Chapter 41
But what followed was not the sensation of lips meeting.
It was the brush of fingers against my ear.
So… Lionel had merely reached out to tidy my hair, which had been tousled by the wind.
“W-what, what, what are you doing?!”
“Did that make you uncomfortable? I apologize.”
“No, it’s not that it felt bad…! Y-you just startled me. You’re not supposed to touch a woman’s hair so casually.”
“I see. My apologies. I won’t touch it again.”
“No, it’s not like you have to go that far… Just don’t do it so suddenly… We’re, um, going to be stuck together for life anyway…”
To hide my embarrassment and mortification, I covered my face with my long hair and only rolled my eyes around.
Then a thought suddenly struck me.
He’s not doing this to other women too, is he?
With that face of his, if he did something like that, it wouldn’t just be a crime—it’d be a life sentence. I hurriedly warned him.
“I can’t believe I even have to say this, but you absolutely must not touch other women’s hair. Only mine. Got it?”
“Yes. Understood.”
“And, and, um…”
I had been fidgeting with my hair when it finally hit me what situation we were in.
“So what does that mean?”
“Pardon?”
“You asked what I think of you.”
I thought he was going to say he’d show me with actions instead of words and boldly kiss me—but that wasn’t it.
Don’t tell me… he just reached out because my hair was messy and wanted to fix it first?
…No way. That can’t be it!
“I…”
Right. I what?!
Determined to hear the answer no matter what, I widened my eyes and stared at his lips—
—and right then, the carriage came to an abrupt stop.
“We’ve arrived, my lady.”
“What? Already? No—wait…”
I was about to tell them to take a lap around the capital since we had plenty of time, but before I could, the door opened.
And of course, it was on Lionel’s side.
As though he had no lingering attachment to the unfinished answer, he stepped out of the carriage first.
“Your hand.”
Lionel, who had let go of my hand when I was getting in, now held it out again to escort me down.
I stared at his outstretched hand for a long moment, then abruptly turned my head toward Eunice, who had already gotten down from the driver’s seat.
“My lady?”
Eunice looked puzzled, as if she had no idea why I was glaring at her. I couldn’t very well shout in front of Lionel, so I protested inwardly.
You said you’d stall for an appropriate amount of time!
How could you stop the carriage at that exact moment?!
“Wow… well, I’ll be.”
Deep within the slums. Ashweb Street.
Even long-time residents who had settled here would never dare set foot in this particular corner. Yet as he strolled casually through it, Fry kept letting out exclamations of admiration.
Perhaps the noise was irritating. From atop a roof patched together with rotting planks, someone popped their head out.
“Who’s making all that racket this early in the evening? Some of us are trying to sleep!”
“It’s me, idiot.”
“Gah—C-Captain?”
The black-haired woman with an eyepatch over her right eye—Nyx—startled so badly she nearly fell off the roof.
Displaying astonishing balance, she barely steadied herself before leaping lightly down like a cat.
“Didn’t you say you were going to meet with the Leader today?”
Given the Leader’s status, arranging a meeting required careful maneuvering over several days. After all, the Leader resided in none other than the imperial palace.
Fry had left at dawn saying he was going to meet the Leader. At the very least, it should have taken several days before he returned. So why was he back so soon?
“Finished already.”
“What? How?”
“The Leader, for once, came out to the front of the slums to meet me. Didn’t seem like it was intentional, though.”
Fry snickered, recalling Lionel quietly handing out bread at the relief tents, the malicious rumors someone had been deliberately spreading, and Cecilia appearing at the perfect moment as if to refute them.
He had already suspected she wasn’t an ordinary young lady when she sent people into the underworld to gather information on her fiancé.
“Our Leader seems to have finally met his match.”
“What? …Ah, you mean the Duke of Rohaim’s daughter?”
The engagement between the Second Prince and the Rohaim Duke’s daughter had become quite the topic even here.
Naturally so. From their perspective, the future mistress had just been decided.
“What was she like? Is she as pretty as the rumors say?”
“Pretty, sure. But more than that, she’s sharp. Quick-witted. Decisive, too.”
Cecilia showing up at the relief tents and standing right beside Lionel had likely been to directly counter the slander being spread about him.
Even as his fiancée, she hadn’t needed to step forward while risking damage to her own reputation.
“And that’s not all.”
“Then what?”
“See this?”
Fry waved his hand in front of Nyx’s face.
Each time his pot-lid-sized hand swished back and forth, her single eye followed it in sync.
Tracking the movement blankly, Nyx soon noticed a small slip of paper tucked between his fingers.
“A message from the Leader?”
“Yup. And the Duke’s daughter caught me.”
“What?”
“Not sure, but…”
Otherwise, why would the Duke’s daughter extend her hand to shake hands with a lowly slum dweller like him?
Fry never imagined that Cecilia might have simply held out her hand without any deeper intention.
“She didn’t realize the Leader is our Leader, did she?”
“No way. Who would guess that the upright future Emperor is also the head of the underworld?”
In truth, even within the underworld, only a select few knew the Leader’s identity.
Male or female. Old or young. They had deliberately spread all sorts of conflicting rumors so no one could guess.
This misinformation campaign had begun under the previous Leader. Even then, no one had known the Leader was an elderly woman.
“So what does the message say?”
“See for yourself.”
“Oh?”
Since when does our captain hand over the Leader’s message this easily?
Thinking that, Nyx caught the note Fry tossed her and quickly read it.
[Classify information regarding the Rohaim family as confidential.]
Make the Rohaim family’s information confidential.
The meaning was simple. If anyone tried digging into Rohaim, they were to come up empty-handed—manipulate things within reasonable bounds.
“Wow… of all families, Rohaim…”
Rohaim was no ordinary house.
They owned more types of mines than one could count on ten fingers. The plains within the Rohaim duchy produced enough wheat to feed half the empire.
The largest vineyards and wineries in the empire belonged to them. The number of businesses spearheaded by Rohaim exceeded what ten fingers could tally.
Recently, they had even begun sponsoring the Frost Mage Tower, expanding their influence into the magical tool market. It hardly seemed exaggerated to say that half of the empire’s gold coins flowed into Rohaim’s vaults.
At one point, it almost seemed as though the Emperor might frame them for treason and confiscate their wealth. Yet just then, the marriage alliance between Rohaim and the imperial family had been arranged—so it appeared the Duke had bowed at just the right moment.
“And now we’re to make Rohaim’s information confidential? Doesn’t that mean we’re supposed to hide anything the Emperor could nitpick?”
“Sharp as ever. Guess you’re ready for an official mission.”
“I mean, I’ve been saying I wanted one for ages… W-wait. You’re not assigning this to me, are you?”
Sure, she had begged for a real mission. Sure, she’d even threatened to cause a huge incident outside if she didn’t get one.
“But Rohaim is massive! How am I supposed to cover all that alone?!”
“I’ll attach two subordinates. That enough?”
“That still makes three of us!”
“Don’t want it? I’ll give it to someone else.”
Fry held out his hand. Nyx groaned in frustration, then finally stuffed the note into her pocket.
“Then you have to let me leave the district.”
“Why?”
“Do you think manipulating information is easy? And if we’re upgrading Rohaim’s data to confidential, we absolutely have to visit the Frost Mage Tower.”
“Why?”
“Because…”
Nyx rolled her eye to the side, recalling the information she had recently acquired.
“It’s confidential now. Can’t say.”
“You little—!”
As always, Fry lunged to put her in a headlock. Nyx swiftly twisted away and sprang back up onto the roof.
Giggling as she waved at Fry—who looked up at her like a dumbfounded dog—she called out:
“Then I’ll be off to carry out the mission! I’ll report back in a month!”
“Brat! It’s every two weeks!”
Fry shouted, but Nyx was already gone.
Pretending not to hear his echoing yell, she scratched at her ear and grinned.
Yes! I finally get a real mission—with subordinates, too!
One tiny mistake, and she’d slip back down to the bottom.
After clawing her way up from there…
She had to do well. No—she had to do exceptionally well.
First things first—let’s go hide the fact that the Rohaim Duke’s daughter is a magical tool creator!
Neither Nyx nor Fry realized.
That was, in fact, the only piece of information Lionel had truly wanted classified.