Chapter 73
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 73
The window was open, and I could hear voices drifting in from outside. The words were too muffled to make out, but I caught the gist. Turn back? Were they telling us to leave? Ah, it must be because the coachman doesn’t have an invitation. Just then, Hena called out to the guard, drawing his attention to our carriage.
“If you need an invitation, it’s right here.”
“No, the invitation isn’t the problem. The coachman… his neck… What? Did I see that wrong? It’s perfectly fine.”
“What on earth are you talking about?” Hena asked.
The guard tilted his head in confusion but took the invitation anyway. After checking the name—House Rohanson—he asked pointedly, “House Rohanson? Count Rohanson has already gone inside.”
“Count Rohanson departed ahead of us,” Hena explained. “This carriage is carrying Lady Rohanson, who is making her debut today, and her chaperone, Marchioness Toten.”
“Lady Rohanson…?”
The guard peered into the carriage suspiciously, and our eyes met. I offered a friendly smile and a small nod, but his face went pale, and he immediately bowed his head low.
“I-I-I apologize!”
Just how far has Evangeline’s notoriety spread? At this rate, she could easily be called the greatest villainess in the capital. I’d grown so used to people trembling at the mere sight of me that this was nothing new. At least this guard was only lowering his eyes. The maids back at the mansion would have slammed their foreheads on the floor. This was a mild reaction, all things considered.
Having passed the inspection and the castle gates, we rode a bit further before finally arriving at the banquet venue.
“It’s gorgeous.”
“Isn’t it?”
It was truly a castle bathed in light. The Imperial Palace looked as if it were forged from solid gold, its brilliance reflecting off the river below, making it seem even more magnificent. They shouldn’t have LEDs in this era, so how did they manage such lighting? It had to be magic.
Finally, the carriage came to a halt. The Crown Prince’s birthday banquet was being held at the Lion Palace, and true to its name, a massive stone lion statue stood guard at the entrance, its jaws agape in a terrifying snarl.
Hena stepped down first to escort me, but another hand suddenly reached into the carriage. From the long, straight fingers alone, I knew exactly who it belonged to.
As expected, when I looked up, my gaze met a pair of deep blue eyes, a shade entirely different from my own. With the endless rainy season, I hadn’t seen a clear sky in ages, but looking into Gabriel’s eyes felt like the clouds had finally parted. Oh, wait. The rain actually had stopped.
“Sir Gabriel.”
“Good evening, Lady Rohanson.”
Perhaps because our last parting had been on awkward terms, it felt like it had been an eternity since I’d last seen him.
His long eyelashes fluttered. Maybe it was because he was dressed for the occasion, but he seemed exceptionally striking tonight. Was it because his hair was neatly swept back, revealing the clean lines of his handsome face? In any case, as the male lead, he was ridiculously good-looking.
Admiring his features, I took Gabriel’s hand and stepped down from the carriage. The entrance was crowded with people and carriages, but fortunately, we weren’t drawing the kind of loud, scene-stealing attention you’d see on a red carpet. In fact, the crowd seemed dead silent.
Suddenly, I was glad that white gloves were a mandatory part of a debutante’s attire. Gabriel’s hand, felt through the thin fabric, was colder than usual. Had he been waiting outside this whole time?
“Have you been waiting long?”
Because we had stopped by the marchioness’s estate first, we arrived much later than planned. Surely he hadn’t been waiting out here long enough to get this cold?
“I saw the auspicious bird of House Rohanson from afar, so I came to wait.”
Auspicious bird, my foot. More like an ill omen.
For reference, the symbol of House Rohanson was a phoenix split down the middle, like a decal. My etiquette tutor, Doline, had taught me that the reason it was split—rather than being two separate birds—was because there is only one phoenix in the world.
“You are so dazzling tonight that I thought a star had fallen from the sky.”
Look at him, using the lines he learned from Misha. I thought he’d be disheartened after I rejected his confession, but he was being so slick today. Gabriel really had some nerve. I thought I’d made it clear that I had no intention of dating him and was just keeping him in my fish tank, but I guess he was still happy with that.
“You remember what I said last time, right?”
We’re just flirting. Got it?
“Yes, I remember. But there are many eyes on us today. More importantly, the people of the Temple believe that I am deeply in love with you.”
What? He’d been spreading that rumor himself? Seriously, sometimes Gabriel acted like there was no tomorrow. The man had no brakes.
Well, my plan from the start was to use Gabriel to dilute the nasty rumors about me and deflect the Temple’s suspicion. While I was at it, I could also use my rock-bottom spirit affinity to find the bastards who stole my summoning circle.
“Then I shall gladly play along.”
Since I’d pushed him away last time, today was the day to pull him back in. I had to play hard to get just enough to keep Gabriel from escaping my fish tank. It was time to put Doline’s special training to use. It was time for my accumulated RoFan knowledge to truly shine.
My eyes curved as I gave him a bright smile. He’d seemed so shocked the last time I smiled that I’d spent the past two days practicing in front of a mirror. I had even asked Daisy if my smile looked like Evangeline’s, but she’d hesitated, admitting she had never actually seen the young lady smile before. Was it because she was a villainess? No wonder her facial muscles were so stiff.
To Gabriel, who loved Evangeline’s face, the sight must have been shockingly beautiful, because he froze, completely speechless. Geez, what a sucker for a pretty face. I tapped his arm to snap him out of his daze and gestured toward Madame Toten, who was stepping down from the carriage behind us.
“Sir Gabriel, Madame Toten is here.”
Gabriel didn’t even seem surprised to see her, greeting her warmly as she approached.
“It has been a long time, Madame Toten. I was worried, as I hadn’t heard from you.”
“I’m sorry. There were… circumstances.”
Gabriel didn’t pry, perhaps out of consideration for her. Or maybe, true to his character setting of being “only warm to my woman,” he simply didn’t care what had happened to her.
“Now that Madame Toten is here, we won’t need Bishop Marik’s help anymore.”
Since I came with Madame Toten, I wouldn’t have to feel my life was on the line by keeping company with a dangerous exorcist, right? Although I was a RoFan transmigrator, which should be different from a ghost possession like Melek’s, that was still just a hypothesis. I was terrified that if I let my guard down, I might be forcibly exorcised before anyone knew what was happening.
“Is Bishop Marik inside the banquet hall?”
“No. She left before you arrived, Lady Rohanson.”
“She left?”
“Yes. It seems the Archbishop summoned her. She said that since you would be arriving with a chaperone, she would join you next time, if the opportunity arises.”
“…It seems Bishop Marik already knew Madame Toten would be coming as my chaperone.”
So that was why Gabriel hadn’t been surprised to see her.
How did Bishop Marik know? She did say she had put me under surveillance, so it must have been true. But Jelly and Pudding had been getting rid of every suspicious person loitering around the mansion… I had no idea how she’d managed to get information past their network. As expected, you can never let your guard down around an exorcist.
Or perhaps the surveillance wasn’t on me, but on Madame Toten. The bishop had said she knew all about the marchioness’s confinement and that she had readily agreed to be my chaperone.
“Bishop Marik…?” Madame Toten quietly muttered the name.
Did she know her? If so, maybe it wasn’t surveillance. Maybe they had contacted each other directly.
“Are you acquainted with her?” I asked.
“Of course I am. She is the very woman who ordered that holy water not be sold to me.”
Contrary to my expectations, Madame Toten’s hostility was palpable. She hadn’t shown such fierce anger even when Dies was running amok with an axe, which made it clear just how much she despised Bishop Marik.
“Bishop Marik banned the holy water?”
“Yes. As soon as the bad rumors about Ryder spread, she claimed she had to consider public perception and could no longer provide holy water to ‘the cursed one.’”
This was a story I had briefly heard from Gabriel before. So the person who blocked the distribution of holy water was Bishop Marik. Just as I’d suspected, she was a merciless exorcist who was utterly ruthless toward anything she deemed unholy.
I could fully understand why Madame Toten was disgusted at the mere mention of her name. The various holy relics decorating her mansion were a testament to her deep faith in the Sun Goddess. Yet a bishop of that same goddess hadn’t bothered to investigate the truth. Instead, she had treated rumors as fact and branded a child as “cursed.”
“She said that since the holy water didn’t work, it would be useless anyway. Looking back now, I suppose Bishop Marik’s choice was correct. In the end, Ryder…”
Madame Toten lamented with a self-deprecating laugh, but she startled as soon as she unconsciously uttered Ryder’s name, quickly glancing at Gabriel. Realizing that saying holy water was no longer needed implied Ryder’s death, she knew she had made a slip of the tongue.
“Because Ryder will eventually become so healthy that he won’t even need holy water. Right?” I quickly chimed in, covering for her.
“Yes, yes… That’s right,” Madame Toten eagerly agreed.
We had discussed this in the carriage on our way here. We couldn’t let the news of Ryder’s death spread, so we had decided to keep it a secret from Gabriel as well.
Honestly, I had briefly wondered if we should tell him, but Madame Toten wanted as few people as possible to know the truth. Above all, Gabriel was a paladin. I doubted he would take the news of a ghost possessing a young child very well. Gabriel’s blue eyes were calm, making it impossible to read his thoughts. After a moment of silence, he spoke.
“Ryder is…”