Sparks practically flew from Renoa’s eyes.
“Hey, you!”
“What? Me? What about me?”
“There are things you should and shouldn’t say…!”
“Then was what you said okay? Why don’t you go ask the people in the square what they think?”
Renoa tightened her grip on the edge of the door. Even I could clearly see her slender shoulders trembling.
Rashak, however, didn’t seem to care in the slightest.
“Stop spouting useless bullshit and get lost. Don’t come back.”
“……”
“Your sister is about to do something much more productive than helping a little sister who’d be better off not existing.”
Renoa turned to look at me.
“…Is that how you feel, too, Sister?”
Rashak looked at me as well.
Gathering my courage, I nodded.
“That’s right. I don’t have time to help you. There are servants, too, so I don’t see why I’d have to cook for you myself.”
“Sister!”
“Or are you planning to use the food I make to claim that ‘my sister has blessed this marriage, too’? Is that what you really want?”
Renoa glared at me with blazing eyes, as though I’d hit a nerve.
But Rashak stood between us.
Renoa was smaller than the average woman, not to mention pregnant. What could she possibly do against him?
“…I’ll come back another time.”
Her voice was weak, but the force behind her gaze hadn’t wavered.
With that, Renoa spun around and stormed off. Her angry footsteps seemed to echo with every furious thud! thud!.
As I watched her retreating figure, I suddenly spoke.
“Boss, I was thinking this earlier, too…”
“What?”
“You’re surprisingly good at talking at length.”
He looked at me as if he couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
“Is that what matters right now?”
“No, it’s just that yesterday, you only gave me short answers…”
I remembered that chillingly low voice of his when he’d asked for a sword. He’d genuinely frightened me back then.
“I heard you threw your boss over your shoulder when he sexually harassed you. What about your little sister? Did you just let her get away with it?”
“How could I hit a pregnant woman?”
“And your fiancé?”
“……”
“So you didn’t hit him, either.”
I didn’t try to make excuses.
I was disgusted with myself enough as it was.
I wondered what cold remark he’d make next, but, unexpectedly, Rashak didn’t say anything in response. He simply strode inside.
“I thought you’d curse at me…”
“I don’t swear at people I don’t know well.”
“But you cursed at my parents just a moment ago…”
Rashak shot me a sharp look, and I hurriedly covered my mouth to stifle a laugh. Oops. Sorry.
“It’s okay. I’m not offended at all, so you don’t have to worry about it.”
I endured the awkward atmosphere for a while until, thankfully, the carriage arrived in front of the house.
“Um, Boss!”
I stopped him just as he was about to climb into the carriage.
His golden eyes held a cool, icy gleam. But they weren’t as frightening as they’d been yesterday.
…That didn’t mean they weren’t frightening at all. I suppose they’d become a little less scary. Just a little. A really tiny bit.
“Thank you for today. For sending her away to my place…”
“……”
“But please don’t come back again. It would be troublesome if something like today happened another time.”
I bowed my head politely.
“Have a safe trip home.”
Rashak didn’t answer. Still, feeling grateful, I continued watching from the entrance as he departed.
When Rashak emerged from his bath, his secretary, Pierce, was waiting for him.
“I’ve brought what you requested.”
It was a file containing information about that woman, Hiel Cavernon.
If the information Rashak had shown Hiel earlier today covered her life story, this file contained detailed information about the people around her who had appeared in that account.
As Rashak read through the documents, Pierce remarked casually,
“As you can see, there isn’t a single person with any sense among them.”
Her schoolmates, her colleagues and juniors at the trading company, and even the people who could be considered her acquaintances were all strange.
But the worst of them were undoubtedly her parents.
“She dated that fiancé for five years. Her parents must have watched the whole thing unfold right beside her, yet I hear they took her younger sister’s side.”
“…They probably thought it didn’t matter which daughter it was, as long as someone married into that family.”
“From a practical standpoint, I suppose so, but… there’s also the emotional side of things, you know?”
Rashak glanced at the fiancé’s name.
Allen Brent. He was the only grandson left behind by the son and daughter-in-law of Count Brent, who had died in an accident.
“Are you acquainted with Count Brent?”
“I happened to meet him a few years ago.”
He’d heard that the count had once been a central figure in the capital’s political circles. When Rashak had met him in person, however, the count had seemed like an ordinary, rather feeble old man who could have lived next door. The contrast had caught him off guard.
“I also heard he’s retired from politics and rarely leaves his estate these days, though plenty of nobles still seek his advice.”
The Cavernon couple had been Count Brent’s personal physicians.
According to the records, Hiel and Renoa had also been born and raised on the Brent estate. It wasn’t difficult to imagine how close all of them must have been.
“I hear Count Brent was very fond of Miss Cavernon. Apparently, he was delighted when he learned that she and Allen Brent were dating.”
The Brents were a count’s family with their own territory. Allowing a commoner to marry into their family was an extremely unconventional decision, no matter how close they might have been.
However…
“If he’d truly cared about her, he wouldn’t have allowed her younger sister to marry Allen.”
“Well… I suppose his own grandson was bound to matter more to him. Especially since she was pregnant.”
In the end, no one had taken Hiel Cavernon’s side.
Rashak recalled the woman he’d met today.
To be honest, she hadn’t seemed particularly fragile. Even when dealing with Renoa, her expression had remained remarkably calm.
Yet that very composure gave him an even stranger feeling. It was like looking at a rock that had weathered countless storms over the years.
Alone, enduring everything in silence…
Rashak pressed a finger firmly against his temple. This wasn’t a memory that would help him right now.
He deliberately redirected his thoughts to the matter of the spies, but somehow, his mind circled back to Hiel Cavernon again.
Yesterday, she really had been…
“…She was more than just impressive.”
At his absentminded murmur, Pierce’s eyes widened. He quickly chimed in.
“Indeed! I also thought she was quite beautiful…”
“I’m not talking about her face. I mean her stance.”
“Pardon?”
Rashak revisited the events of the previous day.
The surprise he’d felt in the instant she clenched her fist, and the satisfying impact of her attack.
Even when he’d watched martial arts matches as a child, he’d never experienced that degree of vicarious satisfaction.
“For something that came out on reflex, her form was remarkably solid.”
“Pardon?”
“I heard her shoulder throw was a work of art, too.”
The shoulder throw was the technique Hiel Cavernon had used to send her sexually harassing boss flying.
Word had spread through the witnesses, and the rumors had continued to grow. Worried things would become even more troublesome, the trading company had reportedly fired both of them.
“I should find out who taught her… Though that’ll be difficult. I don’t have anyone with time to spare.”
More precisely, he didn’t have anyone reliable with time to spare.
Every intelligence operative he could confidently trust was already occupied with identifying the spies.
It couldn’t be helped.
Rashak put Hiel out of his mind and headed for his desk.
He picked up his pen and began reviewing the documents submitted by the intelligence team, but Pierce approached and spoke cautiously.
“As I’ve mentioned before, could you please hire just one more secretary?”
“Where am I supposed to find someone now? I can’t even trust the people I already have. I’m practically ready to get rid of all of them.”
“But you’re so busy…”
“Want me to make you even busier?” Rashak asked with a glare.
Only then did Pierce retreat to his place.
A secretary, huh…
A moment later, Rashak returned his attention to his work.
Every now and then, Hiel Cavernon, who had seen him off at the entrance, came to mind, but he quickly refocused on his duties.
He was so busy that he almost forgot about her from the very next day onward.
Identifying the spies was especially troublesome.
He’d managed to narrow down a list of suspects, but verifying their identities was the problem. Every one of them was as wary as he was.
And so, one day passed, then another…
Four days after he’d set the bait—
“Boss, Hiel Cavernon is here to see you.”
Escorted by Pierce into his office, Hiel greeted him politely before speaking.
“Boss, I’m terribly sorry to presume, but…”
“Skip the strange formalities and get to the point.”
Hiel blinked those green eyes of hers several times before speaking in a small voice.
“I think I’ve caught your spies…”
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