Chapter : 63
The Marquis Quend, who had stormed in like a tempest, had finally left.
A few days later, a mailbox arrived with a brief note addressed to the Marquis.
“After searching through the mansion and your husband’s office, I found two more mailboxes.
I’m sending them along.
I replaced the magical mailbox with a new one, so he won’t notice.”
‘So it seems the Marquis Quend’s husband also had a separate office mailbox.’
Of course, it would have been more convenient that way if they were conspiring.
Then I should start by searching this suspicious office mailbox first.
‘Let’s try restoring letters from three years ago, the ones I can handle first.’
I placed my hand on the office mailbox and said,
“Everyone ready?”
Elin, Bellin, and Selin, who were waiting in the office, nodded in response.
“Yes, we’ll organize the letters as they come out of the mailbox.”
“It’s nice to escape the resort work for a bit and do some simple labor. A change of pace is good sometimes.”
“Exactly~! Lately, I’ve been struggling with designing amenity bottles all the time~!”
I had briefly explained the situation to the three sisters.
I couldn’t go through and sort three years’ worth of letters on my own.
‘Of course, because of the oath of secrecy I swore with Marquis Quend, I couldn’t explain everything in detail.’
I had carefully explained things in a way that wouldn’t break that oath.
‘That’s my specialty.’
Above all, these three sisters were fairly trustworthy.
Elin, under the obedience spell I had cast, was no problem, and with Elin around, her sisters Bellin and Selin were unlikely to betray me.
“Then let’s begin.”
I used magical forensics on the mailbox.
Soon, magical energy flowed out, and letters started pouring from the mailbox.
“Kids, check the contents of the letters and organize them by date.”
“And we should separate them by sender and recipient too.”
“Oh! Then we can just list them in recipient-sender order!”
Thanks to their experience as maids, they quickly opened the letters, read the contents, and began sorting them.
While the sisters busily worked, I drank a specially-made magical potion to steady myself.
‘This potion really helps.’
Magical forensics consumed a lot of mana.
Honestly, only someone like me could restore letters from as far back as three years; for other mages, one month would probably be the limit.
‘And not every mage could even execute forensics in the first place.’
Besides, the Tadibna and Amenity Edition projects from the Mias team were almost finished.
Once announced, huge crowds would surely swarm in, so I was pre-charging my mana core in advance.
‘Using forensics now has used up some of that mana.’
I’d definitely get a good reward from the Marquis for this.
After a brief rest and finishing the potion, I returned to the magical mailbox.
“Kids, once the office mailbox is done, we’ll restore the mansion mailbox too. We can go faster then, right?”
“Yes!”
The sisters moved their hands swiftly and answered energetically.
Smiling at their enthusiasm, I placed my hand on the mailbox again.
‘I’ll have to give them a nice bonus.’
And so, the letter restoration continued for a while.
“Hmm.”
I carefully looked over the letters, now organized chronologically by the three sisters.
Fortunately, letters exchanged with someone presumed to be from the Mage Tower, used to scam Marquis Quend, were all intact.
The initials of the Mage Tower contact in the letters were “M.”
‘M…’
There were several people at the Mage Tower with that initial.
It was probably even a pseudonym.
So the initials could be ignored for now.
‘The important thing is, this proves the Marquis was defrauded.’
With this evidence, if she sued her husband, the Marquis would gain full custody of the child.
Everything would be in her favor; once the letters were handed over and she met the private mages, it would be done…
“The problem is this part.”
Among the letters written by the Marquis’s husband, there was another piece of information besides the planned fraud.
[Buseya (12)]
From Erno Orphanage
Both parents deceased
Magical talent present
[Reben Carmer (8)]
From Erno Orphanage
Both parents deceased
Magical talent present
[Narik Ling (9)]
Born in Erno region
Both parents alive
Magical talent present
It was obviously a suspicious list.
I scanned through the organized documents and tilted my head.
‘Now that I think of it, the Marquis mentioned something like this.’
- “At some point, my husband seemed to regain energy and started going around. He started some kind of charitable work with a few mages from the Mage Tower…”
Charity work.
Apparently, he focused especially on children’s charities.
‘He even ran some orphanages himself.’
And he made a list of children and sent it to the Mage Tower?
And even assessed whether each child had magical potential?
I frowned and looked through the other letters.
The Marquis’s husband had carefully selected only children with magical potential from various regions to share with the Mage Tower.
It felt very unsettling.
‘He probably didn’t send this for nothing.’
Not only noting magical talent but also whether the parents were alive or deceased was suspicious.
Flipping quickly through the list, one child’s name caught my eyes, making me widen them.
“This is…”
The child’s name was something I hadn’t expected:
[Leurasia Sherman (13)]
Born in the Lrebeta region
Both parents deceased
Magical talent present
‘Sherman!’
A very familiar surname.
It belonged to Virt, the physician who had helped me from the beginning and now led the Tadibna Resort medical team.
‘Come to think of it, Virt had a lost sibling…’
I narrowed my eyes and slowly followed down the list.
Next to the name Leurasia, something peculiar was written in red:
“Exceptional magical talent. Must be secured.”
“Must be secured…”
I slowly wrote down the name Leurasia and fell into thought.
I sent the Marquis Quend the letters showing evidence of the fraud, excluding the suspicious child list.
The Marquis was overjoyed and shared news about the private mages.
“It seems they are extremely reluctant to reveal their identities, so they will secretly come to find the young lady.
The appointed time is exactly one week from today, at midnight.
The leader of the private mages will personally come, so talk to them carefully.”
‘Finally, I get to meet someone important.’
The leader of the private mages coming to meet me personally was even better.
If I could persuade the leader, it would be easier to recruit the rest to the resort.
‘Who is this leader, and what do they want?’
I pondered this as I waited patiently for a week.
On a night when the moon hung unusually large in the sky,
whoosh—.
Bright moonlight spilled through the wide-open balcony door.
And below it, a stranger stood with the moonlight behind him, staring at me.
I couldn’t take my eyes off him as I prepared on the bed.
‘That man…’
He slowly approached me.
“This is the second time we’ve met like this.”
“……”
“Nice to meet you. My name is Ashil. People call me a great star or archmage leading the Mage Tower.”
“Ah—.”
“Right now, I come as a private mage seeking you.”
Step by step, he lightly removed the hood of his robe.
His face, previously hidden, was revealed.
Shimmering silver hair, pale white skin, and above all…
‘Purple eyes…’
The same man I had met at the capital train station.
He approached me with a blank expression.
“Didn’t Marquis Quend say I would come at this hour?”
“……But the appointment is tomorrow.”
“Ah…? …I see, I was mistaken. Midnight is such a difficult time.”
He seemed a bit flustered.
