IWTGHFW CHAPTER 50

Episode 50

It wasn’t long before my number was called.

I was guided to the seat right next to the attendant. There was a partition, but if I focused, I could easily hear their conversation.

“What can I help you with?”

“I’m looking for someone.”

“Please tell me everything you know about the person — their appearance, age, name, anything.”

I gave some vague, made-up details while leaning toward the partition on the attendant’s side. From the other side, I could hear the attendant and a guild member talking.

“You’re saying you want to send a letter?”

“Yes. Please have this letter delivered to the imperial palace.”

“Who should I put as the recipient?”

“There doesn’t need to be a recipient.”

“Pardon? If you don’t specify a recipient, it might not get delivered.”

“That’s fine. Just send it to the main palace. Instead, put this on the sender’s section.”

Send a letter to the main palace?

Ears pricked, I mentally filed away the keywords “main palace” and “letter.”

“Customer?”

“Huh? Oh, yes?”

“I asked for the age of the person you’re looking for.”

“Oh, right, um…”

After saying whatever came to mind and registering the request, I was presented with the bill. The guild member explained that finding a person was expensive and handed me the receipt.

Why is the fee a hundred gold coins?

A hundred gold was roughly a month’s wages for an ordinary commoner. I had all the costs charged to the Meteiler family account and left the information guild.

The attendant who’d gone ahead of me was nowhere to be seen. I looked around but saw no one in similar attire.

Still, I’d heard some new information today, so I decided to be satisfied with that. Repeating the key phrases in my head, I returned to the imperial palace.

When I went to report to Marquis Orion, only one staff member was present in the Intelligence Bureau office. He said the marquis was tied up with official duties and wouldn’t be available for a while.

“You’re Ail, right?”

“Uh… yes?”

“Oh-ho, so you’re Ail…”

The staff member looked me up and down with a knowing smirk. I had no idea what kind of reputation I had among the bureau’s employees, but whenever I ran into one, they often gave me that look.

I gave a stiff smile and quickly left. Since the marquis wasn’t around, I figured I’d avoid the bureau for a while.

I went straight to find Sean. Sitting in the captain’s office in Ron’s absence, Sean jumped up with a smile when I entered. From the way he casually brought out cookies and tea from the drawer, it seemed he’d already entertained quite a few guests in here.

…Aren’t those Ron’s?

Sean answered my look with nonsense along the lines of, “What’s the captain’s is yours, and what’s yours is mine.”

I took a cookie and told him about following Baron Vareille’s attendant to the information guild.

“Hmm. Sending a letter to the main palace without specifying a recipient? There are hundreds of staff working there. If you send it like that, it’ll probably just get discarded along the way.”

“He attached something to the sender’s section instead. I couldn’t see it because of the partition, though.”

“Then it must’ve been a mark that would make someone in the palace realize they were the real recipient.”

“Like a family crest?”

“Quite possible. Maybe not the Vareille family crest, but a symbol only the two of them would recognize. But… who would he send it to?”

Sean propped his chin up, exhaling through his nose.

If it was just to contact a palace informant, the attendant could’ve sent it under his own name. The fact that he didn’t specify a recipient made it likely the addressee wasn’t just some staff member.

After a moment of thinking, Sean and I seemed to arrive at the same conclusion at the same time and exchanged glances.

“No way…”

“Exactly. No way… that person?”

“That seems the most likely.”

We stared at each other for a while before both sighing almost in unison. No recipient, sent through the main palace — meant for someone whose name couldn’t be written down, not an ordinary employee.

Sean frowned even more deeply.

“But if Vareille still had a connection to the emperor, he wouldn’t need to send a letter through the information guild. That’s the strange part.”

He had a point. If there was still a line between Vareille and the emperor — enough for the emperor to order Vareille to silence or protect Marian — there’d be no reason to send a letter that way.

Which meant Vareille had been cast aside not only by the nobility, but by the emperor as well.

Then what exactly had he promised Marian? What could he offer when he had nothing left?

…Could he have just bluffed?

“I’m still Baron Vareille. Even if I’ve been ousted, my title doesn’t vanish in an instant. I can take care of someone like you, so do as I say.” That sort of thing?

An informed noble wouldn’t be fooled, but Marian was a commoner. From her perspective, Vareille was a man who’d wielded near-absolute power. She might have believed he still had hidden cards to play.

But if that was the case, why would Marian mention the prince to me? Wouldn’t most people hide something like that?

Ugh. I had no idea. My head hurt. Forget it.

Sean and I clutched our heads in frustration at a situation that refused to yield answers.

Back at the office, I sat down and opened my notebook. Nothing helped untangle a mess of thoughts like jotting them down. Moving my hand and writing things out sometimes made an endless tangle feel a little simpler.

As my pen scratched pleasantly over the paper, neat letters began to fill the page.

Ten years ago, the prince of Aint was kidnapped by someone. It could have been a worker from Kerry’s Bar or someone from another slave dealer. Either way, the four-year-old child ended up registered as merchandise at Kerry’s Bar after losing his mother — a horrible fate.
The emperor — notorious for his obsession with collecting slaves — bought the Aint prince from Kerry’s Bar. Did he know the boy was a prince at the time? Whether he knew before or after the purchase, he certainly knew afterward.
The emperor rejected all envoys sent by Aint to search for the prince. He even hid the fact that Aint had lost the prince within the empire. Was he afraid of exposing his own disgrace? In any case, he’s trash.
The ones who sold the prince to the emperor were Baron Vareille himself and Marian, who worked under him. If there were others, they were probably eliminated later. Marian survived because she quit the business and entered the imperial palace, cutting off her tracks.
Realizing the boy she’d sold was a prince, Marian entered the palace to search for him, afraid she might face retribution. But she didn’t find him. How did Marian learn he was a prince in the first place? That needs investigation.
So where is the prince now?

I circled and starred number six. The pressing question was where the prince was now. Did the emperor still keep him nearby? Hide him somewhere else? Or was he already dead?

I was still scribbling when a box was suddenly thrust in front of me.

“Chocolate?”

It was a familiar box — the kind Mien often gave me. Looking up, I saw Mien standing there.

“You’ve seemed busy lately. Are you doing okay?”

“…Mm. Not at all.”

I thanked her and accepted the chocolate. Come to think of it, my first vacation had been wasted without even setting foot in her hometown.

“If you’ve got worries, tell me. Even if I can’t help, it might make you feel better.”

She pulled over a chair and sat beside me with her usual calm expression. I popped a piece of chocolate into my mouth, letting it melt, and looked at her.

At first, I’d thought she was the embodiment of incompetence — but somewhere along the way, she’d become a dependable colleague.

Tapping my notebook with my pen, I asked:

“Is there any way to investigate the Inner Palace?”

“The Inner Palace? It’s hard to get in unless you’re royalty. Unless the crown prince personally led people inside, an investigation would be impossible.”

“I figured as much.”

Even the crown prince couldn’t just barge in without solid evidence. That would only give the pro-emperor nobles an excuse to accuse him of stirring up trouble. No matter how much real power the crown prince wielded, the one sitting on the throne was still that man in the Inner Palace.

Mien unwrapped another chocolate and handed it to me. As I accepted it, she spoke in a steady tone.

“That doesn’t mean there’s no way at all.”

“Huh?”

Meeting my puzzled gaze, Mien smirked. She went to my bookshelf, searched for something, and pulled out a booklet, setting it before me.

“This is… the Imperial Regulations?”

“That’s right. It specifies the rights and duties of palace staff. If you look here…”

She flipped through and opened a certain page. I scanned it quickly — it was the section on the authority of the Supervisory Department. Mien pointed to a specific line.

‘The authority of the Supervisory Department extends to the entire imperial palace. However, if the subject is royalty, approval from another member of the same royal line must be obtained; such approval may only be granted by a direct relative of the royal in question.’

“So to inspect the emperor in the Inner Palace, you’d need approval from a direct relative of his.”

“A direct relative like the crown prince?”

“Of course.”

Oh?

This… might be a way in.