ESL Chapter 10

When she came up to the first floor, she deliberately spoke loudly enough for the shadow on the roof to hear, thanking Berchel for finding the book and saying she would come again as a customer, then left the antiquarian bookshop. As she moved, the shadow followed. However, when she returned home, the shadow disappeared as if this was as far as it would go.

“I’m home.”

As Lea took off her shoes and removed her ring while entering the house, Abel came out from the kitchen wearing an apron and holding the long chopsticks used for stir-frying food.

“Welcome back.”

“Were you cooking? It smells good~ Is this perhaps Ubellina?”

When Lea’s eyes lit up at the savory smell flowing into the living room, Abel smiled gently.

“You like stir-fried Ubellina.”

“Is Ubellina already ripe?”

“It ripened today. I’ve finished stir-frying them. Eat them when they cool down.”

Ubellina was a bean-shaped hard fruit that grew on Ubelli trees, and when roasted it could be eaten like crispy snacks, making it Lea’s favorite treat. Unfortunately, since the trees grew deep in the Krauzen Mountains, ordinary people rarely got to taste them.

“Wow. Being with Abel is really great. I wish we could always be together.”

“Impossible requests cannot be accepted.”

“Tch! You’re so cold at times like this. Oh, Abel. Can we get enough Montina?”

“Do you need it?”

“Yes… quite a lot.”

Without a word, Abel untied his apron, took off the glasses he had been wearing, and placed them on the table. Then he reached out and firmly grasped her hand. At the same time, the surroundings distorted and a field where various plants were growing appeared before their eyes. Looking around, she could see a silver mana array intricately intertwined forming a thin membrane reflected in her red eyes. And that thin membrane boasted a considerable height, completely enclosing the field.

“Amazing. You really made it. Abel, you’re a genius.”

Lea was genuinely impressed. Previously during a conversation, she had mentioned to Abel the idea of enclosing a field so cold wind couldn’t pass through, planting various plants there, and controlling the temperature to grow any plant well. At that time, Abel had said ‘I’ll give it a try,’ but she never thought he’d actually make it…

“I forgot to show it to you while trying to grow and show you the plants. The Montina is over there. Take as much as you need.”

Seeing the Montina occupying one side of the field and proudly displaying their fresh appearance, Lea’s eyes widened in surprise. That amount seemed like it would be enough to buy an entire kingdom and still have some left over. When she started picking Montina, Abel helped as well, and the two quickly gathered as much as they needed.

After returning home through Abel’s spatial movement ability, Lea put the Montina in a bowl, glared at it, and said:

“Now the question is how to get those two people to eat this… I need to check where the poison is too…”

While she was putting the Montina away, Abel brought a plate of roasted Ubellina and placed it in front of her, asking:

“What kind of poison is it?”

“They said it’s a colorless, odorless poison. They didn’t seem to know the type of poison.”

Watching Lea put a few Ubellina in her mouth, chewing them with a crunching sound while making a happy expression, Abel smiled pleasantly. Then stroking her head, he said:

“Whatever poison it is, I’ll add a function to your glasses that makes anything containing poison appear red.”

“Hmm~”

When Lea, who Abel expected to be happy, looked at him with a strange expression, Abel tilted his head.

“Why?”

“What can’t you do with magic?”

“Um… twisting the axis of time, making artifacts that could have a major impact on the human world, changing human emotions…”

“Those aren’t things you can’t do, they’re things you shouldn’t do.”

When Abel repeated the same answer he always gave after Lea cut him off, Lea’s eyes narrowed. But seeing Abel still smiling gently, she burst into a chuckle.

“It’s my fault for asking. But Abel, what appearance do you take when someone comes while I’m away?”

“I’ve never gone out.”

At the immediate answer, Lea thought it was so like Abel and said:

“From tomorrow, could you go out in the appearance of a cute girl about 10 years old? The operation name is something like ‘thought it was a weakness but it was a sharp dagger.'”

“If that’s what you want.”

“Good. Then I’ll ask you to do that. And if someone kidnaps you…”

“When I’m in the form of a girl?”

“Yes. Then I’m really sorry, but please follow obediently. There’s someone I need to find.”

Abel seemed to know who she was trying to find. He lightly pressed his forehead against hers and whispered:

“It will happen as you wish. I’ll help you.”

“Yes…”

Lea closed her eyes while listening to Abel’s voice that sounded like whispering wind. The complicated thoughts that had dominated her mind until just moments ago flew away completely and her heart became peaceful. Before she knew it, a smile was also forming on her lips.

****

“Haa… haa…”

Michelle let out ragged breaths with a flushed face as the man separated from her body. Leaving her like that, the man who had just mingled bodies with her adjusted his pants and concealed himself in the darkness. He was a man chosen from among the shadows monitoring the ducal family to please her.

Before becoming Michelle de Kaien, her name was Michelle Feren. Growing up under poor parents, she was dragged here at 16 due to her parents’ debt and trained by the organization’s leadership to be unable to live without men. If she had been a tender-hearted girl, she probably wouldn’t have endured, but fortunately she was vicious and greedy, and actually felt grateful to her parents who sold her. Thanks to her desperate efforts to catch the leadership’s eye, her beauty and ambition were recognized and she received orders to seduce the Duke and entered as the Duchess, but Duke Kaien was not easy as rumored.

Though he accepted her as Duchess due to blackmail, he coldly drew the line from the beginning that she should expect nothing more. His eyes when he said that if she demanded more, she would lose everything rather than gain what she wanted, were so chillingly cold that it gave her goosebumps. She tried to convince herself that it was just because it was the beginning, and that he would fall for her seduction over time. But for 17 years, she couldn’t even hold the Duke’s finger.

Whenever she thought about trying to demand an embrace through blackmail, remembering those chilling, cold eyes made it impossible to say anything, as if her lips were glued shut. After several years without results, the leadership even changed their orders from seducing the Duke to cutting off all the Duke’s connections. In the end, she processed her desires by mingling bodies with noble men she met at parties and balls. As a result, unfavorable nicknames like whore or temptress began to attach to her, and since some of her partners were married men, disturbances caused by their wives occurred frequently.

Of course, most were quietly settled thanks to her position as Duchess, but one or two among them became such problems that they circulated as jokes in high society for a while. When this situation developed, the leadership selected a suitable person from among the shadows and sent him to Michelle so she could satisfy her desires anytime. Thanks to this, she no longer needed to seek men outside and could enjoy pleasure whenever she beckoned.

How much time had passed? Sitting up with her naked body showing no shame, Michelle recalled Joseph’s face from a few hours ago. The impudent young man who rejected her touch like Duke Kaien. Though she couldn’t have the Duke, thinking she must at least have her way with that young man, she got down from the bed, put on a robe, and walked to the vanity. Then she took out pen and stationery from the drawer, wrote the contents, put it in an envelope, and sealed it firmly.

“Deliver this to him.”

As she muttered as if talking to herself while holding the letter, a shadow seeped into the room, took the letter from her hand, and disappeared.

“Was it Joseph? Hohoho, I’ll soon make you lick my feet.”

A twisted smile appeared on Michelle’s lips. Her eyes gleamed with the madness of desire.

The letter Michelle wrote was delivered by the shadow to a mansion not far from the imperial capital. The owner of this mansion was a nouveau riche who made money through trade, known among people around him for liking to act important and show off, but since all the hair on the top of his head had fallen out, he was secretly called a “pretentious octopus.” However, for the past year, this nouveau riche owner of the mansion had been gone, supposedly doing trade, and a man in his early thirties who claimed to be his nephew had come to live there.

Unlike the nouveau riche, this man was neat in appearance and gentlemanly, so people liked him, especially women of marriageable age. According to him, his uncle asked him to manage the mansion, but people thought the nouveau riche had given the mansion to this man.

The man sitting on the mansion sofa in the darkness with a wine glass in hand, lost in thought, looked down with an arrogant expression when a shadow seeped in and knelt.

“What is it?”

At his question, the shadow respectfully held out Michelle’s letter with both hands.

“A letter from that whore.”

The man sneered bitterly and picked up the letter as if handling something dirty, though reluctantly. His name was Abram Kelton. He was one of the organization’s leadership who placed Michelle in the ducal family, and the area he managed was the imperial capital and downtown of the Yurasen Empire.

After reading the letter, Abram began laughing with a dumbfounded expression. His eyes were terribly cold.

“After placing her in the duchess’s seat, she acts as if she’s really become a duchess. Though we haven’t given her education for a while.”

“Not all of the duke’s connections have been severed yet. Please spare her.”

At the voice of a young man heard from the darkness, Abram took a sip from the wine glass he had put down to read the letter and answered:

“Don’t worry. I’m only planning to educate her. Bring Michelle immediately tomorrow.”

At his command, the shadow who had been kneeling until now nodded and disappeared back into the darkness.

“By the way, it seems the duke’s new administrative officer is quite competent. Seeing Michelle covet him, his appearance must be decent too. What do you think?”

At Abram’s question, a voice came from the darkness again.

“There’s been no particular movement yet. He occasionally stops by bookshops or bakeries, but mostly goes straight home.”

“Have you checked his identity?”

“Yes. We contacted the person in charge in the Kingdom of Hamel and confirmed that Joseph is a man with brown hair and brown eyes, a distant relative of Count Luphern, and did graduate from the academy. They said he’s currently away from the kingdom.”

“If the duke trusts his administrative officer, we could use him for good purposes. Investigate more about this administrative officer Joseph. Who he lives with, whether he has a lover, things like that. Anything that could be a weakness.”

“Understood.”

“Come to think of it, what happened with the 2nd Prince’s side?”

“He seems to be watching to see if there’s a need to join hands with us.”

“We should throw suitable bait soon. Implement the plan we had prepared. The target is Count Roman’s family. And I heard their daughter is worth seeing, so after the job is done, throw her to the 2nd Prince as a gift.”

“Will implement.”

The voice from the darkness no longer spoke after those words. Abram sipped his wine again and muttered:

“Duke Kaien… Even with all his hands and feet tied, it’s not easy. Thanks to that, the schedule is delayed more than expected. After the Count Roman matter is finished, we’ll move to clean up the Kaien ducal family.”