110.
Several days passed. In the meantime, I brazenly went around digging into Bella’s background, and eventually even started loitering around her.
Bella, still pale-faced as she pushed up her glasses, went so far as to protest in all seriousness, “I believe I asked you to investigate Gary Yus, not me.”
But we had yet to find any meaningful reaction from Gary Yus.
On the contrary, ever since that day, he had shut himself tightly inside his mansion and hadn’t shown so much as a single hair.
What on earth was he doing in there, refusing to step outside?
The duke said,
“If we draw on the knights stationed in the north, things might move considerably faster.”
“Do you want to get caught using the knights for personal business?”
This time, Prien spoke.
“Divine power cannot defy death, but it should be possible to place a blessing on her.”
“What happens if you place a blessing?”
“Ordinarily, when death is close at hand, it becomes impossible to move and speak as usual. But with a blessing, one should be able to pursue what they desire until the very end of life.”
“A blessing like that would probably require an enormous amount of divine power, wouldn’t it? Practically speaking, the only priests capable of granting such a thing would be a handful of high-ranking clergy.”
“Precisely.”
“And you’re the exception who can do it as well.”
“That is also correct.”
Prien nodded with a modest expression.
His attitude seemed to suggest he was hoping I would gladly wear him down.
“That won’t do either.”
“But……”
“But what? That’s not what Bella asked us for. Besides, I don’t want to make something involving a life into a bargaining chip.”
“I understand.”
This time, Zaka spoke.
“Why are we going the long way around when there’s an easier method? If you’d just allow it, Baron, I could coax him into confessing.”
Zaka had already done so once before. Though whether it would stop at “appropriately,” “well,” and “coaxing” remained to be seen.
In truth, it wasn’t just Zaka.
Looking at the others present here, one was a war hero, and another was an inquisitor.
There were people within arm’s reach for whom roughing someone up and extracting information would be easier than blowing their nose.
And if I asked, they were clearly fond enough of me that they wouldn’t care in the slightest even if it crossed the line a little into criminality.
But I didn’t want to use that.
A few kind words from them would, in any case, leave them and disappear without a trace.
If even I forgot them, they would never exist in this world again.
But actions like these were bound to leave traces for a long time.
They would become irreversible choices in their lives, and regrets would linger for ages.
So if they could not keep to the proper path, then at least I had to remember.
“Zaka. What do you think we came all this way for? To commit crimes?”
“I’m just telling you there’s an easier path. Sometimes you act like you can’t see things like that at all, Baron.”
Zaka replied without wavering at my reproach.
His face, turned diagonally away rather than looking at me, felt particularly desolate.
“……”
Lately, whenever I saw Zaka, there was one thing I wanted to ask.
‘Does this guy really want to hide his identity from me?’
I had been pretending not to be curious, pretending all along that I didn’t know, but…….
‘How long can I keep doing that?’
Sharp-eyed Prien was a given, and by now the duke must have noticed to some extent as well.
For now, the two of them were leaving Zaka alone out of consideration for me, but after he drank the antidote?
Was he even thinking about what would happen later?
If anything, the more he did it, the more I felt as though Zaka was deliberately revealing “that side” of himself to me in an obvious way.
And that behavior made me think many things inwardly.
Usually, people want to show only their good side in front of someone they like.
But…….
At some point, whenever Zaka revealed glimpses of his true self, it seemed as if he was asking me this.
Could you accept this side of me, too?
I could feel that anxious desperation.
At times, it even felt as though he would rather I reject him and feel repulsed by him.
So I asked myself.
No matter who Zaka was, could I accept him?
At first, he had been an unfamiliar attendant; then, as it turned out, he was a victim who had taken the potion; and in the end, ours was a bond that had begun from an artificially added encounter.
But before we knew it, we had grown used to one another.
‘Then is the Zaka I know not Zaka?’
I didn’t think so.
The him I knew was also him.
So perhaps it would be all right.
Even if I came to learn what his identity was, as long as he remained himself.
I pressed down firmly on Zaka’s head.
“You keep saying such ugly things, don’t you?”
“Ah, you’re messing up my hair.”
“You said you liked this before. I only do it to you.”
“Then do it gently.”
Though Zaka grumbled, I sensed sincerity in the words he muttered under his breath.
Yes, it would be all right.
I truly hoped it would be.
“But is that man really Karl Paraton?”
At Zaka’s question, I bent my knees up and rested my chin on them.
“I’m not sure anymore myself.”
Come to think of it, Margaret had only implied it; she had never clearly declared that his identity was Karl Paraton.
And there had been no lie in her words that there would be a clue there to obtaining Merinis’s heart.
The duke, who had been pressing his fingertips to his temple for a moment, lowered his hand and straightened his posture.
“There is one way.”
“You have to say it without including the use of force.”
“If he truly is Karl Paraton, there is one weakness he cannot help but react to.”
A weakness?
My eyes widened. I had an idea of what he meant.
“Surely……”
“That very truth itself is likely his weakness.”
We decided to test that hypothesis at once.
* * *
I thought we would be turned away at the door, but unexpectedly, Gary Yus still treated us as guests.
Though enough time had passed for all of last time’s passion to have settled and then some…….
This time, in order to lower his guard, I had come to visit him alone.
“Have you thought about it in the meantime?”
“Thought about what?”
“I made you a proposal, didn’t I? I’m asking whether you still haven’t changed your mind.”
Then he answered me in an exceedingly calm tone.
“I heard that Bella collapsed on the street the other day, and that you saved her, Baron.”
“……”
“Even during our last meeting, I felt a strange sense of incongruity, but now I know that you are merely mischievous, Baron, and warmhearted at your core.”
He preemptively cut off the shameless demand I might have gone on to make.
“So I don’t believe you came here again to test the waters by bringing up some innocent person.”
Gary Yus lifted his teacup with a serene face and took a sip. Watching him savor the aroma of the tea, I hesitated briefly.
“Yes, you’re right. In truth, I was only testing you.”
“Testing me……”
“While you were holed up here all day, trying to gauge our reactions, I learned quite a lot about Bella.”
Without giving him a chance to cut in, I continued.
“I know secrets about Bella that you don’t, but… let’s talk about something more important right now.”
“……”
“For instance, your identity.”
I simply threw it straight at him. If it really wasn’t true, then I would only be embarrassed, and that wasn’t much of a loss.
But if things dragged on like this and I failed to uncover his identity, the matter of obtaining the antidote would hit a dead end.
“Karl Paraton. Bella still doesn’t know who you are, does she?”
“……”
“Why do you think I went so far as to move to a remote village like this? You’ve probably already looked into it too—that I’m a real noble from the imperial capital.”
“……”
“I even deliberately didn’t hide my status for that very reason.”
“……”
“Did you finish looking into the identities of the three people by my side as well? Ah, that probably wasn’t too difficult either. Right? There was quite a commotion early in our journey, after all.”
Gary Yus stared at me quietly, not once parting his lips as I continued without pause.
“Please don’t start talking to me about evidence. The only reason I didn’t thrust it in front of you from the beginning was because I had to use your weakness in the most effective way possible. For example, against ‘the person you least want to be found out by.’”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“If you were going to answer like that, you should have done it a little sooner.”
“……”
“Ah, did I mention it? That my dear people are with Bella right now?”
“……”
At last, a crack appeared in the face that had been feigning calm.
The turmoil raging inside him was plain to see.
But at this point, I needed to take one step back.
After all, I wasn’t here solely to threaten him and drive him into a corner.
I rose from my seat. And the moment I turned my back on him—
“…What do you want from me?”
He admitted it.
It would have been fine for me to demand exactly what I wanted right then and there.
I could have asked him outright about the Heart of Merinis.
After all, as its original owner, there was a high chance he knew more about it than Bella did. Moreover, unlike Bella, he had already had his weakness seized by me and been driven into a corner.
But I merely asked him,
“Why don’t you reveal it?”
“……”
“Why did you appear before that person, only to tell her nothing at all?”