CHAPTER 72……………………………………..
A moment later, Tara asked me,
“How long must I wait?”
Tara possessed considerable martial ability, but her specialty was intelligence gathering and stealth. She could ambush from hiding, but in a one-on-one fight it would be difficult for her to defeat Vineta. For now, she had no choice but to follow my words.
“Just one day. Meet me here again tomorrow. After we part ways, I won’t stop you from going to take your revenge immediately.”
“Understood. For today, I will be satisfied simply seeing that bastard’s face I’ve longed to see.”
“Can you swear to it?”
“I swear on the names of my late parents and my younger siblings who are still waiting for me.”
“Good. It’s right here.”
With trembling hands, Tara checked the contents of the note I handed her.
“Spring Blossom Park.”
“Do you know it? There’s a racetrack next to it.”
“I’ve never been to the park itself, but I’ve passed nearby several times. Still, to think it’s within the same capital…”
“There are always visitors, so it’ll be easy to lie in wait. Why not sit on a bench and read a book?”
“…I’ll have to see it with my own eyes.”
Unlike when she first arrived, Tara left the forest without properly saying goodbye. She must have been too consumed by thoughts of revenge to spare the composure.
The next day, at the same time and in the same place, I waited for Tara again. Surrounded by the shrill cries of insects, Vineta asked,
“Do you believe that person will keep her oath?”
“Why? Do you think she won’t?”
“I do not know the details of her circumstances, but judging by the face she wore when speaking of revenge, it seemed she harbored a grudge too deep to measure.”
“……”
“You said only a day, Lady Idel, but for her it must have felt like an entire day. Unless you gave her a proper reason to wait.”
“That would defeat the purpose. What matters is whether Tara can postpone her revenge without a proper reason.”
Vineta immediately grasped my intention.
“So this is a test.”
That’s right. I was curious whether Tara could keep the oath she made to me even with revenge—the greatest goal of her life—right before her.
Even if it was only a single day, as Vineta said, postponing revenge required tremendous patience.
In the novel, Tara coincidentally encounters her enemy, Baron Schilean, at Spring Blossom Park. The murderer of her parents—the man she had searched for, grinding her teeth in hatred, for over a decade.
Blinded by vengeance, she tries to achieve her revenge immediately, even forgetting to report to Riena, to whom she had sworn loyalty.
Testing someone so desperate pricked my conscience a little, but I needed certainty about whether Tara was someone I could trust. Only then could I leave this country with peace of mind.
For the past two months, Tara had kept silent to Riena about what happened between us. That much was certain. There had been no noticeable change in Riena’s attitude.
Riena was likely already suspicious of me for finding Diana for the ambassadorial couple.
If Tara had also told Riena that I knew far too much about her personal circumstances, Riena’s suspicion would have deepened, and she would surely have taken some sort of action—perhaps probing whether I, like her, had returned from the past.
At least, the Riena I knew from what I had read would have.
But there had been no particular reaction from her yet. That meant Tara was innocent, and Riena’s suspicion remained weak.
I wanted to know if I could trust Tara more. Even if the powerful motivation of revenge—strong enough to make her deceive Riena and follow me—disappeared, would she still keep her promise to me?
Would she continue keeping silent about me to Riena and perhaps even become my source of information?
I clearly remembered what Riena had shouted at me in the courtroom, her face twisted.
“Who do you think I’m doing this for?! It’s all for you!”
“How do you plan to survive this harsh world once you leave Cassius?”
Even now, I didn’t fully understand the meaning of her words or her true intentions. But one thing seemed certain: even if Riandro and I divorced, Riena likely wouldn’t back down quietly.
She would probably try to involve herself in my affairs somehow. To counter that, I needed someone who could inform me of Riena’s movements. I was planning to use Tara as a double agent.
…Well, perhaps that was going too far. It would be enough if she simply didn’t leak my information.
In any case, it was essential to determine how trustworthy Tara truly was.
Just in case, I asked Vineta,
“Did you happen to hear about an assault at Spring Blossom Park yesterday?”
“I did not.”
“What about an unexplained fire in the Elines district?”
“Not at all.”
Before coming here, I had skimmed through all of today’s morning newspapers published in the capital. There was no such article.
“Then Tara will come. I’d bet on it.”
“If you say so, Lady Idel.”
Vineta didn’t ask why I mentioned the Elines district. She simply waited with me in silence.
The appointed time arrived. But Tara did not appear.
We continued waiting without a word. Time passed.
About an hour after the promised time, I saw a figure running between the trees. It was Tara.
“Haa… haa… My apologies. My lady suddenly gave me an errand I could neither refuse nor pass on to someone else.”
Soaked in sweat, Tara struggled to catch her breath. I rose from the tree stump and approached her.
“Tara, it’s fine. Take it easy.”
“Why are you suddenly speaking formally…?”
“I’m no longer the young madam of Cassius, nor your superior. And I tend to show courtesy to those who show it to me first.”
Tara realized that the courtesy I referred to did not simply mean polite speech.
“How remarkable. I haven’t even told you yet—how did you know? That I saw Baron Schilean and still came back.”
“I’d like to say I just know, but since you kept your oath, I’ll tell you the truth. Baron Schilean is not as easy a man as he looks.”
At first glance, he might seem foolish—hiding his identity yet passing through Spring Blossom Park daily to attend the racetrack. But he wasn’t wasting time gambling.
“A racetrack gathers money and people. Naturally, information gathers as well. And the Information Guild is deeply involved in its operations.”
Tara ground her teeth.
“He’s still bold, I see. The more people there are, the higher the chance he’ll be discovered.”
“And yet he’s meticulous. Tara, if you had rashly attacked him, a protective spell would have activated.”
“…!”
With the fortune he extorted through fraud, Baron Schilean thoroughly protected himself. He spared no expense installing powerful defensive magic and various traps in his hideout.
Because of those, in the novel, Tara nearly lost the baron she had all but captured.
At that moment, Riena appeared like a hero and captured the baron instead. Since she had been at Spring Blossom Park with Tara, she noticed something was off.
Afterward, Riena gave Tara the chance to carry out her revenge herself, and Tara apologized for acting on her own. Riena graciously forgave her, and the episode ended warmly.
“Schilean’s protective magic is a form of dark magic. The moment someone touches him with malicious intent, pain proportional to that malice… And in his hideout in the Elines district…”
I shared as much detailed information about him as possible, based on the novel. After listening with intense focus, Tara asked,
“I won’t ask how you know so much. I’m used to such things thanks to Lady Riena. But why didn’t you tell me this yesterday?”
“Would you be offended if I said I was testing whether you’d keep your oath?”
Tara’s eyes widened briefly before she curled her lips into a smile.
“Not at all. Lady Idel, to be honest, two months ago I tailed you. I also behaved quite rudely.”
For some reason, I understood. This was the first time Tara had smiled sincerely before me.
“If you had given me this information as a mere favor, without such a test, I would have found it difficult to trust you. That would be fatal in assassination.”
“Can you trust me now?”
“Yes. The fact that you tested me means you still need me, does it not? In that case, you have no reason to endanger me.”
To grasp that much so quickly.
“You’re quick to understand.”
At that moment, my desire to make her my person grew even stronger.
“Thank you for the compliment. I should be going now. I wish to begin preparations for my revenge immediately.”
“You’re planning to carry it out tomorrow?”
“My heart would like to, but tomorrow will be difficult. Still, I will finish it as soon as possible.”
Tara’s eyes burned—quieter than yesterday, but more fiercely.
“I am grateful to you.”
With her gaze lowered to the ground, she continued,
“Yesterday, when you told me to wait despite my enemy standing before me, I resented you deeply. But once I cooled down, I understood. One must not deal with him in an emotional state. Revenge has meaning only when it is carried out more coldly and perfectly.”
I tried not to imagine the different end Baron Schilean would now meet. He was not someone worth pitying.
“I hope your revenge succeeds.”
I meant it sincerely.
Tara looked at me, hesitated for a moment, and then made a request.
It was something quite unexpected.
