Chapter 1691 - 235 - The Country Bumpkin Goes to the Capital (1)

"You seem really busy," Anna said to me, watching me for a moment with a slightly concerned expression.

"Well, it has been a pretty hectic month," I replied, letting out a small sigh as I thought about everything that had been happening lately. "Things have been going downhill in quite a few areas, and the war shows absolutely no sign of letting up. If anything, it keeps escalating, and that has been taking up most of my time lately. That is also the reason why I haven't written you a letter for quite a while."

"Well, I understand that," she said, giving me a small smile. "I'm honestly not that angry that you haven't written to me for a while. I don't think anyone would get particularly mad if their husband was busy protecting the country they were living in, right?"

I immediately went silent after hearing that.

It was a rather strange analogy, and I was not entirely sure whether it was supposed to make me feel better or make me feel even more guilty about not writing to her. Somehow, though, it actually worked surprisingly well. The more I thought about what she had said, the more uncomfortable I became with the implications behind it.

If her analogy were actually accurate, then me failing to write back for such a long time could have meant something much worse than simply being busy. From her perspective, there was always the possibility that I had died somewhere during the war, perhaps on some distant battlefield where she would never even know exactly what had happened to me.

She probably had no way of knowing whether I was still alive unless I contacted her myself.

Thinking about that made me realize just how much she must have worried while waiting for a letter from me. She might have spent days wondering whether I was safe, whether I had been injured, or whether some messenger would eventually arrive with terrible news instead of a letter written in my own hand.

Because of that, the relief she must have felt when she finally received my message was probably enormous.

"I'm sorry," Anna suddenly said, breaking the silence. "I shouldn't have said something like that, should I? I'm not really your wife, after all, but your concubine."

She seemed to have interpreted my silence as a sign that I had been bothered by her choice of words. Perhaps she thought I was offended because she had referred to me as her husband even though she knew perfectly well that her official position did not give her that particular title.

"Nah, it's nothing like that," I said, shaking my head. "I'm not bothered at all, so you really don't have to worry about it."

I paused for a moment before giving her a small smile.

"In fact, you can keep calling me that if you want. I don't really care whether you call me Darling or something else. If that is what you are comfortable calling me, then I have no problem with it."

"I see..." she said quietly.

A small smile appeared on her face, and she seemed noticeably more relaxed after hearing my answer.

She then moved closer to me and wrapped both of her arms around one of mine, hugging it tightly against her chest. Her large breasts completely swallowed my arm in the process, and I could feel their softness pressing against it as she held onto me.

I could not help but think that she had become quite affectionate.

Still, I was not exactly complaining about it.

After spending a little more time together, we eventually entered the cake shop. Surprisingly, there were still quite a few people inside despite the fact that a war was currently happening, although the place was not quite as packed as it probably would have been during peacetime.

Business had changed quite a bit since the war began, but people still needed food, drinks, and other things that could make their lives feel somewhat normal. Some customers had also started relying heavily on delivery services, especially after those services were introduced properly in this world.

With a single tap on their phones, people could order practically whatever they wanted and have it delivered directly to their homes.

It was still somewhat ridiculous to think about sometimes.

I had taken what was basically common knowledge from my old world and turned it into an actual business here. From my perspective, things like delivery services had been completely ordinary, but in this world, introducing those ideas had felt almost like giving people some kind of futuristic technology.

As a businessman, having knowledge from my old world was honestly ridiculously overpowered.

I sometimes wondered whether I was even playing by the same rules as everyone else.

After walking through the shop for a little while, we eventually reached a considerably more private area where only the two of us were present. The atmosphere immediately became quieter, and it was far more comfortable than sitting in the middle of the main dining area.

I noticed that Anna seemed a little uncomfortable, though.

She kept looking around as if she were trying to figure out whether she was supposed to be doing something differently.

I figured it was probably because she simply was not accustomed to places like this.

Anna was, in some ways, similar to a country bumpkin who had suddenly been dropped into a fancy establishment without receiving any instructions beforehand. She basically had no experience visiting places intended for wealthy customers or important guests, so it was understandable that she felt slightly out of place.

It was almost like taking someone who had spent their entire life in a quiet rural village and suddenly putting them in the middle of the capital, surrounded by expensive furniture, elaborate decorations, and people who seemed to know exactly what they were doing.

It was a pretty cliché comparison, admittedly, but I thought it actually fit the situation surprisingly well.

The funny part was that Anna did not look like a country bumpkin at all.

If anything, she looked incredibly foreign and elegant.

Her appearance alone would have made it difficult for someone to guess that she was inexperienced with places like this. She had the kind of beauty that could easily make people assume she belonged in an expensive establishment, even if she was internally panicking about whether she was supposed to touch anything.

I still remembered the shock I had experienced when I first encountered her.

She simply did not look like someone who had grown up in the sort of environment like a farm.

"I feel really dizzy just standing in a place like this," Anna muttered as she continued looking around. "I've never been somewhere like this before, so I honestly don't know what I'm supposed to do."

"Well, you don't have to worry about that too much," I told her reassuringly. "It doesn't really matter whether you've been in a place like this before. More importantly, there is nothing wrong with feeling uncomfortable when you're somewhere unfamiliar, so you don't need to force yourself to act like you already know everything."