Cold sweat poured down Yulinelle's face at Shuraina's constant stare. If he had awoken from his trance because of the word 'Swanhaden', then he was completely, totally awake after he'd realized how stupid he had looked in front of Shuraina.
"If you're tired, you should take a break."
"…..no, it's okay."
Yulinelle couldn't look at Shuraina out of embarrassment.
"Can I help you? I'll just organize everything slightly."
"You'll help me?"
Shuraina cleaned the coffee cups in the corner of the desk and the mountain of pen caps on the ground. He would've refused help if it had been any other day, but Yulinelle was completely out of energy and Shuraina's offer sounded so, so tempting. Even if he was completely out of energy all the time.
"If you don't believe my skills, I've organized documents and taken care of paperwork for the proxy head of the Lunaasha guild in his stead, organized and kept the anti-Itasha documents, and….."
"Okay, okay."
"Also, there's a high chance that we'll see each other so often that we'll get ick of each other, so I would never steal documents or fake them and cause you any harm."
"….have you done that before?"
"A long time ago. I was in big trouble once because of it. Can I help you? I'll just organize everything."
Yulinelle looked around at the clean floor and surroundings before nodding awkwardly.
"Take your hand off the table for me please."
Shuraina raised her hands as she held Swanhaden's magic stones in his hands. Suddenly, everything around Yulinelle began to float. He crossed his arms and took his hands off the desk. Then, he rested his arms on his knees for a while, then crossed his arms again. He had always rested on the desk or laid down on it, so he seemed a bit uncomfortable now that he couldn't rest on it.
"Just do whatever, don't do too much….."
Yulinelle yawned widely and stared at Shuraina without any expectations.
"First, sign here."
"…..why."
When Shuraina handed him a blank piece of paper and asked for his signature, Yulinelle looked stunned as he signed it without hesitation.
Yulinelle had high expectations for Shuraina because she used Swanhaden as she wished, so he followed her requests without any complaints.
Once Shuraina had Yulinelle's signed paper in hand, she floated the paper in the air before she drew a magic circle.
"For the financial documents that just need your signature, I'll place a spell on them to have them take care of themselves. They'll automatically approve themselves with this signature. Please check it for me."
"Huh? Uh….hold on. That's correct. I don't have to read through all of these documents–I just have to sign them so that the transactions go through."
Once the duke gave his approval, all of the separated documents were stamped with the duke's signature at once. A large chunk of the document piles disappeared.
"I'll change the person in charge of the spell to you so that you can change the contents of the circle whenever you need. If you revise the proximity area of the circle and make yourself the one that can come within it, other magicians won't be able to touch the documents."
Shuraina glanced at the pile of documents in the corner of the office. Checking the dates, they were all from last year, the year before that, and four years ago–it seemed like they were all documents about various land and judicial disputes.
"These are all documents that have been taken care of, right?"
When Shuraina pointed at a pile of documents in corner and asked, Yulinelle slowly nodded. When he responded with an affirmative, Shuraina placed a hand above the pile and made the magic circle remember what the documents were about. If there were any overlapping contents in any of the documents, they were organized as a pattern and they were placed under a separate circle.
"All of the documents with similar contents will be filled out based on the information you used previously. You can skim through the documents and fix any mistakes, and keep it as it is if it looks right. Moreover, I'll make it so that the edits go in right away if you want to revise anything."
And just like that, another pile was taken care of right away. All of the documents that were automatically filled out needed another check, so they were separated into another pile. All of the documents that didn't have a pattern were placed separately. Even if the contents were the same, there weren't any records of similar contents being recorded prior, so they needed to be combed through at a later time. And the other pile of important documents were….
"All of the documents coming from important establishments need further checks, so…. Where do the important documents usually come from?"
Yulinelle blankly stared at the documents slowly being organized before scribbling down a few organizations on a sheet of paper and handing it to Shuraina. He was completely blank.
Shuraina drew a smaller magic circle and collected the names to add it into the circle. Then, she separated the documents with those words under a separate group. She added an extra layer of rechecking magic to ensure that there wouldn't be any mistakes. She separated the similar documents into one group and took them aside. And she went on to the next group to organize their contents, separate them, and place them under a smaller magic circle.
"It's much easier if you have mechanization spells. I'll have the magic circle remember what I just did."
She coiled and twisted the normal-type magic circles together under a bigger circle. She took out a clear plastic bottle from her dimension pocket and put in one of Swanhaden's incredibly potent magic stones. Then, she told Yulinelle to keep it filled with magic stones.
"It's hard to bring in a secretary because of how secretive the Blanche family is, right? And that was why you were doing everything alone. This magic will take on the position of a secretary for you. Just to remind you, magic circles aren't as concise as people, so there might be errors. You need to recheck everything. Once the magic circle is done separating and organizing documents, please check to confirm everything."
By the end of Shuraina's organization spree, the desk was incredibly clean. Once all of the needless documents were taken care of, almost half of the document hoard had been taken care of.
And when it came down to it, there were only a few documents that really needed to be checked carefully. But even those were half-completed thanks to Shuraina's automated magic remembering the document patterns.
"Father, it looks like you're mostly done with everything. You just need to check these."
Shuraina added a bit of her personal wants in that sentence, but Yulinelle didn't notice it at all. Shuraina flipped the documents front and back in the air before handing it to Yulinelle. Once Yulinelle blankly filled out the few documents left, Shuraina placed them in the completed pile and clapped once.
"The end."
Shuraina took out a cup and some sleep-inducing tea from her dimension space. The pocket had been filled with Swan's magic stones, but was running out at this point. She used the last magic stone to boil some hot water to make some tea and placed it in front of Yulinelle.
"Your overtime work is over, too."
Yulinelle still looked out of it. The magic circle whirred as it sorted and organized the documents. It was organizing it, true, but it was basically taking care of most of them.
"Swan, let's direct the duke to his bed. It looks like he's too tired to walk all the way there."
"Mm."
The sun had set and the moon was high in the sky out the window. Swanhaden had brought back all of the ingredients she had needed during the day, just like he had promised. He had, at some point, arrived and stuck right next to Shuraina. He had brought back all of the ingredients that Shuraina had asked for and had laid them all down on a chair. He hauled the blank, overwhelmed Yulinelle like a suitcase. Then, he drew a transportation circle with his finger and transported them to the duke's bedroom.
Swanhaden laid Yulinelle down on the bed and covered him with his blanket.
"Have a good night."
"Good night."
Usually, Yulinelle would've clicked his tongue in distaste at Swanhaden's disgusting two-faced attitude, but Yulinelle still couldn't speak.
"I gave my father a good night kiss before I slept. He liked it."
"….."
Shuraina said, seeing how uncomfortable the two of them seemed with each other. They did have a lifetime of hurt between them.
Swanhaden, who was generally quick to understand, nodded. Swanhaden walked over to Yulinelle and pretended to give him a peck before grabbing Yulinelle's head and bashing his forehead into his own.
Swanhaden went back to Shuraina, held her in his arms, and exited the duke's bedroom.
"I did it."
"….."
"You don't need one?"
"….I'd rather not have my forehead bashed in."
When Shuraina rejected his offer and covered her head with both hands, Swan shook his head.
"I'm talking about a good night kiss. I need one, so gimme."
A good night kiss, huh. Shuraina thought about it for a moment before nodding.
"Sure."
Swanhaden had thought that she would get flustered and deny it, but she accepted it so easily. His heart felt like it was going to burst, so he briefly hung his head.
I'm excited. He quietly muttered to himself. He slowly walked to his room with her in his arms.
Meanwhile, Yulinelle Blanche blinked as he laid on his bed. This was one of the incredibly rare instances when he was done with all of work and was lying on his bed early.
How many months had it been since he had properly laid on his bed like this? He was always asleep on his office sofa, his chair, or on a desk. He suddenly had an influx of free time thanks to Shuraina taking care of his work. Now that he had a lot of time to sleep, he just couldn't rest.
Why couldn't he sleep?
[Your overtime work is done, too.]
Yulinelle's mind kept replaying what had just happened. Shuraina's short but powerful statement continued to play in his mind. His head was so clear that he couldn't sleep. He shifted his body from left to right. He kept changing positions, but he still couldn't sleep.
For Yulinelle, Shuraina West had left quite an impression on him even before she had come to his estate. He had known her since she was a snot-nosed kid. She had brutally trained with her sword, ignoring her blistering fingers. What kind of person did she want to become? At first, he had wondered what she wanted to do, but when she finally sliced off the wooden training doll's head with one clean move, he couldn't help but be awed. When she successfully sliced off the training doll's head with her awkward pose, Yulinelle wanted to clap for her.
He had been suffering under an influx of paperwork at that time, so that scene, of the doll's head being lopped off, had left quite an impression on him. So he thought, "That's the way I'd like to go." and he had started to teach Swanhaden the sword, hoping that his son could kill him with one clean slice too.
That snot-nosed child continued to appear in front of him, covered in scars. At first, she had taken in the Blanche family's magic and appeared in front of him, covered in blood. Then, she had some unknown black magic in her and came back covered in blood in front of him. And that was ignoring all of the sword injuries she had.
Later, he had felt relieved that she wasn't covered in blood when he saw her next. Yulinelle had ended up caring for her without realizing it. Maybe it was because he had seen her since she was a child, but he had begun to feel affection for her. Also, he always lost in card games when he played again Swanhaden. Apparently, Shuraina had a similar skill level when it came to games. Swanhaden said that she always lost against him in games. That was another thing he liked about her.
And all of the unconscious positive feelings he had felt for Shuraina had hit maximum levels when Shuraina organized Yulinelle's documents and told him that he would never suffer through overtime again.
[Your overtime work is done, too.]
The entire scene replayed in his mind again. He had thought that she seemed to be self-conscious before, but she had been incredibly confident at that time. With her head held up high and a smile on her face, she couldn't look any cuter than that. He dimly thought, 'That snot-nosed child grew up well,' and felt strange about how he was getting helped by that once-snot-nosed child.
'Thinking about it, she called me father…..'
Shuraina had thought that Yulinelle wouldn't have heard that, but he remembered everything she said to him. Yulinelle remembered what she said and touched the corners of his mouth.
Father…..
His heart fluttered. Father, huh. That snot-nosed child as my daughter-in-law, huh.
He felt a bit sorry that her husband had to be Swanhaden, but if that sensible, cute child became his daughter-in-law, he couldn't be happier than that.
At first, he had thought that there was no way that Swanhaden could bring her home even as he made a ruckus, so he had never even entertained the idea of her becoming his daughter-in-law.
She didn't seem to focus on appearances, so he had thought that there was no way that she would get together with Swanhaden, whose only positive was his appearance. Unlike Swanhaden, whose only good point was his face, the child wasn't lacking in looks or personality. He had thought that she would have a lot of good suitors–why would she date Swanhaden, whose personality was complete trash?
But for that Swanhaden to act so shy in front of Shuraina. What a scary bastard. He hadn't even imagined how much Swan was hiding himself and wagging his tail in front of her. He bore his fangs at everyone else–but in front of Shuraina, he basically ripped all of his fangs out of his mouth.
Thinking back, he hadn't even cursed once after Shuraina had arrived at the estate. He'd also become a lot milder, action-wise.
Anyway, it seemed like Shuraina had accepted him after his hard work, and Yulinelle finally admitted the fact that both of them were mutually in love with them. If the two of them continued to like each other, they would get married. If they married, he would get a daughter-in-law. To imagine that an unimaginable candidate would become an unimaginable person to him–he thought about how special that feeling was.
He felt incredibly proud. The corners of his mouth twitched upwards when he suddenly remembered the royal prince, the marquis child, and that slimy guild leader that all seemed to be aiming for her.
Then, he remembered that one time that Shuraina called the marquis DuBois 'father'.
Yulinelle sat up straight from his bed.
"....absolutely not."