Chapter 2
He won’t sell it no matter how much you pay. Why on earth does he want the music box of the dead?
“I need to find out why.”
When a deal that I thought would go smoothly ended in failure, I felt unnecessarily anxious. It was like being a child who had the thing I wanted most in the world taken away by someone else.
Siss instructed Derrick to investigate everything about the ‘Duke of Vegas’.
The next day, he came back after completing his research faster than she had expected. Sis thought it had been a long time since she had paid attention to someone, so she quickly skimmed through the report he had handed her. It took her less than five minutes to read the rather densely written text.
Alexis Vegas.
He was the illegitimate son of the Duke of Vegas, but he defeated his two half-brothers, the legitimate successors, and ultimately took the position.
Although he was not of the original bloodline, I heard that he
had been quite exceptionally intelligent since childhood, and that the previous Duke of Vegas had his eye on him. After becoming an adult, he first entered the business world, and his acumen was so excellent that he increased the Duke’s family’s wealth by several times…
Perhaps because of this, many people evaluated the current Duke of Vegas as a ‘big shot in the business world’. There was a perception that any business he invested in would definitely succeed, and everyone was quicker to keep an eye on his movements than anyone else.
The stigma of being an illegitimate child followed him around like a shadow, but with the title of duke and the power he gained thanks to it, that stigma was almost completely erased. Now, no one was bold enough to talk about being an illegitimate child in front of him.
But it wasn’t just his abilities that made him famous in the capital.
It is said that what is more wonderful than his outstanding brain is his handsome appearance, which seems to have been created with more sincerity than others. Perhaps because of this, from the moment he entered the social world, the eyes and interest of the young ladies toward him were tremendous, and his popularity has not waned and continues to this day.
But to Sis, such information was of no importance at all. What stood out more than his story was the last phrase written.
He has a hobby of collecting magic tools, so he often appears at auctions in the capital.
“So… … the music box of the dead is also one of those hobbies?”
You can’t hand it over for that reason?
Isn’t that the only thing that I ever wanted in my life?
Sis burst into laughter at the completely incomprehensible reason for the rejection. The thin end of the paper was terribly crushed by the force of her hands. Sis’s expression was correspondingly bad.
She took a deep breath as if trying to calm herself down. Then she slowly got up and headed toward the large window. Butler Derrick glanced at his master. Sometimes, when things got out of hand like a tangled thread, the master would just stand in front of the window like that and look outside.
She stared at the wall soaking wet with the falling rain for a moment, then suddenly opened her mouth.
“… … Then should I go and steal it?”
“Yes?”
“Yeah, that sounds good.”
His master would sometimes get lost in her anguish and would come up with some really absurd conclusions, and now was one of those times. What on earth was she thinking about? Her eyes were sparkling with life. Her overly lively eyes immediately turned to Derrick, who was dumbfounded.
“Derrick. Recruit a skilled thief and send him to the duke’s mansion.”
Her expression reflected in the window was confident, as if the brilliant plan would definitely succeed.
But her expectations were shattered in less than a week.
“… … He couldn’t even get over the wall?”
“Yes. We sent five people in total, and they tried to infiltrate exactly twenty-six times, but they were discovered before they could even climb over the wall, and they barely escaped death.”
Only then did Sis realize that she had greatly underestimated the duke’s strict security. The duke’s residence was indeed the duke’s
reflection. She washed her face dry as if she had no idea what to do about the overwhelming sense of despair.
Eventually, it occurred to her that if she had failed from outside, it might have been possible inside.
“What if I bribe the Duke’s servant?”
“Are you really going to do that?”
“Yes. If it’s impossible to break into the mansion, then you can just choose someone who can enter and exit naturally.”
Derrick nodded reluctantly, though his reaction was more shaky than the first. He had no way of stopping his master, who was so determined. Her struggle to leave this world seemed more sad than bizarre.
There had been no report from Derrick for two weeks since the order was given. But no news is good news, so Sis figured the second plan was going well.
But on the third week, Derrick came to see her with the same dejected look on his face as when he had reported on the first attempt the other day.
“I can’t reach that person.”
“Any contact?”
“Yes. He hasn’t shown up at the place where we agreed to meet once a week, so I asked around and no one has seen him at the Duke’s residence recently.”
Sis frowned at the unexpected news.
“Did he just take the money and run away?”
“I don’t think so… … This was left at the meeting place.”
Derrick held out a small piece of paper to her, who was looking serious. When she unfolded it, it was folded twice and had [3rd Floor Exhibition Hall] written on it in cursive letters.
“3rd floor exhibition hall?”
“It seems that he has told us the location of the magic tool. I instructed him to at least find out its location if he cannot steal it.”
“Are you sure it’s the servant who bought it? It might not be. And above all, where did the person who brought this go?”
“Until then… … .”
Derrick closed his mouth with an embarrassed expression at her remark. Knowing fully well that nagging him would not do any good, Sis ended the conversation with a click of her tongue. She stared at the paper in her hand and rubbed her temples.
“So what do we do now… … Is there no other way?”
Infiltration from outside failed, and there was no word on where the servant they had bought had gone.
After experiencing two failures, she had no more courage to make any more plans. Whatever plans she made, it seemed like they would end in bitter defeat in front of the Duke’s fortress-like palace.
Derrick stared at his gloomy master. Knowing what she was going to do with the music box of the dead, he was reluctant to help her. However, he was not ignorant of her feelings. He was somewhat swayed by why she was doing such a thing, no, perhaps because he knew better than anyone else in her circle.
“How about meeting in person?”
“Meeting in person?”
“I heard that whenever the Duke of Vegas appears in high
society, he spends the night with a woman he likes.”
“……So?”
“The place where he spends the night with that woman is the Duke of Vegas’s residence.”
Her head was filled with a sense of suffocation, and she flinched for a moment before frowning.
“Are you asking me to spend the night with the Duke right now?”
“I said that because I thought that might be the safest way to enter the duke’s residence.”
“Butler. What on earth are you talking about… … . Above all, I cannot show myself in social circles. You know that, right?”
Since Sis realized that she was different from others, she has not shown herself in any public places, including social circles. Furthermore, she has been secluded in her mansion for months, except for once a year, when she goes to the forest outside the capital where her parents’ graves are.
“It’s not that you can’t reveal it, it’s that you didn’t reveal it.”
Derrick’s voice, which pointed out the facts precisely, did not waver an inch. It was not just words thrown out, but sincere.
“It has been a long time since you last went out into society. There is no way anyone in society today would remember you.”
“… … But we’ve already put fake heads of households, like Dalian Millan, here and there. We can’t say that the head of household has suddenly changed.”
“Why do you insist on attending the banquet as the head of the household?”
Derrick added that she was particularly slow in thinking in this regard, although she was smart in business and never made to be told twice.
“You can pretend to be a relative of Count Millan and attend the banquet.”
“Even if I go in like that, how am I supposed to spend the night with that man? Should I try to seduce him like the other young ladies?”
Sis snorted as if he had made a funny joke. But there was no answer from Derrick. Instead, his clear, unwavering gaze was just staring at her.
So, those eyes right now… … .
“… … You’re not really asking me to seduce him, are you?”
“Since the master says she must obtain the magical tool by any means necessary, I am recommending the method that seems most likely for now.”
Derrick left the office after leaving a brief explanation to the dazed woman. Left alone, Sis felt her head pounding and held her forehead. In the quiet office, she thought for a long time.
After some time, Sis realized that the most likely way to succeed at the moment was to follow the butler’s instructions and enter the Duke’s mansion together.
The thieves known to be quite skilled in the back alleys ran away with their tails tied, and the bribed servants somehow disappeared without a trace.
However, it would be foolish to just sit there and wait for another magical tool like the Music Box of the Dead to be created… … Just in case, she tried to find the creator of the magical tool that created the Music Box of the Dead or someone related to it, but perhaps because it was a shady, taboo magic, she couldn’t find a single strand of hair.
Seducing the Duke of Vegas wasn’t an easy task.
Seduce a man. Seduction. One night stand. Sleeping with them.
Just thinking about it in her head is incredibly awkward. Times may have changed, but the aristocratic society she knew was a place where a woman’s modesty was considered a virtue. It was impossible for Siss, who grew up in such a world, to come close to such words.
‘Besides, he said that the duke was very popular.’
A man like that will be seduced by me?
Sis unintentionally let out a self-deprecating laugh. Even if it weren’t for her, there would be plenty of young ladies in this empire who would want to spend a night with him. Young, handsome, and powerful. She already felt like she had messed up before she even started.
‘… … No, still.’
But when she thinks back to when she was twenty, she wasn’t completely lacking in confidence.
Wasn’t Sis Millan also a socialite for years? Everyone wanted to dance with her and have a word with her. And her flower-like, fresh appearance hasn’t changed one bit since then.
Sis tightly clenched her hands, embracing the confidence that was slowly growing with the memories of the past.
* * *
“Master, your hair is so beautiful.”
Becky looked down at her red hair, which was rippling like waves, with rapt eyes. It was amazing how, with those eyes, her hands moved like a machine to comb her hair. Her hair was shiny and flowing today, especially thanks to the water mixed with perfume.
Sis’s hair hadn’t grown at all since time stopped. It had stopped along with the clockwork. Since she hadn’t cut it, her hair was always long enough to cover her chest.
“I want to have this color too.”
While she was combing, Siss looked up from her papers with a smirk. Becky’s hair, visible through the mirror, was auburn, closer to brown than red.
“When I die, pull out all my hair.”
“Oh, my. Here you go again.”
When Becky first heard this joke from Sis, her face turned pale.
She was the master, higher in rank than the butler and the head maid, so the joke didn’t seem like a joke to her.
“But are you really going to the banquet today?”
Becky’s question was answered with a sigh instead of an answer from Sis. She had been sighing more often than usual these days. She was already having a headache because of a small problem with the business she was working on, and now that she had to go to a banquet, her headache was really bad.
“Everyone will fall in love with you when they see you, Master!”
Becky’s brown eyes sparkled like a country girl dreaming of making her debut in society. She nodded with an expression of little anticipation, having already experienced her debut in society hundreds of years ago. Whether she did or not, Becky worked hard to make herself beautiful as Derrick had instructed.
After finishing her preparations and looking into the mirror, Sis felt strange. Even in the distant past, she was looking into the mirror like this, wearing a dress made of soft fabric and wearing sparkling jewelry. At that time, her expression was excited by the excitement of the banquet, but now… … she was frozen with tension.
“What should I style you with?”
Becky asked, meeting her eyes through the mirror. The answer came from the doorway.
“Just organize it so that it flows naturally.”
“Oh, yes, butler!”
Derrick, who had been there for some time, was standing there staring at Sis. Becky skillfully smoothed her luscious red hair and let it fall over her exposed shoulders.
Derrick, who had come into the bedroom after apologizing, met her gaze through the mirror and smiled at her. It had been so long since she had seen his smile that Sis didn’t even recognize it for a moment.
“You look so beautiful today.”
As if to prove that it wasn’t a face that stirred up the social world for nothing, the face seen through the mirror was incredibly beautiful. At least that’s how it appeared to other people.
But it was different for Sis. Her pale face and artificially colored red lips all looked unnatural, as if they had been forcibly injected with life. It was so bad that she hated looking in the mirror.
“… … It’s a good thing the Duke of Vegas likes red hair.
Otherwise, I would have had to get a wig.”
“That’s true.”
It took a little over a week from the time I made up my mind to the time I actually put it into action. As luck would have it, a banquet hosted by the palace was scheduled for a week later.
Meanwhile, Sis had been fabricating documents to disguise herself as a distant relative of the acting head of the household, Count Millan, while at the same time gathering information on the Duke of Vegas. As a result, she was discovered that his tastes were quite firm.
The most common trait among the women he had met and spent nights with in high society was that they had red hair as dark as blood and green eyes as fresh as leaves. Fortunately or unfortunately, Siss’s appearance was also red hair and green eyes.
Sis, who was carefully getting up, frowned. The dress that clung tightly to her body, revealing her figure, and wrapped her legs in a dangling manner, as well as the accessories that made her earlobes, neck, and other body parts feel awkward and unfamiliar. In the past, when she wore this kind of outfit every day, the dress felt as light as a training uniform.
Coming down to the first floor, I saw Count Millan standing at the entrance of the hall. In fact, his real name was Hosson, and he was a commoner without even a decent surname. He was astonished to see Sis, who always dressed neatly, come out properly. He came to his senses at the sound of the servants and opened the door with a flustered gesture.
