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Chapter 13
At those words, Liriope’s face, which had already been flushed red, instantly burned hotly.
Theo stared at her intently with a peculiar gaze.
She wanted to avoid his hot, entangled stare, but for some reason her body wouldn’t move, and Liriope simply remained frozen like ice, looking up at Theo.
How long had they been staring at each other?
The corners of Theo’s eyes seemed to fold ever so slightly, and then he turned his body and began walking ahead.
Liriope blankly watched his retreating back, then snapped back to her senses at his words to come quickly, and followed after him, shouting.
“I really do like you! Why can’t you believe what people say?!”
For now, she insisted stubbornly, feeling that she absolutely must not let him find out that she had used him to avoid the engagement with the Crown Prince.
Whether Theo found Liriope’s stubbornness amusing or not, he simply nodded as if to say he understood, so just drop it.
Liriope followed behind him and kept insisting to the very end.
“I really do like you! I’m telling you, I genuinely like you!”
And so it was that in the middle of the bustling downtown street, a noble lady whose engagement announcement had even appeared on the front page of the newspaper, shouted her love confession at the top of her lungs to her fiancé, the Grand Duke of the North.
—
“Oh, look over there!”
While walking toward Combat Gear Street, in the middle of the street, she spotted a snack being sold that looked very similar to the cotton candy sold in the world she originally lived in.
Here, it wasn’t called cotton candy but cloud candy, and unlike the round cotton candy sold in her original world, it looked much closer to an actual cloud.
“Oh, that looks delicious.”
Liriope unconsciously ran over and began admiring the various colored cloud candies displayed in front.
She hadn’t particularly wanted to eat any; she had just looked out of familiarity and delight, but when she came to her senses, Theo had bought one cloud candy and placed it in Liriope’s hand.
“Ah, thank you.”
In response to Liriope’s thanks, Theo wordlessly raised the corners of his mouth.
Then he silently watched her as she began to tear off pieces of the cloud candy and eat them with obvious enjoyment.
Perhaps misunderstanding his gaze as wanting to eat some too, Liriope tore off a small piece of cloud candy and held it out.
“Theo-nim, you try some too.”
At Liriope’s words, Theo stared intently at the cloud candy she offered, then lowered his head and promptly bit the candy in her hand with his mouth.
Startled by his action, Liriope’s eyes widened, and seeing that, Theo himself was also quite flustered.
He was bewildered by his own unconscious behavior.
Not only had he never received food from anyone before, but he had certainly never eaten directly from someone’s hand.
Theo watched Liriope’s face flush red at his actions and let out a small, dry cough.
His lips, where her fingertips had touched, felt hot.
Theo tried hard to erase the sensation of her fingers from his mind, and asked Liriope, who was awkwardly just tearing off and eating the cloud candy.
“Is it good?”
“Yes.”
Liriope nodded with a deeply flushed face, and Theo looked at her while smacking his lips to erase the lingering sweetness in his mouth.
A small piece of cloud candy was adorably stuck to the bridge of her nose.
Finding even that tiny thing cute, Theo unconsciously let out a small laugh and reached out his hand.
“Why are you eating so messily, like a child?”
Before his mind could fully process the situation, his hands and mouth had moved first.
And again, his hand moved first, plucking the piece of cloud candy from her nose and putting it into his own mouth.
“As I thought, it’s not good.”
Theo squinted one eye like a child and grumbled that it wasn’t tasty.
Liriope stood so stunned that she momentarily forgot to breathe, but Theo didn’t notice.
Nor did he realize that his own ears and neck had flushed as red as Liriope’s face.
—
‘Somehow, the original male lead seems a bit strange…’
Liriope furrowed and unfurrowed her brows repeatedly as she walked, her head becoming complicated.
As she struggled to sort out this absurd situation, she soon arrived at Combat Gear Street.
Liriope recalled the small shop next to the general store that Rosearin had coincidentally discovered in the original work, and quickly scanned her surroundings with her eyes.
A general store with a blue lantern hanging.
Across from it was a large potion shop.
And the place selling tea leaves was a small shop selling various accessories.
As Liriope kept looking around, recalling the contents of the book, Theo, who had been watching her, asked.
“Tell me what you remember. I’ll find it.”
At his words, Liriope told Theo exactly what she had just recalled, and upon hearing her, Theo nodded once and began looking around.
Then, after a moment, he tilted his head in one direction.
“That way.”
Liriope walked quickly to follow him, whose pace had quickened slightly, and briefly wondered if this man actually knew where he was going.
And only after he stopped walking, and she stopped too, did she realize that the man had found the exact location.
On the left was a general store with a blue lantern, and across from it was a potion shop that looked much larger than the other shops.
‘Wow, what is this guy? Does he have laser vision or something?’
Shooting Theo a glance with a look of surprise and disbelief, Liriope then turned and pointed with her hand to the small accessory shop next to the general store.
“It’s there.”
Entering the accessory shop that she had found quickly thanks to Theo, Liriope immediately asked the shopkeeper for tea leaves as soon as she saw him.
“Do you have tea leaves here? The ones brought from across the sea.”
The shopkeeper looked at her with a puzzled expression, but upon seeing Theo following behind her, immediately nodded and called out.
“Ah, yes! Yes, we do!”
The shopkeeper quickly turned and went through a small door, then emerged shortly with a square wooden box.
Coming before Liriope, the shopkeeper opened the wooden box to show her, pointing to the neatly arranged tea leaves inside and speaking.
“These are precious, very difficult to obtain.”
They didn’t look particularly special, just ordinary-looking green leaves.
“I happen to have just brewed some tea leaves. Would you care to try a taste?”
Without even waiting for Liriope’s answer, the shopkeeper turned and brought out a teapot and teacup.
He probably knew that Theo was the Grand Duke of the North, and that was likely why he was so readily offering such precious tea.
As soon as he poured the tea, it was clear from the fact that he offered it first to Theo, who stood behind Liriope, rather than to her.
Theo brought the tea he received from the shopkeeper to his nose and inhaled the aroma.
At that moment, he released something like a breeze from his hand, causing the tea liquid in the cup to swirl and then settle down again.
Then he handed that same teacup directly to Liriope.
“It’s safe.”
Liriope stared blankly at the teacup held out as if telling her to drink, took it, and asked.
“What is?”
Instead of answering, Theo stretched his mouth into a long line.
Liriope looked at him curiously, brought the teacup to her nose, and smelled it, then her eyes widened.
‘Ah… this…’
The familiar scent prompted her to take a tentative sip.
“That’s right, it has a buckwheat aroma.”
It was definitely the same scent as buckwheat tea.
The characteristic subtle, nutty fragrance was one of her favorite teas from her original world.
Since buckwheat tea is made from whole buckwheat kernels, not tea leaves, this tea brewed from leaves probably wasn’t the same thing.
But being able to drink tea with such a similar aroma even in this world was, after discovering coffee existed here, the next happiest moment.
“Try it. It’s really nutty and good?”
Liriope held out the teacup to Theo, and Theo gazed at it for a moment, then bent his upper body and brought his lips to the teacup.
His elegant nose and sharp but beautiful eyes drew closer, and Liriope found herself tensing up involuntarily.
‘Wait, normally you’d just take the cup and drink it, wouldn’t you…?’
It seemed this man was the type who, whenever offered something to eat, would always bring his mouth to it first instead of using his hands.
Thinking he truly was a strange fellow, Liriope carefully tilted the teacup so his lips wouldn’t get burned by the hot tea water.
With Liriope’s help, Theo took a sip of the tea and straightened back up, nodding once.
“Not bad.”
“Right?”
“These are truly precious imports, and I’ve been serving them to customers who seek me out by word of mouth. I can confidently say that this batch of tea leaves is of the highest quality. It seems they were destined to become the Grand Duke’s property, haha.”
Encouraged by Theo’s approval, the excited shopkeeper launched into a flood of sales pitches directed at him.
Seeing that he indeed knew Theo was the Grand Duke of the North, it seemed Theo was a frequent visitor to the commoner’s Combat Gear Street.
“How many do you have?”
Theo asked the shopkeeper while watching Liriope happily sipping her tea.
‘A total of ten boxes.’
“We brought in a total of ten boxes.”
Exactly matching the number that came to Liriope’s mind.
Liriope took another loud sip of the tea and thought she would buy about two boxes for now.
One box could be a gift for Rosearin, she would love it.
“I’ll take all of them.”
Suddenly, Theo said he would take all ten boxes, causing both Liriope’s and the shopkeeper’s eyes to widen to the point of popping out.
“B-but, you see, Grand Duke. Since these are imported from across the sea, the price is…”
“Price is no object. Bring them all out.”
‘What is this man?!’
Startled by Theo’s statement, Liriope quickly set her teacup down on the table and glared at him.
Even if he had so much money it rotted and stank, telling a merchant he would pay whatever to have the goods was…
He was just too ignorant of the ways of the world.
If the shopkeeper got greedy and asked for the price of a whole mansion for the tea leaves, what would he do then?
Liriope’s worry soon proved not to be unfounded, upon hearing the price per box of tea leaves from the shopkeeper’s mouth.
“Originally, it’s 400 gold per box, but specially for the Grand Duke, I’ll give it to you for 300 gold per box.”
Liriope’s face instantly contorted at the shopkeeper’s words, spoken with a smile as if he were doing them a great favor.
“Weren’t you originally selling them for 200 gold per box?”
At Liriope’s sudden words, the shopkeeper’s eyes widened in shock.
“Well, it’s despicable that you tried to take the Grand Duke for a fool, but since I really need these tea leaves, I’ll let it slide this time. Charge 200 gold per box, but I’ll only pay for nine boxes.”
“Wha… what?!”
“I’m aware that even 200 gold per box is more than ten times the price you paid for them.”
At that, the shopkeeper swallowed dryly, at a loss for what to do.
And in that moment, the shrewd shopkeeper turned to Theo and said.
“G-grand Duke. It seems the Grand Duchess is too naive about such matters.”
…What? Grand Duchess?
