IRMP 21

Chapter 21

“The letters are in the second drawer of the desk, and the pen is on top of the desk, but…”

“Then sit on the sofa, Young Lady.”

Before I could finish speaking, Rishid strode forward. Before I even had a chance to stop him, he grabbed one of the desk legs, seemed to leap in an instant, and landed neatly on top of the desk.

Wow.

I opened my mouth in genuine admiration.

To think he could get all the way over there in the blink of an eye with that tiny body.

I guess there’s a reason he fights monsters after all.

But somehow, this seemed to be the fastest movement I had seen him make so far.

Why would he put that much effort into simply getting some stationery and a pen?

Hmm, I guess he does feel a little sorry for me.

I stared at Rishid with narrowed eyes before sitting down on the sofa. Soon, he brought the stationery and pen over to me.

“Thank you.”

Until now, I had always been the one looking after him, so this was the first time Rishid had gone out of his way to do something for me. For some reason, I felt rather proud.

Was this all the result of my efforts?

I had gotten this close to Rishid. It felt like I had taken another step away from death…

“What are you doing? Aren’t you going to write?”

“Ah, yes.”

Suppressing the smile that was threatening to spill out, I hurriedly picked up the pen.

So, the High Priest’s name was…

Erkael, right?

Even his name was pretty.

I was muttering to myself as I wrote down the High Priest’s name when Rishid sat down on top of the desk.

When I raised my head in surprise, Rishid pulled out a fresh sheet of paper and spread it out in front of himself.

“Don’t mind me. I have no intention of reading your letter.”

“Are you going to write a letter too, Grand Duke?”

“I need to tell Kassel Elbiance, that idiot, to find a way to deal with those people from the West.”

That’s right. Come to think of it…

There was still the matter of Marquess Rangard, wasn’t there?

First the Duchess had suddenly searched my room, and then I had been forbidden from going outside because I had given flowers to High Priest Erkael.

With everything happening, I had temporarily forgotten about it.

I put down my pen for a moment, rested my chin on the table, and looked at Rishid.

Rishid held the pen with both hands as if he were gripping it firmly and began writing his letter.

I thought he would at least ask me what I was staring at, but apparently he didn’t even have time to pay attention to my gaze.

He must be awfully angry with the western nobles.

Of course he was. In the original story, he had been taken advantage of without knowing what was going on, but now that he knew the truth, there was no way he would simply let it slide.

His red eyes rolled like glass marbles as they followed the neat letters.

Rishid’s black hair swayed slightly as he moved across the white paper.

With elegant gestures that didn’t match his small stature, Rishid wrote his letter.

…C-Cute.

Ahem. That’s not the point.

I had gotten distracted admiring Rishid and completely forgotten what I was supposed to be doing, so I quickly came back to my senses.

Then I carefully opened my mouth.

“Um, Grand Duke. Actually, there’s a method I thought of earlier.”

This is troublesome.

Rishid frowned.

He had unexpectedly ended up trapped in the same room with the Young Lady.

He had never imagined that the thoughtless thing he had done to test the Young Lady’s sincerity would lead to such major consequences.

It seemed that urging her to give flowers to the High Priest really had been his mistake.

That was why Rishid had planned to apologize to the Young Lady when the timing was right.

Besides, thanks to the Young Lady diverting everyone’s attention today, his foolish aide, Kassel Elbiance, had managed to avoid getting himself into trouble.

But his intention to apologize to the Young Lady when the opportunity arose…

“It’s simply because the High Priest is handsome. It’s not every day you get the chance to see a face like that up close, you know?”

…melted away at those few words from the Young Lady.

“…The High Priest is handsome?”

Rishid asked again with a stunned expression, unable to believe what he had heard. But the Young Lady gave him an even more outrageous answer.

“Yes. He looked just like an angel.”

Looking at the Young Lady’s face, as though she were wondering why he was asking something so obvious, Rishid found himself unconsciously clenching his fist.

“The Young Lady… I see. So you really do like that kind of face.”

“What?”

“This is truly ridiculous.”

He should have realized it earlier.

To praise another man for being handsome right in front of the person she had been singing praises about liking.

And on top of that, she said he looked like an angel?

Who exactly was supposed to look like an angel?

Airel Blandiche had always been a face that captured Rishid’s aesthetic sensibilities. Yet recently, there seemed to be some strange vitality in her that made him keep looking at her more than before…

No. That wasn’t it.

In any case, the Young Lady’s attitude was so careless that even Rishid, who had never experienced romance before, found it baffling.

But that wasn’t the only strange thing.

Why is my heart beating so hard?

His breathing felt strangely constricted, and he felt as though his body were heating up…

It was the same feeling he had experienced when he met the High Priest earlier, and now he was feeling it again.

Ever since he had become trapped in this short body, his body no longer seemed to feel like his own.

The Young Lady only ever does strange things, so maybe being around her is making me lose my mind too.

That was why Rishid turned his back on her.

He thought it might get a little better if he simply removed Airel Blandiche from his field of vision.

But then—

“In any case, if that’s what happened, then I should write a letter to the High Priest.”

“Wait. Why?”

At the Young Lady’s words about writing a letter to the High Priest, he suddenly sprang to his feet like a dog seeing its owner off.

Damn it.

Rishid cursed his own lightning-fast reflexes.

Meanwhile, Airel turned to look at him with a bright, smiling expression.

She had a pretty face—no, it certainly wasn’t ordinary, but it was beautiful enough that anyone passing by would probably turn around three times to look again.

And yet, it wasn’t a face that made Rishid fall in love.

It was simply that cute, adorable, pretty, beautiful…

No.

For some reason, it was a face he kept wanting to look at.

She smiled sweetly at him.

“Someone caused a huge and potentially disastrous misunderstanding, so shouldn’t I clear it up as soon as possible? Of course, he probably doesn’t care in the slightest—not even this much—but I’m not in love with the High Priest, so I should make sure to tell him that he has nothing to worry about.”

“That sounds like a good idea. Young Lady, write the letter immediately. Where are the stationery and pen?”

Rishid asked the moment the Young Lady finished speaking.

He didn’t know why, but he had suddenly become happy.

As though possessed, he volunteered to serve her and brought the stationery and pen before her.

It was something he would never have done under normal circumstances, but his mood had been fluctuating so wildly that he didn’t even realize what he was doing.

But when the Young Lady stopped writing her letter to the High Priest and stared intently at his face—

…That’s rather irritating.

Ever since he became aware of the Young Lady’s gaze, he somehow felt unable to breathe comfortably.

So he pretended not to notice those sparkling eyes and concentrated solely on writing his letter.

Kassel Elbiance.

Those were the eyes of his obnoxious aide, Kassel Elbiance, whom he didn’t even want to look at.

He repeated that like a mantra.

Then the Young Lady began saying something astonishing again.

“Um, Grand Duke. Actually, there’s a method I thought of.”

Airel tapped on the table as though knocking to draw Rishid’s attention and smiled brightly.

“There’s a way to silence the unfair demands of the western nobles. Would you like to hear it?”

“Have you ever heard of something called the Ather Chamber?”

Ather Chamber.

It was the name of an information guild that had only briefly appeared in the original story, but it was a massive organization with eyes and ears everywhere in the Retinoa Empire.

Was it somewhere toward the latter half of the original story?

Airel had handed an heirloom stolen from the ducal family to the Master of the Ather Chamber and asked them to help her escape outside the Retinoa Empire.

And because the Ather Chamber was an organization that didn’t shy away even from matters related to crime, they readily accepted Airel’s proposal.

Of course, after helping Airel leave the Empire, they immediately cut ties with her…

Since she had handed over an heirloom of the Blandiche ducal family, Airel assumed that the Ather Chamber would continue helping her, so she asked the guild for assistance again when she found herself in danger.

But the Ather Chamber coldly refused, saying, Our transaction is already finished. If you want to make another request, bring money.

Airel, now a fugitive, received that letter and fell into despair, only to be captured by Rishid shortly afterward.

Yes, that was exactly why I had originally intended to stay as far away from the Ather Chamber as possible.

But Rishid needed their help right now.

“Ather Chamber. No. I’ve never heard of it before.”

“It’s an information guild in the capital.”

“…An information guild?”

Rishid looked at me suspiciously.

“Young Lady, are you planning to buy information about the corruption or weaknesses of the Western Alliance from an information guild?”

“That would be good too, but it’s the opposite.”

I shook my head.

“Grand Duke, do you know what the scariest thing in the world is?”

Rishid’s expression became difficult to read.

I smiled confidently and lightly tapped the pen Rishid was holding.

“It’s a pen.”

Public opinion was sharper than any weapon. Sometimes, it could even determine whether a person lived or died with nothing more than a single word.

“We’re going to manipulate public opinion, Grand Duke.”

“We’ll sell information to the Ather Chamber. Information that the Grand Duke was seriously injured during the western monster subjugation.”