the newspapers.
The sudden appearance of a Crown Prince whose existence had been unknown until now.
The journalists couldn’t possibly let such a goldmine of stories slip away.
Moreover, since the Crown Prince was handsome, his articles occupied the front page every single day, complete with photographs.

– Is this a newspaper or a fashion magazine?

My other self had been exasperated by the media’s obsession with appearances, rolling her eyes in disgust.
But thanks to that memory, I knew something of Theon’s childhood as well.
‘Baron Voltman retired from knighthood, and I heard the family finances fell into considerable hardship.’
A grandson raised by a poor baronial couple in the countryside.
Though he showed exceptional talent in swordsmanship, their financial circumstances couldn’t afford him a single master.
Moved by his grandson’s wasted potential, Baron Voltman had used his connections to send Theon to the Trabel Family as an apprentice knight.
‘Well, that’s not really the important part, though.’
What mattered was that Theon and I both came from the Rural Village.
The fact that we had common ground—that was what mattered.
“So I don’t really understand complicated things like social status. Since I don’t care, Theon, feel free to drop the formalities if you want! If you’re worried about getting scolded by the adults, it’s fine when we’re alone together.”
“…Why did you live alone with Raytan… sir? What about your other family?”
But it seemed Theon’s concern lay in a different direction.
“Ah.”
So Theon only knew that my father was a Grand Master, and knew nothing else about my circumstances?
“I don’t have a mother.”
Oh, up those stairs is the Commander’s Office.
I took Theon’s hand and walked forward without hesitation, continuing to speak.
But Theon didn’t follow.
“Theon?”
When I turned around, Theon had stopped in his tracks, his expression one of shock.

***

I never had a mother from the beginning.
I was an infant my father had brought home from outside, and no one in the Trabel Family knew who my mother was.

– Aren’t we quite generous to have accepted you, not knowing whose blood runs through your veins? Remember that even after your father died, the Trabel Family did not cast you out. Live always with a grateful heart.

After Father died, Aunt Mariane often told me the same thing.
It was pressure to bring her results, achievements to lay at her feet.
From the age of sixteen, I willingly became a hunting dog who fetched my accomplishments for them.
That’s how I survived, evading my relatives’ interference, all to uncover the truth about Father’s death.
‘I was thrilled back then.’
But this time, there’s no way that will happen.
Because I’m going to hand all those achievements over to Father.
‘Hehe. What should I take first~’
I wanted to hum a cheerful tune, but I couldn’t.
“I’m sorry. That was a thoughtless question.”
Theon was pitying my situation—a child without a mother.
Thanks to that, we ended up sitting side by side on the stairs, with the Commander’s Office just one floor above us.
“I didn’t realize you were in such circumstances.”
Theon’s mood had sunk so low it seemed ready to bore through the floor itself.
“You’re younger than me….”
“Oh, I dropped the formality.”
“…You’re younger than me….”
“This is confusing. Can’t we just speak casually?”
….
“Or better yet, let’s be friends? Then we can both speak informally! We’ll just use formal speech in front of adults?”
Theon pondered my words for a moment, then nodded.
This too was thanks to meeting Theon so early.
If I’d been more adjusted to knight life, I would have jumped at how absurd my suggestion was.
‘Hurray! I’m friends with the Crown Prince!’
“Nice to meet you, Theon!”
“…Yeah. Me too.”
Unlike me, who was secretly delighted at achieving my goal, Theon’s mood hadn’t improved at all.
‘Theon lost his mother two years ago, so he must be thinking of that. My situation probably seems sad to him. But I’m really fine.’
Marshall once said that memories create longing, but Mother doesn’t exist in my memories.
The fact that I have no mother truly doesn’t bother me at all.
‘If anything, it’s Father who’s gone….’
…Ugh.
Suddenly my chest tightened and ached, and I finally understood how sad Theon must be. I’m such a fool.
Wanting to comfort Theon somehow, I rummaged through my pocket.
With a rustling sound, I pulled out a single candy—one Sherry had given me to eat when I got bored.
“Theon, eat this!”
I took the candy from my pocket and placed it in Theon’s open palm.
Theon looked at me with a bewildered expression.
“Why would you…?”
I wiggled my ankles and grinned.
“When you’re in a bad mood, sweets are the best cure.”
“I’m fine. You eat it.”
“Theon should eat it.”
You eat it. No, you eat it.
The candy kept getting passed back and forth, with only givers and no takers. Meanwhile, the twisted wrapper began to unravel, and the candy started peeking through.
Oh no. The wrapper’s going to come off and it’ll fall.
‘I was saving that!’
If it fell to the floor instead of into Theon’s mouth, it would be a disaster. Father rarely gave me candy anyway, saying it wasn’t good for my body.
‘Wait?’
Then a brilliant idea struck me. There was no need to squabble over a single piece of candy.
I stood up from the stairs and looked at Theon, speaking with triumphant confidence.
“Let’s go to the Commander’s Office! There are candies there!”
“You want to eat the candies in the Commander’s Office…?”
“Yes!”
The Commander’s Office at the Knight Training Ground was a place the owner used perhaps once a year, if that. Because of this, it had become a rest room for the direct descendants who came to the training ground.
‘So that’s why Uncle Lex told me to go to the Commander’s Office.’
Even I, after Father returned as a Grand Master, would often play there while waiting for him.
And I had a crystal-clear memory of everything stored in that room!
“There are lots of other snacks too!”
I looked up the stairs, picturing the Commander’s Office on the upper floor. And I froze in place.
“….”
“Who gave you permission?”
Grandfather’s golden eyes bore down on me. He looked like a tiger. A stern voice of rebuke flowed from his lips.
“Who gave you permission to take candy from my room?”
“…Hic.”

***

A moment earlier.
Callet studied the man standing silently before me, gauging his mood. Despite his white hair, the elderly gentleman carried himself with vigor, radiating more commanding presence than any general on the battlefield.
Count Trabel—Commander-in-Chief of the Red Eagle Knights.
‘Of all the rotten timing.’
Raytan’s daughter was here.
Misfortune had aligned perfectly. The day Count Trabel visited the Commander’s Office for the first time in a year was the very day Sherry arrived at the Knight Training Ground.
‘Stone House surely has staff to care for children. Why is Miss Sherry here without even a maid attending her?’
From beyond the corner, down the stairwell, came the sound of children’s voices, and Callet found a sigh escaping unbidden.
‘I wonder if Raytan can even imagine this situation.’
How would he react if he saw this—him, who was utterly helpless before his own daughter?
There was another concern weighing on me. Callet had been present last night when Raytan and the Count conversed.
The Count’s pointed question had sounded as though Sherry suffered from an incurable illness with only years left to live.
So whenever I heard Sherry’s voice, I felt like a parent watching their child placed at the water’s edge.
Of course, despite the turmoil in my mind, my expression remained utterly impassive.
Count Trabel—Laksec—was equally unreadable, his face betraying nothing.
Callet spoke quietly to the Count, who stood like stone.
“The boy appears to be affiliated with the Knights. I should remind him to use proper forms of address.”
“Enough.”
“But, my lord. Miss Sherry is also a direct descendant—”
“Who gave permission?”
Callet had no chance to respond. Laksec strode forward and bellowed down at the children below the stairs.
“Who gave permission to take candy from my room?”
The Count’s roar echoed through the stairwell that pierced the building’s ceiling, thunderous and absolute.
Startled at the sight of her grandfather, Sherry froze mid-gaze upward, then began to hiccup.
“…Hic.”
Laksec’s golden eyes fixed upon his small granddaughter’s face. Frightened, those bright green eyes sparkled with fear.
Those eyes that resembled Julia.
…Sherry, was it.
“Even her name was given something weak.”
Laksec descended the stairs. With each step closer, Sherry’s small frame shrank further.
At the Count’s arrival, Theon had retreated from the stairs and now stood nearby with his head bowed, though his toes twitched nervously.
Ready to shield the child instantly should any danger befall Sherry.
“Seven years old?”
“…Hic.”
“Looks more like six.”
“Hic….”
Laksec’s hand came to rest upon Sherry’s head.
The color drained from Sherry’s face, white as bone. But then—
Pat.
“…?”
Pat, pat.
I sensed something amiss.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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