After the chaos had settled (if one could call it that), I managed to calm my mind and sat down across from Priest Andrea, who was now seated awkwardly in the prayer hall. His son had already been restrained and locked away elsewhere by Lady Lily.
Andrea sat at an angle, deliberately avoiding eye contact with both Erik and me.
“...Ahem.”
BANG!
Just as he cleared his throat to speak, I slammed the table. Andrea flinched, frozen, his gaze slowly rising to meet mine.
I scoffed.
“So... I heard the Duke has been quite generous with his donations to the Central Divine Sect?”
Andrea’s face turned a deathly pale, and he quickly shook his head.
“N-No! You misunderstand, Lady! The Duke's offerings were made not to
me
, but to the Heavens! To our Father Above!”
“Tch. And with that offering, you sent your son—who should be rotting in a prison cell—to a boarding school, and even bought multiple houses? If your Divine Father saw that, he’d probably smite you where you stand!”
I exploded, slamming my palm down again.
I’m angry about his corruption, not because Erik doubted me. That’s totally separate!
Erik, worried that my voice might carry outside, reached over and grabbed my arm. I shot him a glare and silently mouthed,
"Tch. Don’t."
Erik quickly let go, wearing a conflicted expression.
“Emelline Wedgewood… I never said I didn’t trust you…”
Before he could finish, Andrea suddenly sprang to his feet and spoke in a flustered, defiant tone.
“E-Either way! Since your parents have already been tied by fate and will soon be wed, w-why are you here threatening a priest?! If the Duke finds out about this—!”
His voice shook mid-sentence. I let out a sharp laugh.
“Oh? So now it’s
threatening
, is it?”
How do I get this guy to yield...?
I glanced at Erik.
He wasn’t brainstorming a solution. He was just holding his forehead, sighing.
Why did I expect anything else from this dead-weight...
Seeing the weariness on both our faces, Andrea suddenly seemed to gain confidence and raised his voice.
“Y-Yes! That’s right! Surely, the Duke is unaware of all this! But once he hears the truth—!”
—He’ll cover everything up, even protect me because of his ties to you?
Is
that
what this idiot believes?
I stared at Andrea, dumbfounded.
Does he
actually
believe the Duke will shield him? The same Duke who’d rob even fellow con artists like us blind if it benefited him?
If this gets reported to the Central Sect, you won’t even hear your own excommunication coming. You’ll just vanish one night and wake up serving as a spiritual laborer in some remote wilderness temple.
You stupid bastard.
I turned to the other dumbass next to me—Erik—and muttered under my breath.
“Could you
do
something?”
“...Like what?”
“Threaten him? Bribery, coercion—it only works when it comes from someone with status or money—”
Before I even finished, Erik stood up with sudden resolve.
THWACK!
Without warning, he stepped behind Andrea and struck him—right in the dantian.
Andrea dropped like a marionette with its strings cut.
“...?!”
I clapped a hand over my mouth, stunned.
“What… what did you just do?!”
“Threatening.”
“That’s not threatening! You knocked him out before we could even
start
!”
Erik looked sheepish.
“You told me to do something…”
Then, like it was the most natural thing in the world, he slung the unconscious priest over his shoulder.
I blinked at the sight, completely speechless. Then, clicking my tongue, I stared down at the limp priest and muttered,
“…This isn’t what I meant, but… fine.”
“Well… this should work.”
Lock him up first, then try a little coercion—maybe that wasn’t such a bad path after all.
I scowled at Eric, who was staring up at me with the expectant look of a spirit beast pup craving praise. He glanced at me cautiously before stammering,
“Th-thanks for helping with the… neg-negotiation.”
Negotiation? The man we were “talking” with was unconscious.
I clicked my tongue inwardly. Hmph. That’s what you get for doubting me in the first place. Do you even realize what I went through to get here?
I narrowed my eyes and stared at him.
“…You didn’t believe me, did you?”
Eric looked down at me, his expression sincere.
“I… wavered a little. But I believed in you.”
“Lies.”
“…Well…”
“Oh, look. He’s waking up.”
I pointed to Andrea, who had begun twitching atop Eric’s shoulder. Without hesitation, Eric raised a hand and knocked him out again with a swift motion.
“Ugh…”
Andrea slumped limp once more.
Eric looked at me with a faint grin. “See? Who else but you would I be doing this kind of thing with?”
I frowned.
“Is that supposed to be a compliment?”
“Working together always is,” Eric replied, wiping the sweat from his brow. “Besides, you're the only one who could come up with such a brutal, utterly ruthless solution.”
He gestured at the unconscious priest he was carrying like a sack of rice.
I placed my hands on my hips and nodded.
“Damn right. No one else could’ve pulled this off but me.”
…Even though this wasn’t exactly
my
plan. Still, I’ll take the compliment. Kind of leaves a bitter aftertaste, though.
I walked up close to Eric until I was right in his face.
He flinched back slightly.
“You gave me that hundred-thousand-gold check on purpose, didn’t you? Just to test me.”
Eric bit his lip and looked away.
“…Yeah. I did.”
A heavy wave of betrayal churned in my chest.
“It was… partially that,” he said, trying to soothe me.
I spun around and slammed my hand onto the table behind me. The sound cracked through the room. Eric jumped.
Grinding my teeth, I gave him a low, dangerous warning.
“If you keep doubting me like this, I
swear
, I’ll vanish for real one day.”
Eric frantically shook his head. He got the message.
Tch. Should’ve taken that ten thousand gold and disappeared when I had the chance.
As I seethed, Eric cautiously opened his mouth.
“By the way… why do you keep switching between formal and casual speech with me? If you’re gonna talk down, just stick to it.”
I replied firmly.
“What? Of course I have to speak respectfully to our young master. It’s a show of admiration, after all. Respect, pure respect.”
Eric looked unconvinced.
“…And besides, doesn’t it feel
way
worse when someone suddenly drops the honorifics on you?”
“…That’s… actually pretty convincing.”
Just then, Lady Lily stepped through the door. She spotted the unconscious Andrea and immediately called out as if everything made perfect sense.
“Lady Emelline!”
“I didn’t do it.”
Why is it always me? Why
always
me?
“She didn’t do this,” Eric confirmed. “It was me.”
When Erik responded, Lily turned to him with a pale, devastated face.
“Our... Young Master…”
What, what? Are you trying to say
I
corrupted him? I shot her an incredulous glare.
...Well, not entirely wrong...
Erik, clearly exhausted, said calmly to Lily, “Let’s move him first.”
“Young Master, this is the Sacred Temple of the Central Divine Sect.”
Lily clenched her jaw.
“I know... Oh, Heavens above…”
Erik muttered solemnly, lifting the unconscious priest higher onto his shoulder and glancing up toward the ceiling, tracing a divine sigil midair.
I asked, keeping my tone even, “Do you think your prayers will earn forgiveness at this point?”
“Prayer is for repentance, not forgiveness.”
“Right, sure. Whatever helps you sleep at night... Now hurry up and
move him already!
”
Unable to hold back, I shouted. At last, Erik sighed, ended his little ceremony, and ordered Lily to mobilize the knights.
Knights?
What knights?
Lily gave a sharp whistle toward what looked like an empty hallway. Out of nowhere, several men appeared and swiftly carried Andrea away like ghosts in the mist.
“...?”
I blinked, startled by how smoothly it all happened.
“Were you planning this abduction from the very beginning...?”
I glanced at Erik.
Our Young Lord... probably wasn’t all that innocent to begin with.
With a slightly uneasy feeling, I handed Lily a letter I had tucked inside my robes.
“I was planning to sneak this into my room tonight, but things got pushed ahead. If my mother starts looking for me at the estate, just say you found this in my room and hand it to her. That’ll keep her off my trail for tonight.”
If we were going to pull off a surprise wedding scam by tomorrow morning, I had to lie low in Erik’s prearranged safehouse for the night.
“What did you even write in it?”
Lily hesitated, but Erik, who had been listening in, glanced at me with curiosity. I held the letter out toward him—an unspoken
go ahead
.
Erik, caught off guard by my unexpected willingness, accepted the letter awkwardly.
As he read through it, his expression shifted dramatically. At one point, he looked up at me, then continued reading. By the end, his ears were red, and he stared at me in disbelief.
He asked, voice strained, “Wouldn’t it have been better to just say you ran away?”
I shrugged. “Then she’d come looking out of worry. But if I write that I eloped with a man in the dead of night, she’ll
never
dare look for me publicly.”
My mother still clung to the dream of a noble son-in-law—handsome, wealthy, virtuous, and powerful. She wouldn’t risk shattering that image.
Erik, face flushed, crumpled the letter slightly in his hand while trying to compose himself.
Eventually, he slipped it back into the envelope and passed it to Lily, adjusted his clothes with an exaggerated cough, and strode off alone down the corridor.
On the way, he tripped over a dent in the marble floor.
...
Yeah, the letter might’ve been a bit... creative. But to get
that
flustered?
This was what I wrote:
Two nights ago, I met a man at Blooming Rose Pavilion who was exactly my type. Handsome, tall, and built like a martial hero. He looked just like that lead actor from the stage play you took me to as a child. Seriously. I’m not exaggerating.
Chapter 30