“The state of the kingdom?”
“Yes.”
“Now that you mention it, you were from the Steelwalls, right, Mr. Zich?”
“Yes, there was a time like that,” Zich said, barely joking. He never thought of his time at the Steelwalls at all. He had broken connections with his past family before the regression and caused a huge commotion before leaving his family again after the regression. There was no need for him to get sentimental or furious about it now. The most he thought about them was that he could help them once in the future to remember the things his mother had done to them.
“Hm.”
Evelyn glanced at Zich. It seemed like she was wondering if she should tell him or not.
‘The situation must not be good,’ Zich thought.
“If you find it hard to talk about, you don’t have to. Since I no longer have any connections to the Steelwall house, I don’t really care what happens to that place.”
Hearing Zich’s response, she started carefully, “If that’s what you think, I suppose it’s fine. It’s not such a serious matter and I don’t know the specifics either. I just know that they are having some trouble regarding their successor.”
‘I guess Greig is not living up to his position,’ Zich thought when he heard this.
Was it because he was still suffering from his trauma after his battle with Zich?
‘What an incompetent guy.’ Zich laughed at his younger brother’s misfortune after he used to look down on him.
‘Since I thought I should help them once, should I go help him?’ Zich soon went back on his thoughts. ‘No, there’s no need for me to help them, and it’s not like they would accept my help even if that’s my intention.’
Unless the family was really on the brink of destruction, Count Steelwall would not accept Zich’s help.
‘I guess I will come forward only when they are in a really dangerous situation.’
Of course, there was no guarantee that he would hear the news when the Steelwall family was in real danger; there was a high possibility of that. Yet, Zich didn’t plan to go beyond what he had in mind to help them. If the Steelwall family disappeared, he couldn’t care less either. His thoughts and feelings towards the family ended there.
Zich gave adequate responses to Evelyn’s statements and changed the conversation topic. In the first place, he hadn’t prepared this chat to talk about the situation at Steelwall. Evelyn also easily followed the conversation flow since she seemed unwilling to continue to say negative things about the Steelwall family in front of Zich. Thus, they began to discuss various matters about the Cronon Kingdom.
Zich furtively asked about their nobles. With his smooth speech and stirring away from politically dangerous topics, Zich’s words sounded like plain gossip that just passed between close companions. Of course, it was basically unthinkable for an aristocrat to share gossip with peasants. However, Zich’s original background was in Steelwall, and Lyla was a mage skilled enough to get an aristocratic status this instant if she wanted to. Thus, Evelyn considered them to be half-aristocrats and could talk to them with almost no restraints.
Soon, the atmosphere became just right for Zich to begin asking the questions he wanted to ask from the beginning. “By the way, do you know Lady Rubrent?”
“Lady Rubrent?”
It was quite sudden.
“Ah, I remember her,” Evelyn answered with no second thoughts. Evelyn responded very fast for a topic that had been suddenly brought up. That meant two possibilities: she was acquainted with the lady before or there was a big incident that came up with just the mention of the family’s name.
“At one point in time, the family was quite a hot topic among the aristocrats.”
Zich’s eyes shone. His guess might have been right on the mark. “That’s very interesting. Could you tell me more about it?”
“Oh my, do you not know? Didn’t the incident happen while you were still with your family, Mr. Zich? It was such a famous story.”
“I didn’t receive good treatment while I was with my family. I stayed inside my mansion and trained most of the time, so I don’t really know about rumors circulating within the socialite circle.”
“Ah…” Evelyn searched Zich’s expression again; seeing no change, she continued on after feeling a bit relieved. “Well, I suppose you could not know about it. I said it was a hot topic, but it wasn’t such a big issue that even a disinterested person would know about it. The only reason why I remember it well was because it was gossip that I was interested in.”
Zich supposed it was one of the many gossips that circulated through the socialite circles and disappeared.
“So, what was it?”
“One of Viscount Rubrent’s daughters was named Sia Rubrent.”
It was exactly the reply Zich wanted. Zich egged Evelyn on to continue with his interested face. Lyla had also heard about Sia Rubrent’s existence, and she craned her ears.
“I haven’t met her in person, but I’ve heard some stories. It’s known that she died a couple of years ago from an illness, but a strange rumor circulated around that time, saying that she didn’t actually die from a sickness.”
“What happened then?”
“They said she ran away for love.”
It was an interesting story.
“Ran away for love?”
“Yes!” It was definitely the kind of story that Evelyn loved. She continued excitedly, “Although Viscount Rubrent denied such claims, the rumors didn’t stop. But since it was hard to verify the truth, the rumors didn’t last long.”
“Could you tell me the rumors more in detail?”
“Like most gossip from socialite circles, there are no specifics. The rumors just said that Lady Sia Rubrent fell in love with a servant and eloped with them. Of course, some stories added all kinds of embellishments, but what I already told you are the only things that could be considered reliable.”
“It’s almost like a novel.”
“Yes, unlike novels, everyone said that there was no possibility of a happy ending for them.”
“Why is that the case?”
“Viscount Rubrent is rumored to be a quite stubborn person. I met him a couple of times before, and he’s someone who’s proud of being an aristocrat. There’s no way a person would let it be if his daughter ran away to elope with a servant. He must have tracked them down no matter what.”
“I suppose that could have happened.”
“More realistically, what is the possibility that a lady aristocrat and a servant would live well after running away? If you think about that, unfortunately, I can’t think of a good future for them.”
Zich and Evelyn continued their conversation. After some more time passed, Evelyn got up since it was now time to sleep. Evelyn seemed to have enjoyed their conversation as her eyes were exhausted, but her face was full of energy. She told Zich and Lyla that they should do this again, then Evelyn went back to her room.
When only Lyla and Zich were left in the room, Lyla commented, “We received some pretty good information.”
“Yep.”
The information that Evelyn gave was very useful to their predictions. Zich said, “In order to not get caught, I asked in a roundabout way, but she gave us more information than I expected.”
“It’s because you are really skilled in talking like that.” Even though Lyla had a lot of different knowledge, she didn’t have Zich’s ability to smoothly lead the conversation to get the answers he wanted.
“It’s the result of hard effort and talent.”
Lyla easily ignored Zich’s compliments to himself and said, “Anyways, as you expected, I don’t think Evelyn Rouge noticed anything was off. It all went according to your plan.”
“Like this, Glen Zenard won’t find out that we know about Sia Rubrent.” This was the reason why Zich had asked Evelyn about Sia Rubrent in a roundabout way instead of asking directly. If they asked Joachim and Evelyn about Sia Rubrent, there was a possibility that Glen Zenard might also hear about it, and Glen might get startled and speed up his plan. But now, Glen wouldn’t realize that Zich obtained such significant information.
‘Even though I’ll be tricking Joachim and Evelyn for a bit, it’s more important to stab Glen in the back.’
Zich listed out all the information they had. “A man and woman who loved each other to the extent where they eloped. And the culprit is probably a person who lost their lover. Moreover, the shadow person had Sia Rubrent’s appearance.”
If they combined all this information, it all pointed towards one culprit. Lyla asked, “Is the servant who eloped with Sia Rubrent the culprit?”
“Yeah, that’s a high possibility, but the culprit’s status is not important right now.”
“Yeah, what’s important is where he is right now. Since he used to be a servant, there’s a high possibility that he’s hiding his past status. We also don’t know what he looks like.”
“Yep. One hypothesis has been established.”
Lyla stared at Zich.
Zich continued, “Even though the clues that Glen gave are definitely true, there must be a trap hidden within his words.”
“Yeah, you said something like that.”
“So that’s why, Lyla. Think about what you would do if you eloped with someone, and the person who is chasing after you is your father who’d never approve of your love.”
Lyla frowned. “…I can’t imagine that at all.”
“Just try it. In that kind of situation, you obviously have to hide your identity. But your father probably also expected that as well. You need to do something more than just hide your identity to escape your father, and you don’t want to separate from your lover. Since the two of you went as far as eloping, there’s no way the two of you are going to separate from each other now.”
Lyla fell into contemplation. “Since they’re eloping, they have to move together. Even while moving together, they have to stay hidden in places where it would be hard for her father to find her. Like in the back alley?”
“And? Would that be enough?”
“Well, they’ll obviously have to disguise themselves. They won’t be able to change their identities. A run-away servant and noble lady won’t be able to immediately get new identities, other than just being commoners. Then…”
At that moment, Lyla also realized something and stared at Zich. “…They can pretend to not be lovers.”
Zich made a mysterious smile. “How?”
“They won’t separate from each other, but they won’t be able to tell people they’re wife and husband. Then, how about siblings?”
Zich flicked his finger as if she got it right.
“Moreover, whether she becomes his younger or older sister, it would be better if she’s also ‘sickly’ as well. Since Sia Rubrent grew up as a noble, people might notice that her behavior is off for a commoner. Her lover would have probably tried his best to cut her off from the outside world as much as possible.”
Lyla continued, “And if this prediction is right, it would be completely pointless to investigate people who had lovers in the past.”
“Yep. To others, they would have looked like close siblings and not lovers.” Zich brought a pile of documents from a corner of the room. They were the profiles of people who didn’t make it to the final list of suspects. “While investigating the possible suspects, it seems like Joachim and his team also roughly investigated their family connections as well.”
Zich flipped through one document at a time. Then, he took out one document and pushed it towards Lyla.
“This person is…”
“He’s the owner of the casino.”
Lyla remembered him; he was a memorable person with sharp eyes and a scar on the side of his face.
“Look at his family situation.”
Lyla looked at the area where Zich pointed. He had no family right now, but it wasn’t always like this.
“…He had a younger sister?”
“Yep. And his younger sister died years ago.” Zich smirked. “If this guy is the servant, and his younger sister is Sia Rubrent, don’t you think he’s the perfect suspect?”
“According to everyone, he never had a lover, right? It might have been because he disguised his lover as his younger sister. There’s a high chance that people might have not realized that at all.”
“Yep.” Zich stabbed Condel Siede’s face on the document and said, “Let’s investigate this guy and his sister tomorrow. Let’s see which one is true—if he’s just a casino owner who unfortunately lost his younger sister and has no interest in women, or if he really is a bastard who specifically picks out lovers to kidnap. We’re going to find out soon.”
“The state of the kingdom?”
“Yes.”
“Now that you mention it, you were from the Steelwalls, right, Mr. Zich?”
“Yes, there was a time like that,” Zich said, barely joking. He never thought of his time at the Steelwalls at all. He had broken connections with his past family before the regression and caused a huge commotion before leaving his family again after the regression. There was no need for him to get sentimental or furious about it now. The most he thought about them was that he could help them once in the future to remember the things his mother had done to them.
“Hm.”
Evelyn glanced at Zich. It seemed like she was wondering if she should tell him or not.
‘The situation must not be good,’ Zich thought.
“If you find it hard to talk about, you don’t have to. Since I no longer have any connections to the Steelwall house, I don’t really care what happens to that place.”
Hearing Zich’s response, she started carefully, “If that’s what you think, I suppose it’s fine. It’s not such a serious matter and I don’t know the specifics either. I just know that they are having some trouble regarding their successor.”
‘I guess Greig is not living up to his position,’ Zich thought when he heard this.
Was it because he was still suffering from his trauma after his battle with Zich?
‘What an incompetent guy.’ Zich laughed at his younger brother’s misfortune after he used to look down on him.
‘Since I thought I should help them once, should I go help him?’ Zich soon went back on his thoughts. ‘No, there’s no need for me to help them, and it’s not like they would accept my help even if that’s my intention.’
Unless the family was really on the brink of destruction, Count Steelwall would not accept Zich’s help.
‘I guess I will come forward only when they are in a really dangerous situation.’
Of course, there was no guarantee that he would hear the news when the Steelwall family was in real danger; there was a high possibility of that. Yet, Zich didn’t plan to go beyond what he had in mind to help them. If the Steelwall family disappeared, he couldn’t care less either. His thoughts and feelings towards the family ended there.
Zich gave adequate responses to Evelyn’s statements and changed the conversation topic. In the first place, he hadn’t prepared this chat to talk about the situation at Steelwall. Evelyn also easily followed the conversation flow since she seemed unwilling to continue to say negative things about the Steelwall family in front of Zich. Thus, they began to discuss various matters about the Cronon Kingdom.
Zich furtively asked about their nobles. With his smooth speech and stirring away from politically dangerous topics, Zich’s words sounded like plain gossip that just passed between close companions. Of course, it was basically unthinkable for an aristocrat to share gossip with peasants. However, Zich’s original background was in Steelwall, and Lyla was a mage skilled enough to get an aristocratic status this instant if she wanted to. Thus, Evelyn considered them to be half-aristocrats and could talk to them with almost no restraints.
Soon, the atmosphere became just right for Zich to begin asking the questions he wanted to ask from the beginning. “By the way, do you know Lady Rubrent?”
“Lady Rubrent?”
It was quite sudden.
“Ah, I remember her,” Evelyn answered with no second thoughts. Evelyn responded very fast for a topic that had been suddenly brought up. That meant two possibilities: she was acquainted with the lady before or there was a big incident that came up with just the mention of the family’s name.
“At one point in time, the family was quite a hot topic among the aristocrats.”
Zich’s eyes shone. His guess might have been right on the mark. “That’s very interesting. Could you tell me more about it?”
“Oh my, do you not know? Didn’t the incident happen while you were still with your family, Mr. Zich? It was such a famous story.”
“I didn’t receive good treatment while I was with my family. I stayed inside my mansion and trained most of the time, so I don’t really know about rumors circulating within the socialite circle.”
“Ah…” Evelyn searched Zich’s expression again; seeing no change, she continued on after feeling a bit relieved. “Well, I suppose you could not know about it. I said it was a hot topic, but it wasn’t such a big issue that even a disinterested person would know about it. The only reason why I remember it well was because it was gossip that I was interested in.”
Zich supposed it was one of the many gossips that circulated through the socialite circles and disappeared.
“So, what was it?”
“One of Viscount Rubrent’s daughters was named Sia Rubrent.”
It was exactly the reply Zich wanted. Zich egged Evelyn on to continue with his interested face. Lyla had also heard about Sia Rubrent’s existence, and she craned her ears.
“I haven’t met her in person, but I’ve heard some stories. It’s known that she died a couple of years ago from an illness, but a strange rumor circulated around that time, saying that she didn’t actually die from a sickness.”
“What happened then?”
“They said she ran away for love.”
It was an interesting story.
“Ran away for love?”
“Yes!” It was definitely the kind of story that Evelyn loved. She continued excitedly, “Although Viscount Rubrent denied such claims, the rumors didn’t stop. But since it was hard to verify the truth, the rumors didn’t last long.”
“Could you tell me the rumors more in detail?”
“Like most gossip from socialite circles, there are no specifics. The rumors just said that Lady Sia Rubrent fell in love with a servant and eloped with them. Of course, some stories added all kinds of embellishments, but what I already told you are the only things that could be considered reliable.”
“It’s almost like a novel.”
“Yes, unlike novels, everyone said that there was no possibility of a happy ending for them.”
“Why is that the case?”
“Viscount Rubrent is rumored to be a quite stubborn person. I met him a couple of times before, and he’s someone who’s proud of being an aristocrat. There’s no way a person would let it be if his daughter ran away to elope with a servant. He must have tracked them down no matter what.”
“I suppose that could have happened.”
“More realistically, what is the possibility that a lady aristocrat and a servant would live well after running away? If you think about that, unfortunately, I can’t think of a good future for them.”
Zich and Evelyn continued their conversation. After some more time passed, Evelyn got up since it was now time to sleep. Evelyn seemed to have enjoyed their conversation as her eyes were exhausted, but her face was full of energy. She told Zich and Lyla that they should do this again, then Evelyn went back to her room.
When only Lyla and Zich were left in the room, Lyla commented, “We received some pretty good information.”
“Yep.”
The information that Evelyn gave was very useful to their predictions. Zich said, “In order to not get caught, I asked in a roundabout way, but she gave us more information than I expected.”
“It’s because you are really skilled in talking like that.” Even though Lyla had a lot of different knowledge, she didn’t have Zich’s ability to smoothly lead the conversation to get the answers he wanted.
“It’s the result of hard effort and talent.”
Lyla easily ignored Zich’s compliments to himself and said, “Anyways, as you expected, I don’t think Evelyn Rouge noticed anything was off. It all went according to your plan.”
“Like this, Glen Zenard won’t find out that we know about Sia Rubrent.” This was the reason why Zich had asked Evelyn about Sia Rubrent in a roundabout way instead of asking directly. If they asked Joachim and Evelyn about Sia Rubrent, there was a possibility that Glen Zenard might also hear about it, and Glen might get startled and speed up his plan. But now, Glen wouldn’t realize that Zich obtained such significant information.
‘Even though I’ll be tricking Joachim and Evelyn for a bit, it’s more important to stab Glen in the back.’
Zich listed out all the information they had. “A man and woman who loved each other to the extent where they eloped. And the culprit is probably a person who lost their lover. Moreover, the shadow person had Sia Rubrent’s appearance.”
If they combined all this information, it all pointed towards one culprit. Lyla asked, “Is the servant who eloped with Sia Rubrent the culprit?”
“Yeah, that’s a high possibility, but the culprit’s status is not important right now.”
“Yeah, what’s important is where he is right now. Since he used to be a servant, there’s a high possibility that he’s hiding his past status. We also don’t know what he looks like.”
“Yep. One hypothesis has been established.”
Lyla stared at Zich.
Zich continued, “Even though the clues that Glen gave are definitely true, there must be a trap hidden within his words.”
“Yeah, you said something like that.”
“So that’s why, Lyla. Think about what you would do if you eloped with someone, and the person who is chasing after you is your father who’d never approve of your love.”
Lyla frowned. “…I can’t imagine that at all.”
“Just try it. In that kind of situation, you obviously have to hide your identity. But your father probably also expected that as well. You need to do something more than just hide your identity to escape your father, and you don’t want to separate from your lover. Since the two of you went as far as eloping, there’s no way the two of you are going to separate from each other now.”
Lyla fell into contemplation. “Since they’re eloping, they have to move together. Even while moving together, they have to stay hidden in places where it would be hard for her father to find her. Like in the back alley?”
“And? Would that be enough?”
“Well, they’ll obviously have to disguise themselves. They won’t be able to change their identities. A run-away servant and noble lady won’t be able to immediately get new identities, other than just being commoners. Then…”
At that moment, Lyla also realized something and stared at Zich. “…They can pretend to not be lovers.”
Zich made a mysterious smile. “How?”
“They won’t separate from each other, but they won’t be able to tell people they’re wife and husband. Then, how about siblings?”
Zich flicked his finger as if she got it right.
“Moreover, whether she becomes his younger or older sister, it would be better if she’s also ‘sickly’ as well. Since Sia Rubrent grew up as a noble, people might notice that her behavior is off for a commoner. Her lover would have probably tried his best to cut her off from the outside world as much as possible.”
Lyla continued, “And if this prediction is right, it would be completely pointless to investigate people who had lovers in the past.”
“Yep. To others, they would have looked like close siblings and not lovers.” Zich brought a pile of documents from a corner of the room. They were the profiles of people who didn’t make it to the final list of suspects. “While investigating the possible suspects, it seems like Joachim and his team also roughly investigated their family connections as well.”
Zich flipped through one document at a time. Then, he took out one document and pushed it towards Lyla.
“This person is…”
“He’s the owner of the casino.”
Lyla remembered him; he was a memorable person with sharp eyes and a scar on the side of his face.
“Look at his family situation.”
Lyla looked at the area where Zich pointed. He had no family right now, but it wasn’t always like this.
“…He had a younger sister?”
“Yep. And his younger sister died years ago.” Zich smirked. “If this guy is the servant, and his younger sister is Sia Rubrent, don’t you think he’s the perfect suspect?”
“According to everyone, he never had a lover, right? It might have been because he disguised his lover as his younger sister. There’s a high chance that people might have not realized that at all.”
“Yep.” Zich stabbed Condel Siede’s face on the document and said, “Let’s investigate this guy and his sister tomorrow. Let’s see which one is true—if he’s just a casino owner who unfortunately lost his younger sister and has no interest in women, or if he really is a bastard who specifically picks out lovers to kidnap. We’re going to find out soon.”
