Between Your Letter and My Reply

Chapter 29

[Translation By Divinity]

Damian, with a somewhat gloomy expression, returned to his hotel room by tram after leaving the hospital. As soon as he arrived, he started frantically rummaging through his luggage.

The room, which had been neatly organized in his absence, was quickly cluttered with items from his bag. After searching thoroughly for a while and failing to find what he was looking for, Damian punched the floor.

“Damn it…”

He muttered a curse under his breath.

“What an idiot I am. How could… there be nothing left…? If I had known this would happen…!”

Damian pulled out a neatly folded piece of paper with a torn corner from his pants pocket. He sat on the bed, unfolded the paper, and stared at it intensely, as if he might burn a hole through it.

“It seems to match…”

Looking at Lilliana’s neat handwriting on the paper, Damian narrowed his eyes.

“Her handwriting is the same as Lady Lintray’s…”

Damian sighed deeply and lowered his head.

“I foolishly burned all the letters, so I can’t compare the handwriting…”

Damian searched through his luggage again, hoping to find at least one of Lintray’s letters remaining. But his past self had been thorough. He had truly used all of Lintray’s letters as kindling without any hesitation.

“Damn it, you idiot. You should have died when that grenade exploded.”

Damian started berating himself. The more he thought about it, the less he understood his past actions.

Just one letter. No, even a single line! If he had just one sentence written by Lintray, things wouldn’t be like this!

No matter how many letters they exchanged, it was normal not to notice subtle writing habits unless you paid close attention to the handwriting. It was almost impossible to remember someone’s handwriting accurately without consciously observing it.

Damian tried to recall Lintray’s handwriting from his vague memories, but all he could remember was that it was generally round in shape.

“It could just be a coincidence. A coincidence…”

Damian lay back and thought. Maybe Lilliana’s handwriting just happened to be similar to Lintray’s. Maybe he was so preoccupied that everything seemed connected to Lintray.

Lilliana’s personal information didn’t match Lintray’s. He told himself there were too many inconsistencies to conclude that she was Lintray, but he still frowned.

“But still… there are too many overlaps.”

First, the perfume. Then, the age. Next, the way she spoke. And now, the handwriting.

‘And the fact that she’s hospitalized too…’

‘Could all five of these things be a coincidence?’

Damian’s mind was torn between the possibility of coincidence and the suspicion that five overlaps were too many to ignore.

He scratched his head, trying to clear his thoughts. There was no point in agonizing over it alone; he wouldn’t reach a conclusion.

It seemed he needed to do some digging.

☆

“I’m sorry.”

“We’re not sure about hiring you…”

“It seems difficult.”

“We’ve reconsidered, and it’s not going to work.”

Damian’s spirit was worn down after being rejected in multiple job interviews again today. He had become accustomed to rejection after experiencing it several times, but that didn’t mean it didn’t hurt.

‘I need to earn money to buy a prosthetic arm, but I can’t earn money without a prosthetic arm. This world’s absurdity needs to be eradicated…’

Damian mumbled curses under his breath as he headed to the real estate agency. His current temporary accommodation at the hotel was too expensive. He wasn’t going to live in a hotel forever, so he needed to find a place to stay.

But there was a problem. Since he hadn’t found a job yet, he hadn’t decided where to settle down. Still, he wanted to at least talk to a real estate agent, so he made an appointment…

Damian’s lips trembled slightly as he looked at the list of properties the agent had selected.

“I’ve carefully curated this list with only the best options. It was a bit difficult to find good one-person units within a 30-minute tram ride from the city center, but not many places have as many options as we do.”

“Um… Are these prices correct?”

Damian, with his eyes shaking uncontrollably, looked at the numbers written on the paper by the agent. ‘Why has the housing price doubled in just two years?’

“Yes! Quite affordable, isn’t it? But I can assure you that the condition of the houses is excellent!”

‘Affordable? A-ffordable?’

Even though Damian grew up in an orphanage and lived in a boarding school before immediately enlisting in the military, he wasn’t so ignorant as to be unaware of real estate prices.

Before he enlisted, he had researched housing prices in Nichio because he needed to live independently. But the properties the agent was showing him now were outrageously expensive compared to what he remembered.

Of course, it was natural for prices to go up for well-maintained houses closer to the city center, but even so, this was too much.

“Now, now. Shall we discuss the details while actually looking at the houses?”

The agent stood up, and Damian quickly shook his head.

“Ah, wait a minute! I think it would be better if I found a job first before looking for a place.”

“Ah… Is that so?”

“Yes, I don’t know what kind of job I’ll get yet, and also… the type of house I can afford depends on my income, so once I have a more concrete plan…”

Damian gave an awkward smile and trailed off. The agent, who had been friendly until now, sat back down with an indifferent expression.

“I see. I understand your situation. But you won’t find properties like these anywhere else. Wouldn’t it be a shame to miss out while hesitating?”

“That’s true, but I’ll contact you again.”

The agent, reading Damian’s gloomy face and understanding his predicament, gave up on persuading him further and just smacked his lips.

Damian once again shuddered at the absurdity of the world.

☆

“Damian, why do you always look so gloomy whenever we meet? So, what’s it today? The prosthetic arm? Job hunting?”

Lilliana squatted in front of Damian, who was sitting on a chair, matching his eye level and tilting her head curiously. She wondered what misfortune had befallen this young man who always seemed to carry the weight of the world on his shoulders.

His already somber face looked even darker with his dark brown bangs casting a shadow over his eyes.

“Housing prices.”

“Ah…”

Lilliana let out a short sigh.

“Yeah, I heard housing prices in Nichio are ridiculously high. I’ve only lived in the east, so I don’t know much about the situation there…”

“They’re not just high; they’ve doubled since the last time I checked.”

“What?! That much?”

Surprised, Lilliana pouted and thought for a moment before speaking.

“Damian, you don’t have to live in Nichio, do you? Even the countryside in the east, where I live, is a decent place to live. How about you move to the countryside too?”

“I don’t mind moving to a different region, but there are fewer job opportunities in the countryside than in the city. Do you think I’ll be able to find a place that will hire me?”

“I think so. There are fewer jobs, but the population is even smaller, so there are always openings, as far as I know.”

“Lilliana, as you know, I have one arm, so my job options are limited. I’m applying for office jobs, but many of them require a university degree…”

Lilliana snapped her fingers as she listened.

“Ah, that’s right! University!”