Chapter 21

And so, I was about to face Gatou, the boss of the slums.

Though the journey getting there was quite a trial in its own right.

After all, in this present life, me and Gatou had not yet met. Aside from being complete strangers, we lived in entirely different worlds—me a duke’s daughter, and him a ruffian boss.

For two such people to cross paths required a proper stepping stone.

Depending on how things went, there was a chance I wouldn’t achieve my goal today and would have to return another day.

Well, if it came to that, we’d cross that bridge when we came to it; for now, let’s head to the place where I could establish a connection with Gatou.

Relying solely on memories from my past life…

…Huh?

The scenery looked different from what I remembered. Did I take a wrong turn?

It had been over eight years since my past life, so naturally, my memories were hazy.

Should I turn back and try this path instead?

…Ah, that’s right!

Right here, right here! The clue to making contact with Gatou was in this tavern!

“Are you alright? Is this really the place?”

The Crown Prince, who had been dragged back and forth along the same path, gave me a thoroughly suspicious look.

Pretending I hadn’t noticed his skepticism, I stepped into the tavern.

A young lady in a dress making a sudden appearance.

Naturally, it stood out terribly, immediately making me the center of attention for the drunkards already lounging in the tavern.

If I were going to cower under gazes of this caliber, I’d be utterly disqualified as a duke’s daughter.

Marching straight into the establishment, I took a seat at the counter furthest in the back.

Looking bewildered, the Crown Prince followed right behind me.

The man behind the counter, presumably the master of the shop, wore a bewildered expression…

“Miss, what business do you have here? A place like this isn’t somewhere a refined person like you should be…”

“My business in a tavern is to drink alcohol. Is there something wrong with that?”

If I tried to match his confusion, we’d get nowhere, so I forced my way through.

In fact, capitalizing on their bewilderment was the smartest strategy in a situation like this.

“Give me the strongest drink in this shop.”

“Ugh…”

Taking the order, the master complied despite looking thoroughly shaken.

Though, at my age, having finished my debutante, it wasn’t like I couldn’t drink alcohol…

However, this drink wasn’t being ordered for consumption.

“This is the highest-proof drink we have… Literally drinking this will make you breathe fire from your mouth, you know. If you’re trying to act tough, young lady, you should go to a more refined place…”

Ignoring the master’s warning, I proceeded to my next action.

Instead of drinking the served alcohol, I dropped a single coin right into the glass.

The coin sank into the liquor.

“There is someone I’d like you to have drink this. Could you take it to them?”

“Are you kidding me…?”

Though bewildered from start to finish, the master mechanically picked up the glass and vanished toward the back of the shop.

To anyone watching without context, it must have looked utterly baffling.

In fact, the Crown Prince, who had watched the entire sequence of events from behind me, completely lost his expression out of sheer incomprehension.

“Eltriede, what on earth was that…?”

“I believe I asked you not to interfere. Rest assured, things are proceeding right on schedule for now.”

Though I wasn’t sure if that would hold true for what came next.

After waiting a short while, the master reappeared from the back of the shop.

“They agreed to see you. Follow me.”

“Thank you kindly.”

With this, the first barrier was cleared.

The second barrier would begin once we met face-to-face.

Following the master’s guidance deeper into the shop, I found a private room utterly unsuited for a run-down tavern like this.

An odor far staler than the front of the shop drifted through the air, and right at the head of a table littered with scraps of food sat a man radiating the unmistakable aura of a ruffian boss.

He was in his mid-thirties, ruggedly handsome, with carelessly grown long hair lending him a wild edge.

His eyes gleamed with an unnerving, burning intensity, hinting at the fierce savagery locked deep within his soul.

This man was none other than Gatou, the boss of the slums.

Gatou of the “Crowbar.”

Aside from him, several other burly men surrounded the table in the room.

Thanks to that, just being a woman on my own made me stick out like a sore thumb.

Furthermore, even the Crown Prince standing behind me looked genuinely taken aback by this bizarre sight.

Now then, we had finally come face-to-face with Gatou, our target for today.

His very first words were…

“How did you find out?”

Striking straight to the point without any preamble.

“Drop a royal copper coin—specifically one with a mint year that is a multiple of three—into the strongest drink in the shop and have it brought over… That’s the signal to request a meeting with me, the true owner of this shop.”

“An elaborate cipher, isn’t it?”

“I’m a guy with plenty of enemies. That’s why I only let a select few trusted people within my inner circle know about this code. An outsider like you has no business knowing it. Which means there must be a traitor among the very few folks I actually trust.”

Naturally, there was no such thing.

I learned this code back in my past life.

At that time, I had been seeking underground, practical methods to win the Crown Princess selection through illicit means.

And Gatou happened to be the man who fell into my clutches through sheer bad luck.

That was when I had been taught the cipher.

There was always a chance it might have changed in this present life, so my heart had been pounding until I actually tried it out.

Still, it was well worth trying.

Though the real make-or-break moment started right here.

“Rest assured. None of your associates have betrayed you. It simply means that I possess power. The kind of power that can easily uncover things people would rather keep hidden.”

“Typical arrogant nobles, aren’t you? To think even a little brat like you’d get this cheeky.”

“Oh, did you not know? Nobles are important beings. When important people adopt a fawning or servile attitude, things tend to warp and bad outcomes easily follow. I am merely carrying myself the way someone in my position should.”

“How cheeky.”

The atmosphere was tense.

Unable to gauge the unexpected girl who had suddenly appeared, they couldn’t lower their guard.

Both Gatou himself and his surrounding subordinates were in a state of battle readiness, ready to pounce at the slightest opening.

Yet, because the Crown Prince was standing right behind me, they couldn’t move carelessly.

In truth, the Crown Prince—who was also the strongest magic user in this country—could easily subjugate this slum all by himself if he really wanted to.

They probably mistook him for a bodyguard accompanying me.

Thanks to that, the ruffians couldn’t act recklessly. They could physically sense his overwhelming strength.

That was why I could proceed with the negotiations with a sense of composure. Being right in the middle of danger would normally grind down one’s mental state and easily lead to careless mistakes.

I hated to admit it, but I was being saved by the Crown Prince’s presence.

“Information is vital to gaining control of any situation. I value information above all else. Let us just say that my thoroughness is why I managed to steal away your secret signal.”

“A noble like you probably keeps some top-tier spy on a leash, I bet.”

The deeply suspicious slum boss was letting his imagination run wild on his own.

Since I couldn’t tell him the truth, his assumptions actually worked to my advantage.

I decided to ride along with the premise he had set up.

“However, I am far from satisfied with my own information-gathering capabilities. Especially here in the royal capital, since it is not my home turf, gathering detailed intelligence takes quite a bit of effort.”

“Ha! If you can swipe the information from our inner circle, that should be more than enough.”

“Such overconfidence. Information you can scrape together from slum ruffians holds very little real value.”

And in reality, I hadn’t acquired it through any espionage means at all, but rather by recycling my memories from my past life.

“That is why I want to hire you for a job. That is the purpose of my visit today.”

“A job?”

“I want you to gather information from all over the royal capital and sell it to me. You lot excel at that sort of thing, don’t you?”

For people like them, intimately familiar with the royal capital’s underworld, the kind of information people desperately wanted to hide was precisely what naturally found its way to them.

Back in my past life, I had made great use of it.

The intel Gatou dug up was a mixed bag of gems and trash since it came exclusively through underground channels. While plenty of it was unusable, I excelled at extracting pinpoint pieces of actionable intelligence and using them effectively.

For instance, rumors of a certain aristocrat engaging in corruption, or stories about how a noble’s wife, son, or daughter had messed up in some way.

Using those scandals as leverage made it easy to force people to do as I bid, and if they happened to be rivals in the Crown Princess selection, I could simply expose their scandals and force them to drop out.

Of course, I wouldn’t do anything like that in this present life.

However, the fundamental fact that information was power remained unchanged, whether in the past or the present.

Now that I was fully entangled in the Crown Princess selection once again, living lazily in blissful ignorance would leave me completely blind to life-threatening dangers.

While my past-life knowledge gave me a degree of foresight, it wasn’t absolute.

That much had already been proven by the incident with Lady Adelina.

That was precisely why I needed to quickly secure a system to obtain fresh, firsthand intelligence.

And Gatou and his crew, who ruled the royal capital’s underworld, were the perfect fit for the job.

I harbored no ambitions of becoming the Crown Princess in this life.

Even so, taking minimal self-defense measures to protect my current life was essential.

To that end, I needed to bring Gatou over to my side right here and now.

And for the sake of Gatou’s own dreams, as well.