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chapter 66
“This is for the young master.”
The cake placed on the table gave off a dangerously sweet smell.
“……”
Clare stared fixedly at it.
“…You mustn’t eat it.”
“I know that much.”
She answered curtly, but her eyes never left the cake.
“If you eat it, you’ll be cursed—just like the witches in fairy tales.”
“A curse like that can be broken with a true love’s kiss!”
“Then would you like to try?”
“Well, the world’s not that kind.”
Clare immediately took back her words.
“My grandma once said, if kisses could fix everything, there wouldn’t be any wars.”
“She’s absolutely right.”
“But… if our king and the enemy king kissed and fell in love, would there really be no wars?”
“……”
As suppressed nausea crept up his throat, As forced a gentle smile.
That innocent question of hers instantly conjured up a filthy soap opera in his head.
He nearly vomited up what he’d eaten a year ago.
Luckily, Clare didn’t wait for an answer.
“But that’d be gross.”
“Wouldn’t it?”
“I saw their pictures once. Both of them had beards—and they were ugly, too.”
Losing interest, Clare said, “I’m gonna play in the garden.”
“Don’t you have homework today?”
“I do, but I’ll do it later!”
Bringing her toy tea set from the garden, Clare set up an adorable little cake shop on the balcony.
“Just play for a little while, then come back in. And don’t eat the cake, okay? That’s for the young master.”
“Got it!”
As started to say something more, then gave up and went back inside the mansion.
Left alone, Clare began her business in earnest.
“Today we’re selling cake!”
Cake filled with anesthetic!
“It’s so good, people would die for it! Oh my, welcome, customer! What would you like to buy?”
She plucked one of As’s beloved flowers, crushed it with a rock to make pretend jam, and packed dirt from the flower bed tightly into a toy bowl.
“So, guess what—Lily’s dad stole her piggy bank last time. They say he used the money for gambling…”
While chatting with her invisible customers—
“……”
She suddenly stopped talking and glanced to her side.
A chubby face popped up over the white table. Plump cheeks wiggled.
“…Will I really die if I eat it?”
Murmuring to herself, Clare glanced toward the mansion.
As was probably preparing fish right now—he’d said he was cooking cod for Grandpa tonight.
“Hmm…”
Her greedy little eyes sparkled at the cake.
Unconsciously, Clare swallowed her saliva. She knew how it tasted—she’d had a bite earlier.
“It’s so good…”
She clapped a hand over her mouth, gasping, and looked around nervously.
The garden was quiet. Only the rustle of leaves brushing in the wind could be heard.
“Maybe I’ll just taste a tiny bit…”
Clare scooped the smallest dab of cream with her pinky.
“But it’s not my fault!” she said loudly, as if to justify herself.
“As makes everything so delicious! And this cake—it’s really good!”
And he just left it right in front of a greedy girl like me!
“Would I really die from just one bite?”
With reckless confidence, Clare squeezed her eyes shut and raised her cream-covered finger to her mouth.
But her tiny hand froze right before it touched her lips.
“…Huh?”
She peeked open one eye.
“Lady Adverlo.”
A tousled mop of brown hair that needed trimming, sleepy eyes with glimmering green irises—
“What exactly do you think you’re doing?”
The man’s large hand completely enclosed Clare’s small one, stealing it away.
“You mustn’t do dangerous things.”
The handsome man smirked, lips curling lazily.
“Arty!”
Clare’s eyes widened in shock.
Her runaway older brother, Arty, smiled gently.
“How have you been?”
“You scared me! And my cream…”
“You’ve turned into quite the glutton since I last saw you.”
He took out a handkerchief and delicately wiped the cream from her hand—an unnecessarily elegant gesture.
If it weren’t his little sister, it could have been mistaken for something flirtatious.
“Didn’t As tell you not to eat it? He said you’d die.”
“As would never do something like that.”
Clare said it with certainty.
“As would never let me do anything even a little dangerous.”
“Sorry, but As is dying to kill me. That’s why he put anesthetic in the cake.”
“You really don’t know As at all, do you?”
Arty froze, hand still holding her fingers.
Then Clare gave a mischievous grin, licked the cream off her finger, and swallowed it.
“It’s delicious!”
A sweet peach-flavored cream spread over her tongue.
“Oh dear,” Arty murmured smoothly.
“I walked right into a trap, didn’t I?”
At that moment, the floor under the balcony glowed with a brilliant blue circle.
“Magic…”
Arty knelt, examining the magic circle as if it didn’t concern him, then pressed his hand to the ground and released a pulse of mana.
“……!”
The magic circle repelled his power violently, as if mocking him.
The tips of his fingers burned as if scalded.
“Grandma’s work, huh?”
Needlessly complicated and ornate formulas—sharp enough to instantly counter any attempt to break it.
“Looks like you’ve been caught red-handed.”
Clare looked at him with pity.
Arty, however, found her calmness fascinating.
“Why are you so relaxed? You’re trapped in here too.”
“Nope!”
She stepped backward—right through the glowing blue magic circle, perfectly unharmed.
She stuck out her tongue playfully.
“Impressive,” Arty said, yawning.
“So Grandma put a nullification spell just on you?”
“Now you can’t get out.”
“I know.”
I came here ready to be caught, after all.
The spell began to take effect.
Arty’s eyelids grew heavier and heavier until he collapsed on the ground. Clare flinched at the sight.
“…Does it hurt?”
“…What do you think?”
“That’s what you get for living like that. Now no one can pity you.”
Her words were cruelly honest.
Arty chuckled weakly through his drowsiness.
Even as he lost consciousness, he found his little sister unbearably cute and funny—because she reminded him of someone else.
“You’re starting to sound more and more like your sisters.”
“They’re the role models of my life!”
“And I’m the warning sign…”
Don’t turn out like me, huh?
With that brotherly advice—
“……”
Arty lost consciousness completely, leaving the words hanging like a will.
“…Is he asleep?”
As appeared as if he’d been waiting for that.
Clare ran up and grabbed his hand tightly.
“Hey, As.”
She repeated what her brother had said before he fell asleep.
“My brother said you’re pretty.”
“Our young lady is always pretty, so he wasn’t wrong.”
“Oh…”
“Let’s go inside, brush your teeth, and do your homework, okay?”
Cutting her off, As smiled his usual gentle smile.
“…Okay.”
Feeling an unspoken pressure she couldn’t resist, Clare nodded and went into the mansion alone.
She stood on a stool, brushed her teeth in front of the mirror, changed out of her dirt-stained uniform, and washed her face and hands.
Then she took out her homework from the bag As had brought to her room.
Today’s assignment was math problems.
“……”
As she worked, Clare glanced toward the open door.
“Pretty…”
She remembered what her brother had said.
But he was talking about As, not me…
Feeling as though she’d been lied to, her little heart ached.
Meanwhile, at the Navy Headquarters…
“…I’m telling you, I risked my life to find this out.”
Under the excuse of submitting his bar tab receipts, Raxo visited the headquarters and told Leto what he’d discovered.
Leto read the back of the receipt Raxo handed him.
In messy handwriting, Raxo had scribbled top-secret information while waiting for him.
“……”
As he read what his friend had risked his life to learn, Leto’s face grew darker and darker.
“I know this case,” he murmured.
“The Finiche District explosion—it caused quite a stir last fall.”
Along the northern border, divided by mountain ranges, a long stretch of barbed wire was guarded by the army’s elite unit.
The Finiche District lay at the far end of that border.
And last fall—
A massive explosion of unknown cause destroyed part of the fence there.
“The investigation concluded it was the work of an Imperial spy.”
“That’s when the hawks started demanding war against the Empire, right?”
Leto recalled the newspaper articles from that time.
“The Empire denied involvement, of course.”
Like most citizens, Leto believed it was the Empire’s doing.
As a military man, he suspected and despised them even more.
“I didn’t believe it back then…”
Reluctantly, he asked the question he didn’t want to ask.
“…Was it true?”
Raxo grimaced and nodded.
“That incident—it wasn’t a spy.”
It had recently been revealed to be an inside job.
But questions still remained.
“What does that have to do with the current situation in the South? And how was that even discovered?”
“The spy told us.”
“What?”
“Yeah. Makes no sense, right? I couldn’t believe it myself.”
When he first read the report, he’d thought it was nonsense too.
“Brace yourself.”
Raxo gave a quiet warning.
Then said,
“Fred Relly.”
“……”
Leto’s eyes narrowed sharply.
“The man who introduced the pirate gang as smugglers for exporting their new drug to the Empire—turns out he was the spy.”
“But you just said the Finiche explosion wasn’t done by a spy…”
“It wasn’t.”
“……”
“But the spy did cross the border at that time.”
You understand what that means, right?
Raxo asked quietly.
