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Chapter 3
“There’s nothing else to do. We handed them over to the police.”
Not long ago, a group had infiltrated Bluegate and carried out attacks at the barrier. They were members of the Revolutionary Guardians, intent on bringing down even the remaining monarchy.
Kohas Chetti continued speaking.
“Anyway, anything extreme is never good.”
Maria listened while trying to cut into a dome-shaped caramel cake placed on her plate.
It was winter, and the cake was frozen solid, refusing to cut properly. Irritated, Maria tightened her grip on the knife, feeling like throwing it at any moment.
Kohas said to her:
“And you, don’t get dragged into those protest groups. The ones wearing blue brooches. Don’t even talk to them. It’s been how long since the civil revolution succeeded, and they’re still protesting.”
“Yes.”
As if I wouldn’t know that already.
Maria let out a sigh that clearly conveyed her inner thoughts. Alexander, sitting across from her, chuckled softly. Then he stretched out his long arm and swapped his plate—half of his caramel cake—with Maria’s.
Maria looked at Alexander, who still seemed warm in contrast to everything else.
Sometimes it felt like nothing about him had changed, but there were red veins in his eyes and bruises scattered across his arms.
Maria had seen those marks on her mother as well. Seeing them forced her to accept that he was no longer the same as before.
When Maria finally managed to scoop a bit of cake into her mouth, a gust of wind carried the smell of blood. At the same time, Benedict, who had briefly disappeared earlier, walked in and dropped into his empty seat.
Alexander turned to him and asked:
“Back from work?”
“Yeah. Cleanup.”
Maria’s gaze shifted toward Benedict, who was slouched carelessly in his chair like discarded laundry. She asked:
“…That carriage earlier?”
But Benedict simply lit a cigarette without answering her. It was clear he was ignoring her.
It wasn’t her imagination. His attitude had changed drastically from a year ago. It felt as though he had grown further away than strangers.
Frustrated, Maria asked again:
“Did he die? That man?”
Benedict took a drag and replied:
“If he died, what then? You gonna bring him back to life?”
Maria shot him a glare sharp enough to pierce through him.
Benedict met her gaze calmly, then said to Alexander:
“Why’d you cut it for her? You could’ve done it with your eyes.”
“Stop teasing her. You’ll really get scolded by Maria someday.”
“She can’t scold me. I can only get scolded by you.”
Then he tilted his head toward Kohas Chetti.
“And the mayor.”
“You’ve outgrown the cute phase.”
“You used to say I was cute.”
“I did. When you were little—like a puppy.”
“When was I ever a puppy?”
Benedict grumbled and snatched the plate from the man sitting beside him.
The subordinate of Kohas kept his expression carefully neutral and signaled a servant to bring him another meal.
Even after taking it, Benedict barely ate—only picking at a few pieces of meat.
He had risen to a position where he could sit at this table, second only to the Chetti family, because he would do anything they asked.
Which also meant he had committed enough wrongdoing to reach that point.
And yet, Maria found herself unable to harden her feelings toward him.
Because a year ago, he had helped her and her mother leave Bluegate, where there were no proper hospitals and no treatment available.
Maria’s mother received care at a university hospital and spent a relatively happy year with her daughter before passing away.
“There should be mothers and daughters who are less miserable in this world.”
That was what Benedict had muttered while putting the Chetti mother and daughter on the carriage leaving Bluegate.
At the time, Maria had strangely felt that those words were something he was saying to himself.
She could never forget that help.
In truth, even if he hadn’t helped her, she would never have forgotten him anyway. No one forgets their first love.
As soon as dinner ended, Maria left the table.
She was not kept for the drinking that followed. There was no need to—her presence only made them uncomfortable. They wanted to drink freely without worrying about the girl.
Mon Deplano Casino consisted of three buildings. The largest was the main casino; the others were a hotel and a restaurant.
From there, following the garden path toward the sea, there was a refined, beautiful mansion—that was the Chetti estate.
Everywhere in Bluegate, such beautiful buildings had been erected, yet their original owners had all died.
The former lord, Camilo Scala, had been hanged on a “danger zone” sign and left there until he turned to bones. His wife, who had taken her own life, and their daughter were washed ashore in each other’s arms at the docks.
Their only son had been sold from ship to ship, living and dying as a slave.
Scala’s wife, Ingrid Lupo Scala, had loved gold all her life. That was why the casino, restaurant, and even this mansion had been decorated entirely in gold.
Her family, the Lupo house, was a powerful noble family in Western Geffel, known for its gold mines. She had decorated everything here like her homeland.
But the Chetti family preferred coins over gold.
Kohas Chetti left the gold leaf in the casino and restaurant but ordered all the gold removed from the mansion. It was perhaps the only decision Maria could agree with her father on.
Instead of gold leaf, the interior was lined with blue velvet, shared by the “Fifteen Contributors”—the fifteen figures who had helped secure Eastern Geffel’s independence from monarchy and nobility during the civil revolution.
Because of that, the mansion felt like the sea had been poured inside it. Even now, under the sunset light.
Only when blue-gold light filled the house like seawater did Maria Chetti feel any relief from Bluegate’s disgust.
Maria opened her bag of books and began placing them one by one onto the bookshelf. These were the books she had brought to read while staying in Bluegate Bay.
Organizing them took time. She would place one book, pause, open it and read a little, then take out another.
Her focus wasn’t low, but she struggled with sustained attention.
When something interested her, she would dive into it deeply—but only after some delay.
There was, however, one subject she could almost immediately immerse herself in: Church Law, which she had taken after a Tuesday morning service the previous year.
In the Kingdom of Geffel before the civil revolution, law was divided into royal decrees and church law.
Now that the kingdom was split, the only law applied in Eastern Geffel was church law, interpreted through precedent.
To Maria, who had grown up in Bluegate where everything was entangled and law meant nothing more than illusion, it all felt like fantasy literature.
Perhaps that was why it was interesting. Because she could never touch it, law felt no different from a unicorn with a horn on its forehead.
In Bluegate, there was a stronger rule above all law—power. Here, power, authority, and discipline were all the same thing.
Even Benedict arbitrarily judging gamblers who failed to repay debts was simply part of that system.
She ended up holding a casebook given by Professor Emelia from her Church Law lecture, and while reading it, the sun completely set.
She felt she should sleep, but she couldn’t take her eyes off the book even as she lay in the bathtub, continuing to read the casebook for a long time.
Then suddenly—bang!
One of the security guards, Luca, Benedict’s closest friend, pounded violently on Maria’s door.
“Miss Maria! Something terrible has happened!”
Luca always exaggerated even the smallest things, so Maria ignored him and kept turning pages.
But then Luca shouted again.
“The boss and Ivy have gotten into a fight!”
