Chapter 159
Chapter 159
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 159
Chapter Title: Gadia's Doubts
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Gadia generally had little interest in other people. This stemmed partly from her innate disposition, but it was also a condition acquired later in life from events in her childhood.
On top of that, while she avoided conversations with men, her fundamentally cold and aloof personality—coupled with the subtle charisma she exuded unwittingly—meant she barely communicated even with other female students.
No matter how major an issue it was in the capital, getting wind of it was about as likely for Gadia as plucking stars from the sky.
That was why even the scandal tangling Adelrian with Princess Seria had reached her late.
‘…Not Faye?’
Though her face remained as expressionless as an ice sculpture, without even the slightest flicker of emotion, Gadia stared blankly at the girl before her, thrown off by her words.
“So if that Adelrian gets engaged to Princess Seria… wouldn’t Senior naturally become the successor?”
The words that followed—something about ‘our family and…’—didn’t even register in her ears.
She felt only confusion.
“Well. For now, I don’t feel like saying anything.”
“Lady Gadia, then later……!”
Leaving behind those who trailed after her, dropping endless hints about future power struggles, Gadia strode away briskly.
Her intention to train thoroughly in the private dojo had vanished entirely. Returning straight to the dormitory with her mind still in turmoil, she turned her gaze to Paiyan, who was enveloped in a faint lavender scent.
“Oh? Miss, you’re back already?”
The fragile, lily-like innocence reminiscent of a pure white flower from their first meeting was gone. Now, Paiyan gazed at her with slightly drooping eyes, exuding the air of a mature woman, and Gadia asked coldly.
“Was this Adelrian’s plan?”
Faye hadn’t worked out, so he grabbed Seria instead?
“Any princess would do, I suppose?”
As expected, a wastrel driven purely by desire without any real ability. She’d thought he’d changed a little, but he was still trash who only ever thought of himself.
What did it mean for Adelrian—who had a poor reputation across the entire empire—to be tangled up in rumors with Princess Seria?
‘Handing over the Kruger family’s vast interests and wealth for a shot at becoming a royal son-in-law? Using his power as acting family head?’
“Or is it just his old habit of latching onto any beautiful woman he sees?”
Come to think of it, everyone from the people he kept around him now to Faye and Seria—they were all drop-dead gorgeous.
Even his male escorts, though Gadia hadn’t looked at them properly, were undoubtedly exceptionally handsome.
‘This wastrel.’
As the air around Gadia grew even chillier, a warm hand suddenly grasped hers.
“Miss. Our boss?”
In that instant, what caught Gadia’s eye was Paiyan’s face, looking as if nothing in the world could be more amusing.
“Our boss with beautiful women?”
“…Huh?”
The moment she saw that face, Gadia felt all her tension drain away.
“Ah, that really would be too funny if it were true. But Miss, our boss wouldn’t do something like that.”
“Then… what’s this whole thing…?”
Honestly, she couldn’t help but suspect.
He’d come to the capital to contract the artifact Siren with the imperial family, yet all he did was haunt noble parties, hunting festivals, arenas—not to mention gambling dens—on the regular.
He approached Princess Faye, and suddenly scandalous rumors swirled around him and First Princess Seria.
A minor scandal would’ve been quashed by Seria’s side, but if it had reached Gadia’s own ears, someone had spread it openly—and that someone could only be Adelrian.
His antics since arriving in the capital left her no choice but to suspect.
Yet seeing Paiyan react to her words with a face that found the whole world hilarious…
‘What on earth is Adelrian up to?’
Unlike her initial icy expression, Gadia now looked at her with faintly puzzled eyes, and Paiyan opened her mouth gently.
“Our boss is going to change the world. Just you wait and see.”
* * *
“What? It’s perfect.”
“Ah, but then it’s no fun.”
Rachel and I each tossed a comment at Luna, Leaf, and Zero, who had returned with foods that didn’t overlap with ours.
“Young master said you were heading to the shipyard district, so we skipped stuff sold around there and bought these.”
“In the middle, I split off separately and picked up a few more things different from what Senior Luna got.”
―I too focused on items unique to that area, which seems to have been a rational choice, Administrator.
Was his competence shining through even in something like this?
I gazed at the table laden not just with the grilled shellfish, shrimp skewers, and buttered whelk stir-fry that Rachel and I had bought, but also Luna’s alcohol-steamed clams and smoked horned chicken legs, Leaf’s sweet-salty bread filled with berry compote and dusted with salt on the outside, and Zero’s chewy slime pickles and spicy fish stew.
“And chewy slime pickles too!”
Last time, Rachel had insisted on those, so they must be one of her favorites.
“Since Junior Rachel’s been eating dried slime pickles for a while, I figured she likes them, right?”
Zero smiled mildly as he began unwrapping and arranging the packages.
“Ugh, Senior’s the best.”
No way ‘senior’ slipped out of Rachel’s mouth that easily?
Zero’s gotten smoother.
Amazed, I took a seat for now. Ignoring the berry compote bread and salted loaf, I picked up a mild dinner roll first and opened my mouth.
“So, shall we share what everyone did today?”
Except Kane. He’d spent the whole day training, so nothing to hear there.
I poured him a glass of wine as if to say just drink, then turned to Luna first.
“Well, we picked out furniture like you said, Young Master—with Zero’s help. So it might be a bit too plain in color and shape…….”
“A sofa shaped like gaping clamshells or a bed decked out with pointless feather decorations would’ve been worse, don’t you think, Senior?”
“But those were pretty, weren’t they?”
Good call sticking Leaf with her when she wanted to shop alone.
From slouchy tights to feather-stuffed shirts.
Luna meant well, but her aesthetic sense was… questionable.
A bit too avant-garde? Or overly modern?
‘Hard for the average person without art knowledge to keep up.’
Smiling, I tore off a piece of bread, dipped it in the spicy fish stew, and popped it in my mouth. This time, Zero spoke up.
“Being a bustling coastal trade city, there’s a lot of furniture tailored to racial height differences and unique traits, so I selected from the ones that even slightly appealed to Senior Luna’s tastes.”
Like how I generally preferred plush beds, Kane liked ones without fussy decorations, and Luna went for beds processed with mana solution instead of cotton—using high-quality leaves or sawdust.
Like organic on Earth, I guess.
Rachel needed a reinforced magic bed because of her bad sleeping habits, and Leaf wanted one with built-in storage.
“And you?”
“Something big.”
Zero did have the largest frame.
“I wanted to try more varied colors.”
“But gold would’ve been a bit much, don’t you think, Senior?”
Zero, good job!
Sipping my beer, I glanced at Luna, who sounded a tad regretful, and burst out laughing.
“How about you, Leaf? Buy a lot of books?”
You couldn’t always pair Leaf up with someone just because he didn’t converse easily with others.
This was a freewheeling coastal city teeming with all sorts of races coming and going—far looser than the capital—so sending Leaf alone had worked out.
―Yes. The sheer variety of books was enjoyable just to browse. I bought the most famous and popular ones, and as you mentioned, Administrator, I considered getting some art supplies too.
Oh? Hearing that Leaf had picked up drawing tools made my face light up.
“Then I should share what I did too. Rachel… is busy.”
If I made her explain while she was one-handedly clutching chewy slime pickles and devouring a smoked horned chicken leg, she’d bite my head off.
“Looks like nothing much happened.”
I shrugged at Kane’s remark.
“Did you pick out the ship you wanted?”
“Well, about that…….”
―No matter which one, it can’t compare to the airship. The recharge isn’t complete yet, which is a shame.
Tell me about it. The sea-pearl blue airship was still charging—what a bummer.
How could I say it was my pickiness holding things up?
As I pondered briefly, Zero, who’d been eating the spicy fish stew, spoke up suddenly.
“Oh, and while I was out, I gathered a bit of info too.”
I nodded quickly to change the subject.
“Spill.”
“They say the Southern Sea Archipelago has as many pirates as islands, and apparently one’s risen like a new star among them.”
A pirate who handles that massive ship like a horse galloping over land. A pirate who can plow straight through a typhoon with just a compass.
“They’re already calling her queen.”
Pirate Queen Ellis.
At that, I hummed and rubbed my chin.
What the heck—the story I heard at the shipyard, and now what Zero was saying.
It all led to conclusions that were just too tempting.
If I could just charm that Pirate Queen Ellis and at least borrow that ship…
It’d be pretty good.
Since she’s a pirate, a fat stack of gold might even get her into mermaid territory?
“Oh yeah, we heard some shady news today too.”
Rachel, who’d been chewing furiously with cheeks puffed out, swallowed and continued.
“Looks like they held some kind of sacrifice ritual somewhere nearby. Black mage, high chance? Or…”
“That cult.”
Kane paused mid-sip of his wine and said in a low voice.
“Not confirmed yet. Couldn’t verify the symbol.”
At my words, Kane’s golden eyes flicked downward, staring off into empty space as if tracing something.
“I’ll check it out.”
“Don’t even dream of grabbing an investigator and beating the info out of them.”
Kane just scoffed at my warning, but it was obvious anyway.
No matter how genius Kane was, with no leads or info in a place like this—and he wasn’t asking me for gold either—if he was going to brute-force it with his body, that was the only way.
“Something like that, we can just buy the info from the guild anyway. No need for sneaky digging.”
“Lord Adelrian.”
After I lightly concluded, I popped a salt-grilled shrimp into my mouth to savor the sweet, tender flesh, when Zero called my name.
“I know you don’t like splitting the party, but since you’re looking into that anyway, how about I check on the pirate side?”
Even buying from an info guild, we wouldn’t get the Pirate Queen’s current position, so I replied.
“You alone?”
“It’s not dangerous—just poking around the coast, maybe visiting a couple islands to gather info.”
Zero smiled mildly, his emerald eyes gazing at me as if pleading for trust.
Fair enough. Zero had come a long way from hiding behind my back.
And for something like a basic informant gig, he had more than enough power.
As I started to nod, Zero spoke again.
“Oh, but uh, Lord Adelrian. You still have my corpse, right?”
I chuckled at the sight of him smiling mildly while casually mentioning his corpse.
“The one from the labyrinth? Yeah.”
Thanks to melting the body for consumption but only absorbing mana from the core to remake himself right away, the decapitated Zero—brown hair, brown eyes, utterly average flesh—was still in my subspatial pocket.
It’d be weird to bury it since the real Zero wasn’t dead, and weird to just toss it.
Not a real person, so eating it wouldn’t grant memories; more like a chimera stitched from scraps here and there. Figured it might come in handy at the magic tower later, so I’d kept it.
“Could you give me a few strands of hair?”
The perception-lowering badge made people notice you easily in conversation but blend into the scenery for passersby, which was great for info gathering?
“Why?”
“In case I need to stick around somewhere for a few days and build rapport.”
At Zero’s words, I nodded with an ‘ah.’ Yeah, temporarily ditching the badge for a plain look would be better.
“Let’s do that.”
“Yes. I won’t disappoint you.”
Zero grinned steadily at my words.