IWTGHFW CHAPTER 26

Episode 26

At this point, Rozen also began to feel puzzled.

You were chosen because you were the smartest—so why would that upset you?

Or was there actually a different top scorer?

Rozen parted his lips, ready to ask, but then shook his head instead. He chose to say something else.

“Whatever the start was, we can’t change that—so let’s just look at the present. Anyone could have become my adjutant. But the reason you became not just an adjutant, but a capable adjutant, is your own ability, Yen. I’d rather you not belittle yourself.”

Yen’s pupils, which had been fixed on the floor, trembled violently. Rozen didn’t know what exactly was troubling him so much, but he hoped Yen would stop dwelling on it. After all, as his adjutant, he already had more than enough on his plate.

Flick, flick.

The unlit signboard lit up. As if they had been waiting, people emerged from every alley and filed into Carrie’s Bar.

Some were there simply to wash away the fatigue of a hard day’s work with a glass of beer, but there were certainly others whose intentions were less pure—those headed for the “Jinkis” in the back.

I had taken up position on the rooftop of a building directly across from the bar. From the edge of the railing, I had a perfect view of Carrie’s Bar’s front entrance.

Because Reinolf had frequented the place so often, he was able to enter naturally as a regular customer. Ron, Sean, and Heffy had climbed across rooftops and disappeared inside somehow.

I picked up a discarded chair and set it near the railing, sitting down. The place must be doing very well—customers poured in endlessly.

Most of them I let pass without note, but I focused on the occasional noble carriage that stopped in front of the bar. If the carriage bore a family crest, I sketched it onto my paper; if not, I wrote down a detailed description of the person who stepped out.

Surprisingly, quite a few noble carriages stopped by, enough that my fingers ached from writing so much.

“The weather’s nice today.”

I had thought it was fully summer now, but luckily today a gentle breeze was blowing. The sky was exceptionally clear, with not a speck of dust, and stars glittered densely enough to form a Milky Way. Looking up at the star-filled night sky, I suddenly thought of nights in Korea.

A pitch-black sky with not a single star in sight. On rare occasions, a glimmer might appear—but it was probably just a satellite.

In Korea, it had been routine to leave for work before sunrise and come home after sunset, so the night sky was more familiar to me than the daytime one. If someone had handed me a box of colored pencils and told me to draw the sky, I would have immediately picked up a dark navy blue.

Life there had been a monotonous hamster wheel. If anything, the higher the position, the more crushing the workload and responsibility. It felt like nothing interesting would ever happen—yet somehow, I had fallen into an entirely different world, living as a twenty-year-old someone else.

I still wondered if this was really me.

Every morning, when I washed my face and saw the unfamiliar reflection in the mirror, it felt strange. Sometimes Imperial speech sounded like an alien language, and sometimes the vivid hair colors of people here seemed bizarre. On rare occasions, the whole world felt utterly foreign.

When that happened, the loneliness would inevitably pierce my chest—but now, I had someone to share it with. Sure, he was only fourteen, but having someone to talk to openly made a huge difference.

“Which house is that? Looks expensive.”

While I continued my watch—which was more like surveillance—another carriage stopped in front of the bar. Like the others, it was clearly expensive, but there was no family crest. That wasn’t unusual; anyone frequenting a slave market might want to hide their identity.

The important part came when the carriage door opened.

Five men stepped out. I wasn’t surprised by the number—they had a very large carriage. What caught my attention was that their faces looked oddly familiar.

“Why do they look familiar?”

I racked my brain trying to recall their faces while my hand moved quickly, jotting down their appearances. My fingers were nearly numb from writing, since there were five of them.

While I was describing the third man, another stepped out.

When the last man emerged, the five before him bowed deeply—so deeply, it was nearly 120 degrees.

I froze and studied the last man closely. Instinct told me he was far more important than the other five. I pulled a recording orb from my pocket—the one Ron had told me to use only for truly critical moments. This felt like exactly that kind of moment.

“Definitely gives off a high-noble vibe.”

Just before entering the bar, the man pulled a robe over his head. But not before I captured his face in the recording orb.

Golden hair, tall stature. A middle-aged man who must have been quite handsome in his youth. He had a solid build, but leaned heavily on a cane as if walking was a struggle. Each step seemed like he might collapse at any moment.

I don’t know who that noble is—but why do the men with him look so familiar?

As I tilted my head, the group filed into the bar. I finished writing down the last man’s details, marking them with an asterisk.

In the underground of the Imperial Cassian Palace.

There was a massive office unknown to most in the palace. Only the Emperor, his direct family, and the staff assigned there could enter this secret space.

A man sat in that office, rocking back and forth in a chair, a file in his hand.

“Aile. No family name, and a thoroughly commoner’s name at that.”

The man muttered as he set down the personnel card. He had thought the Crown Prince’s order to investigate the top scorer of this year’s Imperial Palace exam meant they were an important figure.

Still, since it was a rare direct order, the intelligence agents had eagerly gathered every scrap of information, stacking a thick pile of documents on the desk.

Knock knock—

Another man entered the quiet room.

“Well, you’re here.”

“You still have no respect for the Crown Prince.”

“As if that’s anything new.”

The man—gold-haired Crown Prince Rozen—frowned slightly, but said nothing else. He simply held out his hand. The other man grinned and placed a folder in it.

“Just as you suspected, Carrie’s Bar has a real backer—aside from Marquis Bareil.”

“Just as I thought?”

“Yes, exactly as you thought. The country’s going to ruin.”

Rozen’s grip tightened at those words, crumpling the file in his hand.

“That’s expensive intel. Don’t go crumpling it like that.”

The man casually handed over a second file.

“And here’s the background check on the commoner girl. Even if our reputation has fallen, don’t you think investigating a commoner—especially a young girl—is a bit much?”

“What are you talking about—a girl?”

“You didn’t know? This year’s top scorer in the Imperial Palace exam. A commoner girl named Aile.”

Rozen’s expression cracked ever so slightly at that. It was a different reaction than when he’d received the first file. The man watching him smirked in interest.

Quickly hiding the crack, Rozen asked in his usual indifferent tone, “Marquis Orion, who else knows this?”

“Let’s see… probably almost everyone—except you, Your Highness.”

Rozen stared silently at Orion’s grinning face before abruptly turning away, the documents in his hand rustling as they were crushed in his grip.

“Ah! Gold hair and golden eyes!”

While sitting on the rooftop, bored out of my mind, the Crown Prince’s face suddenly flashed in my head like a bolt of lightning.

Gold hair and gold eyes—the mark of the Cassian royal family.

Ah, why didn’t I think of it sooner?

“So that man earlier was a royal? Could he be… the Emperor himself?”

If he was the Emperor, then the reason the five men looked familiar became clear—they were all Imperial knights, members of the Emperor’s personal guard.

I didn’t see them often, but enough in passing that their faces had stuck with me.

Still, the idea of the Emperor himself going to a slave market in person was strange. Even Marquis Bareil didn’t seem to show up often.

“Maybe he’s the kind of man who doesn’t care if it’s strange.”

If he was running a slave market through Bareil, then maybe this far-fetched theory wasn’t so far-fetched. And the Emperor’s personal guards wouldn’t escort anyone but the Emperor to such a place.

I quickly wrote “Emperor appearance?” at the top of my notes.

Whoosh—

While I was jotting down notes, a breeze brushed past my ear. But it wasn’t a natural wind—it was the sound of someone moving quickly.

“Huh? That sounded weird—ugh-wah-wahhhhk!”

“Hmm. A strange scream. And it’s a scream from Soi’s world, too?”

Somehow, Narein was perched on the rooftop railing. When our eyes met, he grinned. Oh, great—just a bit bigger and he’d be… dangerous—no, no, focus, this isn’t the time for that.

“You—how did you…?”

“I escaped.”

“Escaped? Uh… what about the Captain?”

“The Captain? Why would I—?”

Looks like he and Ron missed each other.

I glanced down at Carrie’s Bar. If Narein was here right now, then…

That meant the four knights inside were probably wasting their time.

“Here.”

“Wha—?! What is this?”

Narein tossed something at me. I caught it on reflex, only to see it was a worn, old book.

No, not quite a book—more like a handwritten ledger…

“Wait—this is… a slave trade ledger?”