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Chapter 24
Leonard Imperial Family. At the center of the capital, Erleth, stood a clock tower engraved with the eagle emblem symbolizing the Leonard Imperial Family.
Around it stretched a vast commercial district, and one of the countless ordinary hotels lining the streets served as the base of Black Rose.
Who would ever imagine that such an old, unremarkable hotel building was actually Black Rose’s headquarters?
That outdated concept of a secret hideout was the reason this location had been chosen long ago.
“Welcome, guest.”
Facing the employee’s polite greeting, I silently lifted the edge of my black cloak.
After briefly glancing at the bustling cafeteria filled with ordinary customers, I headed straight behind the check-in desk.
Since the building deliberately adopted a completely common architectural style, finding this place was nearly impossible unless one possessed exceptional powers of observation.
“They’re waiting for you.”
More specifically, the difficult part was not the visible hotel itself, but the “real hideout” hidden deep within it.
When I pushed against the inner outer wall of the concierge room behind the desk, the attendant standing by the door bowed his head and spoke briefly.
“So they knew I’d come. How surprising.”
He did not answer my question.
That silence was itself an answer, implying that even he did not know the Captain’s intentions.
‘If he knew I’d come, then he must have known the assignment would be too much for me… Captain, teasing people like this.’
Grinding my teeth at the thought, I began feeling along the wall.
Now then, where was that hidden door again?
“Ah, found it.”
As I pushed part of what appeared to be an ordinary wall, a neatly maintained long corridor appeared.
Elegant red carpeting stretched through the hallway, and numerous doors lined both sides.
Out of all those doors, only one was real.
I had heard that opening one of the fake doors would trigger countless traps—blades flying from every direction, gas bombs exploding, and the like.
I had never experienced it myself, but according to Cheblin, who had drunkenly opened a fake door by mistake and barely survived, it was true.
It was a life-or-death security measure befitting the hideout of a renowned assassin organization.
Without hesitation, I selected a door and opened it.
The chocolate-colored door swung open, revealing Death leisurely sipping tea while seated on a sofa in the center of the room.
“Captain.”
Jet-black eyes beneath equally black hair.
Sharp eyes, a deep scar carved into the left side of his jaw.
Because of those unfriendly features, outsiders often mistook Death for the leader of some third-rate gang.
At my call, a piercing gaze immediately landed on me as though he had been waiting.
As expected, his eyes clearly showed his displeasure.
“Come on, it’s been a while. Could you relax your expression a little?”
“State your business. If you came here during an assignment, it must be important.”
The cold glare he rarely showed was frighteningly sharp.
Whenever rules were involved, he became merciless, glaring as though he might kill someone.
Considering that those regulations were directly tied to both Black Rose’s survival and our lives, his sensitivity was understandable.
Of course, having grown up seeing that expression since childhood, it affected me far less than it did the other members.
“As I reported earlier, I didn’t find anything particularly unusual about the target. I also went to the arena and investigated as instructed, but nobody knew who did it, how it happened, or why. It was as if only that part of their memories had been erased.”
“…Hmm.”
Sitting across from him, I emphasized how hard I had worked and appealed to the fact that I had genuinely done my best.
Death happened to be particularly vulnerable to this side of me.
And yes, I was absolutely taking advantage of that.
“The arena staff didn’t seem particularly concerned about the missing discarded oil. They didn’t take any special measures afterward either. Which suggests it wasn’t considered anything significant.”
“So you came because you lack information.”
At some point, Death had prepared tea for me and slid a steaming cup across the table.
Ah… the tea the Captain brews is always terrible. I should have made it myself…
“That’s right. But if I couldn’t uncover anything despite digging this deeply, maybe it really was just a simple disturbance.”
“You want to say the target was misunderstood?”
Though I had tried to phrase it indirectly, Death immediately caught my meaning.
I still maintained that Lys either possessed no power or had not yet awakened it.
“I’m not trying to defend him, but that’s what I think. Just because someone has Cassio blood doesn’t mean they automatically inherit the family’s power.”
In truth, not every descendant of House Cassio possessed the power.
Even among their ancestors, there had been many ordinary people without it.
“The target cannot lack power. You know as well as I do that there can be no exceptions for him.”
My lips pressed together at Death’s words.
The most important point in this debate was that among all previous heads of House Cassio, not a single one had lacked the family’s power.
“As you know, Lys Cassio is the only direct descendant left in House Cassio. The sole heir. He must possess the power.”
“Maybe he simply hasn’t awakened it yet.”
“Then your job is to confirm that. If your theory is correct and the target has not yet become aware of his power, then he’ll need a trigger. Power doesn’t appear overnight.”
The special ability that made House Cassio known as monsters was said to flow only through the direct bloodline—and specifically through the one destined to become head of the family.
So if Lys was the sole heir, then surely…
But suddenly, Death fixed me with a heavy gaze.
“On the other hand, what are the chances that he’s hiding his power from you?”
“…What?”
I had never considered that possibility.
The unexpected question startled me so much that I forgot to close my mouth as I stared at him blankly.
‘If Lys is hiding his power from me, that means he knows my identity.’
I couldn’t understand what Death was thinking when he asked such a thing.
Did he realize how much chaos those words could cause?
“We don’t know what form the Cassio family’s power takes. We have to consider the worst-case scenario.”
“So you mean the target might already know who I am and is deliberately hiding it from me?”
Even as I said it aloud, the idea sounded absurd.
My pronunciation came out slurred from sheer disbelief.
I wasn’t some amateur.
There was no way my identity had been exposed after barely two weeks.
Especially not to the target.
“If the other side is determined to hide it, and if they’re a member of House Cassio, there’s no way for us to know. It doesn’t hurt to keep the possibility in mind.”
“Even if the target did know, Young Master Highres would never just sit back and watch.”
Demon Highres.
A sly man with a cunning atmosphere.
If he discovered I was an assassin, he would immediately find some ridiculous excuse to throw me out.
He was the type who remained constantly vigilant, like a nervous squirrel, making him surprisingly easy to predict.
And if my identity had been exposed, it would have happened before I became a maid, not afterward.
‘Mending handkerchiefs hundreds of times. Cleaning the office three times a day. Massaging shoulders whenever there was free time. Taking Del for walks. Running over the instant tea cooled down to warm it again… Even real maids probably do less than I do.’
At some point, I had become so immersed in the role that I could hardly tell whether I was pretending to be a maid or had actually become one.
‘Especially during the first couple of days as his personal maid, I made plenty of mistakes. If they’d known my identity from the start, they would’ve had every excuse to throw me out immediately.’
If Lys had known who I was from the beginning, then Demon, his aide, would have known as well.
It was a perfectly reasonable theory.
There was no way that innocent young master would secretly keep my identity to himself, deceive his own aide, and only reveal it after I had fully adapted to life as a maid.
