Chapter 59
This was where they had caught the handler.
At first, I thought he was just a petty criminal.
A noble deliberately adopting and killing an illegitimate child?
It sounded absurd.
I assumed that the poor man had merely drawn Emilia Tollin’s sympathy with needless fuss.
Pretending to be a couple with her and accompanying her was simply a tempting diversion, and he had played along with Jeff and Emilia’s antics.
But if it was about receiving children to abuse and kill, that was a different story.
This was something that absolutely had to be punished.
“Anyway, my request is simple. You just need to frame it as if Paul Chelsning stole the Duke of Antony’s obsidian. That’s all you have to do. Later on, you’ll feel pretty proud when you see that devil finally pay for his sins.”
I was certain that, even if Blue Rose wasn’t a righteous thief, she enjoyed a thrill.
The way she stole things and disappeared was always on the edge.
A thief who was clever yet clumsy—a contradiction.
After thinking for days, Merriot concluded that she was a thrill-seeking thief.
So I thought she would find this job interesting. Placing a stolen item in someone else’s room would be an unusual thrill for her.
Merriot was confident that this request would succeed.
But the words that fell over his head were not an acceptance or refusal—they were a completely different topic.
“Does Emilia know about this?”
“…What?”
The question fell like an ambush.
Merriot raised his head in surprise.
Hera, startled, hastily covered her face with both hands.
“Oh, no… it’s just that…”
Hera was flustered by the words she had uttered.
She had been so focused on why she hadn’t revealed the culprit that the thought had slipped out of her mouth unconsciously.
Her heart pounded fiercely, worried that her identity might be discovered.
But Merriot lowered his head without much suspicion.
He assumed it was a well-known scandal, enough that even Blue Rose might know about it.
“So, you know, huh? The gossip about me and Emilia Tollin.”
“…Yes.”
“Hearing her name from your mouth feels strange.”
Merriot laughed wryly.
For a thief hiding her identity, hearing the name of the person involved in a scandal was truly a unique experience.
“I didn’t tell you. I don’t know why you’re curious.”
“Why?”
“……”
Merriot remained silent for a moment, rolling the bottle of alcohol in his hand.
This was a question from a thief who didn’t even fully reveal her face.
I could have said, “It’s none of your business,” and it wouldn’t have mattered.
Yet, strangely, he couldn’t lie in front of that thief.
He might avoid answering, but he didn’t want to lie.
Merriot muttered softly.
“Anyway, it’s something everyone who needs to know already knows.”
He took a deep swallow of alcohol and pressed his left side.
It felt like the pain from ten years ago had come alive.
“Ten years ago, the day I left Central, someone tried to assassinate me.”
The way Jerome and Ron took over the palace was cruel.
They swung their swords as if to kill everyone inside.
Merriot barely escaped the palace with a sword bestowed by his grandmother, Emperor Diane.
Jerome could have easily found Merriot, who was hiding and avoiding him.
After all, Jerome had grown up in the palace, so it was no maze to him.
Yet he chased Merriot like a game of hide-and-seek, coming close and then letting him go, over and over.
Young Merriot had gone more than thirty hours without sleep, constantly running.
When his captain of the guard suggested fleeing to Mozeni, a fief of the Laurent family, Merriot had no choice but to accept, humiliating as it was.
Thus, Merriot left the palace and went to the Wintail estate to hide.
It would take about ten more hours for the soldiers who would guard him to assemble.
He believed that the Wintail estate, a neutral zone called the last peace of the empire, could be a safe haven for his exhausted body.
At the Wintail estate, no fighting was tolerated—a tacit rule of the Ivy Empire.
But order is upheld by good intentions.
Against the vile will that sought to exterminate even the last direct bloodline of Arista, the rules kept for a thousand years became meaningless.
Merriot never forgot the face of the man who killed his captain and inflicted severe wounds on him.
A bored gaze, a gaunt body, a decadent voice.
Even after ten years, nothing had changed—the target of his revenge.
“That’s Ober Tollin.”
“……!”
His side throbbed painfully.
Merriot drank again.
“If he had succeeded in killing me back then, I’d probably be a viscount by now, not just a baron.”
He sneered.
“What would you do? Could I really love the daughter of the man who tried to kill me and still wants me dead?”
Merriot wasn’t asking Blue Rose.
He was answering the question that had tormented him for years.
“Should I trust Emilia Tollin? One lapse could cost me my life.”
He had to be cautious. He knew.
He knew well that she was a woman he shouldn’t trust.
But when he looked at her, other thoughts intruded.
He found himself making excuses. It’s still fine.
It’s not yet a level of feeling that warrants worry.
“I hate being confused. No, I can’t have confusing things next to me. I don’t have time for such uncertainty.”
He remembered all the effort it had taken to return to Central from Mozeni.
How meticulously he had disciplined himself.
He had considered all variables and prepared for every situation.
“If Emilia Tollin had been a woman intent on fully executing the Tollin family’s assassination orders, it would have been easier. It would have been convenient for me to marry according to their will. With a Tollin daughter by my side, I could have countered them more easily. But Emilia Tollin…”
She was his variable.
“She keeps confusing me.”
A totality of the unexpected.
“So gossip must end as gossip.”
After Merriot left, Hera remained alone on the bridge.
“With this body, no matter what I do, no one will trust me.”
Hera gripped her hair, letting it fall into her eyes.
Jet black—Hera Wintail’s hair color.
But this was only the power of the prophecy. The real Hera Wintail lay buried underground.
There had been a time she thought living forever as Emilia Tollin wouldn’t be so bad.
She wanted to quit thieving immediately, a habit that didn’t suit her personality.
She had even thought that living as the lady of the Tollin family was a heaven-sent blessing.
Yet, strangely, in this body, Hera couldn’t have the things she wanted most.
A harmonious family, friendships with like-minded people, and Merriot Laurent.
Her father often said no one in the world has everything, but she had never realized it so vividly.
She had thought that being as healthy as others meant freedom to have anything.
Hera decided to return to her original self.
She would pray to return to a healthy Hera Wintail.
This body was someone else’s.
Hera felt a gap when she couldn’t fully empathize with Emilia Tollin’s circumstances.
She couldn’t completely merge with her life and ended up indulging her own desires.
It was unfair to Emilia as well.
“First, let’s do what we have to do now.”
If she lingered in these thoughts, she might not return to the Tollin family today.
Hera shook her head, clearing her thoughts.
She took out the prophecy book and found the page with The Black Tear of Banyol.
“Unseal.”
[Unseal.]
The obsidian leapt into the air in its true form.
“Blue Rose.”
[Yes, Hera Wintail.]
“Place The Black Tear of Banyol under Paul Chelsning’s bed.”
[Understood, Hera Wintail.]
After responding, the prophecy book made the obsidian disappear from the air.
Its path wasn’t visible, but it would have gone to the Chelsning estate.
Hera brushed herself off and stood up.
It was time to go home.
[The Red Bull of Sessi Boniche has been detected.]
At that moment, the blue text caught Hera’s attention.
The prophecy book wanted to seal the treasure under the bridge.
