Chapter 3
“I think we should go back.”
Ephron turned to Letier and said.
I couldn’t help it.
The atmosphere was so bad that I couldn’t stay here any longer.
Letier slowly turned her head and greeted Simon with a distraught expression.
“Simon, I’ll be back tomorrow, but until then, I need you to find out the solubility of this, this, and this. And which solvent to use!”
“Yes! Whether you want, Princess. From now on, please stay away from it and be careful!”
Letier nodded and left the store with Lucy and Ephron.
As I turned around and went around the store, I saw many people gathered around something.
“Ugh! This must be it… Princess, don’t look that way, just look at me and come this way!”
She said, putting the robe Lucy was holding onto her.
It was a common black robe that she had been stubbornly bringing because it might be cold at night.
“Lucy… I can’t see anything like this.”
“It’s far better than facing that cruel sight!”
“It’s the guards! Please clear the way for a moment.”
At that time, a group of guards appeared in front of Letier, who was blind, and began to push and squeeze people.
“Uh…!”
“Oh, wait… Princess…!”
The guards dug between Letier and Lucy and separated them.
Letier started to get further and further away from Lucy, being pushed back and forth by the other guards following her.
I couldn’t see ahead, so I couldn’t tell which direction I was being pushed.
“Uh…?”
She struggled with both hands and was pushed to an unknown place for a while.
Letier, who was constantly being pushed around, was finally able to lift her hands and take off the robe completely only when she came to a secluded corner.
“Ah, it’s frustrating!”
I dropped my robe to the ground and quickly looked around, but Lucy and Ephron were nowhere to be seen.
It seemed that they had been pushed by people and had gone to the opposite side of me.
“Lucy! Where are you!”
Letier shouted in a loud voice.
But even that was drowned out by the muttering of people, so I couldn’t hear it properly.
Then, in the distance, I saw Ephron’s brown hair moving.
“Here…! Here!”
Letier waved her hands and exclaimed anxiously.
However, Lucy and Ephron were already moving away from the crowd, escorting a short woman in a different robe as if it were her.
Perhaps because they were distracted, they mistook someone wearing a robe for Letier and took her with them.
“You stupid! you don’t even know who you’re protecting! I’m right here!”
It was no use running and shouting in place.
Before I knew it, they had drifted away from the crowd.
“You should have told me where we are staying, Lucy…”
It was hard to believe that her competent secretary had made such a mistake.
It wasn’t enough that she took someone else with her, and she didn’t tell me the information she should have given me…
Letier, who stood there blankly for a moment, slowly lowered her hands.
It seemed better to just stand there and wait.
It was the judgment that they would soon find out that the person they took wasn’t her anyway, and then they would return to the place where they parted.
It seemed like the guards had cleared the scene, but the people gathered were gradually leaving, so it was right to do so.
*****
About an hour later, the last remaining guard wrote something in the notebook he was holding and then turned around and disappeared.
No one was left on the scene.
And Lucy and Ephron hadn’t been back here until now.
“I can’t believe it. They still haven’t figured out that I wasn’t the one with them?”
Letier, who was sitting on the steps close to the scene with a sore leg, regretted that she should have gone back to Simon’s shop.
I thought they would come soon, so I kept waiting, but it was all in vain.
In the meantime, it was after Simon closed the shop and went home from work.
Just as I was determined to find a guard post instead of just sitting and waiting, a man appeared around the alley.
Large body and dark hair.
He was a man with a relaxed and laid-back atmosphere.
The man stopped in front of the scene of the incident, lowered his head, and began to observe the floor carefully.
The fallen person had already been taken away by the guards, and only traces of him remained.
The man, who stood still for a while as if thinking about something, took out a small bottle, opened the cap, and dripped a clear liquid.
The liquid dripped onto the floor and gave off a faint smoke, which soon dried up and disappeared.
The man walked around the scene, repeating the action here and there.
Letier, who watched the scene with interest for a while, opened her mouth.
“Is it okay to damage the scene like that?”
“You surprised me.”
The man turned to Letier.
He didn’t blink an eye, though his mouth said he was surprised.
He turned away again.
“Don’t worry, I’m a resident. I’m just looking closely because it’s interesting that something like this happened in my life circle.”
“Residents? I know all the stores around here, but I’ve never seen anyone like you. Which store are you from?”
It was a lie.
There was no way that Letier, who lived in the Duchy of Lenever, knew all the shops in the little alleys in the capital that she rarely visited.
It was just that, since most of the shops in this area sold raw materials, I thought that no one would be wearing such clean clothes.
Most of the vendors were always wearing messy clothes with something like raw materials smeared somewhere, and they didn’t even wear that nice clothes.
They might end up throwing their clothes away after working.
“Uh….”
The man fiddled with his bangs for a moment, then spoke up, his fingers pointing in random directions.
“I’m the shop owner’s younger son.”
“Who…”
Letier, who looked back at the place the man pointed at, hesitated and stopped her head.
The man’s finger pointed to none other than Simon’s raw material store.
“Si-Simon…?”
Simon’s son? Did Simon ever have a son this grown up?
Letier looked at Simon in a new look.
He had a wife?
Besides, they don’t even look alike. This guy is handsome…
“You should thank your mother…”
Letier muttered quietly.
“What did you say?”
“No! So, what’s your name?”
The man, who looked at Letier for a while as he answered, moved closer to her.
The man who strode forward and stood in front of Letier was so tall that she had to raise her head for a long time.
The red eyes looking down at her were unfamiliar.
“A woman who treats a man she sees for the first time. You must be a pretty precious young lady, right?”
“Um… It’s true that in the Trilante Empire, there are so many precious people.”
At Letier’s answer, the man narrowed his eyes.
He looked her up and down slowly before opening his mouth again.
“You’d better not go somewhere carelessly. The capital is a more dangerous place than you think. Some bad person might kidnap a noble young lady who wanders alone without a proper maid or escort and demand a ransom for it.”
“Oh… I see.”
The man who looked down at Letier, who belatedly sighed, burst out laughing.
“I see you didn’t think of that, so you are indeed a naive young lady. The sun will be setting soon, so you’d better get back to your inn before it gets even darker.”
The man sighed coldly, looked at Letier for a while, then turned around without regret.
“Please ignore the damage to the scene. It’s not a liquid that leaves marks.”
Before the man could hear Letier’s answer, he turned and disappeared.
It was a quick movement, just like when he appeared.
“I should have asked that man where the guard post was….”
Letier, who was left alone, regretted it belatedly.
As the man said, she took a step, determined to visit the guard post before it got darker.
“Excuse me! Do you know where the guard post is?”
Letier asked a middle-aged man with a warm look for directions.
Maybe this man knows the way!
The middle-aged man who looked at Letier’s expensive outfit opened his mouth with a friendly face.
“Uh… It’s a bit difficult, but listen carefully! Go straight along this road, turn right at the second alley, then go up the third alley from the left, and go in the direction of 3 o’clock at the place where there is a round fountain. After that, walk to the right of the fork, and when you come to the stairs, take the path to the right about 1/3 of the way up the stairs…”
“Wait, wait! Were the roads in the capital originally this complicated?”
Letier asked with a sour expression.
I couldn’t remember more than half of what the middle-aged man was saying.
“Oh, yes, it’s a bit complicated, right? Listen carefully again, so keep going this way…”
“Oh, it’s okay. I’ll just follow this road all the way and ask someone else again. Thank you!”
Letier walked slowly, copying the man’s words as much as possible.
So here… in the alley.. turn left… fountain…
“… What? how?”
Letier, who lost her way in an instant, slowly looked around.
It seemed like she had been in the wrong place for a long time.
What…
There’s no way the guard post could be in such a remote place…
Besides, there were not many people walking around here.
After standing on the street for a while and pondering, Letier moved toward a store that was emitting a brilliant red light through the door.
The woman’s high-pitched laughter leaked through the slightly open door.
There must be people here
Just as she was about to turn the doorknob, she heard urgent footsteps behind her and someone jumped out and grabbed her wrist.
At the same time, a low voice settled in my ears.
“I bet you don’t want to go in there, are you?”
