The Villainess Doesn't Want to Die (1)
"Lady Robbins. Why don't we sit down and talk this through."
"Very well."
I guided Silvia into the drawing room with deliberate calm and settled her on the sofa, then took the seat across from her. I'd already committed one act of rudeness; this time I had to handle her with extreme care.
If I mess this up, exile won't be the end of it.
I could lose the house and the servants and end up wandering the streets with nothing but the clothes on my back. Or she might challenge me to a duel and force me into a one-on-one fight with a Swordmaster. Either way, I had to mind my manners.
"I understand that Lady Robbins is under threat of assassination."
"How refreshing. You catch on quickly."
"But why come to me?"
"…"
A suffocating silence stretched between us. I wished she would say something. Silvia only fixed me with those golden eyes, staring as if she meant to bore straight through me.
Clink.
Hanna appeared at the perfect moment and set a cup of mint tea on the table.
"Thank you."
Only then did Silvia's piercing gaze finally leave me. She lifted the cup and drank. Bless you, Hanna. I wanted to throw my arms around her and thank her on the spot.
"The fragrance is lovely."
Thankfully, the mint tea seemed to please her. Satisfying even a duke's daughter—Hanna was without question the strongest maid alive.
"I'm sorry I can offer you nothing better."
"It's fine. I didn't come here to be entertained. If anything, I'm the one who came to ask a favor of Sir Rix."
Silvia set her teacup down. Every movement carried the natural grace of a duke's daughter.
"Sir Rix. Do you truly not know why I sought you out?"
"…Because of my ability, I assume."
"Heh. So you're not playing dumb this time."
Well, of course not. The look in Silvia's eyes was no joke. One more round of I have no idea, why would you come to me? and she looked ready to kill me with sheer force of will alone.
Brutal political infighting. Blood-soaked conspiracies. I'd tried to sidestep all of that in this life with a careful little probe—but of course nothing was ever that easy.
"You need not concern yourself any longer with the discourtesy you showed me before, Sir Rix. That is all in the past."
There it was—the proper young lady's phrasing. She went out of her way to say I need not concern myself?
That meant the opposite.
Don't forget I overlooked your rudeness last time. Without me, you'd already be a dead man.
That was the real message. The roundabout speech of the nobility made my skin crawl every time I heard it. So this was the famous Kyoto-style double-talk people always talked about.
"So you want me to use my ability to find out who is trying to assassinate Lady Robbins?"
"Exactly. That is precisely it."
Familiar work. Reading fortunes of good and ill, casting out evil spirits, driving off malevolent ghosts—I'd done it all the time back in Korea. I just never expected to be doing it here as well.
So even after falling into a romance fantasy world, I still end up working as a shaman.
With a duke's daughter sitting in front of me, I couldn't exactly refuse and send her packing.
"Lady Robbins, have you consulted any other prophets or diviners?"
"No. You are the first, Sir Rix. And you will be the last. I have no intention of seeking out any other seer."
"…May I ask why?"
"Because I don't believe in prophecy. Those people are little better than frauds who fleece the nobility."
Whoa. A duke's daughter saying something like that out loud. A venomous line worthy of a true villainess. If the Imperial Court's official prophets had overheard her, it would have started an all-out war.
"As you well know, Sir Rix, I am a mage. I put no stock in superstition."
"I see. Understood."
In this romance fantasy world, magic was treated as a field of study that investigated the principles of the world—a kind of science. Prophecy and divination, by contrast, belonged to the realm of superstition. Honestly, as someone from Earth, I couldn't quite tell the difference. I just accepted it as one of those setting details.
Besides, I was a shaman myself. The line between science and superstition was never as clean as a knife cut.
"What exactly is the nature of your ability, Sir Rix?"
Silvia asked, brows drawing together.
Hmm. Well, I channel a god and borrow divine power—except it isn't the god the priests and holy knights worship. It's Yongwang-shin, a folk deity from another world called Korea.
If I said that out loud, they'd treat me like a lunatic.
Being treated like a lunatic would be the best-case scenario. The Church would brand me a heretic, and a heretic inquisitor would show up in person before the day was out. So I hedged.
"I don't fully understand my own ability either."
"You don't know your own power… How interesting."
Silvia stared at me again, eyes bright with curiosity. The murderous intent was gone, which was nice, but being looked at like some rare specimen was almost as uncomfortable.
"The power to see faraway places… Could it be the Clairvoyant Eye? No. That realm is only reachable by the Archmage Merlin. Someone untrained in magic could never attain it."
Suddenly Silvia started muttering to herself. She seemed genuinely passionate about magic.
"Ah—Lady Robbins?"
"Oh. Forgive me. I got carried away. Your ability is so unusual that it completely captured my attention."
"It's fine. Let's continue."
Who was trying to assassinate Lady Silvia Robbins? Time to get to the heart of the matter.
"If it were up to me, I would find the wicked soul targeting Lady Robbins this very instant. However—I don't fully understand my own ability. I can't be certain I can manifest that power again."
I laid a little groundwork. Shaman work was never something you could simply will into existence. Gods were uncontrollable. Ordinary shamans could beg until their hands and feet wore raw and still have no guarantee of possession.
Truthfully, I have a fair amount of confidence…
Unlike the run-of-the-mill shamans, I was the real thing. A body favored by Yongwang-shin. If I wanted, I could call the Dragon King God whenever I pleased.
But this isn't Earth. I've never tried it here.
Whether I could freely summon Yongwang-shin in a romance fantasy world was still an open question. Strutting in full of confidence only to fail at calling him would be the ultimate humiliation. So I'd laid the groundwork for failure—
"A small token of sincerity. Don't refuse it."
Silvia slid a fist-sized leather pouch onto the table. Apparently she thought I was hedging because I hadn't been offered payment.
"…What is this?"
"See for yourself."
I cracked the pouch open. Countless gold coins glittered inside.
"I can't accept this."
I pushed the pouch of gold back toward her.
"Hmm."
With a soft little snort, Silvia produced another leather pouch from somewhere.
"Ah… Lady Robbins?"
"Is my sincerity insufficient?"
Thump. Another pouch of gold landed on the table. Three pouches stuffed with gold coins now sat between us.
She's trying to crush me with money.
An admirably brazen approach, honestly. Far better than leveraging her noble rank to force unpaid labor out of me.
"I'm sorry, Lady Robbins."
"S-Sir Rix! Your greed is excessive! This is already a great deal for a mere noble!"
"That isn't it. I cannot accept money."
"…What?"
I pushed the gold pouches away again.
"It's a matter of principle."
More precisely, it wasn't my principle—it was the will of Yongwang-shin, the god I served. Yongwang-shin did not covet wealth. For me to wield his power fully, I could not covet wealth either. The god's will was my will. It was the most basic posture of a shaman's life.
"I will help Lady Robbins. But I cannot accept this kind of payment."
"Then you want some other form of compensation? Jewels? The finest silk?"
"No. I will accept no monetary reward of any kind."
"Th-then why would you help me at all?!"
Silvia shot to her feet and glared down at me.
"I have never seen a person who moves without expecting something in return!"
"Please consider it an apology for the discourtesy I committed."
"…Did I not just say you need not concern yourself with that previous rudeness?"
"Then think of it as an apology for the discourtesy I am about to commit."
"The discourtesy you are about to commit…?"
I felt a presence stir. I rose from the sofa and met Silvia Robbins's eyes straight on. The woman who had been looking down on me was now the one being looked down upon.
She flinched.
An arrogant villainess. A brilliant mage. Even she instinctively shrank back as something approached.
"…What an insolent little wench. You think money solves everything?"
"S-Sir Rix?!"
Silvia's golden eyes wavered with unease. Under normal circumstances, such insubordination would have earned an immediate torrent of abuse—but her body refused to move. She understood it by instinct.
The bastard Rix who had been groveling before her was no longer here.
Rix looked down at Silvia.