How long had I been like that?
“One minute… has already passed, you know?”
I didn’t know the exact time, but it had definitely been more than a minute.
Sniffling, I pushed against Eric’s chest. He let himself be moved back without resistance.
Such a well-mannered man…
I rubbed my eyes, feeling an unexplainable heaviness pressing against my chest.
“Don’t rub them with your hands. It’ll sting.”
Eric pulled a silk handkerchief from his sleeve and held it out to me. I blinked at it, tilting my head.
Wait a second…
This is exactly what I did for Vivian.
So that’s why I thought I was acting out of character—it was all because of Eric. I caught it from him!
I had vowed not to live like a softhearted fool! Ugh, how did I end up like this?
Shaking my head, I wiped my eyes with the handkerchief.
This wasn’t, absolutely wasn’t, because of Violdred. These were simply the overflowing emotions within me breaking through.
I reminded myself of that again and took a long, deep breath.
“Huu…”
“Can I ask… if you’re alright?”
I glared at him.
“You already did, didn’t you…?”
Eric glanced away, looking awkward.
I wasn’t alright. But still—
“Anyway! Crying is crying, but the situation’s still the situation!”
“…Yeah. So, that means… we’ll go ahead and—”
Kill him.
That’s what Eric meant.
And to be honest, I didn’t mind the idea of Violdred’s death. But the problem was—
“Let’s not kill him.”
—something in my world had changed.
It shifted the moment I realized Violdred was still alive.
The moment I realized what my twelve-year-old self had done was justified.
Or perhaps—
The moment I finally forgave myself.
“…What?”
Eric looked shocked.
“I said let’s not kill him.”
“Are you serious?”
“Yeah, well… he’s going to die on his own anyway. Let’s not get involved.”
“…What do you mean?”
Rather than answering, I wiped my nose with the handkerchief.
Why do I always get more snot than tears when I cry?
In romance stories, the heroines always have delicate tears rolling silently down their cheeks.
Anyway, the important thing right now wasn’t my snot.
Sniffling, I reached into my robes and pulled out Mother’s note, showing it to Eric.
“…?”
“You can recognize what this is, right? It’s written in invisible ink.”
Eric’s expression immediately tensed.
It wasn’t something easily forgotten—the experience of passing out from toxic fumes.
He accepted the note cautiously, using only his index finger like he half-expected another gas trap to spring open.
As he read the faded, hidden letters on the back of the page, he murmured,
“…It’s the secret ledger. The one they said was lost.”
He flicked the paper with his fingers, as if expecting something to fall out.
Of course, nothing else came.
Only Mother’s scrawled handwriting danced through the air.
Feeling dizzy from the sight, I snatched the paper back from his hand.
“So she lied again. My mother. Why does she keep lying to me—dragging even me into her pointless tricks?”
Eric stared at me with a strange look in his eyes.
What? Why? Are you trying to say like mother, like daughter?!
Avoiding his gaze, I pointed to the middle of the ledger.
“Here. Do you see this name—‘Rebel Due’?”
Then I slid my finger to the amount written beside it.
“Wow, he really borrowed a lot. Eight hundred thousand gold—clearly doesn’t know the fear of owing spirit debt...”
This man has no idea who he's messing with,
I thought, shooting a look at Eric.
“Did you ever play spelling-change games as a child?” I asked.
“Of course I did.”
Eric’s brow furrowed slightly.
Oh ho, so even Young Master Scholarly-Torture-Manual over here played something other than deciphering ancient scrolls.
Spelling-change games—anagrams. A child's pastime, but also a common method for encoding messages in the cultivation world.
And that…
The witch used it often too. For example, the letters in ‘Ravel Dew’... R, A, B—
Eric’s face hardened by degrees.
So he
wasn’t
lying when he said he used to play. Not that he was ever the type to lie in the first place.
Anyway—
I continued, “If you rearrange the characters in ‘Ravel Dew’…”
“…Bluebeard,” Eric muttered under his breath.
Oho, that was fast.
I was quietly impressed. That’s right. ‘Ravel Dew’ was simply a masked name—an alias for
Bluebeard
.
“So when he said he had a personal debt… I suppose that meant a loan from the witch.”
Considering how hard it would be to borrow that kind of gold from a
non-witch
in the Southern territories, that made sense.
I gave a bitter smile and looked up at Eric.
“We don’t even have to lift a finger to deal with Violorde. Just toss him back to the witch—she’ll drag him to the South and sell off every unrotted organ he’s got left.”
“Hah…”
Eric grimaced.
“So the moment you saw this ledger, you figured Bluebeard was still alive?”
“No, not me exactly…”
But
Helena
might have.
If not, why else would she steal
this
section of the ledger?
That scheming woman…
When did she even lay eyes on this document?
Regardless, if Helena saw it, she must have realized it could be proof that Bluebeard was still breathing.
That’s why she stole the ledger from the witch, and the moment she realized the witch had tracked us all the way to the capital, she went to the coffee house to verify Bluebeard’s survival—
I mentally traced Helena’s likely plan and couldn’t help but be impressed.
That woman! Her strategies are terrifyingly precise.
Of course, she probably hadn’t anticipated the Duke abducting
both
her and the witch as part of his counterplay.
“The witch is gone. So are Philip and Helena,” Eric said with a somber gaze, his crimson eyes fixed on mine. “They’ve likely already been taken by my father.”
“We should eliminate Bluebeard first.”
Eric insisted on killing him—and I was the one saying
don’t kill
.
Wasn’t this backwards?
No time to dwell on that now.
I shook my head. “Are you certain they were kidnapped?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean… earlier, you said the coffee house only has two entrances. But Philip, Helena, and the witch all vanished at once after going to the washroom, right?”
Vanished into the heavens…?
The moment Eric said that, something felt
off
.
Even if they were abducted, how could they have left without passing through either entrance?
Something doesn’t add up…
Something…
Something strangely familiar.
I narrowed my eyes at Eric, who looked thoroughly puzzled.
“There’s something Philip is famously good at—have you any idea what our Philip’s true specialty is?”
“…‘Our’ Philip?”
Of course,
our
Philip. What, would he be
your
Philip?
Ah, whatever.
“Oi, this is what we call ‘window-walking.’”
It wasn’t my mother, nor the witch, who taught me how to scale a wall—it was Philip.
“If you wanna sneak into a lady’s house, you first gotta know where all the exits are. Do you even know how many kinds of exits there are?”
“Doors? Windows? Wait, why would I even need to know this?! I’ve got no plans to sneak into a guy’s house, you degenerate!”
“It’s about infiltration. After you sneak in, what’s next? You gotta get out, right?”
Eric looked like he wanted to ask why the heavens anyone would be sneaking into women’s quarters, but wisely chose silence.
In any case, the clandestine arts Philip passed on to both my mother and me were mostly focused on stealthy infiltration and graceful escape.
Even our escape from the witch’s underground sanctum was thanks to Philip’s methods.
According to his doctrine, there are
three types of exits
you
must
always scout beforehand.
“One, doors. Two, windows. Up to this point, even common thieves get that much.”
“Oh, so you admit you’re a thief?”
“Shh! Shut it! The final one is…”
“Drain pipes. The kind that run through bathroom floors, ceilings, or walls.”
I murmured, recalling Philip’s voice.
Eyes widening, I turned to Eric.
“The ceiling above the coffeehouse is surprisingly fragile.”
“Th-That means…”
His eyes rounded in realization.
I patted his shoulder with a grin.
“…It’s possible our scam-artist family didn’t escape
from
the coffeehouse—they might still
be
in the building. Like, say, the second floor? Didn’t you say the coffeehouse itself is on the first?”
Eric mumbled, as if he’d just taken a blow to the head.
“This is insane…”
He was smiling, but honestly—I felt the same way. What kind of family even
does
this!?
When I see them, I’m beating them all black and blue. Every one of those lunatics… Ugh, forget it. Just be alive, okay?
From the tail end of my resentment came a surge of desperate hope.
Eric then let out a sharp whistle toward the dimly lit garden.
From the shadows, black-clad knights emerged in silence.
“…?”
No matter how many times I saw it, it amazed me.
Where do they
come
from?
Well, I guess it makes sense—these were the princess’s personal guards. This place was their domain.
“Search the entire coffeehouse building. Immediately.”
The moment Eric gave the command, the dark silhouettes vanished once more into the hedges like phantoms.
I stared in awe, completely mesmerized by the spectacle, when Eric pointed at the note he was holding.
“This ledger—so most of it’s written in anagram?”
“Not
most
—
all
of it.”
Eric nodded at my correction.
“Then this here must be an anagram too.”
He pointed at a name scrawled near the edge of the page.
Alas… Kruner…
What the heck?
I tried rearranging the letters in my head. It was too long to solve easily, but then—
“Oscar Galliot of House Orléans.”
Eric had already cracked the code and named the answer.
“Oh! That fits perfectly—wait… wait a sec. What did you just say?”
My eyes went wide.
Oscar?
“You don’t mean
that
bald-headed geezer Oscar?!”
“You shouldn’t mock someone’s appearance,” he said firmly.
“This isn’t about mocking him for being bald—it’s mocking him because he’s bald
and
a terrible person.”
“Still.”
Eric grew even more stern.
Tch. I mean, he’s not wrong... but still. You mocked my hair too, remember!
“Your answer?”
Eric tilted his head down like he was lecturing a junior disciple.
As his flawless face came close, my heart started pounding for no reason.
Why are you getting so close!?
I quickly blurted out, “Yes! I won’t do it again! I repent!”
“Good. As expected.”
He smiled, pleased—like a sect master watching his disciple finally correct their temper.
Chapter 87