IBMLS 22

Chapter 22

Was it because I had been grinning foolishly at him without any restraint?
The moment our eyes met, Davin blinked, then quickly regained his usual calm composure. His ears had turned slightly red as he carefully let go of my hand and apologized.

“I apologize. I behaved rudely toward you, Lady Anise.”

“Hm? No, it’s fine. Days like this happen sometimes.”

When I waved my hand lightly with a smile to show I truly didn’t mind, Davin lowered his head with a relieved expression.

“I will return once I’ve composed myself.”

Then Davin left the room. The imperial knights also bowed to me before following him out. They seemed to think it was merely a small incident caused by Davin being startled.

Once the little commotion settled down, a maid brought me a warm towel, and I placed it over my eyes and quietly closed them.
How much time had passed?

Knock knock.

“Lady Anise, it’s Davin.”

Only after hearing Davin’s voice did I realize I had unknowingly dozed off. Removing the towel—which had already gone cold—from my eyes, I answered.

“Come in.”

Perhaps he had gone to wash up before returning, because his hair was slightly damp. The cold sweat that had covered his forehead earlier was gone as well. Seeing him dressed as neatly as ever in the impeccably pressed knight uniform of the Count Miller family, I found myself thinking:

‘Wouldn’t dark navy look good for the knight uniforms…?’

Not that the current uniform didn’t suit him, but Davin definitely seemed like the cool-tone type. And since I was the count now, wouldn’t it be fine for me to decide the color of the knights’ uniforms however I liked?

‘At least the commander’s uniform should definitely be changed to navy…’

While I was seriously contemplating this highly important matter driven entirely by personal bias, Davin spoke in a serious tone.

“Lady Anise, there is something I would like to request.”

“What is it?”

“Would it be alright if I investigate the mansion a bit? I would also like permission to inspect your belongings and confiscate any suspicious items at my discretion.”

Inspect my belongings?
When I tilted my head in confusion, Davin added an explanation.

“Now that your safety has been somewhat secured with the imperial family’s support, I intend to begin a proper investigation into who is targeting you, Lady Anise.”

Ah, so that was why he was asking.

I already knew who the culprit was because I had read the original story, but Davin still didn’t. It seemed he had decided the time had come to investigate the enemy targeting me.

“But your arm is injured. Wouldn’t it be better for you to rest for a while?”

I was worried about his condition, but Davin firmly shook his head.

“Please do not worry about that. More importantly, our enemies are likely destroying evidence and preparing their next move even now. We must act quickly.”

It was a convincing argument, and honestly, it would be much easier for me too if it was quickly revealed that the Duke of Raftan’s family was behind everything. So in the end, I nodded.

“Alright. Investigate whatever you need. Just don’t overdo it.”

At my words, Davin smiled brightly and pointed at the small bedside table next to my bed.

“In that case, Lady Anise, would you permit me to search the drawer in that table?”

I had no idea why he suddenly wanted to inspect the bedside table, but I agreed without much hesitation.

“Sure.”

After thanking me briefly, Davin strode over to the table and opened the drawers one by one from the bottom up. Then he reached deep into the top drawer and pulled out a paper bag I had never seen before.

“What’s that?”

I asked casually, but I froze at Davin’s response after he looked inside the bag.

“…There was chocolate hidden in the drawer. It seems to be the kind you used to buy often.”

Huh? Could that possibly be…?

It was one of the pieces of evidence Davin had discovered in the original story while investigating how Anise had been murdered.
Chocolate laced with a paralytic drug. The thing that had prevented Anise from escaping the lake after she fell in.

The instant I realized what it was, chills ran down my spine. Seeing my startled reaction, Davin asked:

“…You didn’t eat any of it, did you?”

“O-Of course not. I didn’t even know that was there. Why would someone leave chocolate in a place like that? Wouldn’t bugs get into it? How many days has it been sitting in there?”

Thinking quickly, I covered up the real reason I was shocked by pretending to be disgusted instead. I also made sure to wear a suitably uneasy expression.

Fortunately, Davin smiled faintly as if he had expected that response and warned me:

“For the time being, you absolutely must not eat snacks that appear from random places like this. Understood?”

“Yeah. Of course!”

When I nodded vigorously, Davin carefully picked up the bag from the drawer and bowed to me.

“Then I will head outside and investigate other things as well. Please rest comfortably.”

He had only just returned, yet he was already trying to leave again with only the chocolate bag in hand. Without thinking, I stopped him.

“Davin, what about your meal?”

“I plan to look around outside before it gets dark and eat afterward. Then I shall take my leave.”

“Ah… okay.”

Davin left the room looking strangely rushed, and I blinked at the closed door after being left alone in the room. For some reason, I felt oddly empty and disappointed.

I had naturally assumed that once Davin returned after resting, he would stay by my side again like before.

Embarrassed by my own misunderstanding, I scratched my flushed cheek with a finger.

‘Well… this is normal, I guess. Who would stick around someone all day long like that…?’

Then suddenly, a question crossed my mind.

But how did Davin know that chocolate was hidden in the bedside table drawer?

…?

I blinked for a moment. Then I yawned and stopped thinking about it.

‘Whatever. Maybe Anise had always hidden snacks there…’

“Could you examine the ingredients of this chocolate?”

Davin held out some of the chocolate he had found in Anise’s room to an imperial knight stationed at the mansion.

“What is this?”

“It is chocolate that Lady Anise is believed to have eaten on the day of the accident. I would like to determine whether anything suspicious was mixed into it.”

The imperial knight’s expression darkened after hearing Davin’s explanation. Nodding, he accepted the chocolate.

“So after we investigate it, should we simply report back what was in it?”

“Yes, please.”

After entrusting the chocolate investigation to the imperial knight, Davin hurried toward the lake beside the estate.

The sun had not yet set, but if he delayed even a little, darkness would quickly fall while he was investigating the lake.

Upon arriving, Davin first confirmed there was no one nearby before pulling a torn sheet of paper from inside his coat—a page ripped from the calendar in his room. The paper was densely filled with notes about everything he had seen in the dream earlier. Staring at it, he muttered quietly to himself.

“Today is August 24th…”

What exactly had that dream been?
Biting his lip, Davin looked at the notes he had written on the calendar page.

Calling it a prophetic dream didn’t seem right because it was not a vision of the future, but rather a dream where the past had changed. Yet dismissing it as meaningless nonsense also felt impossible, since the chocolate found earlier in Anise’s bedside drawer had matched both the appearance and location from the dream exactly. His instincts strongly insisted that it had not been an ordinary dream.

In the dream, Davin had returned to August 2nd—the day Anise fell into the lake.

And unlike reality, in that dream Anise had died that day.

In the dream, Davin desperately searched the lake for three entire days in an attempt to save her. But he could not find it easily. The Wish Stone was incredibly small, making it nearly impossible to locate in such a vast lake.

However, finding the Wish Stone itself was not what mattered. All that mattered was activating it and making a wish. So in the dream, Davin quickly gave up on physically locating the stone and instead stepped into the water himself.

The Wish Stone activates when it comes into contact with Davin’s divine power and earnest desire. Even if he did not hold it in his hand, the condition should be fulfilled as long as even a trace of his divine power touched the stone. So he entered the lake, spread his divine power throughout the water, and desperately made a wish.

Please save Anise.
Please let her stopped breath return.

But even after waiting until the icy lake water numbed his body and he gradually lost all sensation, nothing happened.

Was the lake simply too large for his divine power to reach the Wish Stone? Though the surface had originally been calm, perhaps the disturbance caused when Anise’s body was pulled from the water had sent the stone drifting far away. So Davin released even more divine power and continued spreading it throughout the lake.

For a long time, he poured an enormous amount of divine power into the water.

And then, something completely unexpected happened.