And.
At the countless parties that followed,
I never saw him again.
&
House D’harmont.
A name the kingdom’s merchant companies feared most,
and a name impoverished nobles uttered with the utmost courtesy.
With that name alone, money moved,
and with that name alone, a ledger became trust itself.
Someone once said,
D’harmont was not a house, but order.
***
“Lady Seraphinlie.”
Seraphinlie did not even lift her head.
“Speak.”
The office was thick with the scent of paper and ink.
Ledger cabinets filled the walls.
Endless piles of contracts were stacked upon the desk.
The candle had already been replaced for the third time,
and outside the window, deep darkness had long since settled.
Even so, Seraphinlie’s hand did not stop.
Rustle.
A page of the ledger turned.
“Someone has come urgently from the Third Eastern Warehouse.”
“And?”
“They say part of the auxiliary military provisions delivery list… does not match.”
Seraphinlie’s hand stopped.
Only for a very brief moment.
Then it returned to the ledger.
“What do you mean, does not match?”
“The ledger says shipment complete, but the confirmed physical quantity is short.”
“By how much?”
“Fifteen crates.”
It was ambiguous.
Too awkward a number to call central army provisions,
yet not small enough to dismiss as something a clerk had secretly pocketed.
Seraphinlie slowly raised her gaze.
“The person in charge?”
“They took sick leave three days ago.”
“The warehouse supervisor?”
“They have been missing since dawn today.”
“The receipt?”
“We have it. However…”
The clerk fell silent for an instant.
Seraphinlie’s eyes narrowed coldly.
“However?”
“The format is a little unfamiliar. I believe you should confirm it yourself.”
A brief silence passed.
Seraphinlie rose from her seat.
The chair legs scraped briefly against the floor.
“Bring it.”
“Pardon?”
“The ledger, the receipt, the seal records, the warehouse entry log. All of it.”
At the unexpected order, the clerk began moving in a fluster.
In the meantime, Seraphinlie walked to the window.
Outside was dark,
and only the lamps along the outskirts of the D’harmont mansion glimmered here and there.
Fifteen crates.
If it was a small loss, it was small.
For a house like D’harmont,
they could have simply adjusted a number like this and let it pass quietly.
The problem was,
strangely enough, this was not the first time something like this had happened.
Not long ago, the spice accounts had been off,
and before that, the silk entry records had been subtly mismatched.
None of them had been large.
So they could have been overlooked.
And yet, strangely,
they left an unpleasant aftertaste.
Trust your instincts.
Those were the words her father, the man who had raised D’harmont to its heights, had valued most.
Numbers could be falsified, but instincts rang the alarm first.
And now that instinct
was clearly raising its head within Seraphinlie as well.
Above all, it was time to show them.
The nobles and merchant companies moving under D’harmont.
That she was not merely an heir in name.
Rumble.
The door opened again, and stacks of documents were carried inside.
Seraphinlie immediately returned to her desk and opened the ledger.
Auxiliary military provisions delivery ledger.
Shipment complete.
Accounts settled.
Receipt complete.
On the surface, it was clean.
Even after scanning through this and that, there was nothing that looked strange.
“Wasn’t it simply that they failed to check properly?”
“Mm… I will tell them to confirm it once more.”
“If they did miss something, then for this much, tell them to pay out of their own pockets.”
“You will not punish them?”
Seraphinlie shook her head.
“It is good to be thorough, but being overly thorough is not good either. Since it has been noticed, pointing it out will suffice. Of course, if it goes beyond that, then it becomes a different story.”
She was about to close the receipt.
But at that moment, her eyebrows moved ever so slightly.
“...”
It was odd.
At the bottom of the receipt, there was a very small shorthand mark.
It was not an official merchant company seal,
nor was a name stamped openly there.
A single short stroke.
A single dot beside the delivery destination change.
Anyone else might have dismissed it as a meaningless mark.
But Seraphinlie had seen it before.
Every merchant company had its habits.
The way they wrote ledgers.
The habit of leaving marks.
The manner in which they organized numbers.
Seraphinlie remembered such things to a frightening degree.
The Infinite Carriage Merchant Company.
Even without that, it was a name she had noticed once before
in a problem that had occurred earlier.
Thanks to Viscount Depiros Gremory’s advice, she had paid attention to it,
but at the time, it had not risen to a fatal level.
It was something that could be adjusted immediately, and the problem had been resolved well.
However.
That mark was definitely there.
Seraphinlie’s gaze slid along the items bearing that mark.
Spices.
Silk.
Up to this point, she could let it pass.
But,
below that.
Auxiliary military provisions.
Seraphinlie’s hand stopped.
It was not directly connected to the issue of the fifteen crates just now.
But in that instant, she felt it.
There was something here.
“Find out whether the Infinite Carriage Merchant Company is involved in this matter. No, bring me every record connected to the Infinite Carriage in relation to auxiliary military provisions.”
“Understood!”
The clerk hurriedly gathered the documents and ran out.
Seraphinlie looked down at the receipt again.
The problem was not here.
It was this Infinite Carriage that bothered her far too much.
“Just seeing how often they appear will tell me enough.”
Rumble.
The clerk ran back inside.
“Lady Seraphinlie! I have brought them!”
“Read.”
Panting, the clerk opened the ledger.
“These are the transport records for auxiliary military provisions over the past three months. There are not many cases directly handled by the Infinite Carriage Merchant Company.”
“But?”
“Their name appears frequently in cases involving warehouse transfers or storage conversions.”
Seraphinlie’s gaze immediately dropped to the ledger.
Auxiliary military provisions were not expensive goods like silk or rare spices.
Nor were they items whose destination warehouse
or merchant company was decided from the start.
They were goods D’harmont deliberately handled that way.
So that new merchant companies, too, could make something of a living.
And yet.
A name that should have appeared at random
was appearing more often than expected.
“How many cases?”
“Including this one, ten.”
“Ten.”
Seraphinlie’s eyes slowly narrowed.
“Ten times among randomly assigned goods…”
“Could it not be coincidence? It is not entirely impossible…”
Instead of answering, Seraphinlie reached out and pulled more ledgers toward her.
Thud.
Thud.
Thud.
As she looked down at the ledgers lined up side by side, the corners of her lips twisted ever so slightly.
There is a smell.
But only a smell.
With this alone, she could not strangle the Infinite Carriage Merchant Company.
“Shall we try to catch them?”
“We cannot catch them just because they are suspicious.”
Seraphinlie closed the ledger.
“If D’harmont is to step forward to seize a merchant company, it must be to an extent no one can refute.”
She exhaled briefly.
What she needed now was not more ledgers.
She had to meet them in person and shake them.
The things they took for granted.
The things that, for that very reason, they could not help but let slip from their own mouths.
She had to draw those out.
Seraphinlie slowly closed her eyes, then opened them.
But that was not her way.
She read ledgers,
watched the flow,
and grasped the structure.
Conversely.
Provoking people and making them blunder on their own was something that woman was better at.
“Contact Eileen.”
“You are calling… Lady Belmardian?”
“Yes.”
Seraphinlie immediately spread out a sheet of paper.
In any case, she would have many occasions to move together with Eileen from now on.
If so, it would be better to show her first through this opportunity.
It would be far more profitable
to drive it into the heads of those merchant company bastards now.
***
Eileen Belmardian.
She was standing in Kerenia, a territory managed by D’harmont.
And for some reason, I was standing beside her as well.
“... No matter how I look at it, am I not unnecessary here?”
“No. You’re very, very necessary.”
Eileen smiled calmly.
“I’m in danger. Aren’t you going to protect me?”
Eileen’s fragile expression was cute,
but a hollow laugh escaped me first.
“There is a knight beside you who is several times stronger than I am. Would I really be of any help?”
Sir Jerome merely smiled faintly even after hearing those words.
“Of course. Naturally.”
Eileen spoke with perfect ease.
“If Sir Jerome is holding the enemy back, then who will protect my side? Isn’t that right?”
“... Well, that is true, but.”
“Right? Then it’s decided.”
No.
I was not done speaking yet.
I had been swept along far too naturally.
Still, I had no reason to refuse.
Getting a little closer to D’harmont was certainly beneficial.
Also,
though it had meant playing one of my cards, the Love House Guild had been of tremendous help.
That was why I had gladly followed Eileen here.
But we did not go straight to the mansion.
Eileen took me with her and strolled slowly through Kerenia.
The smell of freshly baked bread drifted along the roadside,
and from every street stall came the sound of oil sizzling.
As the sun tilted, orange light shone upon the edges and corners of the rooftops,
and people were busy doing their late shopping.
“Oh my, this is good. Try it.”
Eileen held out a skewer.
I naturally reached out my hand.
“No. Say ah.”
“Yes, yes?”
“Ah~”
For a moment, I was far too flustered.
“I-It’s fine…”
“Oh? But my arm hurts.”
“Then I can just…”
“Oh? You’re not going to hurry? I’ll sulk, you know?”
Sulk.
Was that not practically a word that did not exist in her head?
Because of that, I was so flustered,
and unable to understand it, that I unknowingly opened my mouth slowly.
“Ah, ah…”
When I chewed the food she fed me, it was tastier than I had expected.
“Oh. This is good.”
“Right?”
As we passed by, she also picked up various toys and delighted in them.
“So cute. What do you think of this?”
“It’s cute.”
“Buy me one.”
“Pardon? You have far more money than I…”
Eileen held it and looked at me once again.
Eyes and an expression desperately longing to have it.
Even knowing it was an act,
how could I possibly just walk past after seeing that?
“All right. I’ll buy it for you.”
“Thank you.”
I paid with a smile, and perhaps because she was in a good mood, she smiled and waved the toy.
“But… is it all right for us not to go?”
Eileen, who had been walking ahead, turned around,
and her silver hair scattered with a soft chime in the wind.
“Why? You don’t want to go on a date with me? Is it not fun?”
“No, that’s not… A d-date?”
“Then it’s good, right? Let’s go. Hurry.”
She gave me no room at all to slip in another word.
Eileen knew far too well that it was difficult to refuse her words.
And she knew how to use that all too naturally.
It felt like I was being toyed with.
But it did not feel bad.
No.
Could it possibly feel bad?
Or not?
Should it feel bad?
Even if not for anyone else,
shouldn’t it be that way for me?
All sorts of thoughts crossed my mind.
Eileen walked with a smile, then looked back again.
At first, it had truly been only a conversation.
Because we had never properly had one.
I thought that much would be fine.
After all, with just that, there was no way I could be connected to her again.
So I did it with an easy heart.
By chance, she smiled at me,
and this time, I wanted to see it again.
That one time,
then another,
and in the end, it brought me all the way here.
Suddenly, I remembered the her of the past.
A face that seemed not to care whether I existed or not.
Let alone eating together,
that cold gaze and tone that told me not to even speak to her inside the mansion.
That was why, now,
the Eileen before my eyes still felt unreal.
“What are you doing? Hurry and come.”
The moment I saw her smiling at me,
I thought.
Just a little.
Let me see it just a little longer.
It had been decades.
This much should be all right.
I did not know when that appearance might disappear.
So.
While I could still see it.
Just a little longer.