Chapter 19

“That backside... could it possibly be Knox?”

He heard the knights whispering below, but he paid them no mind.

Twenty-four years on a single path.

As a monster fanatic, and as an aide of Kreutz.

Not once had Knox ever bent his convictions because of other people’s eyes.

After finally climbing up the wall, he carefully peered through Aisha’s bedroom window.

Then, to see more clearly, he took out another monocle and put it over his remaining eye.

His eyes widened at the back of the child visible inside the bedroom.

“What are you doing right now!”

“Eek, eeeeek!”

He had caught her.

He had already caught her doing something suspicious.

***

“...This should make Knox show interest, right?”

One hour earlier.

After returning straight to the bedroom, I began carrying out my operation in earnest.

Now that I had possessed Aisha, I needed to twist the original story to prevent my future death.

But in the end, I had become Calypse’s daughter, just as in the original story.

Of course, he had accepted me even knowing I was a spy, but I could not feel relieved.

I had to earn trust somehow.

To do that, I need people’s help.

The problem was that there was no one who would help me.

Calypse expected nothing from me, and Knox was wary of me instead.

“Then there’s only one way.”

I chose the dress with the simplest shape among several dresses and spread it out on the floor.

Then I began drawing something on it with crayons.

As if a spy of the Pose family were writing a report.

“If I act this suspicious, there’s no way he won’t be curious.”

The head maid, Mai, had said Knox was currently in his private office.

“...But do you think I’d believe that?”

With Calypse gone, he would try to monitor me even more closely.

So the claim that he was in the office had to be a lie.

To watch what I did when I was alone.

To catch me red-handed when I did something suspicious like this...

“What are you doing right now!”

That was when it happened.

Sure enough, the moment I drew something, a fierce shout came from the window.

It starts now.

“Eek, eeeeek!”

First place in the Pose family acting exam.

Flutter—

After hiding the dress in a way that looked suspicious to anyone, I snapped my head up—

“Good day, fake young lady.”

Watching me with not one but two monocles, Knox smiled ominously.

No, why does he look that terrifying?

A-anyway...

You’ve taken the bait!

***

“...Did you climb up the wall?”

When I asked carefully, pretending to be frightened—

He put the glasses into his pocket and calmly climbed in through the window.

“I was monitoring you. To find out how a fake young lady who looked so utterly ordinary could have won His Grace’s favor.”

“So you came into my room without permission? Through the window, no less!”

“Yes.”

His unreadable monocle flashed.

“While His Grace is away, I must play the role of the fake young lady’s father.”

“......”

“Though of course, it is bothersome.”

He looked down at me with a bored gaze.

“Since it has come to this, I wanted to know why His Grace adopted Aisha in the first place. The cause, that is.”

“......”

He had been caught secretly watching me, yet he acted as if it did not matter at all. If anything, he even looked brazen.

“But to think you would do something so adorable. What were you writing on that dress?”

What do you think? Suspicious information you need to investigate.

“The dress?”

Pretending not to know, I shrugged and carefully nudged the dress hidden behind me with my bottom.

There was no way that sharp monocle would miss it, and it flashed brightly.

“What did you draw!”

“Nothing?”

“If you drew nothing, why are you hiding the dress so suspiciously?”

“Even a five-year-old has privacy.”

“But it is different if that five-year-old is a ‘former’ spy. Reveal the identity of the dress!”

“Eek!”

Knox suddenly lowered his upper body and thrust his arm behind me.

I pretended to block him in a hurry, but unfortunately, his arm was far longer than my tiny one.

“Heh... What in the world did you learn during spy training?”

He showed no mercy just because I was five.

In the end, Knox seized the dress first and looked down at me triumphantly.

What did I learn? Thanks to that, I’m putting on a brilliant performance of pretending to let you take it.

And Knox spread the back of the dress wide open—

“...Ahili’s Circus. Twelve o’clock. Staff storage room.”

His voice turned chillingly stiff as he read the fake report aloud.

Because this was, to anyone’s eyes, a spy’s contact message.

“...What were you planning to do by going here?”

In an instant, the air around us sank like a heavy weight.

“Were you going to brag that you successfully deceived Duke Kreutz and became his daughter?”

“......”

Th-this is much scarier than I thought?

“I am curious what exactly the fake young lady is trying to do, so I shall go with you.”

“Huh?!”

As I stood frozen, he let out a hollow laugh and threw the dress onto the bed. Then he grabbed me by the scruff of the neck like a kitten and lifted me up.

Before I even had time to panic, I was dragged by him into a carriage.

***

“Get down.”

Even though he told me to get down, his large hand snatched the back of my neck.

Ever since Knox read the fake report I had written, he no longer treated me as a “young lady” as Calypse had ordered.

It was according to plan.

Fortunately, Knox seemed convinced that I was communicating with the Pose family.

It is a little scary... but, well, I’m glad we made it this far for now.

Under his watch, I entered the circus, and air as cold as if I had stepped into a freezer clung to me.

Then a powerful spotlight shone on the host standing on the stage.

“Welcome to Ahili’s Circus, the greatest monster show on earth, the one you have all been waiting for!”

“Waaah!”

“Waaah!”

The host’s voice rang out thunderously, and the excited audience rose from their seats all at once.

“...Monsters? They gathered here to watch monsters...?”

At the unexpected situation, Knox flinched in surprise and muttered in a puzzled voice.

That was right.

This was a circus that displayed monsters brought in illegally.

But people like Knox, who had never entered this circus before, could not help but question it.

Monsters could not communicate and were so ferocious that even hunting them was difficult. And yet, a monster show?

Knox, who knew the traits of monsters well, would find it even stranger.

Then how did this circus bring in and manage monsters?

What was used here was none other than the power of ice.

The second young lord of the Kreutz family.

Lucas, whom I would save from now on, was trapped here and having his power exploited.

***

At that time. Beyond the end of the world.

“We have wiped out the pack of winter wolves lingering near the ice barrier.”

“And the orcs?”

Calypse’s black hair fluttered through the violently raging snowstorm.

Red bloodstains stood out starkly in the white world.

Blood flowed down between his palms, but Calypse wiped it away as if it were nothing and roughly wrapped the wound with a bandage.

Bleeding during monster subjugation was only natural.

“We confirmed about ten orcs lingering near the boundary.”

“Our forces.”

“Three are unable to fight. The rest can.”

“Then at dawn today...”

Calypse closed his mouth mid-sentence.

Because a child as small as a ball of cotton suddenly came to mind.

Aisha.

The little one who would be waiting for him at the estate.

Of course, she would manage bravely even without him.

But he was still a little uneasy about having left Aisha to Knox.

Is he nagging an innocent child even now?

After thinking for a moment, Calypse changed his words.

“We’ll finish as quickly as possible. Prepare immediately.”

“Yes. Understood.”

After sealing the bandage, he drank liquor.

Strong alcohol was essential to endure the cold that easily exceeded thirty degrees below zero.

His red eyes, hot as lava, were already directed toward the distant north where the orcs were.

If I finish quickly, I can return tonight.

Someone was waiting for him.

When he returned home, there was someone who would embrace him.

“......”

As the corners of his usually indifferent mouth faintly rose at the warmth he had not felt in a long time—

“Your Grace. An urgent message from Knox.”

The face of the child like white flour vanished because of the message the knight held out.

An urgent message?

That could not be.

The only threat to the Kreutz family was monsters.

But with him personally subjugating the monsters now, there should be nothing dangerous.

“......”

However—

[Aisha was discovered secretly writing a report. We are currently on our way to the contact location written in the report.

P.S. What did I tell you?]

“Your Grace? The subjugation preparations are complete...”

“We’re going back.”

“Pardon?”

“Make a portal. There’s somewhere I need to go immediately.”

Calypse crumpled the letter with the feeling that his blood had gone cold.