Chapter 117

Compared to the Crown Prince who was vulgar no matter what he said, or Oscar, a minor whose every action landed them in the slammer, this was genuinely honest and pure flirting.

“Thanks.”

I liked sweet things, so I didn’t refuse.

“No, ahem. I just happened to get lucky and found it.”

Crunch, crunch.

The hard candy shattered crisply in my mouth, and a sweet, refreshing apple scent spread through.

Lollipops really were best when you just crunched and ate them.

Thinking it was a flavor worthy of trending, I glanced sideways, but Noah was just uninterestingly sucking on his candy.

Seriously, how does his affection go up just from making eye contact…?

Unable to bear the burdensome rate of increase, I opened my mouth.

“You seemed to be asking Evan for a favor earlier. Is this candy part of that too?”

“Ah, well, I actually got this one myself, but yeah. Since Evan handles most of the foodstuffs for the ducal household, he gets them a bit cheaper from suppliers. A lot of people ask him for favors.”

I see. Evan must be the supply manager who deals with merchants outside the mansion.
He was the ideal profession for delivering periodic reports among the spies in the ducal mansion.

“Thanks. I’ve had a lot of worries lately and wasn’t feeling great, but this helps clear my head a bit.”

That was genuine. Robert, the protagonist, the Duchess, the spy activities, and even Jeffrey or Sera. With more than one or two things to worry about, I was on the verge of a mental breakdown.

“Hmm. It’s because of the Duchess, right?”

…!!

Noah’s affection was 33. Even if it was high for someone you just met, I hadn’t expected him to bring up such a dangerous topic where your head could literally roll first.
When I stared at him with bewildered eyes, Noah gave a wry smile.

“Obvious, isn’t it? Considering the relationship between the Duke and the Duchess. Is there anyone working in this mansion who doesn’t know? Besides, I’ve served the Duke since I was little, so I know even better.”

“Since you were little?”

“Yeah. I almost got run over by the Duke’s carriage once. I was so starved the world was spinning before my eyes, so I was walking without even realizing it was a carriage lane, and then… Ahem, anyway, right before I was about to be imprisoned for the crime of a pauper orphan daring to damage a noble’s carriage, it was the Duke who saved me. Touched by that mercy, I swore loyalty to him for the rest of my life… Well, that’s a common story in these parts.”

“You must have had a rough time.”

“Huh? No, not at all. The Duke took me in, so I didn’t have to wander the streets anymore. I’m truly the blessed one.”

“No, I meant you probably had a hard time during the period when you were wandering the streets. I know that feeling, you see.”

“Y-you too?”

Belita was also said to be an orphan from an orphanage. So it wasn’t a lie.

“Ahem. We’re pretty similar, aren’t we?”

Noah covered his mouth, hiding a pleased expression. He seemed happy to have found something we had in common.

“O-our hearts seem to match well, too…”

“True. It would’ve been nice if we’d met just a little earlier. Such a shame.”

“What does it matter when we met? What’s important is right now.”

Noah protested in surprise, but I firmly shook my head.

“I’d like that, but I don’t think it’ll work out.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“I’m thinking of quitting the ducal household.”

“What?”

With a hardened expression, Noah jumped up from the bench.

“Why?”

“Lord Vincent passed away, and there were all sorts of things happening. I came to be under the Duke’s direct charge to avoid turf wars with the new coworkers, but I’ve only gone and incurred the Duchess’s hatred for nothing. I don’t think I have the confidence to endure it here anymore…”

As I trailed off my words sounding on the verge of tears, Noah cast a sympathetic gaze.

“…It hasn’t come to the point where you have to quit. If you just hold out a little longer, the Duchess will lose interest anyway.”

“Where’s the guarantee for that?”

“I can guarantee it. The Duchess just needs someone to take out her anger on, that’s all.”

Someone to take out her anger on?

“Because Lord Robert committed a grave wrong against the Duchess in the past. Ever since then, she’s changed a bit—no, she’s become quite sensitive.”

Noah used roundabout phrasing as if he couldn’t speak of it in detail. It meant there was something he was hiding.

“What kind of wrong did he do for the Duchess to be like that?”

“…I don’t know the details either. I just heard it from the senior butler.”

It was an obvious lie. Anyone could tell from the look in his eyes that he knew.

‘Digging it out is only a matter of time anyway.’

He didn’t seem inclined to spill the beans easily, but if I waited until the trait triggered, I’d easily be able to get an answer. There was no need to question him impatiently and risk lowering his affection.

To get Robert and his wife divorced, it was advantageous to understand the clear root cause of conflict between the two.

‘I should make sure to raise Noah’s affection carefully for the time being.’

It felt like a solitary, flickering lantern had appeared in a pitch-black path—weak enough to go out with a single breath, but still a reassuring source of light.

“Belita! What happened? You were suddenly called away in the morning and you’re only coming back now!”

As soon as I finished work and came back to the room, Io showered me with questions straight away.

I brushed it off by saying I had received a special promotion as a reward for saving Robert.

“I’m so jealous~ The Duke’s personal maid!”

“To think you actually became his charge. Rumor has it—”

“Hey-hey~ Let’s not bring up difficult topics on a good day, Isabella!”

I was curious what the difficult topic was, but it was probably just useless gossip like always.

Leaving the two of them behind, I stepped out of the room.

“I’m going to go wash up.”

“Huh? It’s late, just wash up tomorrow.”

“She’s always washing up around this time lately, you know. Leave her be.”

There was no one in the bathroom when I arrived.

Naturally, since it was time for everyone to be asleep.

‘There really is no safer place than this for a spy to carry out work in secret.’

Since dodging other people to wash up was a daily routine for me, I knew very well that nobody would come all the way out to this remote bathroom at this time of night.
I set the lantern down in front of the door and sat comfortably beside it.

‘Phew.’

Then, rummaging through my pocket, I pulled out the note I had received from Evan earlier.

That’s right. The time had finally come.

The time to check Jeffrey’s message.

‘I wonder what’s written on it.’

Hopefully, it’ll be something helpful for future actions. I inhaled, let out a deep breath, and unfolded the multi-folded note.

And inside was…

‘What the?’

Nothing was written on it!

I flipped the paper over, looked at it sideways, and even held the lantern’s flame close just in case it was written in special ink, but absolutely no reaction appeared.

‘Surely this blank paper isn’t like a blank lunchbox…’¹

What the absence of anything on a paper meant to have instructions might imply was: There is nothing more I have for you to do, so go die, you useless thing! Or something along those lines.

‘…I’m overthinking it.’

Panic brought all sorts of wild thoughts to mind, but the more this happened, the more I needed to stay calm.

In this situation, the probability of it being disguised as blank paper for security reasons was the highest.

Applying some sort of trick to the paper would probably reveal the hidden writing, or something like that.

‘The question is, what is that trick…?’

If it was a method available only to spies, there had to be a tool for decryption.

‘Let’s rethink the items Belita had on hand.’

Belita’s possessions were truly sparse. All she had were worn-out clothes, mundane living essentials like toiletries, and a fountain pen.

I had memorized this since the first playthrough. It was certain, as a result of thoroughly searching everything to learn even a little bit more about the possessed body.

‘The fountain pen is still the most suspicious one.’

After all, it was the only item related to paper.

Just in case, I pulled out the fountain pen I always kept in my pocket and examined it closely.

It had a black cylindrical body made of hard rubber with a golden nib. A faded, crude gemstone was attached as a decoration in the middle.

Judging by the material and finish, it was definitely not an expensive item. It was just the kind of thing a commoner like Belita could manage to acquire.

I turned the fountain pen this and that way and even brought it into contact with the note, but there was still no reaction.

‘Is this not it either?’

If so, I had no choice but to ask directly.

Since she trusted my loyalty implicitly, saying I had forgotten how to execute periodic reports or read secret letters might perhaps let me slide without arousing suspicion.

‘…As if that would work!’

If I didn’t want to be suspected of having lost my memory, I had to figure it out somehow…

‘It’s not like there’s actual magic in this worldview. The methods should be limited.’

…Wait.

That’s right. There was no magic here.

‘But there are magic stones that act like magic.’

Besides, who was Jeffrey Rubel? Wasn’t he the terrifying villain who started a war using those very magic stones?

And this fountain pen also had a gemstone attached to it.

‘On the surface, it just looks like a cheap gemstone, though.’

Come to think of it, when a magic stone entered an inactive state, it seemed to turn this turbid in color.

‘Towards the end of Edelina’s episode, there was an event to reactivate magic stones.’

At the time of the heretic trial, Edelina had said she was still researching it, but I vaguely remembered an event popping up later that delivered the news that she had figured it out once the story progressed.

‘Let’s give it a try.’

I immediately sent a chat to Mo Je-won.

[ Mo Je-won: You want me to dig up the guide for Edelina’s route? That’s not hard. Just wait. ]
[ Me: There should be a mini-game in the final chapter. The one where you guess the ingredients needed. ]

Fortunately, Mo Je-won found it quickly and told me the necessary ingredients.

[ Mo Je-won: The ingredients are a fragment of an Afropixie’s wing, the stem sap of a Murumuu, the horn of a Lurebay, and Holicin’s… ]
[ Mo Je-won: Man, there are a lot of things. But why do you even need this? ]
[ Me: Thanks. ]
[ Mo Je-won: You’re welcome~ But why do I need this, you ask? ]
[ Mo Je-won: Hello? Answer me? ]
[ Mo Je-won: Hey, I’ve been wanting to say this for a while, do you know you only contact me whenever you need something? I understand you’re busy, but my feelings are a bit hurt. When you don’t reply, I worry if something happened, can’t you at least answer shortly? I really didn’t want to go as far as saying things like this… ]

The names of the ingredients were all completely unknown, but it was fine. I had seen similar ingredients gathered in this mansion before.

In the first playthrough, which now felt like the distant past, I had once visited Carlo’s laboratory to find a way to break the religious oath.

I immediately changed my location to Carlo’s workshop.

Screeeech—

The door was opened with a bizarre noise, perhaps because it hadn’t been used for a long time.

Several bookshelves were packed tightly against the walls of the fairly spacious, long room, and small drawer units lined the floor. Papers, microscopes, and droppers lay in a messy heap on the desk.

My target was the cabinet containing the ingredients. There must have been easily hundreds of drawers, but it was manageable.

That was because each ingredient was labeled with its corresponding name.

Tap-tap—!

…!!

Suddenly, the sound of footsteps came from close by, so I immediately turned off the lantern and hid my body behind the desk placed in the middle of the room.

Right after, the door opened, and someone’s leather shoes faintly reflected in the light. The unidentified intruder holding a lantern stopped in front of the drawer unit I had just been standing by.

“Ah, seriously, I should’ve bought these beforehand! What a pain in the ass!”

‘Why is she here?’

The owner of the familiar voice was definitely Sera.

The irritating sound of drawers opening and closing echoed.

“Hah. I was going to ask Evan this time, but he had to hand over the secret message just today of all days…”

…It seemed Sarah had received the exact same thing as me.

Creeping around awkwardly meant the probability of getting caught was high.

It would be better to make the first move.

I lifted my body, which had been hiding under the desk.