Chapter 6

As soon as Ian somehow made it to the bar Hibiscus in the city, a waiter approached him with a smile.

“Good evening, Lord Ian Wadeiros. I’ll show you to your usual table.”

It was a very secluded spot.

Whenever Ian met someone at Hibiscus, he always sat in the same place.

Although he was famous, the person he was meeting was someone who would have nothing to gain from being recognized either.

Perhaps because he had arrived a little early, his companion had not arrived yet.

Even as he waited, Ian was so consumed by thoughts of Annabelle that his brow remained furrowed.

Then—

BANG!

Ian leaped to the side and narrowly avoided the collapse.

The western outer wall crumbled, crashing down over the spot where he had been sitting. Bricks, decorations, and all sorts of debris came tumbling onto the table, turning the place into a complete mess.

The inside of Hibiscus instantly descended into chaos.

“My lord! Are you all right?”

Fortunately, Ian had been the only person sitting near the wall, so no one else was injured. Ian himself had avoided the debris with astonishing speed and wasn’t hurt at all.

But whether he was unharmed wasn’t the important thing right now.

“I’m fine.”

Ian gave the rushing waiters a distracted answer before leaping through the gap where the outer wall had collapsed.

At the rate the wall had come down, he probably could have avoided it perfectly well even without Annabelle’s warning.

But that wasn’t what mattered.

He wanted to find her immediately and demand an explanation.

He was about to run through the city in search of Annabelle when he suddenly realized that he didn’t even know where she lived.

She said she lived with her half-brother on her mother’s side, didn’t she?

He didn’t even know her brother’s name.

There was nothing he could do except stop someone at random and ask where the Nadit residence was.

“Looking for me?”

A languid voice suddenly reached his ears.

Only then did Ian look up and notice Annabelle sitting with her arms crossed on a branch of a zelkova tree.

“I told you not to go, you idiot blondie who only knows how to hold a sword. Why couldn’t you understand even after I warned you? Can’t you keep your brain cells fresh?”

Her light-purple hair, tied high on her head, fluttered behind her as she sat there completely unconcerned.

“You…”

But Annabelle didn’t seem interested in having a long conversation with him.

“May you stub your toe on a doorstep so badly that your little toenail hangs on by a thread! Then may you spend the next few days screaming internally every time you put on your socks!”

Without even waiting for his response, Annabelle hurled the curse at him like a farewell.

Then she sprang to her feet and disappeared into the darkness.

Ian immediately intended to chase after her.

He wanted to hear exactly what had happened, right now.

Catching Annabelle wouldn’t have been difficult for him. But just as he was about to leave the chaotic bar behind and run after her, someone grabbed his arm.

“Ian, are you all right?”

It was his companion.

“It seems to have been a terrorist attack. They say explosives were found.”

The man, wrapped in a dark-gray robe, had green eyes that gleamed in the darkness.

Ian gave him a brief formal greeting.

“I’m fine, Your Highness.”

Ian’s companion was Prince Robert.

Despite their positions as prince and subject, the two had remained close friends for a long time and would occasionally meet at Hibiscus to unwind.

Though “unwind” was perhaps a generous way of putting it.

Usually, Robert did most of the talking while the taciturn Ian listened.

The fact that Ian regularly visited Hibiscus was not much of a secret, but because his companion was a prince, they had always maintained strict secrecy regarding his identity.

“I tried to move around discreetly, but it seems they discovered who I am.”

Robert naturally assumed that the terrorist attack had been aimed at him.

Ian Wadeiros had not yet inherited the ducal title and had shown no political ambitions whatsoever.

As a prince, Robert inevitably had far more enemies than Ian.

Moreover, Robert was different from the other princes.

He openly opposed the Crown Prince and harbored ambitions of his own to ascend the throne.

Naturally, neither the Crown Prince nor the Empress would simply stand by and watch those ambitions grow, and Robert had already been exposed to this kind of danger many times.

“Fortunately…”

Ian spoke with difficulty, his brow furrowed.

“…someone warned me about the danger.”

“Warned you?”

Robert tilted his head.

Then he clapped his hands once, his expression brightening.

“Can you tell me who this thoughtful person was?”

A thoughtful person…

Although her recent insults had been somewhat different in character, Ian had been subjected to Annabelle’s verbal abuse almost every day since he was fourteen.

Some of the things she had said were genuinely vulgar and insulting, so Ian needed a moment to connect the words thoughtful person with Annabelle.

“I suppose it would be reasonable to assume that they couldn’t approach me directly, so they gave you a warning instead.”

“Hmm… A terrorist attack aimed at His Highness?”

“Who would dare target the winner of the swordsmanship tournament with such a pathetic attack? Besides, you don’t really have any enemies, do you?”

Robert shrugged.

Then, seeing Ian’s silence, he added with amusement,

“Ah. There is one.”

“……”

“That second-place girl who attacks you every day… Her name was Annabelle, wasn’t it? She’s the only person who would ever launch a terrorist attack against you, isn’t she?”

Ian instinctively pressed a hand to his forehead.

Things had been better when their relationship was nothing more than a bad one.

In the past, no matter how many insults he received from her, he would simply feel irritated at the time and then forget about them.

But now, they kept getting entangled with each other, and he couldn’t stop thinking about her.

It was unbelievably irritating.

If this was Annabelle’s grand scheme, then it had been remarkably successful.

“The person who warned me was Annabelle Nadit.”

Ian spat the words out, and Robert’s face immediately lit up.

“Ah, I see.”

“I think I understand what happened.”

“What?”

“Isn’t Marquis Abedes one of the Crown Prince’s most prominent supporters?”

Robert calmly explained to Ian, who still looked displeased.

“Perhaps she overheard information from the Marquis somehow. My brother has always been desperate to kill me, so it wouldn’t be surprising if he had arranged this sort of terrorist attack.”

Brother obviously referred to the Crown Prince.

Robert was highly politically minded and had a sharp instinct for reading the balance of power.

Ian asked quietly,

“Annabelle wants to be acknowledged as the Marquis’s daughter. Why would she go out of her way to tell me about a terrorist attack aimed at Your Highness?”

“Do you know how Marquis Abedes treats Annabelle?”

Robert folded his arms.

“Then again, you aren’t interested in high society, so I suppose you don’t know much about Annabelle.”

Ian had no answer.

Aside from swordsmanship, he had never really taken much interest in the outside world.

And when it came to Annabelle, he had been even less interested.

To him, Annabelle had simply been a despicable swordswoman, an irritating second-place finisher, and an annoying rival who was the only one taking their rivalry seriously.

Was it any wonder that he didn’t even know where she lived or the name of her only family member?

Even though they had met almost every day for eight years.

“Other than giving her mother some money when Annabelle was born, he never even paid her any attention. Even though she made quite a name for herself by consistently placing second in the swordsmanship tournament. Honestly, what kind of father does that?”

Robert shook his head.

“He couldn’t control his own desires, fathered an illegitimate child, and thought tossing some money at her mother would be enough. And even that money was all taken by her half-brother.”

“Is that so?”

“If I were Annabelle, I’d resent Marquis Abedes too. He brought her into this world and then refused to take proper responsibility for her. And it’s not as though she’s some daughter he should be ashamed of. She’s working hard and living her life as best she can. Wouldn’t doing something like this be a reasonable way of giving him the finger?”

“……”

“Anyway.”

Seeing Ian’s somewhat stiff expression, Robert continued.

“I’m grateful that she warned you. If I had arrived even a little earlier, I might have been caught in the attack myself. It’s fortunate that I was late.”

As Robert calmly spoke, Ian’s suspicions continued to grow.

Of course, he couldn’t deny that Robert’s reasoning was logical.

But the Annabelle he knew was absolutely not the sort of woman who would behave in such a complicated manner.

She’s acting politically and meddling in imperial affairs?

She had always seemed interested in nothing except her obsession with defeating him somehow.

Even if she had somehow learned about today’s terrorist plot through Marquis Abedes, there was no way she would have given him a warning.

If anything, he could imagine her quietly cheering for the terrorist from somewhere far away, hoping he would get hurt.

And if she had suddenly experienced some tremendous change of heart, why had she left after cursing him yet again?

“But she’s still a woman who showers me with insults and curses. Why would she go out of her way to…”

Robert gently interrupted him.

“Well, she can curse you all she wants. After all, I’m the one she wanted to save, not you, aren’t I?”

No matter how much Ian thought about it, that didn’t seem right.

But he had no particular argument to refute Robert with.

For the first time, Ian realized just how little he actually knew about Annabelle.

Despite seeing her almost every day, he knew less about her than he did about the prince who had merely crossed paths with him today.

That strange sense of disconnect brushed uneasily against his heart.

“Which is why, at our next meeting…”

Ian’s thoughts were interrupted.

“It would be best if the three of us met together—Annabelle, you, and me.”

Robert had just dropped a bombshell of a suggestion.

“I’d like to thank her in private, away from prying eyes.”

Robert’s green eyes curved attractively as he continued in a gentle, friendly tone.

“Her circumstances are rather unfortunate, and there may even be something I can do to help her.”

Right on cue, perhaps because Aaron’s rain prayer had worked, rain began pouring from the sky.

In every puddle forming along the streets, Annabelle’s face seemed to float before Ian’s eyes again.

“Since you see her often, arrange a meeting for us.”

“I don’t see her often. We just keep getting entangled with each other.”

Despite Ian’s curt response, Robert didn’t back down.

“That amounts to the same thing. Make sure you arrange a meeting before the swordsmanship tournament.”

As Ian watched the rain pouring down, he remembered Annabelle’s latest curse.

And because of that, he couldn’t bring himself to think any more deeply about the unpleasant feeling filling his chest.