Chapter 31
The Crown Prince gestured as if to calm the commotion.
“It’s fine. You’re not nobles, and in a private setting, I’m not so rigid as to insist on being called ‘Your Highness.’”
“Such generosity… we are truly grateful that even commoners like us may receive your grace.”
After the other side replied, both groups exchanged silent eye contact and then went their separate ways.
Once they were gone, Max muttered angrily.
“Mocking His Highness? Unbelievable. How dare such insolent wretches exist! Did you hear them? They openly sneered, saying the noble faction and the imperial faction are all the same! His Highness never even discriminated against commoners, yet they dared to defy the Empire’s next sun to his very face!”
“It’s something we must get used to.”
The Crown Prince answered calmly.
Apparently, that was what people called the “romance fantasy way of speaking”—a kind of sarcastic tone.
‘I don’t even know what was so mocking about it.’
Yeniel, who usually avoided negative topics, didn’t add anything to the conversation. That alone made it seem Max wasn’t completely wrong.
“Sir Isengrif, say something! Outside you’re always showing off, acting smart, yet now you stay silent?”
Even though Max barked at him, Sian remained quiet. He didn’t seem in the state to talk.
What, feeling guilty now? Then he shouldn’t have abandoned me in the first place. I brushed it off.
When Sian still didn’t respond, Max faltered and eventually went silent too.
Then Yeniel spoke up.
“Did you notice a strange smell from those people? Something… rather strong.”
“Did we?”
I remembered smelling something as we passed by, but with the faint scent of blood clinging to me, it was hard to tell.
“It was a floral smell, wasn’t it?”
To my surprise, Max twirled his mustache knowingly.
“They were all perfume flowers. I caught an odd whiff of peony—quite out of place. I thought perhaps they worked in the fragrance trade.”
“That was floral scent?”
Yeniel asked, and Max puffed out his chest.
“I know flowers precisely, my lady! The blooms cultivated for perfume reek so strongly, they can even seem rancid. Who do you think I am? A palace attendant must know such things!”
“Hmm. Impressive, but somehow less believable when you say it, Sir Max.”
I chimed in with a bright smile.
“It’s true, Lady April!”
Max looked at me indignantly—then flinched when his gaze fell on the massive halberd in my hand, still dripping demon’s blood. Fear flickered in his eyes.
Yes. Not fearing a tug on the hair anymore, but whether one’s head might be lopped off instead.
Strangely enough, Max had been right.
Soon, the floral scent thickened the further we went—so strong it felt like a stench.
Then, before us appeared a flowerbed of monstrous blossoms.
At first, I hadn’t even realized they were flowers.
Blooms the size of a person. Stems towering two or three times the height of a human.
Closer now, we could see their fine hairs and tiny thorns.
Most grotesque of all, the flower heads were moving—slowly bending, as if to block our path.
“What kind of corridor has a flowerbed like this…?” Max muttered nervously.
“I’ve decided to stop being curious. This mansion is simply like that. But our way forward is blocked—that’s a problem. Sian, Sian, focus!”
The Crown Prince shook his advisor’s shoulder.
“My apologies…”
Pale-faced, Sian finally raised his head and studied the flowers.
“They’re all perfume flowers. Do you recall the people we passed earlier? The central staircase is beyond here, which means they passed through this flowerbed to reach the west wing…”
Unlike Max, Sian’s words carried conviction.
“That means either the path wasn’t blocked when they came through… or there’s some other way to pass.” Yeniel concluded.
She then turned to me gently.
“Lady April, be careful not to get too close to the flowers. They may be dangerous.”
“Yes!”
Her words reminded me of the time when I had no special traits, and she used to look out for me. But now, I held a demon-slaying halberd in my hand.
Still, she said it as if to shield me. Intentional or not, I knew it was deliberate.
Anyway, these bizarre flowers never existed in the normal mode of The Archmage’s Mansion.
“Shall April cut them down?” I asked.
“If they can be cut?” the Crown Prince replied.
“They’re bad monsters. Just like those sword-wielding doppelgängers, April cut them too.”
I told him about their grisly end.
“…So killing the demon didn’t open every door?” he asked.
“No! Some doors stayed shut, so April had to cut them open with the halberd.”
I answered innocently. By now, he surely understood just how powerful this weapon was.
“For now, please wait a moment, Lady April,” Yeniel stopped me.
“Why?”
“Not because we can’t cut them, but because there may be some condition to passing here. There must be a reason only perfume flowers were gathered.”
“I see.” I nodded.
Yeniel’s favorability has increased.
Nearby stood a white table. Reluctantly, we approached—it was closer to the flowerbed than I liked, but there were no other clues.
On it lay an invitation, an official letter, a crystal perfume bottle, and a book.
Yeniel unfolded the invitation first.
Drops of blood dripped from it.
“…I can’t read this one.”
It had been folded shut, hiding its contents.
‘Why did she assume it was an invitation, though?’
The official letter was at least legible, though many characters were broken.
<■■■■ Public Visit Schedule
Gift presentation … Perfume
Dinner banquet … Kitchen
Mansion cleaning … All servants>
At that moment, I caught sight of something swaying outside the window.
Bloodied hands, fluttering. The same ones we had seen when opening the lounge window earlier.
The others didn’t notice—it was only visible from my angle.
The hands waved almost playfully, as if teasing.
When I blinked, they were gone.
A normal occurrence in hard mode, perhaps—the final boss’s influence bleeding into even the third floor.
A headless servant shuffled up to the window to wipe away the bloodstains.
Meanwhile, Sian uncorked the perfume bottle, then quickly closed it.
“A nozzle. As expected, a perfume bottle. And this book explains how to extract fragrance with machinery.”
“But there’s no machine!” Max grumbled.
“There must be some substitute. Something equivalent,” Sian answered calmly.
Yeniel’s eyes lit with realization.
“Sir Max, you said it smelled like ‘perfume ingredients,’ correct? Would the fragrance differ once extracted?”
“Of course! Far stronger. Just a few drops diluted in alcohol make perfume. The raw fragrance is overwhelmingly concentrated.”
Max spoke with conviction. Yeniel pondered.
“Then those people… they passed without making perfume. They must have used some other method. We need to find what that was.”
Just then—
A high-pitched, chilling laughter rang out.
[Delicious.]
“Wh-who just spoke?!” Max paled.
Though we had kept some distance, the flowers bent their stems, bringing their blossoms closer.
The scent of blood thickened.
[Can I eat it?]
[Give us one human, and we’ll let you pass.]
[We’ll even tell the garden flowers to let you through anywhere.]
[Let us eat. Let us eat.]
The flowers swayed ominously.
