Chapter 25
I don’t really remember how I got back to the mansion. I just kept standing there blankly, staring at the spot where the old woman had disappeared, and only recall that Harry, sensing something was wrong, brought me back to the mansion.
Emma seemed very surprised to see me return alone, but she didn’t ask for details. El, who also returned with a startled face, went back to his quarters after confirming I was back safely, saying that was enough. It seemed my face must have looked bad enough for him to hurriedly make himself scarce.
I let out a sigh as I looked at the ring. I went to the festival to forget my worries, only to gain an even bigger one.
_’Why on earth is this here?’_
I bought this ring at a small market in Peru. It was my last business trip destination.
_-It’s an ancient ring made from the heart of the Sun God._
I remembered the blind girl selling the ring saying that.
What did I think when I heard that? I scoffed inwardly. A ring made from a god’s heart? It was obviously a lie to charge more for it. If this ring really were such an artifact, it should be in a museum, not on a market street.
_’But could it really have had some mysterious power?’_
Otherwise, there was no reason for this ring to have followed me all the way here.
_’Maybe it’s just a ring that looks similar.’_
Honestly, that possibility was higher. But my intuition kept telling me they were the same ring.
I tried putting the ring on my finger. It was a perfect fit, as if made for me.
_’Back then, I bought it because I thought it was amazing that it fit so perfectly.’_
Finding a ring that fit my hand perfectly in a market in a distant country had felt like fate at the time.
[That ring feels unpleasant.]
Harry growled, glaring at my hand wearing the ring. Since Harry is a demon, is he sensing some kind of energy from this ring?
[Can you feel some kind of power from it?]
[What kind of cult-like nonsense are you talking about?]
[Then why does it feel unpleasant?]
[I don’t know the reason either. I don’t feel any particular power, but it somehow gets on my nerves.]
Harry sprawled on the floor as if he didn’t understand it either.
_’Is it really just a ring that looks similar?’_
As I raised my hand to look at the ring, Emma cautiously approached me.
“Young Lady, I heard the Royal Knights are leaving.”
“Ah. They said they were leaving today.”
“Aren’t you going to see them off?”
“See them off? Not to that extent.”
I responded indifferently. The Royal Knights leaving was a welcome thing, but I didn’t need to run out barefoot to say goodbye.
_’The Baron will handle seeing off the guests.’_
Since the official master of the Erel residence was Baron Incestia, it wasn’t particularly rude for me not to go out. But Emma seemed to think differently.
“If the Knight leaves today, you won’t see him for a while.”
“Knight? You mean Sir Eltz?”
What was the problem with not seeing El for a while? From my perspective, it would be a thankful thing not to see him for a while. It would be even better if I never saw him again.
“But you went to the festival together yesterday……”
“That was half-forced by you, Emma. I was thinking of going out with you.”
“Then, you really have no relationship with the Knight?”
“I’ve been saying that since yesterday.”
At my words, Emma slumped her shoulders, looking very disappointed.
“Is that so disappointing?”
“Of course. A romance with a Knight is the dream of every Lady. And Sir Eltz is the best match.”
“Objectively speaking, that might be true……”
El wasn’t really my type.
_’I’ve always preferred smart, scholarly characters over strong knights.’_
So when I read novels, I liked Mason, the genius scholar among Catherine’s “fish,” the most.
_’Now that I think about it, Ibrida and Mason have no points of contact.’_
I’ve met several of Catherine’s “fish” since the attempted murder incident, but since I came to Erel, I haven’t had any chance to run into Mason at all.
_’As expected of my favorite character, he doesn’t bother me.’_
I had a good eye, my past self. I smiled proudly and brought the tea Emma brought to my lips. But the moment I was about to enjoy the fragrant tea, Harry started barking loudly.
“Woof! Woof!”
Harry was baring his teeth threateningly at Emma. The startled Emma, unable to even scream, sat down on the spot, her face pale. Had Harry suddenly started running amok? I quickly got up and hugged Harry. But Harry wouldn’t calm down easily.
[What’s wrong, Harry?]
[This isn’t your maid.]
[Huh?]
[This guy, he smells different from your maid.]
Harry growled, wary of Emma. I looked closely at Emma, who had sat down. But no matter how I looked, it was Emma.
[Are you mistaken? It’s just Emma. Maybe she’s wearing a different perfume than usual.]
[It’s not that smell, the blood smell is different. That’s not something a human can control.]
Harry wouldn’t lie about something like this. I sniffed, following Harry’s lead. But my ordinary sense of smell couldn’t detect the difference in blood scent that Harry mentioned.
_’It can’t be a doppelganger.’_
It looked too identical to just be similar. If they were twin sisters, I could understand. But Emma was an only child from an orphanage.
_’Then the only conclusion is that someone is disguised as Emma.’_
There was one person who came to mind who could do such a thing. Luke, the head of the Information Guild.
With such perfect disguise skills and acting ability so good you’d think it was the real person, he was the only one like that in the novel. Thinking that, the situation became clear. Riden must have sent a letter to Luke asking for help, and Luke, receiving it, must have thought something interesting was happening and came personally.
_’He probably didn’t think he’d be discovered by me right away.’_
The real Emma was probably drugged and asleep. Since not killing people was the Information Guild’s principle, Emma would return safely once he stopped the disguise and went back to his place.
I pondered for a moment. I could drive Luke away by exposing him now, but there was a part of me that found that regrettable.
_’Watching this guy, who hates Ibrida, bowing and scraping gently while calling me “Young Lady” is quite amusing.’_
Moreover, Luke had quite a hot temper. While serving the Ibrida he hated, he was surely cursing internally.
_’Should I tease him a bit before driving him away? I was getting bored anyway.’_
To be honest, this world was seriously lacking in entertainment. Having lived in the modern era with smartphones, the internet, and all sorts of fun things pouring out the moment you step outside, it was only natural that every day felt boring after falling into a world where the only games were chess or cards.
Even the chess or card games that did exist had no one to play with. The only noble in Erel who could sit across from me and play games was Baron Incestia. But he was busy managing the territory and wasn’t idle enough to be my playmate.
I had tried playing chess or cards a few times, dismissing everyone and sitting with Harry. But after playing a few times, I realized this could never be a fun game for me.
Harry, who was usually dull, showed unbelievable skill in chess and card games, overwhelmingly beating me. This demon, who was obsessively fixated on winning, never once let me win. I eventually overturned the board and never played chess or cards with him again.
This had been my state ever since coming to Erel; I was truly bored.
_’And the festival I was looking forward to, I couldn’t even enjoy properly because of the ring.’_
Until recently, I was satisfied with living in a good house, wearing good clothes, and eating good food, but now I’m seeking fun. Humans are such fickle beings. But what could I do?
_’That’s just what humans are like.’_
Everyone else is like that too, not just me. Elegantly rationalizing my fickleness, I looked at Luke, who was pretending to be Emma. Inside was the head of the Information Guild, but now he had voluntarily become my maid.
Hmm. No matter how I thought about it, he seemed perfect to tease.
[Harry, I’ll handle this, so calm down.]
[How are you going to handle it?]
[You’ll know if you watch.]
I calmed Harry by stroking his soft fur. Harry looked at me with untrusting eyes but stopped growling threateningly at Emma.
“It’s okay, Emma. Harry seems to have calmed down too.”
“Yes, Young Lady.”
Luke got up, still wary of Harry. I smiled slyly, sat down in the chair, and stretched my legs out towards Luke. Luke blinked, looking confused at the feet presented before him, but I spoke very brazenly.
“Massage them.”
“……Pardon?”
“My feet. I think my legs are swollen from sitting for so long. You always do it, don’t you?”
“Your feet…… always……”
[Emma never did that, though?]
Harry asked in a puzzled voice.
[Of course not.]
But the guy in front of me wasn’t Emma. If I brazenly said, “You always do it, don’t you?”, it meant he had no choice but to believe it.
What will you do, Luke? Are you in a bind? You must be terribly embarrassed, right?
As I expected, Luke looked a bit flustered. I had never seen the experienced maid Emma make such an expression even once.
_’He’s so flustered that his real face is showing through.’_
I laughed inwardly, looking at Luke, who seemed to have frozen as if buffering.
As the head of the Information Guild, who holds everyone’s weaknesses and reigns as the king of the underworld, had he ever touched someone’s feet before?
_’What will you do, Catherine’s fish?’_
I felt like a real villain and giggled.
_’Are you going to give up? Will you?’_
“Emma, hurry up.”
As I wiggled my foot and urged Luke on, his expression became even more troubled. In this world, touching feet was a tremendous symbol of loyalty to the other person. To massage someone’s feet, you had to kneel before them and bow your head deeply.
_’It’s an expression of extreme submission.’_
I thought Luke would give up here. There was no way the proud Luke would put up with this. If that happened, I would achieve a two-for-one result: teasing this guy and successfully driving him away.
But Luke showed an unexpected reaction.
“……Understood.”
Luke knelt down and grabbed my feet that I had stretched out.
“Huh?”
I didn’t expect him to go this far.
Now it was my turn to be embarrassed, my legs stiffening.
“Uhm, you’re really going to do this?”
“You ordered me to, didn’t you? It’s something I always do, right?”
As he said that, Luke took off my shoe. As the shoe covering my foot came off, I felt oddly empty, and my foot reflexively curled up. Even though I was wearing silk stockings, I didn’t feel the security of having shoes on.
_’What do I do? I didn’t think he’d actually do it.’_
While I was rolling my eyes and pondering, Luke’s hand pressed firmly on my foot. When he pressed the arch of my foot with his thumb, an immense pain rushed in.
“Ah!”
Simultaneously, sparks flew before my eyes. It hurt so much I almost cried.
_’No wonder. I thought it was strange that he just agreed!’_
He must be doing this on purpose, now that he knew I had caught on. I thought I was teasing Luke, but it was actually the opposite.
I looked at Luke angrily. But the moment I glared at him furiously, my mouth, which was about to scold him, froze shut.
“Does it hurt?”
Luke was looking at me with an extremely flustered face. It was a level of fluster incomparable to when I asked him to massage my feet.
_’Is he genuinely flustered? Or is it an act?’_
As I sat there blankly, not knowing his true intentions, Luke stammered and pressed my foot again.
“I’m sorry. I must have used too much force.”
Unlike the first time, which was incredibly painful, this time his touch was so light I could barely feel it. With a cautious touch, as if handling a glass artifact, my foot tickled.
“……Are you doing this on purpose? Trying to tickle me?”
When I asked seriously, Luke’s face became even more troubled.
“Is this too weak now……?”
Luke stared at his hand and my foot for a long time, then pressed my foot with a bit more strength. Thanks to the two trials and errors, the pressure was just right.
“Is this level alright?”
“Yes. The pressure is just right but……”
_’Are you really going to continue?’_
I asked with my eyes, but Luke, completely focused on my foot, paid no attention to my gaze.
_’At this point, I’m curious.’_
What on earth is he trying to find out that he’s even massaging my feet?
Luke hates Ibrida. So, the information he’s trying to get must, of course, be something that troubles Ibrida. So, even now, I should shout that I’ve already figured out your identity, that Emma never massaged my feet, so get lost right now.
_’……Why is he so good at massage?’_
My feet, which had been screaming in pain from the uncomfortable shoes, felt like they were loosening up comfortably. The shoes in this world were very uncomfortable. The soles were hard and the leather wrapping the feet was stiff, so my feet hurt every time I walked. If I walked for a long time, I desperately wanted to throw away the shoes and stroll the streets barefoot.
Actually, the world of <Lady Catherine> wasn’t a perfect medieval period. It was more like a fictional world that just borrowed the image of the Middle Ages. In some aspects, it reminded me of the Victorian era of the industrial revolution, and the existence of magic or other races was, of course, part of the fantasy worldview.
Because it was a world mixed with many things, there were compromises in many areas. Newspapers readable across the continent, telephones or mail connected using magic stones, simpler clothing than expected—things that could never exist in the actual Middle Ages existed in this world.
_’If they were going to compromise like that, I wish they had made comfortable shoes.’_
I didn’t even hope for the extravagance of sneakers existing. If there were just ordinary flat shoes, I wouldn’t have thought walking was so painful.
But the nobles of this world all wore pretty shoes. Shoes with high, thin heels that barely covered the feet—shoes that were just pretty. They weren’t shoes made with convenience in mind from the start. Focusing on external beauty, they didn’t consider the condition of the wearer’s feet at all.
Actually, there was no reason to worry about the feet of the person wearing them. Nobles didn’t walk much in the first place. They didn’t labor and just commanded people with gestures, so it was natural.
In this world, shoes were a means to display status. Wearing impractical shoes meant the person was of a high class who didn’t need to labor painfully. Because of this, the ridiculous situation occurred where the nobility of one’s status was determined by who wore the more useless shoes.
Ibrida Oberon belonged to the highest class in such a world. In other words, it meant the shoes I wore had not a speck of practicality. My shoes scored 0, no, minus 100 points for walking. It wasn’t as if commoners’ shoes were comfortable either.
_’If they were, I would have just gotten commoners’ shoes to wear.’_
Nobles called people to measure their feet and made custom shoes, but commoners just roughly stuffed their feet into pre-made shoes. These shoes didn’t even have left-right distinction. The people here, accustomed to wearing such shoes since birth, couldn’t understand the discomfort I felt at all. When I complained to Emma that the shoes were uncomfortable, she answered with a very puzzled face, “Aren’t shoes supposed to be uncomfortable?”
But now. My feet, which had been groaning in pain, felt as refreshing as if they were about to fly away. I looked at Luke with grateful eyes. If this person were the real Emma, I would want to hire her as my personal masseuse, not as a maid of Erel Mansion. But unfortunately, what was inside wasn’t Emma, but Luke.
_’There’s probably no way to hire the head of the Information Guild as a personal masseuse.’_
As I looked down at Luke’s head with regret, he looked up at me, smiling like Emma.
“Has life in Erel been boring lately?”
“Life in Erel?”
“Yes. You came from the glamorous royal capital. You used to participate actively in social activities…… Compared to that, Erel is very quiet, isn’t it?”
“It can’t be helped. Erel is the countryside.”
Tea times, banquets, balls, salons, etc. Ibrida enjoyed constantly engaging in social activities to show off her influence. But in Erel, on the outskirts of noble culture, even a simple tea time was rare.
_’The real Ibrida would have found this life boring.’_
But for me, whether living boringly in the countryside or attending tedious social events, both were equally dull.
“I’ve come to want to live quietly now. I prefer quiet Erel over the noisy royal capital.”
How could it be fun to discuss the symbolism of a painting or the author’s intention, or dance in uncomfortable shoes? I’d rather nap in the quiet mansion of Erel than go to such places.
Moreover, noble culture had many rules to follow. There were not only rules specified in etiquette books but also many unspoken customs, so if you let your guard down even a little, you were often disgraced.
_’If it weren’t for the habits ingrained in Ibrida’s body, I would have been utterly disgraced too.’_
It seems habits are fearsome; even though what’s inside is me, who knows nothing about noble culture, the body moved on its own. Thanks to that, I could smoothly navigate situations at banquets or balls without major disgrace.
_’Actually, well, even if a high noble like Ibrida made a mistake, there probably wouldn’t be anyone to point it out.’_
Criticizing someone for not knowing etiquette and being vulgar only works among mediocre nobles. Who would dare look down on the young lady of the Oberon family, a prestigious house that has been noble since the kingdom’s founding? They might gossip behind my back, but in front of me, they would smile and be kind.
“Is that so?”
Luke, with Emma’s face, answered insincerely and smiled. He clearly thought my words weren’t genuine. It was a reaction anyone who knew the real Ibrida would show, so I didn’t feel particularly wronged.
“But you seem to be adapting well to Erel. Especially taming the wyvern was truly a great feat.”
The conversation naturally flowed to the wyvern. I finally realized why Luke was enduring such hardship.
_’He wants to find out how I tamed the wyvern.’_
He must have gathered information that I was close to Emma and disguised himself as her.
_’Shall I tease him a bit?’_
I buried myself in the chair and waved my hand dismissively.
“Well, it wasn’t as difficult as people think.”
“Really?”
Luke, biting the bait, asked with sparkling eyes.
“But everyone said taming a wyvern was difficult.”
“That’s all nonsense. Only people who know nothing say that. Are you curious about how I tamed the wyvern?”
“How could I ask you such a thing?”
Luke bowed his head and subtly removed his hands from my feet.
_’Look at that. Subtly trying to stop.’_
I narrowed my eyes and crossed my arms.
“Now do you understand how nasty you were a moment ago?”
“Are you planning to get revenge like this?”
“I’m not that narrow-minded. I just wanted you to experience how I felt.”
Anyway, the situation in Erel was something Luke would soon find out once rumors started spreading. There was no need to struggle to hide such problems. I shrugged and began explaining what had happened in Erel so far.
Luke was serious while listening to the long story. It wasn’t Catherine’s fish Luke, but the head of the Information Guild Luke sitting before me. The story he was most interested in was, of course, the part about me taming the wyvern.
“How did you tame the wyvern?”
This time too, I smiled and held out my hand.
“If you’re curious, 1 billion gold. This is no joke.”
“Well, it’s certainly information worth that much.”
Luke readily backed down. It seemed he didn’t expect an answer from me in the first place.
“Regarding the dwarves, I already have information.”
“You know where they live?”
“Knights or blacksmiths who want to make great swords often look for dwarves. The information I investigated then should be in the guild.”
After saying that, Luke got up from his seat.
“I’ll send the results by letter. Our messenger will come to you soon, so don’t be too surprised.”
