The Mansion Awaits Spring - Chapter 226

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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 226
April had stepped out during the meeting to check on Pejin’s condition, but even after Logan returned, she remained. She gestured for him to bend down further, unsatisfied even after receiving kisses on both cheeks. Pejin asked her with suspicious eyes.
“Why? Planning to hit me?”
“I’m not going to hit you. When do I ever torment you?”
“Yes, you do. All the time, you do.”
As Pejin spoke, he bent lower, and April cradled both his cheeks in her hands. Then she pressed her forehead gently against his and murmured.
“Don’t go to war.”
……
“Don’t go. You’re weak. You can’t fight at all. Nothing would change in our forces if you weren’t here.”
Pejin laughed softly at her words. When she lifted her forehead away, he quickly wrapped both arms around April’s waist, reluctant to let her go.
As April was drawn into his embrace, she continued.
“I mean it. Truly.”
“I know. I know you worry about me so much. But you understand, don’t you? I carry guilt with me.”
At his words, April faltered. Pejin closed his eyes for a moment.
“I wish I could forget that fact too…… but you can’t change the way you were born.”
Opening his eyes again, he searched her expression as he continued.
“But I swear I won’t die. You already knew I’d have to go to war eventually, which is why you’ve had shelters built along every path leading to Lunos, haven’t you?”
Pejin was right.
April already knew that Pejin would have to go to war.
It was proof of his existence. Though Pejin was now seeking her permission with his eyes, the choice up to that point had been his own. April murmured.
“……You’re no help in war.”
“That’s right. What good could I be on my own?”
Pejin laughed, matching her tone.
“But you know, after receiving your forgiveness even once, I want to receive it from the people here too. You can’t know what it meant. When you allowed me to return to Right Island…… what that permission meant to my life.”
……
“Because of you, I was truly, truly happy back then.”
April exhaled a long breath. But soon she managed a smile.
“If you’d stayed in Rasa, you would have been safe. Yet you…?”
“Safe, I would have gone mad from despair.”
Pejin shrugged, then laughed along with her.
“I prefer danger with you to safety alone. Even if you asked me a hundred times, I’d give you the same answer.”
April nodded. But she couldn’t manage to smile further and murmured instead.
“Is there nothing I can break? I hate the world so much I want to destroy something.”
“What’s there to destroy? Why are you so destructive?”
“It’s because of you. If you’d just stay healthy, I wouldn’t worry so much.”
Pejin started to say something back to April’s reproach, but decided against it. Her breath was trembling—he couldn’t help but notice how much pain she was suppressing to grant him permission to go to war.
Pejin had always thought that among all of April’s gifts, the most remarkable was her patience. She knew how to restrain herself for what she wanted. He had rarely seen her abandon that restraint.
And so even now, she did not hold him back from going to the battlefield. She endured with her usual patience……
Pejin opened his mouth to her.
“April, you know what?”
“What?”
“I want to become an adult like you.”
At such words from Pejin, April let out a slight laugh.
“Even though we’re the same age?”
“Yes. Even though we are.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re good at restraint.”
Uncertain whether Pejin’s words about being good at restraint were praise or not, April narrowed her brow slightly. Pejin elaborated.
“Even when things are a mess inside, you still hold back for your goal. Everyone has a different ideal of what matters, but to me, an admirable person is like that—someone who restrains well. Because your desires are great, your self-control is all the stronger.”
A faint breeze, carrying the last of the cold air, swept through Pejin’s hair.
“I’ll always grow into an adult a little slower than you…… but I’ll grow by watching you, and someday I’ll become an adult who resembles you.”
At Pejin’s words, April smiled slowly and faintly. Her trembling stopped. As an adult, she meant to appear noble to him.
“I understand. I’ll wait.”
“You don’t have to wait. I’ll get there on my own.”
Pejin nodded toward the Conference Room as if to say they should return. The two of them went back inside.
* * *
After Pejin and April left the Conference Room, those remaining began voicing their discontent with Pejin’s inadequate response.
“He’ll consider it? Is that the entirety of his answer?”
“The old kings of the Leine Kingdom would mount the fastest horses and lead from the front when war came. Yet his answer is merely that he’ll consider it……”
Responsibility ultimately fell on those who remained. Both the Dieus brothers bore traces of the Leine Kingdom within their names, yet all arrows pointed toward Pejin Dieus standing before them.
Pol wanted to interject and say something to protect Pejin. With enemies gathering from outside, did they really have time for internal conflict like this? He wanted to persuade them.
But Logan grabbed Pol’s arm and shook his head. If Pejin’s people, especially his police, took his side here, it would do him no good.
Pol hesitated for a moment, then sat back down at Logan’s restraint. Once he had time to settle his thoughts, he realized that throwing out half-formed ideas would only worsen his position.
Soon after, Pol recalled that Logan—who rarely showed agitation—had followed Pejin out and become visibly angry for the first time in a long while. Whatever it was, Pol was grateful not to have witnessed Pejin in that state.
When Pejin returned to the Conference Room with a noticeably brightened expression, Pol found his suspicion confirmed. He whispered to Logan.
“Thank you. I’m glad you prevented me from seeing something I’d rather not have seen……”
“If you’re grateful, then so be it. You owe me for this one, genuinely.”
Logan continued to grumble, still visibly irritated.
In any case, though Pejin’s mood had improved, the weight of responsibility for the ground war had not lifted from his shoulders.
Shortly after returning to his seat with April, Pejin spoke.
“I understand that my answer—that I would consider it—was unsatisfactory.”
He said so and glanced around the Conference Room, finally confirming April’s presence before continuing.
“But I’m someone who cannot do anything without his wife’s permission, so I needed the Head of House’s authorization.”
At Pejin’s words, April flinched and then slapped his arm hard. Pejin continued regardless.
“I will go north. And I will stake my life on ensuring that Rasa’s armies do not cross into this island.”
Pol’s heart lurched for a moment, but he knew better than anyone that once Pejin had made up his mind, it could not be stopped.
Those who had been questioning Pejin’s legitimacy fell silent at his declaration, and without thinking, Pol searched April’s expression.
As the meeting resumed, she maintained a composed face, her emotions unreadable. Gauging from his own experience that she was desperately concealing her turbulent feelings, Pol quietly went and brought back some sweet pastries, placing them before April. When he sat back down, Pejin looked at him with disapproval, while April smiled. She gazed quietly at the plate of pastries, then spoke.
“Even without Miller’s betrayal, Pejin would have led the charge.”
At her words, everyone in the Conference Room turned to look at April. She picked up one pastry, broke it in half, placed it in her mouth, chewed thoroughly, and swallowed it with tea.
Everyone sensed that April had not finished speaking, and they waited in silence as she ate her pastry. This long pause she introduced was proof of the Lunos Family’s power. It was also a demonstration of her anger toward those who dared test her husband.
After finishing her tea as well, April continued.
“While you all sat back from war, following Miller—who has nothing but legitimacy—Pejin returned to his homeland. So even without anyone here demanding proof, he would have provided it himself. His nature is rather impatient, after all.”
In her words, the matriarch of Lunos seemed to overlap. The officials and commanders in the Conference Room who remembered that matriarch’s keen eyes and temperament could not even laugh at April’s casual tone.
Pol thought it was well that he hadn’t stepped forward. A single word from the Head of House of the Lunos Family would have resolved the matter entirely. She commanded that much support.
The meeting was not long. Together with Pejin, the police would head north.

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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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