62.
It was dazzling.
So dazzling that I couldn’t sleep.
My mind, which was gradually beginning to wake, clashed this way and that with my desire to wander a little longer in dreamland.
“Ugh……”
My head hurt as if it would split open.
The bustling sounds of people moving about in the distance began to burrow into my ears.
Ah, it’s morning…….
Though, to be precise, it was probably the middle of the day.
I rolled around on the bed and pulled the blanket over my head.
It must have been Julie’s handiwork, drawing back the curtains and leaving the window wide open.
Bad Julie.
Heartless Julie!
But once my mind had woken, it showed no sign of falling asleep again and only grew clearer.
In the end, admitting defeat, I pushed away the blanket covering my face.
As I slowly forced open my stubborn eyelids, the sight of the bright room came into view.
And then, little by little…….
The memories of last night began to surface one by one in my sober mind.
“……”
N-no wonder I kept wanting to sleep more.
“Uggghhh……”
My shoulders trembled.
‘How can only Your Grace drink?’
‘One, two, three, four…….’
‘Again! Three, two…….’
‘I don’t want to smash my head again, you know.’
Why had no one stopped me?
Of course they couldn’t have. I had gone out of my way to run off somewhere no one was around!
And why, of all things, did the duke have to come looking for me!
‘Your Grace. You’re not as old as I thought, are you?’
‘But for that, the way you talk is kind of strange.’
‘Your Grace. Do you want to be dignified?’
‘Did the previous duke really hide you away and raise you?’
‘Isi, tan.’
Clutching the blanket, I writhed endlessly on the bed.
“Khhhhh…… uuuuugh…….”
But what was done was done.
Humbly accepting mistakes made while drunk was the path to becoming a fair and honorable drunkard.
I took a deep breath.
When I thought about it, the duke had been drunk too, so maybe it would be fine…….
I had been in that awkward half-drunk state, so I had unfortunately remembered everything without leaving a single detail out.
But the duke might have lost all his memories!
He seemed terribly weak to alcohol, so there was a high possibility of it.
‘Yes, that must be it. Definitely.’
I took another deep breath and quickly regained my composure.
Then I sat up unsteadily.
A faintly delicious smell rose up through the window.
This was the smell of breakfast that brought happiness…….
Of course, it was the middle of the day right now…….
The door opened, and Jaka came in.
I raised a hand.
“Good morning―.”
Jaka clicked his tongue and answered.
“It’s afternoon, you know?”
I meekly accepted the glass of water Jaka held out and gulped it down.
The way it quenched my thirst was absolute bliss.
Meanwhile, Jaka set something down on the nightstand.
“What is it?”
“A letter came.”
I crawled over, stretched out my arm, and grabbed the letter.
“Did you not consider getting out of bed to read it?”
“I didn’t.”
Still tangled up in the blanket, I lay back down and tore open the envelope.
「To my niece.
Right now, I’m writing this letter together with Romi.
Romi came to me this morning saying she had to write you a letter, and she pestered me so much.
I guess that girl doesn’t get hangovers or anything.
I feel like I’m dying…….
Anyway, when she asked me for your address, I just brushed her off by saying I’d enclose it when I sent my own letter.
After all, everyone knows you as my niece.
So, for that reason, it’s not as if I especially wanted to send you a letter.
Please, I beg you, don’t misunderstand.
Daena.」
Romi—was that the girl with the youthful face who could hold quite a lot of liquor?
I had been planning to ask Daena whether she had gotten home safely last night anyway.
A small but plump envelope dropped out from between the sheets of paper.
I opened that on the spot as well and read it.
「Hello, Lady Owl!
I’m Romi.
At the last party, I realized I never managed to ask your name until the very end.
To be honest, I tried to ask several times, but you said the mask you were wearing was an owl and told me to call you Lady Owl. Do you still feel the same way now?
I’m suddenly worried that calling you this in a letter might have offended you.」
To think she could ask so kindly whether that had been drunken nonsense I spouted while completely plastered.
Romi really was kind.
Moreover, she had made her debutante the year before last, so she was a young lady with no real connection to my past self.
「Anyway, yesterday was truly enjoyable. I still feel as though your bright laughter is ringing in my ears.
The truth is, I’m still poor at making friends, so I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve chatted so happily like yesterday.
That’s why, at the risk of being rude, I’m sending this letter of greeting through Miss Daena Greengale.
I heard you plan to stay in the imperial capital for the time being?
When I heard that, I couldn’t help but hope that perhaps we might meet again soon.」
I was moved by the dense young-lady aura that could be sincerely felt from the letter.
Even her handwriting was neat, and somehow round and very cute.
A letter like this……. I’ve never received one in my life…….
「First of all, my name is Romi Evishu. I’m the only daughter of House Evishu.
It isn’t a particularly famous family, and our line has always had few children, so my parents are always overprotective.
Would you believe that yesterday was my first time drinking?
I thought your maturity and composure were wonderful.
So, if it would not be too much trouble, could you tell me your name and family?
I would like you to be my friend.
From Romi, who is embarrassed because this is her first letter like this.
P.S.
Of course, it’s all right if you refuse!」
I ran my fingertips over the polite and kind sentences asking for my permission, then sat up.
I brought over a quill and spread out the cleanest, finest sheet of paper.
I should ask Julie later to scent it for me.
“I’m sorry.
I can’t do that.”
And with that, I began the letter.
For some reason, I felt as if tears might prick at my eyes.
* * *
“Baron, you were here?”
“Huh? Were you looking for me?”
I straightened from where I had been bent over and turned around.
Zaka was leaning against the doorway.
“Didn’t you decide there was nothing more to see in the storage room?”
“There was something I hadn’t even thought to look for.”
I pulled out the dusty files packed tightly into one corner of a shelf and dropped them onto the table.
A cloud of dust rose up.
“What are those?”
Zaka came up beside me.
“It wasn’t an emblem. It was a seal.”
“A seal?”
“It was stamped on the envelope back then, so I naturally assumed it was an emblem……”
I quickly began checking only the titles of the documents and pushing them aside.
And then I found it.
A kind of investment contract.
Around the time I had become deeply interested in carrier pigeons and started a business.
An investor, acting through an agent, had once come to see me.
The investment sum had been enormous, so just in case, I had run a background check at the time. I remembered it as being some noble society with no particular problems.
Right.
A “noble society”……
One whose members could not be precisely identified.
I turned the pages and opened to the very last sheet.
I saw the seal stamped there.
I had turned to it half-convinced, but the moment I saw it, a soundless exclamation burst from me.
“How does it look to you?”
Zaka, who had been silently looking down at the seal, finally raised his head.
“It’s identical. Every single line, all of it.”
“Yes, it looks that way to me too.”
At that moment, one of my eyes throbbed as pain surged through it.
As if every blood vessel that made up my eye were being pulled taut……
Hot.
I endured it with my eye shut, and the pain gradually faded.
Meanwhile, Zaka, who had been examining the documents in detail, murmured.
“This isn’t a person’s name…… It looks like the name of some organization.”
“Right. And they used an agent when signing the contract.”
“Do you remember his face?”
I blinked and answered.
“He was an ordinary man with a vague impression. So much so that, even though I met him several times back then, I kept getting confused.”
“……”
“But now I remember him clearly. Because……”
“……”
“I ran into him a few days ago.”
Zaka stared at me as if he couldn’t understand, then asked.
“It’s not like your head suddenly works better when you drink or anything…… right?”
“As if.”
I grinned.
And soon, my expression returned to normal.
My chest was filled with a strange heat, pounding hard.
My eye was hot.
Last night, when I was at the party, drinking while chatting with Daena……
I had seen a woman.
And only belatedly had I remembered that she had been my investor in the past.
Then, when I suddenly realized that one major reason my finances collapsed and I lost everything had been the withdrawal of that investment,
it became clear to me naturally.
The one person who would have known that before long, I would lose all trust and dignity and fall to the ground.
If it was that person……
They would have known how to drive me even deeper into the mud.
And that they would not have hesitated to make it happen.
“Then are you going to go find that person now? Do you want me to come with you?”
Zaka’s words reached my ears, but I stood still, seized by an intense premonition.
I was beginning to read that pervert’s thoughts, little by little.
Along with the sensation that his identity was being peeled back, layer by layer.
“……No. I can handle it myself.”
It was that man.
The one who had attacked me when I went with the aide to “arrest” him.
The man who had hurriedly turned his head away when our eyes met, as if he had something to hide.
Rather than meeting him, for now……
“I should set out some bait.”
It was not yet time to reel him in.
Then suddenly, a thought occurred to me.
That pervert……
Perhaps he hated it, unbearably so, that I was interacting with people and slowly making a place for myself.
If so, what about now?