Spring Welcoming Festival🐶
What is it that I can't remember?
It’s not like I’m bragging, but I have a great memory.
I even remember from our Academy days, when Arden told a guy who was pretending to be close to him to get lost because his spit was flying around, and ended up getting challenged to a duel.
I also remember the day we were learning hand-to-hand combat, when he hid in the library because he hated touching people, and I found him?
Good grief.
“This is strange….”
“What is?”
“Arden says there’s something I can’t remember, but I have no idea what it is.”
“So our Lord Arden feels slighted?”
“Not exactly… huh?”
Hazel called him “our” Lord Arden again? I turned around.
Hazel, feeling my gaze, made her scissors go click-clack.
“It was plastered all over the newspapers this morning.”
What Hazel pointed at with her chin:
[Lord Arden Is Not At All Close with the Woman from the Rumors, Not Even a Sibling Relationship]
It was an article Arden had paid to spread to every newspaper company in the Empire.
“They say Lord Arden is a beggar. If a beggar spent this much money, you have to give him credit.”
“I didn’t exactly call him a beggar…….”
I just said he had no money.
“That’s a beggar.”
“Ah.”
I nodded.
Ellie, who had been attaching flower decorations to a bonnet beside us, scrunched her eyes playfully.
“See, Hazel unni? I told you so, and everything worked out perfectly. I really am the romance expert of this district.”
Since it was the first time I’d heard this, I repeated, “Ellie is an expert?”
“Don’t be surprised, unni. I have read romance novels, a whole…”
“A whole?”
“Ten whole books!”
“Really?!”
She really is an expert!
“I guess if you dig one well deep enough, you really can become something.”
Oh my.
“I’ve even read the same book twice.”
“It’s a talent, a talent.”
I clapped and praised her.
The colleagues up front, who had been changing the decorations on the entrance door, turned around as if to ask, “What’s going on?” so I told them.
“Ellie’s a romance expert.”
“Really? Then give me some love advice.”
“What kind of worry?”
“You know how it is, there’s this arrogant guy who’s been on my mind lately…….”
“That’s simple. Smash a stone slab down on his head.”
“His head?”
“Yes. You could call it the ‘You’re the first woman to ever crack my head open’ strategy.”
“Ooh!”
“Then what about this? How to capture a guy who’s a thug but completely dense.”
“Fall from above as you pass by and crash your lips into his.”
“Why?”
“Because guys like that have to marry the first woman they bump lips with, no matter what.”
“But I don’t really want to marry that guy.”
“Then just pretend you have an incurable disease and leave.”
“Ooooh!”
And so began Ellie’s love counseling.
Soon, customers who had come in to look at clothes also began lining up in front of Ellie one by one.
“Miss Ellie, can you listen to my worries too?”
“What is it, customer?”
“There’s a lady I fancy, but she hasn’t the slightest interest in me. What can I do to pique her interest?”
“It’s simple.”
“What is it?”
“Be handsome.”
“Oh!”
“And take off that leopard-print hat.”
“Why don’t you try this hat instead?”
Not missing the opportunity, I quickly jumped in and sold the hat.
“Checkout is over here.”
Hazel closed the sale.
Maybe because it was the day before the festival, the customers were opening their wallets wide.
Right in the middle of another booming business day.
“Miss Ellie, what should I do about someone who’s sulking because of another man?”
“Huh? What kind of question is that! You have to comfort them right away!”
“But what if that moment has already passed?”
“Oh my, you missed the perfect opportunity. Why did you do that?”
“Truthfully, I once went to visit and comfort her. But the lady wasn’t there.”
“And you just came back? Even though you like her?”
“…Well. It’s not that I particularly like her.”
A voice that was somehow familiar.
Sleazy, yet surprisingly precise pronunciation. Rude, but if you listened closely, he never used crude words.
“Not really? Even though you’re so worried about her?”
“I am concerned, but I don’t like her. …Not yet.”
“Oh my! I can see it, I see it!”
“Hmm?”
“I see a future where you lose her forever and live with regret!”
“Cassian?”
Cassian was sitting across from Ellie with Dubu on his lap.
Dubu, wearing a fluffy lavender bonnet with rabbit ears attached, wagged his tail at me.
My expression twisted.
“…Cassian, don’t tell me you’re getting love advice right now?”
You fool……
“I’m serious, you’re going to hell for that.”
Cassian, seeing me click my tongue, sheepishly rose from his seat.
“Were you listening?”
“What, did you say something I wasn’t supposed to hear?”
“It’s not that.”
“Oh boy.”
I shook my head.
He seemed embarrassed himself. Cassian looked around and changed the subject.
“Everyone’s excited.”
“Because spring is coming.”
“And there’s the festival.”
“Right.”
That’s right.
The long winter was ending, and the season where the Empire officially entered spring had arrived.
‘Finally!’
The shops took down winter decorations made of snowflakes and cookies and hung up flower ornaments. Teahouses and confectionery shops sold spring drinks dyed pink. Tailor shops, hat stores, and shoe shops changed their display windows to new products in bright colors.
And!
‘For one week starting tomorrow, the Empire’s Spring Welcoming Festival!’
“Cassian, what does ‘festival’ make you think of?”
“People coming to the Great Temple to receive blessings.”
“Ah.”
“What about you?”
“The auction and the night market. And the Hunting Festival!”
You know, like walking around with your hood up, buying skewers, and running into His Highness the Crown Prince, or winning first place at the Hunting Festival and getting a flower crown, or going to the auction and meeting a suspicious guy.
“I’m especially looking forward to the auction.”
“Aha….”
No wonder. Cassian raised the corner of his mouth.
Seeing his cunning expression, I returned a rotten grin of my own.
The reason we were smiling.
‘On the last day of the festival, we’re putting up an abused rabbit in the charity auction at the top floor of the Imperial Bank under Cassian’s name.’
Because the day to execute the trap to capture the fake Saintess was approaching.
Like this↓
[A black rabbit personally hunted by the High Priest!
Why would we put such an ordinary rabbit up for auction?
Oh, look closely!
This rabbit’s eyes! They are a very rare red color!]
[No, my little sibling is appearing at an auction! I have to save them!]
Of course, it’s only a trap; we aren’t actually trying to put a rabbit up for auction.
I’m not that kind of person.
Besides, that rabbit is asleep right now and can’t even open its eyes.
“The auction list should be in the newspapers by now, right?”
“It came out a while ago.”
The charity auction on the last day of the festival was an event that all capital nobles were obligated to attend, and the proceeds were used entirely to support the vulnerable.
What if a noble didn’t donate an item?
Then their name would be plastered on the front page of the newspaper as a noble who refused to donate, and they’d be cursed at for ages.
To prevent the disaster of some stingy noble throwing in just anything, which nobles had donated which items was announced in advance.
‘When the cat noona sees her younger sibling on the auction list and comes rushing with her eyes spinning.’
That’s when—bam!
“Ehehehe.”
As I laughed sinisterly, Dubu asked,
“Serapina, Serapina!”
“What?”
“If winter is ending, do the roasted sweet potatoes disappear too?”
“They probably do? The roasted sweet potato uncle will probably quit selling them and switch to something like waffles.”
“Then can’t we eat them one last time?”
“I think you’ve had plenty……”
“Arreung.”
“Fine, fine.”
I picked up the clinging Dubu and put him in my coat pocket.
“I’ll take that. I’ll go and come back.”
“Really? It’s heavy.”
“It’s fine.”
I took the load from the tailor who happened to be going out to mail a package and stepped outside the atelier.
“Cassian, why are you following me?”
“Because the money to buy roasted sweet potatoes for Johann Mendelssohn Handel Beethoven Bach Schubert Mozart Debussy Park Yeon Strauss the Third comes from my pocket?”
“Ah. Then you’d better come along.”
We went to the post office to mail the package (Cassian carried the load), bought just one roasted sweet potato for Dubu, whose belly was already round even without eating, and on the way back, I shared it with him—one bite for you, one bite for me. (I didn’t give Cassian any. I asked, “Want a bite?” and he turned red and refused. Why was he suddenly acting all shy?)
I could see a crowd gathered in front of the plaza bulletin board buzzing.
What is it?
Was there some interesting news?
I made my way over, craning my neck.
["I have planted bombs at six locations in the city of Rouar that only I know.
Starting from the first day of the festival, I will detonate them in order."]
Huh?
Saintess of Magic, Serapina