Edited…

7. Crossdressing…or a Disguise?

What should I say? Admit that I’m hurt? What if he tells me to explain?

“Well…”

Roselia hesitated to respond, and Klaus raised his eyebrow with a puzzled expression.

The shirt clinging damply to her back felt even stickier with sweat. Overwhelmed, her body stiffened, and she stammered helplessly.

At that moment, a familiar voice interrupted their conversation.

“He got hurt while protecting me.”

Klaus and Roselia both turned their gaze simultaneously towards the source of the voice. There stood Claucet, with her fists clenched, looking at them with a proud expression.

“He got hurt while protecting you? What happened? You’re not injured, right?”

“Well… I guess I’m a bit concerned about him?”

A peculiar situation unfolded. The petite girl with short azure hair, who seemed about fifteen, and the male with long blue-black hair who looked easily over six feet tall, were confronting each other without giving way to the other. Somehow, it made the people around them uneasy.

“What happened?”

When Claucet refused to answer and just glared, Klaus, sighing, redirected his attention back to Roselia. However, it was Claucet who answered with a sly expression.

“I slipped while getting off the carriage. Antonio tried to protect me, but ended up under me, and his back got a bit hurt when I was almost swept away by the wind.”

Roselia was so perplexed by Claucet’s nonchalant explanation that she couldn’t tell if such an incident had actually occurred. Of course, there was no such incident. Claucet had elegantly and gracefully descended from the carriage and met the maids.

If Claucet was lying to protect her, then… why? Could it be that Claucet has figured out I’m a woman?

Amidst various confusing thoughts, Klaus, seemingly satisfied, looked at Antonio once again.

“I apologize on her behalf for you getting hurt while protecting Claucet.”

Why are these siblings apologizing for each other?

In response to Klaus’s blunt greeting, Claucet snorted.

“Why are you apologizing on my behalf?”

Even with Claucet’s prickly reaction, Klaus, appearing unfazed, looked at Roselia with a calm expression.

“But I hope you don’t handle him too roughly.”

At the unexpected remark, both Roselia and Claucet looked at Klaus with puzzled expressions. However, before their surprise could last, Klaus continued with a graceful smile.

“Until all the debts are repaid, that body doesn’t belong to you.”

It was a statement open to misunderstandings, but the expressions of Roselia and Claucet, who clearly understood the underlying meaning, chilled as if frozen.

When he mentioned Roselia’s body, it meant her body had utility value in repaying debts, quite literally.

After uttering those words, Klaus left a message for Jeffrey, stating that he would have his meal in the office, and swiftly exited the room. Only after he disappeared did Roselia, who had been tense, relax, sighing deeply, and let her stiffened shoulders slump.

Claucet, who hadn’t finished her meal yet, continued eating nonchalantly as if nothing had happened. Roselia glanced at Claucet and cautiously asked,

“Miss, why did you… help me?”

In response to Roselia’s question, Claucet gestured for the restaurant staff to step back. Roselia became even more uneasy at Claucet’s actions.

Does Claucet really know my true identity?

However, the answer that came willingly wasn’t exactly in the direction Roselia suspected.

“Antonio looked uncomfortable.”

“Yes?”

“I told you. I promised to protect you from that cold-blooded guy.”

In an instant, the perplexed Roselia blurted out without realizing,

“Why am I wearing bandages, then?”

“Does that matter? Antonio didn’t want Klaus to see what’s under the bandages, right?”

Once again, with a piercing remark from Claucet, Roselia stiffened and said,

“Why did you do that?”

Claucet casually motioned for the restaurant staff to step back and, with a smirk on her face, wiped her mouth with a napkin.

“Well… it’s probably a nasty scar or something. Whatever happened, the situation was quite awkward a while ago, wasn’t it?”

Caught off guard once again by Claucet’s words, Roselia hesitated and asked,

“Why are you helping me without even knowing why I have bandages?”

“Is that important? Antonio didn’t want Klaus to find out what’s under the bandages, right?”

With another cutting remark from Claucet, Roselia once again found herself frozen.

Casually scanning Roselia, Claucet wiped her mouth with a confident expression.

“Well… it must be a hideous scar or something like that. Whatever it is, the situation was quite tricky a while ago, wasn’t it?”

Unchanged in her youthful demeanor, Lady Claucet, who still couldn’t shake off her girlish image, played the role of a middle-aged woman who had experienced the world. A bitter smile crept onto Roselia’s lips as she observed the scene.

“Thank you, Miss.”

“Well, forget it. Instead, you have to come with me to the Count’s daughter’s tea party in three days, okay?”

“Of course.”

Satisfied with Roselia’s response, Claucet, with a playful smile, wiped her mouth with a napkin. Roselia couldn’t help but return the smile, and a sense of camaraderie seemed to have formed between them.

* * *

Between the capital of the Lugbelzet Empire, Vandelroth, and the Duchy of Valtezar, there existed a small village known as Algrisha.

This village served as a trade route connecting the capital and the duchy, playing the role of a buffer zone. It was a place settled down by poor farmers who couldn’t afford to live in the capital and couldn’t belong to the duchy, as well as merchants traveling between the capital and the duchy.

Stepping down from a 100-grang mobile carriage, Roselia looked around the village and smiled mischievously.

This was it—the birthplace of the first piece cherished by the Crown Princess. According to the original work, about a month later, the protagonist would disguise herself as a commoner, pass through this village, fall in love with a painting by the artist, and buy it.

The amount of money the Crown Princess provided for the painting was 500 grangs, an amount that could sustain an ordinary commoner for ten years of leisure.

That painting was Roselia’s first target.

The problem was that the information obtainable from the original novel only included the name of the village and the artist. Fortunately, it was a small village, not the capital.

After organizing her thoughts, Roselia approached a merchant tidying up a fruit stall with a determined expression.

As the well-dressed and handsome man approached, the merchant, a bit puzzled, stood up with a wary expression. Judging by his attire and appearance, he didn’t seem like someone who would reside in such a small village, so there was a hint of caution in his expression.

“Hello. The weather is really nice.”

“Who are you?”

“Ah… Well, do you happen to know someone named Abeloh Hunt?”

“Abeloh? I haven’t seen that gentleman in about two weeks…”

Faced with an unexpectedly different answer, Roselia, excited, interjected, “You know Mr. Abeloh?!”

“Well, yes. This village is so small that everyone knows each other. But why do you ask?”

 

Staring at the man’s dubious expression, Roselia briefly hesitated.

It wasn’t wise to reveal everything straightforwardly.

“Mr. Abeloh has been gracious enough to offer me a place to stay. I wanted to pay him a visit on my way to the capital.”

The man, scanning Roselia’s pretty face, muttered with even more suspicion, “Does Mr. Abeloh have such a neat relative?”

“Ahaha, you might not be aware. Well… if you go by relations, we’re at most about sixth cousins. Haha…”

Roselia, having solidified her thoughts, smiled with a friendly expression and continued,

“Ah, I’m a relative of Mr. Abeloh. I stopped by to say hello while passing through on my way to the capital.”

 

Even in her sunny smile, the man who had been staring expressionlessly suddenly scratched his head and pointed irritably in the opposite direction.

“If you go straight that way and turn into the third alley, you’ll find a shabby house with a rose drawn on the door. That house belongs to that gentleman. Please find it.”

“Thank you~!”

Thinking that she had found her goal more easily than expected, Roselia’s steps felt light. Just in case, she had received 20 grangs from Klaus, and she thought she might have some money left over.

Excited with the anticipation of finding the rose-drawn house mentioned by the fruit merchant, Roselia knocked on the door with a fluttering heart.

Knock, knock, knock—

However, there was no response from inside the door. Wondering if the house was empty, Roselia hesitated. She knocked on the door again.

Knock, knock, knock, knock—

Still, there was no reaction. To be sure, Roselia peeked inside through the window, and there she saw a man sitting blankly at the dining table. It was Abeloh Hunt. Next to Abeloh was a girl who looked about six, playing with a ragdoll.

“Excuse me! Mr. Abeloh! Could you please open the door for a moment?”

When the unfamiliar voice called him, the man finally turned his head towards the door. His gaze was vacant, and there was no life in his expression.

“Who are you…”

Only then did the door slowly open, revealing the somewhat dazed face of the man.

“I’ve come to buy Mr. Abeloh’s painting.”

At Roselia’s words, a brief astonishment flickered across Abeloh’s face. But soon, he asked with a darkening expression, full of suspicion.

 

“My painting…? How do you know about it?”

“I happened to see Mr. Abeloh’s painting in the village. It left a deep impression on me.”

Of course, claiming to have seen the painting was a lie.

However, Roselia knew that Abeloh sustained his livelihood by selling paintings in the village.

“Could you please sell me the painting?”

“….”

Until he met the Crown Princess, Abeloh had struggled to make ends meet, living in poverty. Despite being a painter, he had never earned much from his art.

Under these circumstances, Roselia expected him to readily sell a painting to someone willing to buy. However, his reaction was quite different from what she had thought. His response seemed far from the easy-going acceptance she anticipated. Feeling a bit uneasy, Roselia added hastily.

“I’ll buy it for 10 grangs.”

“….”

In fact, Roselia already knew about the painting Abeloh possessed through the novel’s content. It was a painting of a woman and a young girl sitting in a rose garden. However, pretending not to know the painting without actually seeing it would make her seem more suspicious. So, Roselia played along, opening her mouth as if she didn’t know.

 

 

“If 10 grangs aren’t enough, how about 15 grangs?”

“….”

“18 grangs!”

It was impossible to offer anymore. Since the only money left was for the carriage ride back to the Duchy, which cost 100 grangs, she had to save some for the trip.

As Roselia looked at Abeloh with an anxious expression, Abeloh, who had been silent for a while, spoke heavily.

“I don’t sell the recently completed paintings.”

Having said that, Abeloh shut the door decisively. Roselia, who was about to hurriedly continue the conversation, froze in front of the closed door.

Why wouldn’t he sell the painting? He definitely sold it to the protagonist…

However, the protagonist didn’t reveal her identity as Crown Princess when buying the painting. Roselia remembered disguising herself in shabby clothes and buying it… Could it be that she needed to pay the same amount as the 500 grangs the Crown Princess paid?

But Abeloh didn’t seem particularly interested in money. Lost in thought, Roselia’s gaze suddenly landed on the withered flowers in front of the house.

It seemed like quite some time had passed since anyone took care of them…

Suddenly, Roselia’s gaze shifted to the young girl inside through the window. As if she sensed something, the girl raised her head in a sudden movement.