Chapter 49
Chapter 49
Chapter 49
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* * *
After all the conversations ended.
The four of us hit the road right then.
Diana packed a small bag with belongings and followed behind us. Since she was trying to appease Ria, who was surprised by the sudden development, she was following from a small distance away as she carried the child.
Before we knew it, the sky had already turned yellow and red.
I’m glad that we went out early. If we didn’t, it would almost be too late.
‘Or is it too late already?’
If they were to go straight to the bookstore like this, then they would be able to go back home by nighttime already.
For someone who supposedly only stepped out to go to a bookstore, too much time had passed. As expected, she hated having suspicion cast on her.
However, it was a needless apprehension.
As we were about to emerge from the alleyway, two carriages appeared side by side in front of us.
They looked like ordinary wooden carriages, but the materials used to build them looked luxurious. Wasn’t it normally the case that the discreetly luxurious items were the ones that truly held value?
Those carriages were just like that.
Cassion and Diana paused, alert at the sudden appearance of the carriages. But as I gave a nod, I approached the carriage.
Because, roughly, I could think of one person behind this.
“OH?!”
But then a sudden exclamation of realization burst out from behind me.
Turning my head slightly, I saw that Diana was looking at the coachman with her eyes wide open.
Soon, her brown eyes blazed with blistering flames.
She gently set down Ria to the ground and jumped right in front of me.
It was a quick, unnecessary movement.
“Be careful, Princess. That’s the man who entrusted me with the commissioned request.”
Diana whispered to me in a seething tone.
Seeing her like this reminded me of a loyal dog who was being wary in front of a stranger. A small smile tugged up on my lips at this.
I patted Diana’s tense shoulder.
Then, she nervously glanced behind at me.
“It’s fine.”
“What? But…”
I walked past the dazed Diana. Then, my eyes met with the man sitting on the horse-drawn carriage.
A man with dark green hair and grayish green eyes.
“We’ve met before, correct?”
In response to the question, the man took off his hat and bowed to me.
“The Madam is waiting inside the carriage.”
As soon as his polite tone rang out, the carriage door suddenly opened.
Unlike the ordinary exterior of the vehicle, the interior was simply luxurious.
The owner of such a carriage was sitting on one of the soft-looking seats inside.
The woman turned her head and looked this way, but I couldn’t see what kind of expression she had on because of the veil covering her face.
“Blanca.”
As I called her name, the woman waved her hand and responded.
“Hello there. I’m here to pick you up.”
In any case, this woman really had a knack for infuriating people.
* * *
There were two carriages in total, so we had to split up.
Blanca and I rode the carriage in the front because we had to talk, so Cassion, Diana and Ria rode the second carriage together.
‘I wonder if it’s awkward there.’
Cassion was quite reserved with strangers, while Diana was also definitely wary around people she didn’t know.
‘Well, I’m sure they’ll be fine on their own.’
It’s sometimes better to raise people through grit.
More importantly, I had to focus on this woman sitting opposite me.
The carriage slowly started moving forward.
As I leaned against the soft seat behind me, I opened my lips to speak.
“So, to what do I owe the pleasure of meeting you here? Are you here to confirm whether I’m dead or alive?”
“Gosh, what are you talking about? I just came to pick you up because I thought you might have gotten tired.”
The ridiculous lie made me laugh. Her shamelessness was the best in this world.
What, you came here to pick me up just because you thought I was tired? Who exactly was the one responsible for tiring me out today?
“My, what lovely consideration. From the very person who launched an ambush at me.”
“Are you angry?”
“I’m not angry, I just find it absurd. Who in their right mind would be pleased to have been suddenly attacked.”
Faced with this indifferent response, Blanca let out a muffled grunt.
She held a hand to her chest and shook her head in excitement.
It’s as if she was rubbing it in that I was faced with an unfair and difficult situation, the way she was laughing again right now.
As her veil swayed gently from her movements, it looked like a beast’s spiteful tail.
If there’s someone out there who had low blood pressure, I’d offer this seat to them this instant.
Their blood pressure would surely rise at once.
“Gosh, really. Even so, don’t be too angry, Princess. In the first place…”
Suddenly halting in her movements, Blanca leaned forward slightly and spoke like this.
At first glance, it seemed like her mood had dampened, but the voice behind the veil expressed an emotion far from it. In that quiet tone, a hint of mirth could still be heard.
And…
“Wasn’t it you who made this request?”
A hint of secrecy as well.
“……”
Then, silence ensued.
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Heated pressure filled the carriage, but it soon cooled.
I can’t see her eyes, but I could feel our gazes meeting in the air.
I stared at her wordlessly, but I averted my eyes first and looked out the window.
“Yes. I did.”
Through the window, I saw the scenery pass by. However, it wasn’t very impressive.
* * *
Blanca was right.
Just as she said, as I was the one who commissioned a request with her, I was also the cause of that attack. From the very moment I started planning to take away power from Leo by making Cassion the duke, I also coveted Diana.
In the original novel, Diana was a great subject towards Leo, and it could be said that she was the equivalent of a thousand troops.
If one were to have her, then they’d have her talent at their disposal. But on the contrary, if one were to lose her, then they’d gained a formidable enemy.
Inevitably, I had no choice but to bring Diana to my side.
That’s right. By any means possible.
For me, ‘that’ was what the request was.
‘Leave a request at Diana’s guild and make her commit a crime against me.’
I needed an indisputable insurance against her—insurance that I could use to blackmail Diana into bringing her to my side just in case my proposition towards her wouldn’t work.
I’ve yet to receive this information about Diana from Blanca, but I already knew that she had a sick younger sister and that she was working in a shady guild so she could earn some money to buy her sister’s medicine.
The more significant the character was with regard to the narrative, the more of their past was included in the novel.
Diana was Leo’s most useful tool.
It was only inevitable that her past was also detailed.
So, that’s how I knew where Diana was working and that I could commission a request from her, and I asked Blanca to play the role of the ‘person who made the request’.
I didn’t know exactly where the guild was, but Blanca should have found it during the background check she conducted.
She was able to strike two birds with one stone in this way.
Even so…
I didn’t expect to get hit on the back of the head like this.
I reached forward and pulled the curtains. As darkness fell around us in an instant, the mana lamps all over the carriage’s interior lit up automatically.
Blue flames danced from all directions.
Blanca’s purple hair stood out amidst the flickering blue flames.
“Yes, it’s right to say that I was the one who requested it. But I asked you to make her commit a crime against me, not for her to aim for my life.”
“I didn’t say that she should aim for your life either. I just asked her to do a tiny little ambush. And to hurt you a little.”
Ambush.
This word was extremely, ridiculously unpleasant to hear.
If a person has entrusted you with a request, shouldn’t you at least tell them when, where and how the request would be fulfilled?
When sending someone out to a meeting place without telling them anything about an attack like this, then it’s true that it’s nothing but an ‘ambush’.
What would have happened if Cassion got hurt?
What if I didn’t recognize that it was Diana and ended up killing her in the skirmish?
“You should have told me when and where the ambush was going to happen.”
“If I told you that, you might not have acted accordingly. When you’re left in the dark, that’s when a realistic reaction comes out.”
Hearing her brazenly spew out these words with that three-pronged tongue of hers, I furrowed my brows.
I bet that if Blanca were to fall in the deep waters, her red lips would still somehow float to the surface.
“Amazing, so that’s your sincere excuse. Seems like it truly is your principle not to lie.”
“I do keep my principles. It’s just that I didn’t elaborate. I never lied to you.”
Her confident tone reminded me of our last meeting.
When I asked her about the arrangements for this commissioned request, Blanca replied like so.
‘Not exactly. I’m prepared to take you up on your request, but I just haven’t reached those results yet because I need a little help from you, Princess.’
‘Without your help, the request cannot be fulfilled.’
And, the note that she left between the pages of that book went like this.
‘Two days later, wear this and go to the place marked on this map.
Along the alley that has been marked here, buy a doll and take it with you. When you arrive at the destination, there will be someone waiting to help you regarding your request.
P.S. Bring your escort knight.’
“Ha. That’s right, you didn’t lie.”
I nodded as I acknowledged the way she worded it.
Indeed, as Blanca mentioned, she did not lie.
She just didn’t elaborate.
“I’m glad you’re running an information guild instead of something else. If you had turned out to be a crook, then all the noble houses of this empire would have already gotten sucked dry.”
“Oh my, thank you for the compliment.”
“Did you plan for me to buy Ria’s dolls?”
“Children are usually vulnerable to the people who hand out favors to them. Besides that, you’d need some bait when you’d go to that girl’s house later.”
“And what if I bought another kid’s doll?”
When asked, Blanca burst out into another peal of laughter as if she heard an absurd question.
“Didn’t I already take care of that in advance?”
The answering tone was truly flabbergasting.
Seriously, who could be as ridiculous as her.
‘Still though, this is within what I’ve expected.’
Truthfully, I didn’t realize that the child who sold me the doll was Diana’s sister.
During the skirmish when I found out that the attacker was Diana, that’s also the moment I realized Blanca’s little prank and subsequently realized who ‘Ria’ was as well.
However, Blanca already seemed to have foreseen that I would lure Diana in with that doll.
Without realizing it, I’d been moving under the script that Blanca had written.
‘It’s not a pleasant feeling.’
“Haha. Really, please don’t be too angry, Princess. It all worked out in the end, so it should be alright. This will never happen again from now on. I’ll offer my hotel as a guarantee.”
It was when I stopped responding to her that Blanca finally apologized.
No matter how much I think about it, it seemed like she was just doing all this to get a rise out of me because my reactions amused her.
My head was throbbing from the onslaught of fatigue.
Now that the predicament with Diana had been solved, I just want to go home, wipe my feet on a mat, and head straight to bed.