72. Reunion (4)
72. Reunion (4)
- 1 -
To start with the conclusion: the dungeon core that appeared as an auction item in the black market was indeed Serica's.
"You got what you wanted. Congratulations."
"Yeah! Thank you!"
There had been no problem winning the bid for the core either.
There was the money Ran had earned by selling off a stockpile of raw ruby ore she had found and mined from the mountains in advance; the Claiamel family, though fallen nobles, had amassed quite a fortune; and the three elite adventurers, including Alexis, each had a fair amount hidden away in various places.
Well... the fact that it was all someone else's property might seem like an issue, but aside from Ran's case, everything else was spoils I had taken as the victor from the defeated, so maybe it didn't matter.
At least by the common sense of war in this world, it seemed to be acceptable.
The problem, however, came after that.
"Um... Lady."
"What is it?"
The problem was neither the dungeon core, nor the auction house.
"Well, today again..."
"..."
It was me.
My current appearance was exactly the same as the one I had used when infiltrating to subjugate Serica's dungeon in Kopfzerin, and of all things, I had ended up reuniting with someone in the black market who knew that face.
"Sir Elias, is it."
"Yes..."
A senior knight, Elias Sansern.
He had worked as an administrative officer in the subjugation army and was one of the people who had faced me at length.
'Even if it was a hassle, I should have properly changed my face.'
No, from now on, whenever I had to go out, it would be better to just wear something like a veil.
Noblewomen often carried long-brimmed hats with veils or parasols with veils, after all.
If someone recognizing just one disguised face causes this much trouble, wouldn't it be better to simply cover my face entirely?
It would be a bit stuffy, but it would be better than a situation like this.
"Shall I kill him...? Lady."
"The son of a marquis, you say? It would become troublesome. Leave him be."
"Isn't it a good idea? I'm in favor. He keeps bothering Rita."
"He's someone who knows things..."
"It's fine, Serica."
When I stopped Jin Xue, who had been making increasingly ominous remarks lately, she wore an extremely regretful expression.
Yes. Surprisingly, he was the son of a noble family as high as a marquis.
His real name was Elias en Ironfield.
Though he had so many siblings that his succession rank was practically nonexistent, and his aptitude as both a knight and an administrative officer was so ambiguous that he had almost no chance to make a name for himself...
As the child of a high-ranking noble like a marquis, the weight of the family name alone held power.
Enough that killing him carelessly would be difficult.
"I'm dissatisfied. A dungeon lady is a personage like a princess even among the demon tribes. Rita is a princess to me too."
"Umm..."
"More than anything, I really don't like the look in his eyes. It makes me want to gouge them out."
The look in his eyes was certainly blatant, though it somehow seemed to view me as a noble.
If it was true that he was the child of a marquis family, he must have lived a life where he never needed to hide such a gaze.
'If I wanted to kill him and make it clean, there would be a way, but...'
The Sansern Marquis Household was one of the two border counts in the Haisen Kingdom, and its jurisdiction was the Ironfield region near Crode, bordering the Zenota United Kingdom, one of the two great powers of the southern Eastern Continent.
A border count, and one facing a great power at that.
In other words, if Elias, the son of that border count, went missing and suspicion was directed at us, it would truly become a trouble beyond imagination.
'But it's not as if there isn't room to play him.'
[You have no idea how startled I was when you suddenly vanished from the battlefield.]
[I had no choice, as I received word that my mother, who remains in my homeland, had fallen ill. I finished the handover before leaving, so there shouldn't have been any issue with the work. Sir.]
[Well, that is true... but I was quite worried.]
Recalling the conversations I had with him, Elias still seemed to harbor favorable feelings toward me.
... Just thinking about the look in his eyes back then gives me goosebumps.
He has to be genuinely greasy to an absurd degree. Pretending not to notice has its limits.
Anyway, the room to play him was precisely that fondness, his jealousy, and the obsession he was unmistakably displaying now.
'It's not that that man lacks ambition.'
I didn't know what connection had led him to focus on administrative work, but back then, Elias had clearly been jealous of the elite knights of Kopfzerin.
Jealousy is an emotion that doesn't arise without the desire to do better oneself.
Ultimately, Elias had experienced incompetence as a knight, was aware, consciously or unconsciously, of his own lack of talent, and yet still harbored a desire to rise higher.
And so, the first method I came up with was to demand the fulfillment of his desires as a 'condition for meeting.'
To put it bluntly, a honey trap... I said, though.
'...But there is no way I could do that.'
That was impossible in two senses.
It was impossible for my personality to attempt, and also because 'Nobility' would not permit it.
Just seeing the greasy, dripping gaze of a man gives me goosebumps, so how could I ever try to seduce him?
And 'Nobility' seemed to regard a honey trap performed by my own will as something filthy.
Seeing how the revulsion and rejection surged beyond even my personality.
'Then, there's only one way.'
For that, I waited until he had grown accustomed to visiting this house.
So, it was the third day.
"Ah, Miss Angelita."
"You've come again today, Sir. I wonder if you don't grow tired of it."
Elias laughed awkwardly at my comment laden with rejection. Given his status, being rejected must have been a rare occurrence.
However, I had my reasons for having no choice but to speak like this.
It was the third day since I had reunited with him.
But from the day we met, the number of low-grade 'eyes' around our lodging had increased to a degree that it would be strange not to notice, and he had visited this place every single day for three days without fail.
The situation had become one where it was difficult to slip away through ordinary means, and the culprit was obvious.
So my reaction was natural.
And this was the basis for my saying he was obsessed with me.
"If my visiting is a source of dissatisfaction..."
"No, it's not particularly that."
To the man feigning ignorance with a troubled expression, I shook my head and offered a smile I rarely showed.
Fortunately, the revulsion was minimal. Perhaps a simple smile didn't count as a honey trap.
"I was waiting for you. Let's go inside."
As I turned and walked away, I felt a presence following behind me. Up to this point, it was the same as usual.
The scene unfolding before my eyes was a fairly long, dark corridor.
As I walked down that corridor, I paused for a moment at the words I heard from behind.
"Though it's already the third day, it's truly a splendid mansion. Did you originally own it?"
"No. It's rented."
"Oh..."
This lodging where I was currently staying was a mansion that a certain noble in Sonyataff had been using. The owner was a fallen noble who, though lacking money, clung to his honor and could not bring himself to sell it, instead renting it out continuously. Haley had rented it for us to use as lodging.
It had cost a considerable amount of money, but as a lodging it was so luxurious that I liked it.
"By the way, all the paintings hanging in the corridor have been changed."
"That's because I plan to purchase the mansion soon."
To the extent that I wanted to keep using it as my base going forward.
The owner of the mansion had no intention of selling, but that mindset would soon change.
Through one of two methods.
Unaware of my inner thoughts, Elias simply nodded two or three times in admiration.
"As expected. Miss Angelita's financial power is extraordinary. It would normally be difficult just running a trading company."
"..."
I gave him a faint smile and started walking again.
As if to say, go ahead and imagine all you want.
"I understand this is rude, but I conducted some investigation during that time. About Miss Angelita."
He had indeed done so.
Seeing him speak so casually of something ordinary people would find unlikable, I could tell he had quite a bit of confidence in himself.
I mean, the confidence that he could turn that dislike into fondness eventually.
An illusion, of course.
"Did you yield any results?"
"They say it's as if you fell from the sky, untraceable. Like a true goddess descending from the heavens."
"I see it was through the Information Guild."
It was a story I already knew.
After all, I was steadily increasing the number of 'eyes' outside. Usually through necromancy, sometimes through magic.
"Yes. It was rather embarrassing to commission such work from honorable people, but I spent enough money to bury my conscience. It had been dragging on until recently, but I achieved results in my own way."
I didn't know whether he had spent the wealth distributed to him or the family's wealth.
Either way, he wouldn't have been lacking.
I, too, had felt the need due to this reunion with him and had instructed Talhan to prepare several forged identities.
I could just hand over one of them at the right time.
"I see you did that."
"It's fine. I have no intention of telling anyone else."
When I subtly hardened my expression, the man spoke with a deliberately kind smile, as if he thought I was tense.
That face, to be honest, was handsome.
It would work on the people here, but it was the kind of face that could become an idol immediately if he went to Earth. As a knight, his muscles were fairly developed, so it would be even better if he could just resolve the imbalance between his face and body.
But that wouldn't free him from being a man who had chosen the wrong person to love.
"I'm not so sure. The fact that a young master has acquired information means that if others pay a sufficient price, it's possible for them as well."
"I anticipated that, and I made a sufficient 'donation' to the guild. To seek information on Miss Angelita, a person would have to surpass the name of the Ironfield Marquis Household and the amount of that donation."
"...Thank you for your kindness. I appreciate it."
The fact that the money he had put into the Information Guild had actually come to me was a secret that neither he nor the guild naturally knew.
And they would never know, forever.
"But how strange. This corridor seems particularly long today. It must be because my time with you, my lady, is so enjoyable."
Now fully convinced I was a noble, Elias called me 'my lady' outright, displaying even greater familiarity.
Sharing a secret is, in any case, an effective means of making a relationship closer.
Whether that relationship is a good one or a bad one.
"..."
"Uh... Miss Angelita? No matter how I think about it, this is strange."
When I said nothing, Elias approached the spot where I stood with a slightly uneasy voice and face.
Only now did he seem to properly recognize it.
That this corridor was truly, abnormally long.
"...Miss Angelita?"
Tap.
And when he finally touched 'my' shoulder standing there.
— Kihihahahat!!
Empty eyes.
Hair that had instantly faded from black to a murky ash-gray.
Mouth torn wide open to the ears.
"Uwaaah!!"
What he came face-to-face with was not a beautiful woman, but the face of a wraith.
Shing!
"Mi-Miss Angelita...?! If this is a prank, please come out! It's not fun!"
Perhaps because his skills as a knight hadn't rusted, he drew his sword and cut it down, and the wraith vanished, but by then, my form was already nowhere to be seen.
No matter how much he turned his head, he would never find it.
After all, I was still at the mansion in Sonyataff.
"Congratulations on being selected as an alpha tester... was it."
He had already been invited into my dungeon.
Just as I had entered this world as an alpha tester. Come to think of it, since he's an outsider rather than internal personnel, would this be a beta test?
Anyway, he would be testing my dungeon.
"If possible, I hope he survives as long as he can."
Of course, what awaited him at the end was neither treasure nor love.
It was merely the 'end,' which he would meet in one way or another.