Chapter 27: 27

Episode 27: Two Degrees of Separation

 

“It’s not exposed.”

Heinricion dismissed Rowen’s comments. He could never admit it.

Then Rowen looked at his master with narrowed eyes.

“Hasn’t something similar happened before?”

“Similar?”

“Yes. Definitely, there was. What I said back then…”

Rowen, who recalled the memory of his nagging at Heinricion, muffled his words and fell into his thoughts.

Exactly when was it? Rowen dug through his memories for the one he couldn’t seem to think of, and opened his mouth when it had popped up.

“After the incident with Her Highness the Princess, it was similar to what it is now. Even in a coldly frozen situation, Your Excellency…”

Rowen frowned slightly, as if it wasn’t a very pleasant memory, and continued.

“Didn’t Your Excellency have expectations?”

“…….”

Suddenly, Heinricion also realized. What Rowen was talking about.

“Even though you resent so much, you were always there when the Princess needed you.”

His relationship with Eristella was at its worst after her atrocities, but Heinricion still left a possibility.

Every time, Rowen was frustrated enough to wish for it. It was something he didn’t want to remember very much for either of them.

“You don’t know that you have been waiting for the day when you can accept the Princess’s apology.”

But in the end, Eristella did not apologize to Heinricion.

Rowen was right.

“But why are you doing that to the fox?”

Rowen was stunned at this point. Heinricion was fighting a war of nerves with the fox.

“No matter how much you care about it, it’s just an animal. So why are you sulking?”

Rowen was indirectly saying that Heinricion was childish.

“I’m worried that other people will find out.”

“Get out!”

Heinricion couldn’t stand it anymore and shouted.

An order fell on Rowen.

“Yes. I’ll go. It’s been a while since I got off work, so I’m grateful.”

However, Rowen did not lose his ground and flipped it around even more provocatively.

It was when Heinricion’s face turned red.

“If you want to reconcile, you should go first.”

Just before Rowen completely left, he suddenly turned around.

“And I’m sure it will like it if you give it a piece of meat.”

Rowen confidently suggested.

“The fox has a pretty simple side.”

Leaving those last words, Rowen completely exited the office.

Heinricion, who had stood up at his desk from the earlier unrest, slumped down in despair.

His dark green eyes, which had been dazed in thought, lit up.

Rowen’s last words bothered him.

“…How do you know that?”

Rowen said he saw a simple figure. When? Where?

Heinricion’s forehead was wrinkled.

*******

Rowen headed down the hallway at the end of the office with a handful of snacks in his hand.

“Fox. You came today as well.”

Rowen smiled brightly and set the snacks down.

‘Of course. I can smell it from afar.’

At some point, Rowen, who was initially displeased with the fox, began to take a liking to it and offer it snacks. Perhaps because he was worried about the fox at first.

It was then that Rowen and Eristella had secret meetings.

‘I didn’t necessarily forgive you for this. It’s good if we just get along well.’
(TL/N: the ‘forgiveness’ part is referring to Rowen pressing into the Azurdis’ last dying words, which then sorta resulted in the argument/cold war between Heinrcion and Eristella.)

Eristella took a bite of the delicious snack.

‘Look how it melts as soon as I put it in my mouth. As expected, this is the best.’

It was when Eristella was eating: one bite, and another bite.

“Fox. Why don’t you come to the office to play these days?”

Rowen bent his knees and made eye contact with the fox, asking sadly.

‘I guess this was the purpose of coming here with snacks today.’

“Would you like to go with me?”

The moment Rowen stretched out his arms and tried to hug the fox.

Swhook. Eristella took a step back and escaped.

‘If I go, he will hate it even more.’

Avoiding him doesn’t solve the problem.

Still, Eristella couldn’t give Heinricion the answer he wanted.

‘So I can’t approach him pretending everything is fine.’

As Eristella stood on guard with her tail pointed up, Rowen raised his hands and surrendered.

“I won’t touch you, so please enjoy the food.”

‘Really?’

As Eristella tilted her head, Rowen pointed to a far corner and emphasized.

“Really. Or are you going back to that corner?”

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‘No. What the hell.’

Eristella was about to get absorbed in the snacks again. One of the aides approached Rowen.

“They say they will move tonight.”

“It’s already the fifth time I’ve heard such a report.”

Rowen muttered as if he was unsure and got up.

“It is, but… We can’t help but be sensitive to even small signals.”

“That’s true. It’s better to go a hundred times in vain than to miss it.”

The two continued their conversation covertly without being aware of the fox’s presence.

Thanks to this, Eristella could comfortably overhear their conversation.

“Fox. Bon appetit. Next time I’ll bring you something else.”

Rowen stroked the fox once, then moved quickly.

‘These days, you’ve been very busy every night. Where are you going?’

Eristella stared intently as Rowen’s back was getting farther and farther away.

The conversation he just had with the aide was also suspicious.

‘Shall I follow?’

The fox’s short legs ran hard.

But it didn’t last long. She had to stare at the high wall with frustration.

‘How do I get over that?’

‘Oh. Damn wall!’

She couldn’t even move by herself.

The front door of the mansion was guarded by knights. Whenever she approached it, they said it would be dangerous for the fox to go out by itself, so they either sent her back or had an employee escort her.

As a result, Eristella had no way of leaving the mansion alone.

It would be nice if there was an entrance that she could use to get in and out on her own. Would there be a dog hole somewhere?

*******

Heinricion was persistent. And Rowen was an aide who didn’t know how to give up.

After the count couple of Azurdi met their end in the Imperial Palace, Heinricion immediately issued a secret order to Rowen.

—Keep a close watch on the County of Azurdi.

Since then, knights and wizards belonging to the Grand Duchy of Adelasia have been hiding alternately around the residence of the County of Azurdi. Rowen was also lurking every night to monitor the situation.

Currently, a special magic was affixed to the entire Azurdi residence. It was impossible to enter or exit the mansion while avoiding surveillance as they even put magic stones in various places.

“When are you going to come out?”

Rowen watched the mansion closely and muttered as if bored.

The real purpose of spying on the County of Azurdi wasn’t to catch any suspicious people approaching the mansion. It was to wait for the rat that was hiding inside the mansion to crawl out on its own.

But it seemed to hold up better than he expected, staying quiet without any movement.

So he bribed an employee of the county and threw a bait.

“At this point, you should have acquired the heirloom of the Count. You must have discovered a secret passage that no one knew about, so you will not be able to survive without moving today.”

That was then. A reaction occurred from the magic detection stone that Rowen was holding. It was supposed to react when something crossed the borders surrounding the mansion.

“You’ve finally moved.”

He moved quickly to the place where the magic detection stone reacted.

And there, he found a shadow of a form moving discreetly in the dark.

“Why did you come out now?”

When Rowen’s voice rang, the person turned around, startled.

“Do you know how much it costs to put up barriers and watch over the entire mansion? How heartbroken I was over the money that vanished in vain while I was guarding this place every night.”

The other person’s face distorted grotesquely as Rowen expressed the displeasure he had been harboring throughout the surveillance.

There was a response as to whether that was what he was going to say now, but Rowen continued saying what he wanted to say without heeding it.

“With each passing day, I made up my mind that I would never be nice to anyone who came out of this place.”

“…….”

“I see you at last.”

Rowen’s smile caught the cold moonlight, making him look even more maddened.

*******

It was late in the morning when Rowen came to report to Heinricion.

“I threw the bait as planned and he bit it. It was as you expected.”

Heinricion, alone in his office, raised an eyebrow at Rowen’s report and asked.

“Was it the Marquis of Decayden?”

“That’s right. He’s locked up in the basement now.”

“Is that so?”

Heinricion muttered as if he had expected it.

“How did you know?”

“I’m not sure. I just had a hunch about that.”

The Marquis of Decayden was a person Heinricion followed when he was young, even calling him ‘uncle’.

But some years ago, he went into hiding after he caused embezzlement problems.

And not long afterwards, Count Azurdi made a bad investment and suffered a huge loss. But it became weird. One day, he suddenly started to talk about making up for the loss and amassing a big profit.

At that time, Heinricion had a feeling something was off.. It was then that he noticed it was related to Marquis Decayden.

Perhaps the Marquis Decayden made the offer to Count Azurdi. In exchange for giving him financial support, he asked to let him stay in the county.

However, there was no definitive proof, and because of past relations, Heinricion pretended not to know.

“And again, not long before his death, he talked about new investments, saying that he met a good friend. So I guessed that maybe Marquis Decayden was still staying in the mansion.”

Perhaps he had a connection with black magic.

“What shall we do? Shall I deal with him first and then report back?”

“No. I will go and see for myself.”

Heinricion headed straight to the dungeon.

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