IATAOTHKG | CHAPTER 105 – Novexa Novels

[CHAPTER 105]

“Sir Humpelfu, absolutely no alcohol.”

Rob, who had been anxiously watching the auditor demolish his food as if preparing for battle, finally snapped and started nagging.

“Huh? Everyone knows this is a dinner with no alcohol, so why all of a sudden?”

“Because every time you eat like that, you always end up tearing your mouth open and chugging a whole mug of beer.”

“Oh? Why are you picking a fight?”

“I’m worried. You already snore like thunder, and if you drink on top of that, what do you think will happen? Your nose will explode, and my head will explode.”

“Pfft.”

When Meyna burst out laughing, both men turned to look at her at the same time.

“This is no laughing matter, Lady Young Duke. You’ve never slept in the same room as Sir Humpelfu, have you?”

Rob drooped his usually gentle eyes dramatically and made a pitiful face.

“Have you never considered that you’re being especially fussy?”

“What did you say?”

After bickering for quite a while in response to the auditor’s retort, the two finally entered a brief lull.

Meyna, who had been watching them with a smile the entire time, asked Rob a question.

“Sir Hugentia. Do partners usually sleep in the same room?”

“Isn’t that obvious?”

The one who suddenly cut in and answered was Narsitan Shovabottom.

It must have been late winter earlier this year.

It had been about half a year since she last saw him, after briefly meeting him at a company dinner.

“Our proud leader, Sir Lennox, explained it himself earlier, didn’t he? That partners must never be separated.”

“I see. Thank you very much for answering in his place.”

I was asking Rob, not you, but thank you so very much for butting in.

Meyna forced a smile as she twisted her sincerity into polite words.

Knowing his personality all too well, she was not grateful or pleased at all, but she still bowed her head properly out of courtesy.

After all, he was no longer just a colleague of her superior, but now her colleague as well.

“Don’t mention it.”

Narsitan pulled the corners of his mouth up exaggeratedly and grinned in a slow, circling way.

“Then enjoy your time.”

Go away.

That unspoken message was neatly omitted from his farewell.

Unfortunately, Narsitan was not the type who could read the hidden meaning behind other people’s words.

“Shall I?”

He slid himself into the chair Caliph had been sitting on, propped his chin on his hand, and looked straight at Meyna.

His gaze was oppressive, as if he were firing yellow beams from his eyes.

“Why were you curious about whether partners sleep in the same bed?”

“What?”

It was an extremely vulgar reinterpretation.

As Meyna’s expression hardened in displeasure, Narsitan’s eyes gleamed even more sharply.

At that moment, Sera approached, carrying her familiar scent, and joined the conversation while looking at Meyna.

“It seems strange to you that a man and a woman who aren’t married or in a romantic relationship would sleep in the same room.”

Startled, Meyna straightened her back and looked at Sera.

With no trace of humor on her face, Sera continued in a cold voice.

“When you enter dungeons and hunt monsters, it’s common to end up rolling around naked on bare ground. And healers like you and me have to strip a knight’s clothes off the moment they fall into a critical condition. If someone dies because you were embarrassed, who’s responsible? Are you going to take responsibility, Lady Young Duke?”

After firing off her harsh words without pause, Sera sneered.

The surroundings fell silent.

She flicked a subtle glance toward Biterion, who was sitting at the far end of the table quietly talking with other teammates, then looked back at Meyna.

“Guild 928 was always ranked second, rain or snow, wasn’t it? And our Imperial guild took first place for more than half the year.”

“Yes.”

Caliph had deliberately settled into second place because first place brought too much hassle, but he decided not to mention that.

There was no point in provoking a man already soaked in inferiority.

“But coincidentally, after our Lady Young Duke abandoned Sir Lennox, Guild 928 immediately dropped to third place, and then last month it even slipped down to eighth.”

Narsitan smiled in circles.

Meyna lost the composure she had managed to maintain.

Eighth place?

She already knew that Caliph had struggled, even if briefly, after she left the Lennox estate.

She had heard it from Magia, and it was something she could guess without being told.

However, Caliph was not someone who neglected his work just because he was emotionally shaken.

Hadn’t Magia said so herself?

That even while barely eating anything at all, he never skipped hunts or outside schedules.

Narsitan rolled his eyes as he meticulously examined the emotions rising on Meyna’s face.

That pathetic aide who clung tightly to the side of that damned orphan.

The woman who devoted herself as if she would give up her liver and gallbladder for a man who would never escape his lowborn origins, no matter how hard he struggled.

She had a face she showed only to Caliph.

That deeply worried, firmly attentive expression belonged solely to Caliph Lennox, that bastard son of a bitch.

To him, she had always kept her distance, acting lofty as if separated by a glass wall.

“He seems to be hunting diligently. So what’s the problem that made his ranking drop? Is he worried about something these days, or did he set his sights on a new woman?”

“Ah. Could it be that his grade dropped?”

“What? His grade?”

“From what I can see, his mana and attack power aren’t what they used to be.”

“……”

“I’m worried.”

With just this much provocation, Meyna was already shaken and losing her composure.

“Did you see the new car he bought?”

Before the worried Meyna could even respond, Narsitan drove the nail in deeper.

“As soon as you quit, Lady Young Duke, he went out and bought a new car and started keeping a new aide by his side.”

Pepe-something, was it?

A noisy woman whose name he could barely remember.

He had only seen Caliph with her in the passenger seat once, but it was not a lie nonetheless.