Chapter 72

“Well... honestly, I do not really know.”

“Mm, then are you an only child? Or do you have an older sister, a younger sister? An older brother, a younger brother?”

“Ha ha. I am sorry. I...”

As I kept asking, Ariana hesitated, and her expression darkened.

“I lost my memory... When I came to my senses, I simply thought I needed to do something, anything, so I found work as a servant. Thanks to that, I met a kind mistress and have been working happily.”

Hearing that, I could roughly guess what had happened so far.

No, not you.

I will put you back where you belong—as the Duchess.

With a solemn gaze, I quietly murmured,

“...Something even happier is going to happen.”

“Yes?”

“Ah, no, it is nothing! By the way, where is your mistress? When I saw her earlier, it looked like she went into the hall...”

“...How did you know? She did enter the hall, but she said her corset was uncomfortable and went to the lounge.”

“Aha!”

“It is here.”

She stopped before a certain door.

When the door opened, a luxurious waiting room used by nobles visiting the royal castle spread out before me.

A large, plush sofa woven with golden embroidery. Curtains rippling over arched windows.

The royal castle really is different.

Especially compared to the ducal estate, where the windows were small because it was in a cold region, this place felt open.

“Wow...”

After looking around here and there, I plopped down on the sofa and asked Ariana,

“By the way, maid sister. Where is your mistress—”

“You finally came.”

That was when it happened.

The moment a greedy voice cut off my words from behind me, my body reacted instinctively and went rigid.

“Aisha.”

Step, step.

He approached at a leisurely pace and stopped in front of my pale face.

“It seems our game of hide-and-seek is over now, does it not?”

It was Duke Pose.

***

When a person’s thought process stops, they look a little stupid.

Their mouth falls open in shock, but at the same time, their eyes, having sensed the seriousness of the situation, remain wide without blinking once.

The squat toad approached.

One step, then another.

“I sent as many as nine spies just to speak with you, and all of them died. Was that your doing?”

His greedy eyes gleamed as he came closer, one step at a time.

In this situation, the only thing I could do was act like a child refusing candy from an adult.

“...S-stop.”

I could only resist with a frightened expression.

“Oh? Now you can no longer tell who your master is, and you even give orders. You truly seem to be mistaken, believing yourself to be the young lady of the Kreutz family.”

Duke Pose smiled as though amused and stopped walking.

Only then, having maintained some distance from him, I clenched my ice-cold fingers and looked around.

Where is Ariana, the Duchess?

The woman who had guided me here was, astonishingly, standing before the door.

The cotton-candy-like expression that had been smiling softly until just a moment ago had vanished without a trace.

A perfectly disciplined posture at attention.

An eerily emotionless expression, as if stamped out and completed in a factory—the kind I had seen countless times in the Pose family.

...No way...

My breathing grew ragged.

No way. Ariana was... from the very beginning...

The emotion that came before betrayal was pity for Calypse, who would be so devastated when he learned this.

And because of that, I became unbearably angry.

“Were you a spy of the Pose family from the very beginning?!”

When I sprang up from my seat with a shrill shout, Kyle, who had been wriggling in my arms, rubbed his eyes and woke.

“Answer me, Ariana!”

Ariana did not move an inch.

“Answer me like you did earlier! Say you lost your memory or whatever—at least make an excuse!”

In the end, tears burst out of me in pure rage.

“Why did you do it? Why did you...”

That was when it happened.

“Hiss!”

Kyle, who had been growling as if he sensed something, leaped out of my arms and was about to pounce on someone—

Thud.

A dull sound rang out at the back of my neck, and I lost consciousness on the spot.

***

At that time, in the banquet hall.

“Ten minutes have passed.”

Calypse checked the pocket watch inside his jacket.

Then he entered the hall and swept his gaze around, completely ignoring the stares of the people.

Aisha was nowhere to be seen.

And Duke Pose was nowhere to be seen either.

Damn it.

He had a bad feeling.

Of course he had worried that Duke Pose would target Aisha. That was why he had kept her trapped in his arms as he moved around, yet in the end, the child had run off.

He had at least reassured himself that it would be all right because Kyle was with her.

What did that little brat Aisha see this time, that she has not come back?

Worry and confusion mingled together.

Calypse gave an order to Knox, who had been continuously following him.

“Tell the servants waiting in the corridor to search the entire castle and find Aisha.”

“What should we do about the intelligence division on standby?”

“Proceed as planned. That may be better, actually. Then the people here will volunteer to search for Duke Pose themselves.”

“Yes. Understood.”

Perhaps because the situation was urgent, Knox left without adding any private remarks.

It was time for Calypse to start moving as well.

First, he had to move Lucas somewhere safe.

“Lucas.”

“Yes.”

“Do you see Marquis Grentai, the family head over there?”

“Yes. I see him.”

“Stay beside him. If he asks why you are staying there, tell him it is Father’s order. He is trustworthy.”

At Calypse’s command, Lucas nodded and approached Marquis Grentai.

The Marquis welcomed the young lord of the Kreutz family with a bright smile.

After watching Lucas’s situation until the end and judging it safe, Calypse immediately went to Empress Grace.

Grace, still uninterested in conversing with the nobles, was sitting in a royal chair and drinking a cocktail.

Then, when her eyes met Calypse’s, she frowned.

“Duke Kreutz. When you approach me, people flock over, so during banquets, do not speak to me—”

“Have you seen Aisha?”

“Lady Aisha? If it is the young lady, she is so sociable that she must be making friends with young noblewomen her age.”

Feeling frustrated by Grace’s innocent answer, he tightened his jaw.

“Aisha is missing, and Duke Pose is also nowhere to be seen right now.”

“......?”

“You know the relationship between Duke Pose and me as well, Your Majesty.”

Of course she knew.

The spy incident involving Dorothy had been quietly buried for the sake of the Kreutz family’s image, but there was no way even she, who was close to Knox, would not know.

And when she even heard that Duke Pose had been the cause of the monster frenzy incident, she had found it frustrating that Calypse was not moving with all his might.

However.

“What does that have to do with Miss Aisha?”

Separate from that, there was no basis for Duke Pose to kidnap Aisha.

Realizing that the conversation was growing serious, Grace rose from her seat and moved toward a deserted corridor.

Calypse quietly followed her and answered in a voice lowered by one pitch.

“Duke Pose wants that child. He has continued trying to abduct her.”

“So why?”

Grace, arms crossed, glared at Calypse—

“......”

After closing his mouth for a moment, Calypse looked straight at her.

“Because my daughter is the Duke’s spy.”

“...What?”

At the unbelievable answer, Grace’s eyes slowly widened.

***

At the same time.

“...Cough, cough!”

Consciousness returned along with a dry cough. In my last memory, someone seemed to have struck the back of my neck.

What is this?

I tried to open my eyes, but something blocked me, and my eyelids would not lift.

It seemed a cloth had been tied around my eyes to block my vision.

I was even lying down.

When someone is being interrogated, are they not usually tied up while sitting in a chair?

Just as I was trying to analyze Duke Pose’s actions in this utterly incomprehensible situation—

“Ugh, ngh... aaah!”

At the sudden burning sensation, my body thrashed like a fish.

Centered around the right side of my chest, a pain so hot it stung pierced through my entire body.

As if I were being beaten with a hammer.

“The preparations are complete.”

Then came Ariana’s businesslike voice.

“W-what is complete...”

The pain had disappeared, but perhaps because the heat remained, a stinging warmth still flowed through my body.

I could not breathe properly.