Lyamie, feeling dazed and muddle-headed, returned to Colin’s mansion just like that.
She saw Lavinia lying idly on the sofa, doing nothing.
Lyamie took out the gift she had spent several hours carefully picking out and handed it to Lavinia.
Lavinia looked at the scene in surprise.
After reaching out to accept the gift, she asked for confirmation, “Is this for me?”
Lyamie nodded, then collapsed weakly onto the sofa opposite Lavinia.
Seeing Lyamie’s dejected appearance, Lavinia glanced once more at the gift in her hands and, still confused, asked again, “It’s really for me? Not that you originally meant it for someone else, but they didn’t want it?”
Hearing this, Lyamie was almost amused to anger.
This was a gift she had gotten only after going through an extremely harsh “expedition”—how could it possibly be something she’d meant for someone else and they refused?
Why did Lavinia keep coming up with such strange ideas lately?
Seeing Lyamie shake her head, confirming the gift was indeed for her, Lavinia immediately tore open the wrapping and revealed what was inside.
Inside the exquisitely wrapped box was… a packet of seeds?
Looking at the tightly sealed pack of seeds, Lavinia even wondered if she was seeing things.
Or perhaps Lyamie had grabbed the wrong gift.
“…This is the gift you’re giving me? Are you sure there’s no mistake?”
Lavinia took out the packet of seeds and asked Lyamie, confused.
But to her surprise, Lyamie glanced over and nodded with certainty.
“That’s right, that’s my gift for you. To thank you for all you did for me in the ‘Yiqiu’ labyrinth.”
At these words, Lavinia looked again at the seeds in her hand.
She brought them up to her eyes and carefully examined them.
After confirming, Lavinia understood the fact: it really was just a packet of seeds—not some other object shaped like seeds.
At this, Lavinia couldn’t hold it in anymore.
She looked at Lyamie, the corners of her mouth twitching, and pointed at the seeds.
“…Would any normal person actually give something like this as a gift?”
Hearing this, Lyamie turned her head, fixed her gaze on Lavinia, and spoke deliberately: “Do I look like a normal person to you?”
At those words, Lavinia opened her mouth wide, as if she wanted to say something, but couldn’t find the words to describe how she felt.
In the end, all those complicated thoughts condensed into a single word: “…Huh?”
“Huh, what? Why, do you not like it?”
Lyamie asked in surprise.
Seeing this, Lavinia nearly lost her composure.
She pointed at the seeds and spoke in a very serious tone: “How could I possibly like something like this!!!”
Now Lyamie was genuinely surprised.
She asked, confused, “But, I heard that elves all really like nature? That’s why I thought giving you seeds would be good—you could plant them yourself and nurture them as they grow. Isn’t that what elves enjoy? Or did I hear wrong?”
At this, Lavinia was at a loss for words.
She wanted to say something, but as soon as she opened her mouth, she actually found it funny.
In the end, she couldn’t help but laugh lightly. “What in the world… That’s such a stereotype! Even if we elves do like nature, how could any elf like this kind of gift! How can this be a present… Wait, hmm~ Maybe it’s not that bad?”
Seeing Lavinia suddenly change her tune halfway through, as if she remembered something, Lyamie became even more confused.
What did she mean by ‘not that bad’?
Noticing Lyamie’s confusion, Lavinia offered a simple explanation.
“In my homeland, I’ve heard of people giving this kind of gift to friends, but it’s very rare. I’ve only heard about it, I’ve never actually encountered it myself.”
“I see… Maybe it’s just that you don’t have any friends who would give you that kind of gift?”
Silence.
Lyamie had meant it as a little joke to defuse the awkwardness of possibly giving the wrong gift, but she didn’t expect Lavinia to fall unusually silent after hearing it.
At this, Lyamie felt both surprised and at a loss.
She was surprised because she hadn’t expected her words to hit the mark—Lavinia really didn’t have many friends back home.
She was at a loss because she didn’t know what to say to recover from this.
Lyamie didn’t know how many friends Lavinia had, but she knew she herself didn’t have many she could call true friends.
So when faced with this kind of situation, Lyamie really had no experience in dealing with it.
Fortunately, Lavinia didn’t mind too much.
She just sighed lightly and let the matter pass.
She carefully put away the gift Lyamie had given her, and as she did, she seemed to worry Lyamie would mind, so she said, “I’m not really interested in gardening, but since you went to all this trouble to give it to me, I’ll try it when I have time.”
Seeing Lavinia return to normal and accept the gift, Lyamie also breathed a sigh of relief.
But just as she was relaxing, Lavinia suddenly changed the subject.
“But really, I never would have guessed—you were gone so long just to buy me a present. I thought you were out following Colin and the others.”
At these words, Lyamie’s body stiffened for a moment, but quickly returned to normal.
She forced a slightly awkward smile and pretended nothing was wrong.
“Haha, what are you talking about? Why would I follow them? I’m not interested in what they’re up to.”
“That’s true, sorry about that. I was just imagining things, don’t take it to heart.”
After a few moments of awkward laughter, Lyamie and Lavinia returned to silence, both quietly sitting on the sofa.
Lyamie had already given her gift, so she didn’t really need to stay any longer.
But even if she went back to her room, she didn’t know what she would do.
As for Lavinia, it was even more so.
She had already been lying on that sofa for half the day, completely uninterested in doing anything, except for occasionally looking at the rules for “The Great Adventurer” game, or just staring off into space.
Because both this mission and the break had come up unexpectedly, neither of them had made any plans for the holiday.
Even if they had, if something urgent or dangerous came up, all their plans would have fallen through.
But just waiting idly for the holiday to end didn’t seem right either.
It’d be better to find something to do.
But what, exactly?
After a stretch of silence, Lyamie and Lavinia both glanced at the “The Great Adventurer” rulebook lying on the table.
Meeting each other’s eyes, they spoke at the same time.
“Want to play a round?”
“A game?”