TRFDTV ~ 21

Chapter – 21 

No sooner had Asili finished speaking than the attendants hurried in, pushing carts stacked high with trays of freshly prepared pastries and desserts.

“We should have informed you first,” she said warmly, “since it seemed the young lady was so fond of the refreshments.”

Though the words were considerate, the younger lady, staring into those piercing blue eyes, could not feel them as such.

Asili reached out her hand toward her.

“Now then, you won’t be needing that anymore, will you? It’s been a few days—best to dispose of it.”

But the younger lady did not hand over the pouch.

Instead, she clutched it tighter, desperately trying to change the subject.

“D-Don’t do this to me, please! Y-You should be questioning the Lemaire twins!”

“The young ladies?”

“They fought the night before they died!”

Her words were a senseless jumble, but Asili nodded calmly.

“They likely did. And?”

“Huh? Well… because they died the next morning.”

“Did the young ladies’ attendant suffer some unfortunate incident that night? No, right? Their attendant was perfectly fine then.”

The younger girl opened and closed her mouth like a fish, completely out of arguments.

This… wasn’t how it was supposed to go. Surely the Lemaire twins should have been the ones suspected.

As Asili continued to lay out her reasoning point by point, the nobles who had been whispering behind her back moments ago fell silent as if their tongues had been tied.

When Asili flicked her gaze, Sebastian stepped forward.

“Hand over the pouch.”

“N-No… this is—”

“Of course you can’t. There must be more inside than just leftover pie.”

At her remark, the girl froze, barely daring to breathe, while those nearby began to look puzzled.

“Young lady. If that pouch does contain nothing but leftover pie, then I shall personally kneel before you and beg forgiveness. But we both know that will not be the case.”

The girl only mouthed soundlessly, unable to speak. Sebastian reached for the pouch and pulled it from her arms.

He opened it and turned it upside down.

Out tumbled leftover pie and untouched confections.

If one saw only that, Asili’s claims could have been dismissed as nonsense.

But as soon as the attendants broke apart the pie, shrill voices erupted from the onlookers.

“That’s my bracelet!”

“Heavens—my family’s ring!”

Gems and jewelry, smeared with jam, fell out of the pastry, and every gaze in the hallway turned sharply upon the younger lady.

“N-No… no, I—”

She shook her head over and over, but there was no escape left to her.

“There is no honor among thieves.”

Asili’s calm words dropped like a hammer upon the girl’s bowed head.

“Take her. And find out everything she did the night the body was discovered.”

At Ludwig’s command, the girl was dragged away. Asili exhaled a long breath.

It had ended as she expected—but the tension leaving her body all at once left her dizzy.

She leaned half against Ludwig’s supporting arm as he held her steady.

“I’m tired,” she whispered.

Without a word, he swept her up into his arms.

When they left, the gathered nobles trickled away one by one, eyeing one another and keeping their lips tightly sealed—exactly as Asili had predicted.

When the crowd dispersed like receding tidewater, the Lemaire twins looked at each other, then traced the direction Asili had left.

‘I believe in the young ladies.’

Just a single sentence.

It wasn’t as if no one had ever spoken such words to them before—they were Lemaire, after all.

Yet in that moment… among strangers, only one person had believed in them without hesitation.

“Anri.”

“Yes, Cally.”

“A Lemaire…”

“Always repays a debt.”

Leaving the twins’ quiet vow behind, the unexpected commotion in the annex came to an end.

The following day, after a series of events tied to the Grand Duchess’s party—far from the little disturbance Asili had imagined—

“A messenger from the Imperial Palace has arrived.”

Sebastian bowed deeply, and Ludwig gave a brief nod.

“Send him in.”

The imperial messenger bowed as well and got straight to the point.

“His Majesty commands that you enter the palace this afternoon.”

It was expected, so Ludwig nodded again with little reaction.

“Very well.”

“My apologies, but…”

“Yes?”

“His Majesty requests that you enter alone.”

This, he had not expected.

Ludwig leaned back into his chair, fingers tapping the armrest once, then twice.

“Alone, you say.”

“Yes. That is the command.”

In other words: Asili was not to accompany him.

Unexpected, but no real need to ask why.

“You may go.”

When the messenger had left, Ludwig rose immediately.

The three aides, who had been silent and listening with all their senses sharpened, scrambled to their feet.

The eldest among them spoke.

“Your Highness.”

At Ludwig’s glance, he quickly continued with only the key point.

“Requests from various noble houses are flooding in. They are seeking an audience—not with Your Highness, but with the Grand Duch—”

“Decline them. Visits to us or by us—decline them all.”

The aide bowed at once at the sharp, decisive order.

“Yes, Your Highness.”

“As for letters and gifts, refuse—no. Accept them.”

They were for Asili, after all; it should be her decision.

They could screen the dangerous ones first and handle everything else according to her wishes.

“Where is Asili?”

“She is in the East Wing Library.”

Ludwig immediately headed for the library, and as he left, the aides shot each other looks before hastily organizing every document related to Asili.

A corner of the sunlit East Wing Library.

Asili was deeply immersed in a book.

Attendants quietly drew the curtains and set out refreshments nearby, but she paid no attention—her entire focus fixed on the pages.

Her fingers froze mid-turn, her gaze glued to a single word.

Ludwig approached silently from behind.

“Asili.”

“Oh—Ludwig.”

Even his sudden voice behind her didn’t startle her.

In her dreams, he had appeared behind her, beside her, even sprung up from beneath her feet.

“Look at this.”

Without even glancing at him, she pointed to a word in the book.

Her manner was shockingly casual, but the attendants only bowed and withdrew—they were accustomed to it.

Neither Ludwig nor Asili realized just how intimate they appeared to others.

When he came close, she patted the space right beside her, and he sat without hesitation—so close a sheet of paper would not fit between them.

“This right here. ‘Dimensional travel’? That’s what it says, right?”

She pointed to the sentence, asking again and again.

She had almost fully learned the language of this world in just a few days, but she wanted confirmation with her own eyes.

If the dimensional travel written in the history of House Volsheyk was real, then there was hope…

“Dimensional travel. That’s correct.”

At Ludwig’s response, the veins on the back of her hand bulged from how tightly she gripped the book, her breath caught in her throat.

I-It really was dimensional travel.

As if entranced, she continued reading.

It was a record of the ancient history of House Volsheyk—or could one even call it history?

It sounded more like a children’s fairy tale, or a ridiculous stage play script—completely unbelievable.

One absurd statement after another slipped from Asili’s lips.

“P-possession? Not spirits—actual possession? And they… what? Fought? With the world?”

If they had fought to save the world, she could have accepted a heroic legend—but fighting against the world? It was absurd.

“And the dimensional traveler came from the martial world…? Martial world? That’s a real place—well… I mean, I guess it could be.”

And then it said the Volsheyk of that era was a reincarnator. What kind of insane situation was this?

“Let’s see—after that—wait, this says they defied the will of the gods? Is this family cursed or something?”

“I have never heard such a story. But, if it’s Volsheyk… it is possible.”

Ludwig nodded seriously, and Asili gaped at him.

“If it’s Volsheyk? What does that—no, more importantly, this black market business—does it mean what I think it does?”

“Yes.”

So the family had once been famous for crime.

And what followed only grew more ridiculous.

“Infinite… regression? It’s hard enough to go back once—infinite regression? How did that even happen?”

Regression, possession, reincarnation, dimensional travel—fantasy tropes thrown in a blender.

The events were so bizarre that Asili checked the title of the book again.

[A Brief History of House Volsheyk]

History… a record of events that truly occurred in the past.

Though people say history is written by the victors, even then—this was too bizarre even for a victor’s tale.

The hopeful spark that had flared in her blue eyes began to dim and cloud over.

She wanted to believe it.

She wanted all of these fairy-tale-like miracles to be true—so that at least one clue could exist to explain the impossible situation she was in.

But she had to ask:

“Do you… think this is real?”