#32.
No matter how cold-hearted a person Marriott Laurent was, he was undeniably of royal blood.
He was a man who knew how to clearly distinguish between being authoritative and being rude, and to Shane’s knowledge, there was no one who could make that distinction better than him.
But with the young lady of the Tolin family, it seemed that his ingrained habits didn’t apply.
It was like the strange signs that appear before a great tsunami.
“You’re a face I haven’t seen before. Who are you?”
“Ugh!”
Just as Hera tried to push the door open with the handle, someone grabbed her waist.
Because of that, Hera let out a short gasp and stumbled hard.
The stench of alcohol reeked in the air.
“What’s with the deep hood… Hic! Who pushed me?!”
The man who had just groped Hera tried to pull her hood back.
Hera, unsure whether to push away the hand on her waist or to keep the hood on, flailed in confusion.
At the moment the man tugged at her hood, Marriott pushed his shoulder with force.
The drunkard was easily flung off from Hera.
Marriott stepped in between Hera and the molester.
He still had his hand on the man’s shoulder.
From Hera’s vantage point, all she could see was the back of Marriott’s head.
Even so, she could feel that he was furious.
Peering over Marriott’s shoulder, she saw that the man looked like a noble in his forties.
His hair was messy, his skin flushed with alcohol, and his shirt hung out from his trousers—all clear signs of how much he had enjoyed the evening.
Perhaps because he was still riding high, he failed to pick up on the dangerous glint in Marriott’s eyes.
“Hahaha, Your Highness! Let me enjoy myself too. Eh? I’ve been coming here every day for the past fortnight, and if there’s a girl I haven’t touched yet, wouldn’t that hurt my pride?”
“Albert Bouvier.”
Marriott uttered the name with weight, tightening his grip.
It felt like only by crushing Albert’s shoulder would his anger be soothed.
With such strength applied, Albert’s smile disappeared instantly.
“I’ll handle it, Your Highness. Please let go. People will remember.”
If Shane hadn’t stepped in at that moment, who knows what Marriott might have done.
Tonight, the last person Marriott should have provoked was Albert Bouvier.
Shane managed to pry Marriott’s hand off Albert’s shoulder by grabbing his wrist.
The way Marriott’s hand still trembled revealed just how furious he truly was.
“Honestly!”
As Shane dragged Albert away, Marriott turned to Hera.
Still unable to fully contain his fury, he raised his voice at her.
His brief outburst quickly faded, and a flustered expression flashed across his face.
“……”
Marriott took a deep breath and then smiled, like a completely different person.
It was a startlingly artificial smile.
“My, what a troublesome young lady you are.”
Perhaps he remembered what Hera had said earlier.
With a gentle smile and tone, he addressed her. Then he grabbed the doorknob and flung the door wide open.
As if to say “Never set foot here again,” Marriott delivered a flawless expulsion.
“Truly, farewell. Emilia Tolin.”
Was it at least some comfort that his final expression was a smile that suited that beautiful face?
Hera stood frozen, unable to move for a long time with the closed door behind her.
Noise still spilled out through the crack in the door, chaotic and jarring.
“I thought the outside world would always be fun…”
She had thought the world of free people would be different.
She had thought a healthy body free from pain would bring only happiness.
But pain was still pain, and suffering existed in many forms.
Living in this body was starting to feel a little scary.
[<Winter Kingfisher> has been discovered.]
As Hera stepped forward into the empty corridor, familiar blue text floated in the air.
“You’re telling me to steal a treasure… now? Right now?”
Hera spoke in disbelief.
To anyone watching, she would seem like a crazy person yelling at thin air.
“It’s weird to say this to a book, but… you really have no sense.”
She didn’t expect comfort, but asking her to steal something right now felt outright cruel.
It wasn’t like she could even be mad at the strange book—it wasn’t human.
[<Winter Kingfisher> has been discovered.]
As if reading her mind, the prophecy book’s letters glowed coldly and refused to disappear from her view.
Hera began walking through the halls of the Laurent mansion, following the instructions of the prophecy book.
The old mansion, long unmaintained, felt more like an abandoned house.
It was already creepy enough to walk down a dark hallway at night.
Even though she was here to commit theft, she wished someone could be with her.
[<Winter Kingfisher> detected.]
The book displayed the treasure’s name again.
A blue rose petal fluttered in the air, floating off in a particular direction.
It was a sign that the treasure was nearby.
“Hmm…”
The petal pointed to the hand of a passed-out drunk man.
Why he had fallen asleep here of all places was a mystery, but he lay slumped against the dark hallway wall in a deep sleep.
Moonlight spilled faintly in from the tall window.
She tried to rely on that light, but it was so dim she couldn’t tell what the petal was pointing to.
“Light! Give me some light.”
Hera said a bit roughly, and the prophecy book summoned five glowing orbs above her head.
“That’s a bit much…”
Was the book throwing a tantrum?
With that odd thought in mind, Hera found an emerald ring on the man’s hand.
<Winter Kingfisher>.
So that’s why it was called that—because the emerald’s color resembled the feathers of a kingfisher.
Murmuring the name of the charmingly titled treasure, Hera tried to slip the ring off his finger.
“Why won’t this come off…!”
Maybe his body was swollen from the alcohol, but the ring was much harder to remove than expected.
She pulled with all her strength, and finally, the tight ring popped off.
“Ah!”
But it came off so suddenly that she lost her grip and dropped it.
With a clinking sound, the ring rolled back down the dark hallway she had just walked through.
With a frustrated look, Hera turned to retrieve it—just then, she heard footsteps.
“……!”
At the same time,
Marriott and Shane were walking the same corridor Hera had taken.
“Have you calmed down a bit?”
“Don’t poke the bear.”
Shane asked mockingly.
Marriott frowned.
“It doesn’t seem like this will be over in a day or two, so I’ll ask again if things get worse later.”
“That won’t happen.”
But Shane was convinced after tonight.
The relationship between Marriott and Emilia Tolin wasn’t going to end like this.
He wasn’t someone who believed in gut feelings without proof, but the atmosphere between those two had been unmistakably unique.
“The situation?”
Marriott cut off Shane’s thoughts and asked about the state of the hall.
He planned to rest in a room until everyone was too drunk to function properly.
“Most of them are asleep. We just confirmed the target also fell asleep.”
“Tonight, it’ll really end, right?”
“Of course.”
“If any of them wakes up, put them back to sleep. Until the city guards arrive in the morning…”
At that moment, Marriott turned the corner two steps ahead of Shane.
Something bumped against the tip of his shoe.
“…What’s this? A ring?”
When he picked up the emerald ring and looked up, he saw a person in the corridor where there should have been none.
A person with five glowing bulbs floating above their head.
‘Blue Rose!’
Marriott recognized her immediately.
He had seen her at the Duke of Antony’s estate, and again at the secret auction—she was the thief.
The city guard called her Blue Rose.
But more than anything else, what helped him remember her…
Was that jet-black hair.
“……”
“……”
Blue Rose stood frozen in the middle of the hallway in an awkward posture.
She turned to stone at the sight of Marriott.
Their eyes locked.
