CHAPTER 56……..
“I suppose I should, shouldn’t I?”
I answered.
“I’m qualified to trade this information, and the value of both sides is equal. There’s no reason not to make the deal.”
“A wise decision, Lady.”
Ruellian walked toward the massive stained-glass window dominating the front of the room.
With his back to me, he manipulated something. One by one, words began to appear across the colored panes that formed the huge image.
My eyes widened.
So it wasn’t just glass after all?
All the panes went dark at once. Then, a moment later, one in the lower left lit up. Soon, several others began to glow separately.
Ruellian reached into one of the glowing panes, and a document-like bundle was drawn out.
Document transfer?
I gaped. That stained glass seemed imbued with an incredibly powerful, mysterious force.
Do the contracted information guilds exchange documents through some kind of teleportation magic? In a world without electricity, that’s revolutionary.
No wonder they’d managed to dig up a suspect’s entire background overnight during the Holy Trial.
How much magical power would it take to maintain something like this?
While I mused, Ruellian quickly skimmed and sorted the documents, his hands moving with practiced ease.
“Here we go. The results.”
He sat opposite me with the papers, divided into three bundles. He picked up the first.
“Eunice Gillian. Age 29. From a bureaucratic family, received a textbook elite education…”
He summarized Eunice’s background.
“After graduating, she received multiple letters of recommendation and was hired as an apprentice aide to House Rosen at nineteen. Recognized for her ability, she rose to chief aide at twenty-two, and for the past seven years, up to her current age of twenty-nine, she has served Duke Canel faithfully.”
The White Card containing my first request—“Who is Eunice Gillian, really?”—turned black and dropped beneath the plate. The now lighter plate tilted slightly upward.
But not by much.
“As you can see, there’s nothing hidden about Eunice Gillian’s identity. She’s transparent—boringly so.”
Ruellian picked up the second bundle.
“But when I checked the records of other guilds, something interesting turned up.”
On the document was stamped a black skull.
“What does that mean?” I asked.
“It’s from the Dark Guild. That’s not their real name, of course. Think of it as a kind of… errand service.”
He explained briefly.
“They carry out all requests in absolute secrecy. Normally, these records shouldn’t even be viewable. But I can access them. Of course, nothing can ever leak outside—this stays between us. Understood, Lady?”
“Understood.”
Satisfied with my answer, he handed me the document. A complicated client code stood out.
“‘Client x3827z80k’?”
“That’s Eunice Gillian. Three years ago, she began using the Dark Guild to monitor all your business ventures—very diligently.”
“Why?”
“No idea. Not even the guildmaster knows.”
The surveillance that had begun three years earlier ended about a year ago. I didn’t need to think hard. Remembering how Eunice had personally shown up at Aunt Queen Dowager’s interview hall, the meaning was clear.
“At first she was cautious, using the Dark Guild. But after watching me, she must have decided it wasn’t necessary. No brains worth worrying about—so why not just watch me herself?”
“You’re the first person I’ve seen analyze herself so objectively,” Ruellian remarked with a hint of amusement.
“Anyway, read carefully. There’s some fascinating stuff in those two years of records.”
I flipped through the pages. Then my eyes caught a name.
La Pabilia Restaurant.
A memory, buried deep as black history, suddenly surfaced.
Wait… this is…
Like a movie flashback, scenes raced through my mind.
As everyone knows, Aristina had ruined every single business venture. But there had been one that showed promise.
How surprising.
Well, no one can fail every time. Statistically speaking, even a fool should stumble into success once.
That was the case here.
Impulsive Aristina had randomly hired a shabby-looking street cook—who turned out to be a hidden genius.
As usual, she was scammed on interior design, but the half-finished look gave the restaurant a strangely stylish charm.
By sheer chance, business boomed.
Could this be my first success?
Aristina’s shattered self-esteem had just begun to mend when—
“Eeeeek! What is this?!”
One day, a customer screamed and flung his plate. Among the shards lay pasta strands writhing in cream sauce—along with half a giant worm.
“Uuurgh!”
The customer vomited and collapsed. Chaos erupted instantly.
“My Lady! How could you let the kitchen fall into such neglect?!”
“Unfair! I don’t do any managing! I don’t manage anything!”
Her ridiculous defense made headlines.
When the victim demanded a hefty settlement to keep quiet, she paid—only for reporters to burst in and declare she’d gagged him with hush money.
In the end, Aristina’s restaurant—just beginning to rise—collapsed spectacularly, reinforcing her image as a careless, stupid villainess.
Or so I thought…
My eyes stayed glued to the document.
It was stamped all over with “Internal Secret / No External Release.” And on it was the face of the very customer who’d vomited that day.
He wasn’t in a suit like before, but the features were identical.
“So this customer was…”
“A plant,” Ruellian said. He tapped the line in the record.
Client x3827z80k, La Pabilia Restaurant job: success.
“Wow…”
I was speechless.
I still remembered Eunice standing beside the raging Duke Canel, soothing him with, ‘The young lady probably just slipped up while trying her best.’
And all along she had orchestrated it herself? My scalp prickled.
“Finally, you’re making a real human expression.”
Ruellian’s voice snapped me back.
Had I shown too much emotion?
I quickly steeled my face. This wasn’t the place to lose control.
“I’m human too. Though in negotiations, I can be a beast.”
“To me, not a beast…”
“Then a monster?” I shot back.
“No. Where did I see that… Ah, right. Marquis Laval’s dog.”
…What kind of dog was that?
I racked my brain.
Then it hit me—an image of a tiny dog that barked furiously at anyone who so much as touched it.
Of course, it had a different name here, but it was unmistakable.
…A chihuahua?!
Crack.
The handle of the fan I’d been gripping since entering the room made a faint cracking sound.
Do you even know what’s hidden in this fan?
“But that’s not the main point,” Ruellian said smoothly, diverting the subject as he picked up the third bundle.
“The most interesting thing I discovered today is this: just three days ago, client x3827z80k filed a new request with the Dark Guild—for the first time in over a year.”
“A request?”
“Yes. They claim they’re preparing something very important.”
“They?”
“My sense is that Eunice Gillian is taking orders from someone else,” he said.
“To ensure success, they wanted a distraction, so they hired a decoy.”
I glanced down at the document he handed me. A portrait showed a woman with reddish-brown hair, green eyes, and a slightly crooked nose.
“Specialties: pickpocketing and acting. Three days ago she was assigned to the Imperial Department Store. The operation is scheduled for two days from now.”
“Aha…”
A strange sound escaped my lips.
Well, Eunice—caught red-handed.
Who would’ve thought this foolish young lady would nail you with the Empire’s top intelligence network?
