Chapter 11
Ephron started running as hard as he could.
He had a strong desire to make up for the foolish mistake he made with the princess a while ago.
‘He couldn’t have gone that far.’
Eventually, as I turned another corner of the small alley, I saw a man standing against the wall.
The man was talking to another man standing next to him.
‘Wait for a sec. But what do you call him?’
Ephron thought as he slowly slowed down.
Even if he was an uneducated man, he seemed to be friends with the princess for now, and there was a possibility that he might have a business relationship with the company that sells Lenever cosmetics.
After hesitating for a moment, Ephron raised his fist and cleared his throat as he approached the man.
“Hey, Mr… Reuter…?”
At Ephron’s words, the two men who were talking turned their heads at the same time.
The gray-haired man who was a little taller of the two answered.
“Yes?”
“What? No, not you, but him, Mr. Reuter.”
Ephron pointed at the man with dark hair, and the man who hadn’t responded opened his mouth with an eyebrow raised.
“Oh right, I am Reuter. What brings you back here?”
“What is this…?”
The gray-haired man frowned and turned to Reuters.
“I’m here to deliver something that my lady has asked me to deliver. Here, please take this.”
A man called Reuter accepted the small piece of paper Ephron held out.
On the small piece of paper, the names of the Lenever cosmetics store and Princess Letier were written in neat handwriting.
Below that is the address of the Dukedom.
“Why are you giving this to me?”
“The princess wants a deeper conversation with Mr. Reuter. It’s something related to our business. It seemed that she was trying to get this business card out of her bag, not the silver coin.”
“A business card?”
A gray-haired man standing next to a man called Reuter looked out and read the words on the business card.
“Ah, this…”
The man’s expression hardened in an instant when he confirmed Lady Lenever’s name.
I couldn’t understand what kind of relationship Princess Letier and his master had outside the imperial palace.
“She wants to talk about the welfare of the people of the Empire. If you are interested, please send a message to the address listed there or come to the Imperial Palace. She’s planning to stay at the imperial palace in the capital for the time being…”
“Imperial welfare…?”
The man furrowed his eyebrows.
I had no idea what kind of nonsense this was.
“Yes. For more details, you can talk with my lady. Well then, I have to go back to the princess again.”
Ephron bowed his head once, then turned in the direction he had come from and sprinted out again at full speed.
The man who was watching Ephron’s back pushed Letier’s business card into his jacket pocket.
I thought it was a young lady who really adidn’t know what she was thinking.
“No, what the hell are you up to? Didn’t you decide to stay out of trouble in exchange for roaming the city at your will? Reuters.. And why are you stealing my name?”
As soon as Ephron was out of sight, the gray-haired man started nagging him.
“And when did you say I was in trouble?”
“Have you ever had a private meeting with Princess Letier?”
“By chance.”
“You don’t know that I will have many meetings with Princess Lettier in the future as your secretary. Thanks to the prince, I lost my name today!”
“Please change your name at this point. You’ve been called Reuter for too long.”
“Yes? What does that mean…!”
The Prince tapped Reuter’s shoulder as he bit his lip in frustration, then moved on.
“Where are you going again!”
“To make trouble.”
“Ugh…!”
Reuter leaned back against the wall, rubbing his forehead.
He was at a loss for words.
“…Come back soon! I said you were working in the office!”
Reuter shouted at him as he walked away, but the prince didn’t look back.
Reuter just scratched his head.
*****
“This and this and this and this…”
“Did you hear? Please wrap this and this and this and this again.”
Lucy followed Letier words, who was standing right next to her, and looked at the raw material vendor with a stern face.
It was her rule not to lose her sincere attitude when purchasing raw materials.
“Hey… What day is it today? From the water collected in the footprints of the lycanthrope, to the ligria that grows in the body of Lynx, and to the root extract of Mandragora…! How do you choose only such precious raw materials? Is the new cosmetic product that you are going to launch this time something like healing or treatment?”
“Hmm… It’s similar! Actually, our Princess…”
“What happened to the princess…?”
Lucy approached the raw material vendor’s ear with a subtle smile.
Her mouth was itching to brag about the fact that Princess Letier, whom she was serving, had visited the capital to help treat the prince’s skin.
“With the Prince….”
“Lucy, let’s go back now.”
“Ah oh! Yes. Let’s go, princess!”
“Prince? Prince? Or did you mean sick? What, why are you stop talking!”
The raw material merchant was talking, but Lucy waved her arms up and down in frustration.
Lucy, ignoring him, grabbed the sack and ran to Letier.
“Are you done now, princess?”
“Yes. Let’s go back before it’s too late. No matter what, I thought it would be bad to leave the imperial palace for a long time.”
“Thanks to you, I had a good tour of the market! all right!”
Ephron, standing by the door, took the sack from Lucy and slung it over his shoulder.
They returned to the entrance of the Krause Commercial District, where the imperial carriage was waiting.
When they rode the carriage back to the imperial palace, the sun was slowly sinking.
After having a simple dinner at the imperial dining room, Letier went straight to her laboratory in the imperial palace.
“Ha…”
She looked at the layers of raw materials and sighed for a moment.
I thought for a moment that I might have purchased too many raw materials out of greed for raw materials, but considering the treatment products for the prince and the upcoming launch of a new product, I thought it was absolutely not excessive.
“Then, shall we begin?”
Letier, who rolled up her sleeves, immediately fell into the experiment.
How much time had passed, Letier, who had been stirring the formula in the beaker with a high degree of concentration, suddenly raised her head.
What time is it…?
After recognizing that quite a bit of time had passed, I felt that my back and neck, which I had been bending all the time, were getting stiff.
Letier stretched her back and bent her neck from side to side for a simple stretch.
“I think it’s too late… I have to go back to my room today.”
Thud—
“Huh?”
At that time, a sound came from outside the laboratory window.
A loud, heavy sound as if something had fallen to the floor.
“…Something fell?”
I was tempted to check what the hell had fallen from the sky during the night, but I stopped immediately.
I wasn’t that curious, and more than anything, I felt like I had to go back to my room.
Letier, who took her gaze away from the window and slowly tidied up the table, felt a cold wind blowing from somewhere and stopped moving her hands.
‘What?’
Turning my head again, I saw that the large window behind Letier was slightly open and the curtains were swinging up and down.
“Has it been open all this time?”
I thought I didn’t know because I was too focused on the experiment.
Somehow, the temperature couldn’t be maintained as I had planned…
Letier let out a small sigh and went to the window to close it.
Step step—
This time, from outside the door, from the end of the hallway, I heard the footsteps of several people and the sharp sound of weapons clashing.
Letier turned her head and looked towards the door.
What kind of knights are running around like this at night? Do the knights of the Imperial Palace never sleep at night?
The loud footsteps grew closer and closer, until they stopped right in front of Letier’s laboratory.
A low voice was heard right outside the door.
Are you trying to get in here?
The moment Letier kindly stepped forward to open the door for the knights, a large hand came out from behind, blocked Letier’s mouth, and pulled her hard toward the wall.
“……!!”
Letier, who was caught off guard, was dragged away without even resisting.
Pulling Letier away, the assailant covered her mouth with one hand and wrapped the other around her waist, holding both hands tightly so that she could not move.
“I’m sorry.”
A low whisper settled in my ear.
Surprised, Letier tried to shake off the man, but the man was so strong that he didn’t move at all.
“I’ll go in for a moment!”
A knight shouted outside the door.
The knights knocked hard on the door, then ran inside as if kicking the doorknob to break it.
The knights who ran into the room stopped walking and looked puzzled at the unfamiliar scenery inside the laboratory.
Flasks and beakers scattered here and there, lighted lamps, glass bottles full of unknown formulations and sacks of raw materials piled up…
“Huh? Here…?”
“Ah! This is Princess Letier’s personal laboratory! I took care of what the secretary who came with me asked for, but I couldn’t tell you in advance.”
“If it’s Princess Letier… Are you here to help Prince Dante?”
“You’re right!”
“… If you’re involved with the prince, we’ll skip this room, as it’s unnecessarily complicated. We’ll go straight to the next room!”
One of the knights standing at the front shouted with a frown, and the rest of the knights nodded.
They turned around and left the room as quickly as they had entered.
The knight who gave the order to the other knights was left alone and started wandering around the room.
Still being held by the man, Letier’s heart thumped wildly in her chest.
‘Please come this way… Come behind the curtain…!’
The knight slowly walked around the room and found an open window.
He lowered his upper body and put his hand on the sword he wore around his waist.
The knight slowly approached the window and opened the curtains that were shaking in the wind.
Whiik-!
The knight who opened the curtain immediately drew his sword.
