The man who entered through the door had muscles so bulky they were almost oppressive. A long scar crossed over his eye, and a short black beard covered his angular jaw.
Behind him followed another man with a fierce, rugged face. He, too, possessed a body brimming with muscle.
*They look really scary. Are they mercenaries?*
It was an appearance entirely unfamiliar to Lariette, who had grown up delicately sheltered within a ducal household. However, staring for too long would be rude, so she quickly averted her gaze.
"Two cold refreshments, please."
"Yes—please have a seat and wait!"
It was quite a curiosity, for rough-looking men visiting a café by themselves was not a common sight. After ordering their drinks, they sat at the table directly behind her.
Lariette soon stopped paying them any mind and focused again on the thoughts she had been mulling over.
First of all, finding a handsome man was not something she could accomplish simply because she wanted to. The additional conditions were so demanding that the task was even more difficult.
*No girlfriend, experienced enough with women to be suitable for a light, three-month fling, someone who doesn’t cling when she walks away, handsome, and with a good body.*
Once she had neatly organized the requirements, she felt even more at a loss. Lariette let out a frustrated groan.
There was nothing she could do about it now, no matter how much she worried. Therefore, she promptly stopped thinking about it and turned her mind to a more immediate problem.
*Living expenses… I need to earn money.*
In truth, she had enough money to spend for now. It wasn’t sufficient to live luxuriously, but it was enough to get by.
Lariette took out the purse she had brought just to check. Made of luxurious dark blue fabric, it was small enough to barely hold a few coins. But she was not so foolish.
She untied the tightly bound golden cord and opened the purse’s mouth. Contrary to its extremely narrow appearance, the inside was surprisingly wide and deep.
Inside glittered a number of coins and a few dazzling jewels.
*After all the work I’ve done, I deserve to take at least this much.*
She shook the purse so that it jingled, a pleased smile playing at her lips. The fact that she had thoroughly pulled one over on the Duke left her feeling thoroughly satisfied.
This tiny purse was enchanted with a massive capacity spell. It was a magical item her former teacher, Joel Gong, had secretly crafted for her as a birthday present.
The problem, however, was that the value of the jewels was woefully insufficient to indulge herself for three months.
Since her body was going to die anyway, Lariette wanted to enjoy everything she possibly could. She had no interest in lavish dresses or accessories, as she had already experienced them to the point of boredom.
But she wanted to stay at better inns and enjoy tastier meals. For that, she needed more money.
*Hmm, what should I do to earn money?*
Lariette shook the purse in her hand back and forth as she worried. A dark gaze fell upon her from behind at the clinking sound, but unfortunately, she failed to notice.
After doodling absentmindedly in her notebook for some time, she suddenly raised her head. A brilliant idea had struck her.
*I’ll put my best ability to use!*
What she was best at was, of course, magic. However, in the case of elemental magic, her learning had been too brief and her talent too lacking to use it to earn money.
Yet there was one field in which she had been born with exceptional talent: purification magic.
Purification magic was not a particularly popular field in the magical world. It was considered to share an affinity with healing magic, but its efficiency was seen as far inferior.
As the magical world judged, purification magic required an excessive amount of mana. However, if one had enough mana, it could serve sufficiently in place of healing magic.
And what Lariette had in abundance was mana.
*If only I could heal myself…*
Lariette created a small swirl of mana in her palm and stared at it with a bitter expression. She had been born with outstanding purification and healing abilities, yet she was dying of an incurable disease—there was no greater contradiction.
One could not heal oneself with healing magic. This was an immutable truth, and the same applied to divine power. In fact, that field was even stricter.
Priests often summoned healing mages to treat their own wounds and illnesses.
They could not treat themselves with divine power, and they could not even receive treatment from someone possessing weaker divine power than themselves.
Requesting divine power from a higher-ranked priest was no easy matter, so they ended up paying mages—whom they normally looked down upon—to receive healing.
And this was exactly the means of earning money that Lariette had thought of.
*Should I go to the mercenary guild?*
It was an idea she could never have imagined back when she held the status of a duke’s daughter. A duke’s daughter of the Great Harshan Empire selling healing magic for money! If her mother had found out, she would have surely screamed at her, asking if she intended to bring disgrace to the family.
But she was no longer a duke’s daughter. She was neither an elegant noble lady nor a virtuous woman sacrificing herself for her house—she was simply Lariette, standing before her death.
Lariette downed the rest of her strawberry smoothie until the bottom was visible, then stood up. She roughly wiped her mouth with a napkin, looking particularly crude.
And as she exited the café after paying, sinister footsteps followed close behind her.
***
"No, I really am a purification mage! I’m confident I can heal any wound or curse!"
"I told you we’re not interested! Don’t cause a pointless commotion in our place of business and get out!"
The rugged-looking man waved his hands dismissively, deep wrinkles forming between his brows. His rough face was filled with annoyance at her.
"Look, miss, I don’t know where you read something that gave you such a strange romantic notion, but this is clearly interference with our business!"
"It’s not a romantic notion, I can really use purification magic…"
"Besides, we don’t even hire purification mages! We’ve got more than enough healing mages as it is, so why would we go out of our way to hire one?"
The man, an employee of the mercenary guild, shouted at Lariette. When she flinched and trembled at his outburst, he seemed flustered and lowered his intensity, scratching the back of his head.
"You look like a noble young lady; it’s dangerous to come to a place like this without an escort knight. To begin with, no one really hires purification mages. It’ll be the same anywhere else."
The man spoke in a rather gentle voice, trying to persuade her. He was concerned that needlessly offending a noble lady would bring him trouble.
Lariette felt aggrieved that they wouldn’t even test her skills, but since she could understand their position, she kept her mouth tightly shut. It seemed nothing would change if she said more to someone who already regarded her as an immature noble girl.
"…I understand."
"Yes, yes. You’ve made a wise decision. If you need mercenaries later, please contact us."
The man smiled widely and insincerely, opening the door for her. The way it slammed shut with a bang! the moment she stepped outside seemed to speak to his true feelings.
"Whew…"
Lariette let out a long, deep sigh and stood blankly for a moment. Before she knew it, thick darkness had settled outside.
*I should just head back to the inn.* Thinking thus, she began walking slowly toward her lodgings. Her heart was heavy, for the days ahead looked far from smooth—though one could hardly expect to be full after the first spoonful.
*No! Let’s just consider this averting disaster! I’ve had a hard day today, so tomorrow will be fine!*
Lariette clenched her fist and steeled her resolve. However, what she did not know was that today’s hardships were not yet over.
Fwoosh!
"Mmgh!!"
Someone appeared behind Lariette in an instant and yanked her with a forceful hand.
Flustered, she tried to chant a spell in haste, but a thick hand covered her mouth while another seized her wrists and restrained them. In other words, it was a situation where she could not use magic at all.
*What…!*
Lariette squirmed with all her might at the unexpected incident. However, without the ability to use magic, she was nothing more than a frail woman.
"Shh. Make a fuss and I’ll kill you."
Hot breath reached her ear as a voice she had heard somewhere before rang out. Lariette desperately racked her memory and soon realized he was the fierce-looking man she had seen at the café earlier.
The man forcibly dragged her away with his strength. They arrived at a dark, secluded alley.
"Where’s your magic pouch."
"Why bother asking? Her mouth’s covered. Just search her."
The companion who had entered the café with him answered with a laugh. He approached Lariette and groped all over her body. Tears sprang up unbidden at the humiliation.
*I shouldn’t have taken out my purse…!*
It had been foolish of her to take out her money pouch so thoughtlessly in a public place. She had overestimated her own magical abilities.
Lariette shed tears of regret, but the incident had already occurred. The man rummaging through her soon let out a cheer, having found the purse.
"Just as I thought! Her clothes were shabby, so I wasn’t sure, but there it is."
"Not a bad haul."
The men checked the jewels inside the pouch and nodded with sinister laughs. The man holding Lariette deemed her no longer useful and callously threw her against the wall.
"Ugh!"
"Thanks, miss—! Consider yourself lucky it ended at this."
Lariette, having struck the hard stone wall, groaned at the stinging pain rising up her back. The men giggled, waved their hands at her, and turned to leave.
Their words were true—it was a relief that it ended at this much. Normally, she would have accepted it glumly as unavoidable. However, Lariette's situation was far too dire for that.
*Without that money, I won’t last three months and will starve to death!*
She could accept dying of an incurable disease, but starving to death was absolutely out of the question.
Lariette jerked her head up and looked in the direction they had left. Her eyes blazed with fierce fighting spirit.
"Heyyyy—!!"
"Wh-what?!"
The men, who had been walking while tossing the pouch playfully into the air and catching it, turned around at the sudden shout.
And they spotted Lariette charging at them like an enraged bull. Floating beside her was a burning sphere.
"Hey, run!"
The men began scrambling to flee the moment they saw the fireball. The blazing orb poured down rapidly, scorching the spot where they had stood black.
"Elemental magic…!"
"She said she was a purification mage!"
They had eavesdropped on her conversation at the mercenary guild and confirmed her field of magic, yet contrary to their expectations, they were met with a bolt of fire. Confused, the men ran frantically, blaming one another.
However, contrary to their panic, they dodged her magic rather skillfully. They had experience facing elemental mages. They nimbly evaded the wooden vines that suddenly shot up from the ground and the deluges of water that fell from above—a sight so aggravating it was almost impressive.
"Give me back my pouch!!"
Moreover, the men ran so fast that Lariette began to fall behind. Her breath rose to the top of her head, and her feet hurt from her uncomfortable shoes.
And then, Lariette spotted a man standing in the middle of the alley ahead of them.
"Help, please help me!"
She screamed, clutching at her last lifeline. At that, the man who had been walking slowly turned around to look at her.
The moment she saw his face, it felt like Lariette’s breath stopped.
He was a tall man clad entirely in black. The hem of his long black coat flapped in the wind, and beneath his black shirt, white bandages wrapped around his muscular body all the way up to his neck.
His short hair was dark as pitch, and beneath his neat eyebrows glimmered blue irises—the only color he possessed.
*The one from the carriage…!*
The coachman of House Kandel! Lariette quickly searched her memory. But unlike before, when he had been outside her field of vision, she could now see his face in full.
His eyes were sharper than anyone she had ever seen, yet sunken as if weary. His elegantly prominent nose and thin lips were like a sculpture carefully carved by a god.
The man briefly cast an indifferent gaze toward the men running in his direction. At the same time, overwhelmed without knowing why, the men halted in their tracks.
It was a dreadfully terrifying aura. It was as if endless darkness had wrapped itself around his entire body.
An instinctive fear ate away at the men. Even though the man himself had done nothing at all.
“The smell……”
The man with the scar on his face stared at him and muttered blankly. A body wrapped in bandages up to beneath the chin, and the faint, unpleasant odor wafting from him. A smell like a corpse rotting…… a smell that called death to mind.
And those clues led them to guess the man’s identity.
“Duke…… Kandel……?”
“Hiiik! N-no way, that monster duke?!”
At the words they muttered while flinching back in fright, the man’s eyebrow twitched slightly. Lariette stared at him, her mouth hanging open.
‘He wasn’t a coachman—?!’
And that man, Duke Asrahan Kandel, slowly moved his hand.
Saaak—
It was a movement impossible to follow with the eyes. They hadn’t even seen him draw his sword, yet before they knew it, the bandit men had been cut by a sharp blade.
Thud. With a dull sound, the men collapsed to the ground. Asrahan, his face indifferent, trudged toward their bodies.
He bent his large frame and grasped something, then soon straightened and approached Lariette step by step.
Lariette stared blankly at his face as it drew closer. His blue eyes, seemingly devoid of emotion, met her clear violet eyes once more.
“……”
Without a word, Asrahan reached out to her. In his hand was a pouch stained red with blood.
“Hic!”
At the sudden hiccup that escaped her, Lariette gasped and clapped a hand over her mouth.
Asrahan, who had lowered his lashes for a moment and looked at her, placed the pouch in her hand and turned away without hesitation. Then he strode off quickly on his long legs.
Lariette was truly stunned.
Asrahan Kandel. It was a name she had heard before. The current duke of House Kandel, the most prestigious family in the Harshan Empire, and the empire’s greatest swordsman.
He was a general who had claimed victory even in wars thought impossible to win, and a man called the War Demon because of his cruel nature. There were also rumors that his face was exceedingly handsome.
Lariette thought those rumors were entirely wrong.
‘That’s not a face you can just call handsome and be done with!’
It was a perfect appearance that would leave something lacking no matter what flowery praise was attached to it. If God took one minute to make an ordinary person, then He must have stayed up all night for an entire day to make him.
Though he did look a little—quite a lot—frightening. The scent of death that wafted from him stirred instinctive fear in humans.
Even so, Lariette moved with bold determination.
‘I’m going to die anyway! I can endure something that scary!’
Since he was such a handsome man, there was no way he had no experience with women, and since he was famous for being cold, he wouldn’t cling to a woman who left him.
In other words, he was a man who perfectly met the conditions of Lariette’s bucket list.