Chapter 86

Duke Vespera went to Opel as part of his duties. He judged that he needed to see the situation firsthand in order to draft regulations related to the provinces. So he selected and toured several rural areas. Opel was the last small town on that list.

“There’s a Daijo branch here too?”

His aide Iliya clicked her tongue at the Marquis family’s merchant house spreading even to such a rural place. Since this was a relatively large shop for the area, people bustled about.

He entered the shop to gauge public sentiment. At first, people glanced at the unfamiliar figure, but wrapped in robes he soon lost their interest.

He had always found his appearance burdensome. It was of no use to his work and only attracted unnecessary flies.

Anyway, while casually looking at the displayed goods, his ears and eyes watched the people of Opel.

“Can I help you?”

The clerk approached, perhaps thinking he looked lost. From the look in her eyes, there didn’t seem to be any other intention.

“I’d like to look at office supplies.”

That was the first thing that came to his mind. Without hesitation, the clerk led him to the shelf with writing materials and explained each item carefully. He thought the young-looking girl’s clear, lively manner of speaking was sharp.

“I said give me a refund!!!”

At that moment, a peculiar customer appeared. She was clearly not a normal shopper. She brought something like grape(s) stems and demanded a refund; watching it was absurd. Thinking the innocent shop might be harmed and about to call Illya to fetch the patrol, a soft murmured voice came from below.

“This is bad.”

At first he thought he must have heard wrong — it was so different from before. But it was indeed the same clerk who had been smiling pleasantly while serving him. She politely asked for understanding and walked toward the irate customer.

‘Impossible.’

Then, without frowning even a little, she used only a few words to send away that irate customer who seemed impossible to calm. It was an event he never expected to see in such a rural small town. He found himself clapping along—she was a very impressive clerk.

She fit perfectly the shopfront advertisement’s “We Recommend” praise. Vespera thought he ought to recommend her gladly and left the shop. That was where his impression ended.

But oddly, it led to another encounter.

Thud.

“I’m sorry!”

It was the girl who had run, carrying a child on her back, and bumped into someone. The perfect smile from the shop was gone, replaced by a frantic, desperate expression. The child on her back seemed to be a family member. While unpacking at their lodgings, Iliya started chattering about the girl’s situation—something he had heard somewhere without being asked to do so.

“Her parents died and the four siblings live together, and it seems the youngest is very ill. Some kind of incurable disease? He has seizures like that and they take him to the physician. But the medicine isn’t cheap, it seems. Earlier she went into a wig shop, so I asked discreetly and she said she planned to sell her hair. But you know how it is—blonde is in vogue these days, so black hair with brown mixed in doesn’t have much demand. It’s tragic.”

It was a difficult situation, but having traveled the provinces he’d seen many imperial subjects worse off, so there was nothing exceptional. Still, oddly, it left him uneasy. Even while lying still, he couldn’t stop thinking about it.

He kept recalling the girl’s kindly demeanor and the desperate face he’d just seen. Objectively, he wasn’t a person given to much empathy or pity. He believed that handing out a few coins wouldn’t change the Empire. Even if the girl overcame that immediate crisis, her fundamental poverty wouldn’t disappear.

‘Yes, this is a fleeting whim.’

Vespera rationalized his actions that way. Even when he stopped by the one wig shop that hadn’t closed and made the request, he told himself it was only to ease his conscience. Besides, the girl might not even come here.

“Really, thank you!”

But the girl did come to the wig shop right after he arrived and sold her hair. With no time to leave, he watched the scene from the back corner of the shop. Seeing her anxious face brighten, he felt that this whim wasn’t entirely bad.

He couldn’t put the received wig where it would be seen, and he didn’t want to throw it away, so he put it in a room at the ducal house. That was truly all.

A few months later Vespera met the girl again. He often walked the streets without attendants or did light shopping. After joining the Ministry of Justice he’d become interested in writing instruments due to his workload and had looked around many shops.

The Daijo flagship store was spacious and pleasant, with a wide variety of goods. Yet a familiar face caught his eye. Her bobbed hair kept him from recognizing her at once, but she was definitely the girl from Opel. When their eyes met, Vespera involuntarily lowered his gaze to the fountain pen she was holding.

“Customer, can I help you?”

She was still friendly and skillful. In an instant she picked out products he would like and recommended them so persuasively he couldn’t help buying. Strangely, she was neither intimidated by him nor did she look at him with a personal gleam in her eye. He was just another customer to her. For Vespera, who was used to others’ self-conscious behavior, it felt very strange. The fountain pen she recommended was such a fine product it was indispensable for document work.

After that, whenever Vespera visited a Daijo store he found himself checking to see if she was there, but he couldn’t clearly tell what role she had.

‘Black Dia.’

A cosmetics brand launched by the Aurelius marquis family called Black Dia was sweeping the Empire. Vespera, who had been keeping an eye on Daijo, learned through an informant that her skills were behind it. He thought she was good at her work, but not to this extent. The small help he had dismissed as a whim had changed her life.

He couldn’t take his eyes off her. So, something he’d never done in his life, he actually stopped by a cosmetics shop. He was curious.

Coincidentally, the girl was there too.

“Today is my last shift.”

She handed him a gift, saying she remembered him as a regular customer. Without meaning to, he asked about something he normally wouldn’t be curious about.

“So the news that clerk gave earlier was that she was being fired…was it?”

If she really had been fired, he even considered hiring her immediately into the Duke’s household. Thankfully she said she had been offered a better position. Vespera felt relieved but also a sense of loss.

There was no real reason. He simply wanted to see her again.

He next met her again at a party at the Aurelius marquis family’s Marquis’s residence.

He had thought to stop his ridiculous, obsessive interest and had not tried to track her down. It was just one of the rare parties he attended under his father’s pressure.

“You keep looking and looking, like some tiny wench!”

He had never imagined they’d meet like this. She was just about to be slapped by a strange man. Since it is simply unacceptable for a man to use violence against a woman, he would have stopped it whoever it was. But in that moment Vespera had nothing in his head.

It was purely instinct.

She intervened and he confirmed she wasn’t hurt, so it ended there. Had there been even a hint of trouble, the man would have had little chance to walk away. He couldn’t understand how the Marquis could keep such subhuman people as aides.

She said she worked as Kiara the Marquess’s young lady’s aide.

‘From rural shop clerk to aide of a high noble—remarkable.’

He admired it inwardly. He felt Kiara had considerable discernment.

For a moment he wondered what it would have been like if she had worked as an aide in the Duke’s house, but he felt foolish and dropped the thought. Until then he truly believed it was merely curiosity about the result of his whim—a fascination born because the outcome had been better than he’d expected.

He had no doubt she would live her life diligently as the Marquis’s young lady’s aide while he served as the head of the Imperial Palace’s Ministry of Justice.

“Let me introduce formally as well. This is Cornelia Libertas, whom I personally recommended to the Chancellery this time.”

For a moment Vespera wondered if his eyes deceived him. He had met her in unexpected places before, but this was beyond imagination.

“Please take care of me, Supreme Justice.”

Vespera felt pleased watching her greet him cheerfully. But he was confused.

After learning his identity, she only became a bit more cautious and formal, otherwise she still smiled brightly.

Thus life at the Imperial Palace began. Through many turbulent events he discovered aspects of himself he hadn’t known. He hadn’t realized his mood swings were so extreme: small things could make him feel good, and at other moments he would plummet into despair.

Unexpectedly, when he argued with her he felt intense self-loathing. He had never raised his voice in any situation, so he couldn’t understand why he felt so choked and frustrated. After thinking it over he concluded that he had wanted her to be like him—because he wanted someone so competent and decisive to share his views and work devotedly.

“You and I are different, but I acknowledge you.”

So he was able to say this.

He thought this would settle everything and allow for a stable relationship to continue.

But it was a huge miscalculation.