The transaction was a success.
“<Thank you.>”
“<Thank you as well.>”
After negotiating with the Iota merchant who dealt with white orchids, I planned to establish ongoing trade with the Meyer trading company. Although the quantity Mikhail had permitted was small.
After finalizing the last conditions, I carefully reviewed the confirmation items on the contract the butler had prepared once more. Sir Lifros gladly sat in the middle and became an excellent interpreter and mediator.
I folded the contract neatly and shook hands with the merchant. Stroking his large beard, the merchant said something in the Iota language.
“He says he brought a small amount of white orchid.”
I brightened at Sir Lifros’s words.
“Really?”
The merchant was already pulling out a palm-sized envelope from inside his clothes. Opening the slightly crumpled cardboard envelope, there really were flax-colored faded petals inside.
“He says it’s what he personally kept and consumed. He hopes you won’t be displeased.”
I didn’t mind at all. I had tried to trade with the Iota merchant because I couldn’t obtain it no matter how much I searched, so I was just happy to get it this way.
“<Thank you! Thank you!>”
The merchant chuckled and waved his thick palm.
But then Sir Lifros said something unexpected.
“And this fellow says he knows about a medicine that causes skin ailments.”
“—Pardon?”
“It’s not exactly the same as the black spots you mentioned, Your Grace,”
Sir Lifros turned to the merchant. The two conversed briefly in the Iota language.
“He says there’s a drug that casts a similar curse. —A female mage, ah, more precisely a magical apothecary, he says. —Despite being an Imperial, she operates rather cautiously here… There are secret rumors circulating in Iota. —He says she’s a noblewoman.”
The merchant added something.
“She has never called herself a noble, but everyone who meets her assumes she must be a noblewoman. Apparently she really—hmm, puts on airs, he says.”
A magical apothecary.
Makes drugs related to curses. Appears to be a noblewoman. Or wants to appear as one.
Outwardly looks to be in her late thirties. Has received requests from Iotans.
That’s what the information I gathered amounted to. It felt like I had really learned information about the ‘witch,’ and my insides turned cold.
Sir Lifros said he had something to discuss with the merchant, so I gathered the tea leaves and came out first.
“Did it go well?”
Young Lady Lifros had been waiting outside the door with her friend.
“Thank you.”
“Of cour-se! It’s natural between us!”
“Yes, Miss Lucia, if there’s anything I can help you with too, please tell me anytime. Thank you so much.”
Miss Lucia winked, saying that if I was that grateful, I should invite her to the Meyer estate sometime.
While waiting for Sir Lifros, I was introduced to her friend. She, similar in build to Miss Lucia, was also a violin player, she said.
“To think we’d become friends over one old instrument—”
“—That son of a bitch,”
“—who would have thought, huh? Wh-what, Joachim?”
I hurriedly opened the nearest door. I pushed Young Lady Lifros and her friend into the empty room without warning. Through the closing door gap I saw their bewildered faces, but I urged them to lock the door and quickly shut it.
Baron Moss had, after all, followed Lucia.
He seemed to think he’d been caught and was in the middle of fleeing.
I chased after him. The short corridor quickly ended at the second-floor hall bustling with people.
I saw the tail end of the baron’s tailcoat disappearing into the crowd. The hem of his clothes embroidered with thin ribbons in the Iota style—that was identical to the decoration on the coat Lucia had worn today.
“……! Please move, ah, <I’m sorry!>”
I was about to chase after him and give him a beating when someone grabbed me. It was the Iota man who had spoken to me in the first-floor hall earlier.
With his already severe dialect and my urgent state of mind, I couldn’t understand him again.
“<Cockroach… bug? I, I’m sorry. I’m really sorry.>”
I shook him off when his grip weakened. In that time, Baron Moss had disappeared from sight.
I entered the opposite corridor.
It was deserted and branched out like a maze. I was anxiously looking for where he’d gone when my wrist was grabbed again.
With a grip I couldn’t shake off, thinking it was Sir Lifros this time, I immediately turned around and shouted.
“That bastard followed Lucia again!”
But,
It was Benedict.
My mouth just gaped open and shut as I quickly looked around.
At the corridor entrance, I saw some Iota woman standing there for no reason. When our eyes met, she briefly raised her hand in greeting.
“Don’t worry. It’s Miss Sana.”
Before I could even be surprised, he took me further inside.
“Do you know what that Iota man who grabbed you just now said?”
Benedict, who had stopped in front of a room, had a somewhat stiff expression. He seemed both incredulous and slightly angry.
“Something like <cock… roach bug>—”
I heard it but, as I fumbled over my words, Benedict’s eyes widened slightly.
His slightly sharp demeanor softened. The atmosphere that changed in an instant like a warm breeze was brief before he smiled lightly.
“Oh,”
Still smiling, he kissed me.
A warm, soft sensation pressed lightly against my lips and then fell away.
I took a step back and belatedly looked around to see if anyone had seen, but was pulled into the room just like that.
“How did you come here?”
“I missed you.”
There was still laughter in his eyes. He calmly said he had put people on me.
“Didn’t Rilke Meyer personally tell you he was doing terrible things?”
It was natural for personal protection, he added.
“If you want, I promise to only receive reports when there’s danger. If you dislike it, I won’t receive reports of your whereabouts like today. So I’d appreciate it if you’d at least allow guards to follow from a distance.”
It was a bit awkward but… it was fine. I could agree to anything.
“……Yes. It’s okay.”
I answered in a voice that barely came out. And I missed you too, I added belatedly.
I met his eyes looking down calmly.
Suddenly, he took the flower petal tea I was holding and placed it on the nearby table. Then he lifted me and sat me beside it. My legs dangled below the table.
He kissed me. On my lips like before, and at the curve of my lips.
Benedict said that when I looked at him, I was always smiling a little.
And our lips collided again.
“Ah…, mmph,”
My focus blurred but I didn’t close my eyes. He had his eyes open too. His eyes curving beautifully with remaining laughter came to me like a great gift.
His prominent nose tip and my nose tip kept pressing against each other’s cheeks. His cool scent that reached me was truly like flower petals. His wet teeth touching tickled.
“—Wait,”
I awkwardly pushed away the hand that had entered my clothes and was stroking down my bare waist.
“We can’t, ngh, we can’t,”
I struggled to push away the hand that had somehow reached up to my chest.
“Ah. Sorry—”
He pulled back a little.
Benedict paused as he tried to kiss me again. Instead, like before, he kissed the tip of my lips briefly and pulled away.
“I’ll stop.”
I didn’t know what to do.
I liked it too but… there were many reasons we shouldn’t do this here. We were outside, and our companions would be waiting. If Benedict’s pheromones remained on my body like last time, it would be terrible. Lucia was an omega, so she’d notice immediately.
“I get it. So look at me like before. Smile for me.”
Benedict leaned his head down. Without taking his eyes off me, he took my hand.
“Can’t you stay with me just a little longer?”
I felt my face heat up at our intertwining fingers.
“I promise to take you home in the safest way in the world.”
In the end, I went back to find the Lifros siblings and told them I would return separately.
“No. If it’s all right with you, how about spending time and meeting again around 10 o’clock.”
Sir Lifros exaggeratedly raised both hands, saying it was fine to continue staying here.
“Besides, it’s my duty. The Count will fully acknowledge my contribution for the extended time, so it’s fine. However, are you sure it’s okay to leave Your Grace alone?”
I didn’t want to lie and make Sir Lifros anxious. I sheepishly rubbed the back of my neck.
“Actually, guards from that side came along with me now. They’re people I truly trust. As much as Lucia and you.”
“…If it’s Your Grace’s judgment, it’s trustworthy.”
Since Sir Lifros made a grinning face, I returned to the room with relief.
In the room decorated in traditional Iota style, Benedict was sitting properly on the central couch. Looking now, the structure was almost symmetrically the same as the room where I had traded with the Iota merchant.
Sitting across from him, I asked if he wasn’t busy.
“The hunting festival is coming up soon.”
The hunting festival, the biggest celebration of the year, begins as soon as October starts. It was already the end of August. I only thought of it on my way back, and I was newly worried whether he could spend time with me.
“I did need justification to persuade my attendants.”
Benedict answered without sugarcoating that he was extremely busy.
“I just happened to have an appropriate excuse to go out at night.”
Among the things keeping him insanely busy recently, there was something related to this place.
“Iota spies?”
I lowered my voice.
Benedict’s Iota-style disguise suddenly felt more significant.
“It’s the Hyeon Church emblem.”
He showed me one of the emblems on his exotic waist ring decoration.
Even believing in the same god, Imperial citizens mainly followed the Orthodox Church, while Iotans mainly followed the doctrines of the Hyeon Church.
“According to reliable information secretly discovered, all the spies were wearing this decoration. An emergency secret decree was passed that anyone using the Hyeon Church emblem must unconditionally cooperate with investigations and searches.”
He said there wasn’t even a judges’ remonstrance period because it involved foreign spies.
“Then would cases like this also be subject to investigation?”
I had occasionally seen the Lifros siblings wearing decorations that included such emblems.
“We don’t investigate the homes of everyone who uses the symbol. We only investigate suspicious people. The person you asked about, is it Sir Leon Lifros? He’s one of the quite notable figures, so I know his residence has already been investigated.”
Knights who use aura were rare even within the Empire. Even if Sir Lifros hadn’t done anything, he would have inevitably stood out.
“Then if someone keeps displaying this emblem, will they be suspected as a spy?”
Benedict shook his head.
“It’s the same. The investigators are also aware that there are Hyeon Church members who have already been doing so from before. It’s just justification, a way to broadly establish the scope.”
I carefully examined the emblem.
I knew that as Iota’s national power had grown stronger over the past few years, containment legislation had been proposed for some time. But I didn’t know spies were actively operating to the extent that Benedict had to step in personally.
Perhaps even five years from now.
“I have something to tell you.”
I decided to speak about the scheduled conflict between the two countries related to the ancient island that I had been pondering for a while.
