C42
"What's that?"
"Is it a public confession?"
"It seems important."
"I can't believe there's a guy making these silly confessions these days."
In front of the campus fountain of the Department of Magic.
The students' astonished gazes were fixed on the man holding a bouquet of red roses.
Dressed in expensive clothing and accessories from head to toe, he was a man who exuded an air of extravagance.
Those shiny brown boots of his were especially overwhelming.
To make matters worse, he was standing in the same spot where Sir Isidor had been a moment ago...
"What a shame."
It's more comparable as it was the opposite of Isidor, who only added subtle touches of light to his clothing to make his original charms endure.
"Whoo. Everyone is amazed by his money. It's inevitable. He's the owner of the Western Silver Mine."
Louie Gazelle enjoyed the attention poured on him and waited for Princess Deborah to come out of the Department of Magic's classroom.
"As expected, the water in the capital is good."
In the midst of that, he didn't forget to admire and glance at passing beautiful ladies.
Before long.
At the main entrance of the Department of Magic building, appeared a lady, no matter how you looked at it, whose face was labeled "Deborah Seymour."
As soon as Deborah passed by, the people around her made way in a very polite manner.
They also seemed like herbivores moving away from carnivores.
She really looks elegant.
Louie Gazelle's eyes widened.
She was a striking woman with her long purple hair falling to her waist and her slender figure.
"I don't think there's a single act of tenderness in her, so she's not my type, but she's prettier than I thought."
Above all, that woman, Deborah, is the direct line of Seymour's descendants; he heard that she has recently demonstrated her magical talent.
She is someone he needs for the Gazelle family whose mage is never born.
He heard rumors that Princess Deborah is cruel to the point where all the nobles called her a viper, but if they isolate her in the western land and educate her, she will fix her temperament.
"It's not like I'm going to see that woman forever."
He swallowed his dark intention and approached Princess Deborah with a pleasant smile.
"Hello, Princess Deborah. I can meet you like this after being introduced by Sir Belreck Seymour. It is an infinite honor to meet a beautiful and noble person directly."
Thinking it was a perfect first impression, the princess raised her lips slightly with a mocking smirk.
"Aha! You're that Thomson, no, Louie Gazelle. How shameless you are during the day. How dare you put that ugly face in front of me?"
"This... suddenly..."
Louie Gazelle's expression hardened when resentful comments arose suddenly in their first meeting.
"Catherine Bay."
The dominant eyes that looked at him and the humiliation he felt were also brief. Because the moment Catherine's name was mentioned, Gazelle's eyes widened.
"That's it..."
"Well, it's the name of your mother's maid that you had an affair with and was expelled from your estate last year."
"..."
"Of course, I know it's not the end. Mary Winter last year, three years ago in the fall, Joanne..."
"Whaa, wait, Princess!"
Faced with the constant revelation of his past, Louie Gazelle's expression darkened.
"Really, somehow I have a lot of material. I was surprised that something came out every time I dug it up. Even a cat will lose less fur than this."
"Ke, Keuk!"
Taking a step closer with a dirty smile, Louie Gazelle hesitated and began to step back.
"It's too early to run away yet. I have a petition with a simple list of your dirty deeds; I'll prepare it for you."
Deborah pulled the envelope with the red seal from her bag, and Louie Gazelle quickly waved his arms.
"It's, it's okay."
"Well, there's a lineup of people who can come to the capital and testify about you if I want, but there's no need to particularly dirty my mouth. Well, even if I didn't go west, you also played splendidly here. You even raised a bribery fund."
She even knows that.
Louie Gazelle's hands and feet began to tremble strongly.
"I also know that you're so addicted to gambling to the point that you made a bribery fund in order to secretly steal the silver from the recent silver mines."
"..."
"Your father must have had a futile dream when he saw my brother Belreck's letter. He also handed the seal to the Gazelle family to strengthen their relationship with the Seymour family. But you used that seal to make a slush fund."
"Heuk."
"When your father heard this news, he must have jumped for joy. Isn't that right?"
Louie Gazelle felt fear as he watched the princess peel back the white thread from what he had done in secret.
He couldn't believe she knew everything that had happened in the corner of the western region, where the terrain is rugged and outsiders rarely come and go.
The incident the princess mentioned was an incident where he boasted that the name Catherine Bay was well hidden.
He couldn't even guess how extensive the information network of Princess Deborah was.
She narrowed her cold, snake-like thin eyes and fired.
"Moreover, above all, I'm very curious about my brother's reaction to trusting you and arranging a meeting with me."
"Heuk!"
Princess Deborah waved the red envelope that was written with the details of Louie Gazelle's dirty behavior.
"Maybe if he looks at the petition from the maids and servants who worked in the Gazelle family, he won't believe that he was deceived and insulted by you and will throw his gloves at your shameless face?"
Louie Gazelle took a deep breath.
A duel with Seymour's second son, one of the greatest geniuses.
If he pulled out just one attack artifact, it was obvious he would die instantly right there.
His lips trembled.
"W-what... What should I...?"
"Speak properly. Don't stutter your words."
"What, what do you want from me, Princess? Well, I'll do anything. If you want me to beg here, I'll plead."
"It's simple. Never show your face in front of me again from now on. As it has already happened, I hope you're stuck in the west where you live and never come out of there. I'll give you 3 seconds."
3.2.1.
She counted the numbers mercilessly.
Barely standing with a broken look on his face, Louie Gazelle moved out of the princess's sight and fled like a madman.
----------------------
It turned out well.
Watching Louie Gazelle with his back hunched walk away in an instant, I tightened my stiff neck with tension.
I had asked to find his weakness, and it was the moment when Blanchia's first request finally saw the light.
"As expected of the Master, he was truly born to do the work of a single person."
The Master had been investigating all kinds of wealth of Louie Gazelle, waiting for the opponent to fall into a trap with his weapon.
Belreck, the heir, brought Louie Gazelle, and I thought he would show up sooner or later, but I didn't know he would send him to appear among the gifts and letters...
I thought that if I grasped his weakness and wielded it, and scared him into a duel with Belreck, he would be frightened since it was a matter of life or death and would leave here, and it was just as I had hoped.
"By the way, how powerful is the Master's information network?"
The western region of Acord is a rugged mountainous area, far from the capital, so it shouldn't be easy to gather information, but he investigated all the hidden facts of the local lord's son, who was no less than a local king.
It was certain that informants planted by the Master must already be hidden throughout the Empire.
What on earth is his identity?
Wouldn't it be highly likely that he's the son of the family that used to run an intelligence guild for a long time?
He spoke politely, but he couldn't be a commoner.
Since the Master liked the metaphors used by the nobles.
In conclusion, I want to keep doing business with him.
To do so, I have to be good at give-and-take. I didn't expect him to bring me this information.
Instead of threatening Louie Gazelle with the sealed red envelope, I looked at another envelope with a silver seal and swallowed my dry saliva.
------------------------
Did Louie Gazelle have a serious accident?
Louie Gazelle, who went to the academy, was involved in a scandal, which was the news that reached Belreck when he was upset.
"Yes, Sir Belreck. That's why he ended up seriously injured in the important area... Keheup! Maybe it was the deadliest accident as a man, so he's no longer snooping around the capital's social circle."
"..."
The nuisance had disappeared.
That was Belreck's brief impression.
Since his father disapproved of Louie Gazelle, it was a more involved specification with him.
However, somehow, he felt uneasy even though it wasn't a bad situation for him.
Belreck, who returned today from the tower because he couldn't concentrate, began to walk around the house.
Usually, his mind is filled with thoughts related to work and performance, but perhaps because he was in a chaotic mood, he could see a garden of flowers buried in the bluish darkness.
"Originally, it was a rose garden that my mother used to take care of..."
What kind of change of heart did his father suddenly have to change the garden?
Perhaps it's not because of Deborah.
If not, then it's fine; he insisted that his hunch was correct.
"Why exactly?"
Standing in an ambiguous mood, a doll-like figure in white wax slowly emerged from the garden.
Deborah?
Perhaps because she was walking with her back to the garden, Belreck squinted his eyes when his mother came to mind.