SILHN Chapter 51

The Tavern

“What a cute little lady.”

The midday tavern smelled of acrid tobacco smoke. Vivi paid no mind to the mocking voice and stood on her tiptoes to check the clock on the wall. It was a wooden clock so old and grimy that it was impossible to tell when it had been hung up, and its hour, minute, and second hands were all askew. As if broken from age, the spaces where the numbers 3 and 5 should have been were empty.

“We don’t have anything a cute little lady like you can drink in our shop. What a shame.”

The woman’s voice was as gentle as a butterfly. Vivi looked at the approaching woman’s hand with cold eyes. Her nails were white and clean. There was no trace of them being colored by anything. However, on the tip of her pinky finger was a tiny black butterfly tattoo, so small that a stranger might mistake it for a smudge of dirt.

‘If I had only known earlier that all the women working at Hecate’s Tavern were daughters of the Butterfly Tribe, I would have saved myself the trouble!’

A memory from the past suddenly gnawed at the little girl’s mind. The mage who had laughed maniacally, saying he’d gotten good experimental materials. The thick, transparent glass walls. The iron bars that separated the walls. The test subjects who were dying inside…

‘Little lady, don’t cry.’

That woman was among them.

‘If you cry, you’ll lose strength. If there’s a secret escape hole left, will you tell your unnie about it? Ah, if you knew, why would you be here acting stupid? Little lady, you’ve got quite the temper…’

No matter what evil experiments she endured, she never revealed her secrets. She couldn’t bring harm to her family and her companions. But the mage eventually broke the spirit of the test subject he held in his hands. Through unknown magic and a strangely sweet-smelling drug. Through repeated torture.

The woman who realized she had revealed her tribe’s secrets and meeting places while unconscious… ‘…Little lady, please, you have to survive and tell them? Tell them I’m sorry…’

Still, it hadn’t happened yet. That woman, who had sensed her own death and desperately pleaded with the youngest test subject, “don’t die,” telling her, “if you get out of here alive, please tell my comrades what I have to say,” was not here now.

“It’s okay, Vivi understands. Not every shop can be perfectly prepared for guests, can they? If you don’t have it, you can just go buy it!”

Vivi smiled brightly and clapped her hands together. Lucia, the maid who had been waiting behind Vivi like a shadow, appeared and handed her a pouch. Vivi took out a gold coin herself and flipped it in the air. The woman accepted the gold coin, though her face showed she was displeased.

“Vivi wants, hmm, not a lot! A lemon water with Ezell flowers steeped in it for exactly three seconds. For a snack, a hazelnut butter financier from Honey-Honey Bakery. And if there’s money left, you can buy some orange and lemon bonbons from the Rone Candy Store. Oh, and the weekday-only orangettes, too!”

“…”

A vein popped out on the woman’s forehead after hearing this ridiculous request, which was on par with, “I’ll give you a thousand won, so go buy three loaves of bread and bring back five hundred won in change.” She looked at Vivi’s smooth, smiling face, her well-kept hair, and her high-quality clothes, and barely managed to force a smile.

“Oh my, little lady, this isn’t a restaurant, you know? What a shame.”

“My name isn’t ‘little lady,’ either.”

“Then may I know the little lady’s name?”

“Vivi has been saying her name is Vivi since a while ago, grown-ups are so strange! Don’t look down on me just because I’m a kid; you should listen properly from the beginning!”

“Then, Miss Vivi.” The woman’s voice turned somber. “This is not a place for children’s games.”

“Vivi didn’t come here to play with grown-ups either.”

Vivi smiled brightly and tapped the gold coin in the woman’s hand. The woman looked at the coin and her face hardened.

A thin emblem of three snakes and a laurel wreath. It was the symbol of Hecate’s Tavern.

Issuing a black card with the emblem embossed in gold leaf was a temporary pass. It exempted the user from the fee for a single request, and the right to be a guest disappeared as soon as the request was completed.

However, if one was recognized as a formal guest by Hecate’s Tavern, they could enter without a card. One of the proofs of that was this gold coin. The emblem wasn’t a cheap gold leaf that was stamped on paper and would disappear if burned; it was pressed into a real gold coin.

The House of Castner was a powerful VIP and a cooperative partner of Hecate’s Tavern. But even so, not everyone in the family could possess such an item.

“I’ve heard many stories that the Grand Duke of Castner gives his beloved youngest adopted daughter anything she wants.” The woman curled the corners of her lips. “Seeing it myself, it’s more than I imagined, Princess?”

“You can just call me Vivi.”

“Yes, Miss Vivi. So, with that item in your hand, what exactly do you want?”

“All information about Empress Elaine.”

“…”

“Everything she’s done before entering the palace and after. Oh, and you have to sell it exclusively to me. You can’t sell it to anyone else.”

“You came here for just that much?”

“No? Vivi is a greedy girl!”

Hehehe. Vivi let out a clear laugh and gave an innocent smile. “I have some information to sell, too.”

“We don’t buy just any information.”

“Really?” Vivi’s smile vanished. “What about the information that there’s a high possibility that someone who’s after the blood of the Butterfly Tribe will raid Hecate’s Tavern?”

“…”

The air instantly froze. Lucia stepped forward to shield Vivi, but Vivi held up a hand to stop her. With a colder look than before, the woman replied as if nothing had happened.

“Oh, little lady. I don’t know what you’re talking about. Why would someone who wants the blood of the Butterfly Tribe raid Hecate’s Tavern?”

“That’s because I know that Hecate of Hecate’s Tavern was the last high priestess of the Butterfly Tribe. And she established Hecate’s Tavern as a way to safely protect her people in human society.”

The Butterfly Tribe was a different species that lived in caves and had the power to communicate with bats. They looked no different from humans and had no special abilities other than being able to command bats, but their image was poor because bats looked and behaved like demons. They were oppressed as a species that was in league with demons.

So, Hecate, the high priestess of the Butterfly Tribe, made a decision. To abandon the forests and caves and blend in with humans to survive. The ability to command bats was, surprisingly, a useful skill for gathering information. They could know everything the bats saw and heard in real time, and they could communicate remotely over long distances using ultrasonic waves. They could even have bats deliver letters without anyone knowing.

They were people who could exchange information faster than anyone else in the Empire and who could gather information secretly while hiding among humans. Thanks to that, they were able to form a connection with the House of Castner, who collected rare bloodlines.

Of course, Hecate’s Tavern’s foundation was clearly the Butterfly Tribe. However, while some members of the Butterfly Tribe were mixed into the leadership, the current Hecate’s Tavern was strictly an information organization. And the best one in the Empire at that.

“Little lady.” The woman said, her smile gone. “Where did you get that information?”

“I can’t reveal my source, but I found out after hearing my enemy was after it!” Vivi grinned.

“Information without a source is closer to speculation. And you’re trying to sell that to us? Hecate’s Tavern is very famous, and there have been many fools who thought they could get what they wanted by raiding it.”

“If you don’t want to believe it, then don’t.” Vivi said indifferently. “But even if the information comes from a little lady, if it comes from the ‘House of Castner’ and includes the organization’s biggest secret, you’ll naturally be on your guard, won’t you? You won’t be foolishly caught off guard, no matter who’s after you.”

Vivi was not a fool. Just because she had returned to her childhood, she didn’t believe she could do everything. For some unknown reason, she was living her second life. So she would just do her best in every moment.

‘And it seems I’m not the only one who’s changed.’ Vivi thought, listening to the story of what had happened at the palace. ‘Did Princess Titania, like me, die and return to the past?’ The actions of Princess Titania before Vivi died were so different from now.

And she even came to bargain by telling them information that even the House of Castner didn’t know? On top of that, she even fearlessly wielded that strange sword that the Empress had branded a demon sword, destroying the demons. It was enough to make one wonder if another person had taken over Princess Titania’s body.

But Vivi couldn’t reveal her own secret on a whim, nor could she ask Titania about her suspicions.