“There’s a tavern the chief frequents.”
“Yes, Miss. I’ve heard his cousin runs a bar that mainly caters to the villagers.”
The real goal of tonight’s covert outing was to casually make contact with the village chief at a local tavern.
Of course, there was a more specific reason I went to the trouble of disguising myself just to meet the chief.
Last night, before bed, I reviewed some reports and ledgers related to the estate’s budget.
That’s when I came across a few suspicious entries—evidence suggesting the village chief had been lining his own pockets for quite some time, to the point of bleeding the villagers dry.
‘If they all went bankrupt before the new town development even got started, that’d be a disaster.’
It’s only natural to clean out corruption before it festers.
Thankfully, thanks to Dante changing my hair color and casting a face-obscuring spell, I thought things would go smoothly…
…or so I thought.
Fuxx
That’s life.
“Excuse me, may I ask for directions?”
I stared at the man walking toward me with the setting sun at his back.
The male lead of the original story, the Crown Prince of the Empire.
* * *
About two hours before I stepped on the landmine that was the Crown Prince in the village square.
Nicol, who hadn’t even had his coachman’s license for a full year yet, handled the reins with surprising skill.
Thanks to his driving, it took less than an hour before we arrived at a town just big enough to be called a township.
At its center stood a worn-out clock tower, surrounded by the bare minimum of shops necessary for survival.
“Alright then, Isabel. I’ll meet you at the tavern tonight.”
“Are you sure you’ll be alright on your own?”
“Didn’t you say the architect is only available today? I’ll handle the banquet preparations, so just focus on submitting the wall repair plans and the logging request.”
Still looking uneasy, Isabel glanced down at the pitch-black cat cradled in my arms.
After a quiet sigh, he boarded the carriage again, leaving me with a final, polite request: “Please take good care of the young lady.”.
“See you later, My L I mean, Marie!”
Nicol cheerfully called out my alias before the carriage rolled away with Isabel in tow.
The village square was buzzing with preparations for the banquet just around the corner.
Nearby, a few townsfolk were already gathered, watching the square slowly transform into a small outdoor banquet hall.
“Hey, did you hear? They say Lady Salome was a real party girl back in the capital.”
“Tsk, is she going to stir up trouble in our quiet village now?”
“After ignoring the village for decades, now they suddenly send a new lord? What’s up with that?”
The villagers clearly had their share of built-up frustrations.
And it was no wonder—after the Duchess passed away, the former Duke hadn’t so much as glanced in Lucein’s direction.
Even when the villagers suffered back-to-back poor harvests—disasters for any farming community—he had only offered the bare minimum of aid.
Then, all of a sudden, the territory was handed over to a young lady who wasn’t even the official successor. Of course, there would be resentment.
That’s why, just before leaving the capital, I had asked Dion to host a small banquet for the villagers.
It was a way to both cement my presence as the new lord and ensure our first meeting started on the right foot.
“And of all people, they pass the land on to some infamous socialite troublemaker? Just great… ugh!”
“Hello. I work at the lord’s estate. Do you happen to know where the grocery shop is?”
The villagers flinched, startled by how silently I’d approached.
“That’s a different servant from yesterday… How many did she bring with her?”
“She’s the famous Lady Salome. You really think she’d show up with just one servant?”
Actually… yes. I really did only bring one.
Well, two, if you count the stable boy, Nicol—but my only official servant was Isabel.
“Still, come on. She’s just a kid—”
“Shh! Keep your voice down. Don’t you know what her temper’s like?”
“Whatever. If we’re gonna starve or get beaten to death, either way it’s the same.”
Just what kind of life did you live, Rose, to be this infamous even in the middle of nowhere…
At least none of the villagers had personally experienced my “rampages,” so while they were wary, they didn’t seem outright terrified.
‘Wait… did they just call me a kid?’
So Dante did cast a facial recognition interference spell on me. Judging by the reaction, he must’ve taken it to the extreme.
“The grocery shop’s right over there, under the blue roof.”
An elderly man with an impressive bushy beard pointed his cane behind me.
“Thank you.”
I bowed at the most polite angle I could manage, and the wary glint in the villagers’ eyes softened just a little.
I’d heard that most of the younger generation had moved to the capital, leaving only the middle-aged and elderly in Lucein.
Sure enough, nearly everyone gathered in the square looked to be of an older age.
Just as I was about to head off, one of the elders, who’d been whispering with the others, suddenly called out to me.
“You look awfully young. How long have you been working for the Salome duchy?”
“Oh, um, it’s been about two years now!”
I deliberately answered in a slightly awkward, innocent tone. It seemed to work—their suspicion eased completely.
“I thought you looked about the same age as my granddaughter. That cat—is it the young lady’s pet? She’s not treating you badly, is she?”
“Not at all! She’s really changed for the better lately. And this cat is mine.”
Without thinking, I hugged the yawning Dante a little tighter, now firmly claiming ownership of him.
“A kid that young wouldn’t know any better. Show her a little kindness and she’ll think someone’s a saint.”
One elder muttered, clicking his tongue, while I looked at them in silence for a moment before giving a bright, innocent smile.
“Have you all lived in this village for a long time?”
“Lived here a long time? I’ve walked these fields and paddies so much, I’ve worn down the cartilage in my knees.”
“Wow! That’s amazing. I heard Lucein used to be the empire’s top granary. I guess it was all thanks to you, Grandpa!”
There’s one skill I picked up during my time living deep in the mountains:
Becoming a good conversation partner for lonely elders.
“That’s right, that’s right. You could say Lucein once fed all of Belmire. Back in my day…”
Granted, those were stories from so long ago they might as well have been when tigers smoked pipes.
But for elderly folks with deep pride in their hometown, flattery like this always worked like a charm.
As the old men chatted proudly about the glorious past of Lucein, their voices hardened when they reached a particular part of the tale.
“If it weren’t for that damned evil god showing up here…”
…That damned evil god is currently napping peacefully in my arms.
Maybe I could pick up some useful information from them about our mysterious houseguest.
Glancing down at Dante, still sleeping soundly, I widened my eyes in curiosity.
“Evil god?”
“Kids these days grow up without even knowing Belmire’s ancient legends. Tsk, tsk.”
“The day the Great Emperor of Belmire—the one who united the Eight Kingdoms—was born, a gate to the Otherworld opened right here in Lucein.”
The day the gate to the Otherworld opened was the day a living hell spread across the continent.
From the place they called the “Gate to the Otherworld,” monsters poured out endlessly, driving humanity to the brink of extinction.
For nearly twenty years, the war between beasts and humans raged on.
And the one who brought that war to an end was the very same Great Emperor who raised Belmire—a nation once no more than a minor kingdom—to the status of an empire.
“The Great Emperor fought the evil god in the lake once called the Elixir of Lucein for three whole days. After a brutal battle, he succeeded in sealing the monster beneath that very lake.”
Adjusting Dante’s surprisingly heavy body in my arms, I recalled the lore I had recorded from the novel on the very first day I entered this world.
So the lake Dante had been sleeping in was once called the Elixir of Lucein.
‘Come to think of it… it didn’t sound like he was sealed, it sounded more like he let himself be sealed.’
Maybe that lake held a far bigger secret than even the original novel had revealed.
On the day the Great Emperor sealed the evil god, the Gate to the Otherworld was closed.
But perhaps that gate could never be closed forever.
According to the original setting, with each new moon, the gate would open again, monsters would pour out, and throw the world into chaos.
‘So the “Belmire brat” Dante mentioned must’ve been the Great Emperor.’
Not only did they somehow know each other, but Dante had gone so far as to allow himself to be sealed by the guy?
That “Belmire brat” Dante grumbled about the moment he woke up could only be the Great Emperor.
“Do you elders, really believe an evil god is sleeping in that lake?”
“Who knows for sure? But there’s one thing we do know. Ever since the Great Emperor sealed that creature beneath the lake, nothing but misfortune has plagued Lucein.”
With a sigh full of sorrow, the elder added the long-awaited information in a grave tone.
