TMGH 17

Chapter 17

I was certain because I had seen him clearly at the party last time. Why would the emperor’s aide, who was supposed

to be so busy, come all the way here? And why was he meeting someone wearing a suspicious-looking cloak? Judging by their clothes, they looked like a mage.

I approached them and hid myself, keeping a close eye on the two. They talked for quite a long time before the

emperor’s aide eventually left. Worried that he might spot me, I crouched as low as possible and thought.

Why had the emperor’s aide come all the way here?

“Oh, looks like that person wants to find out your secret.”

“Exactly… Huh? Wh-when did you get here?”

I answered so naturally that I only realized something was strange afterward. When I looked up in surprise, Lucas

was standing over me with a bright smile. Pointing at himself, Lucas crouched down until he was at eye level with me.

“The person the emperor’s dog came to meet was me.”

“Really? What did you talk about? Why did he come all the way here to meet you?”

I asked excitedly.

I couldn’t believe it. The person who had been talking to the emperor’s aide was Lucas. What an insane coincidence. The heroine really was blessed with ridiculous luck.

“He wants to know the secrets of you and your husband. He asked me to investigate you with magic. I guess he figured out that I’m a mage.”

“Wow, he really is determined to uncover our secret. Don’t tell him anything. Give him a false statement.”

I had suspected that the emperor was suspicious of us, but I never imagined he would go this far to dig into our secrets.

The moment Lucas told him everything, we would be finished. So he absolutely had to give them a false account.

He liked me, so surely he would do me this favor.

“I can do that, but what are you going to give me in return?”

“What?”

“Lying to the emperor’s aide isn’t exactly a small favor. Of course there has to be something in it for me, don’t you think?”

“What do you want? It better not be anything weird.”

“It’s nothing much. Just spend the day with me.”

Lucas wanted a reward that was obviously motivated by ulterior motives.

And he had the nerve to call it ‘nothing much.’

If Evan saw me hanging around with him, he would make a huge fuss. But the fact that the emperor was trying to uncover our secret was a much bigger problem. If I explained the situation to Evan, he would probably understand to some degree.

“Fine.”

“Then, shall we go?”

Lucas stood up first and offered me his hand. He then kept holding my hand as he took me around various places in the village.

We went to delicious restaurants, played darts, and even went to a deserted park where he showed me his magic to entertain me.

Even though I had lived for a very long time, magic was still fascinating and fun to watch.

After a while, I was sitting on a bench watching Lucas perform various little magical tricks when—

“Marie.”

A familiar voice called my name.

“Jason!”

I turned my head and immediately stood up from the bench as I called out to him.

It was Jason, not Evan, who had come looking for me!

“I wondered where you had gone. Turns out you were meeting another man.”

“Were you waiting for me to come home?”

Instead of answering Jason’s question, I responded with a question of my own, completely ignoring what he had said.

“You haven’t been doing your work, so I’ve had more work to do.”

Jason told an outrageous lie.

He had practically been doing all the work himself anyway.

Naturally, I ignored his lie and heard only what I wanted to hear.

“You were waiting for me. Wow, I’m glad I ran away from home.”

“Ha. You ran away from home and you’re still smiling.”

Jason looked utterly dumbfounded.

‘Of course you smile after running away from home if you accomplished what you wanted.’

I simply smiled and took Jason’s hand.

At that moment, Lucas hugged me from behind, preventing me from taking Jason’s hand.

“What are you doing? Let go.”

I struggled, trying to get free from Lucas’s grasp.

“You promised to play with me today. You can’t go looking elsewhere for entertainment.”

“But we already played plenty.”

“No, it isn’t even evening yet.”

He wasn’t wrong. The sun wasn’t even close to setting yet.

But considering how many things we had already done, I thought we had played enough.

As I racked my brain, trying to figure out how to convince this crazy guy—

“What the hell are you doing right now?”

Jason asked in a frighteningly cold voice.

I immediately realized that I absolutely had to get Lucas to leave.

So I leaned toward Lucas’s ear and whispered so quietly that only he could hear.

“I promise I’ll meet you whenever you call me next time, so please leave for now. Please.”

“Don’t forget you said that.”

Lucas smiled brightly, let me go, and immediately disappeared somewhere.

I let out a sigh of relief.

But then I saw Jason’s icy expression, and my shoulders hunched again as I let out another deep sigh.

What am I supposed to do about this?

After that day, Jason treated me coldly.

But it was a different kind of coldness than usual.

Whenever I said anything, he would somehow bring up Lucas.

“Why don’t you ask him?”

“Why don’t you go play with him?”

He kept saying things like that.

Evan, meanwhile, complained incessantly about how hurt he was.

The only fortunate thing was that after I repeatedly apologized every day and promised that I wouldn’t spend time with Lucas anymore, both Jason and Evan eventually forgave me.

“Where are you going?”

Thanks to that, I was able to follow Jason comfortably as he headed toward the carriage.

“One of the places I invested in is doing something suspicious.”

“What investment are you talking about?”

Evan had made numerous investments.

Toys, restaurants, jewelry, gold mines, and so on.

“The gold mine.”

“And?”

“The gold I invested in isn’t ordinary gold. When two pieces of it rub against each other at night, they emit a blue light.”

“Oh, so what suspicious thing are they doing?”

“They’re trying to pull a trick with ordinary gold.”

Evan had originally invested because he had seen the blue-glowing gold.

But now, they were showing him ordinary gold and asking him to invest even more.

At the same time, they apparently weren’t using the blue-glowing gold anywhere else to make a fortune or manufacture weapons.

They were simply keeping it as it was.

Wow. There really is someone shameless enough to try scamming the Duke of Valentine.

I was amazed that someone with such enormous guts actually existed.

Evan was terrifying enough to have earned the nickname ‘Mad War Murderer,’ and he was incredibly skilled with a sword.

Unless someone had the courage of a bear—or several lives to spare—an ordinary person wouldn’t even think of scamming him, much less getting personally acquainted with him.

“I wonder what kind of face he’ll make when we tell him the truth. Don’t you?”

Jason smiled ominously as he spoke, and I nodded.

Even though he looked like a little child, he was frightening enough to make my body instinctively tense.

Whoever this person was, there was no way he was getting out of this safely.

We rode in the carriage for quite some time before arriving at a marquis’s estate.

Since we were major investors, the marquis came running out to greet us with open arms.

“Hello, Marquis Srege.”

Their family name is Srege? The naming sense in this world is insane.

I desperately tried to hold back my laughter, but the faint smile on my lips kept growing.

“Young Master and Young Lady Valentine! What a pleasure to see you. But what brings you here?”

“I came at my father’s request.”

“His request?”

“He said that coming here himself would be far too trivial a matter for him to bother with, and that it was something I could easily resolve myself. He also said it would be a good opportunity for me to learn more about society, so he sent me in his place.”

“What on earth do you mean…?”

The marquis looked completely bewildered.

Jason’s cheerful smile suddenly disappeared, replaced by a frighteningly cold expression.

“Marquis Srege, why did you deceive us by claiming ordinary gold was blue-glowing gold? Did you want to make a fortune by selling us ordinary gold while continuing to trade blue-glowing gold with us? Did you really think the Duke of Valentine was that easy to fool?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about. I have continued trading only blue-glowing gold with His Grace the Duke of Valentine.”

“Are you certain about that?”

Jason gave him one final chance.

But Marquis Srege only frowned in irritation.

“Ha. Are you accusing me of something? I’m deeply disappointed. We’ll be ending our business relationship. Since this contract has been broken because of Young Master Valentine, you will send me the money by tomorrow according to the terms of the contract.”

The marquis threw down his final challenge.

Jason responded by taking two pieces of gold out of his pocket.

“This is the gold Marquis Srege sent to the Valentine family. If it truly is blue-glowing gold, it should produce a blue flame when rubbed together.”

The marquis flinched when he realized he was about to be exposed.

Regardless, Jason rubbed the two pieces of gold together.

Naturally, nothing happened.

The marquis began trembling.

“You dare lie to the Valentines?”

“P-please! Please keep this from His Grace the Duke of Valentine! I beg you!”

Honestly, he could have argued that the gold Jason had brought wasn’t the gold he had provided.

But he was so thoroughly intimidated by Jason that he confessed the truth instead.

Jason drew the sword from his waist and slammed it down right beside the marquis’s wrist.

“Give me the gold mine.”

“What?”

“Give me the blue-glowing gold mine, and I’ll keep this a secret.”

“T-that’s impossible.”

“Really? Then I guess you’ll have to die by our father’s hand.”

Jason pressed the sword against Marquis Srege’s face and spoke in an eerily calm voice.

The marquis looked as though he might die of fright right there.

His fists trembled as he clenched his teeth.

“I-I’ll give it to you. So please, don’t hurt me…”

“Write a document. A document stating that you’re giving us the entire blue-glowing gold mine.”

Jason demanded written proof so the marquis couldn’t change his story later.

He really was a terrifying person.

The marquis had paper brought in on the spot and, nearly in tears, wrote two copies of a document stating that he would hand over the entire blue-glowing gold mine to the Valentines.

We left the Marquis Srege’s estate feeling completely satisfied.

Behind us, the marquis collapsed onto the floor and wailed,

“My gold! My precious gold!”

We headed to the cave where the gold mine was located to make sure our newly acquired property was in good condition.

Since the mine was located inside a cave in the mountains, we rode the carriage only as far as the foot of the mountain. From there, we continued upward on horseback.

“Wow. It gives off a golden glow in the dark.”

This gold mine really was something else.

A true money-making monster.

I swallowed hard as I gazed at it in awe.

Jason repeatedly struck the gold vein with his fist to check its condition. Judging from his satisfied expression, it seemed to be in excellent shape.

With this, if we start all kinds of businesses, we could become the richest people in the world, surpassing even the imperial family.

What kind of business should we start?

I was pondering that question when something suddenly darted rapidly across the ground.

My eyes immediately followed it.

And then—

I was utterly stunned.