Chapter 4

Sparks practically flew from Lenoa’s eyes.

“Hey, you!”

“Me? What?”

“There are some things you can say and some things you can’t…!”

“Then was what you said appropriate? Why don’t we conduct a survey in the public square and find out?”

Lenoa tightened her grip on the edge of the door. Even I could clearly see her slender shoulders trembling.

Rashak, however, didn’t seem to care in the slightest.

“Stop spouting useless bullshit and get lost. Don’t come back again, either.”

“……”

“Your older sister has much more productive things to do now than help a younger sister who would be better off not existing.”

Lenoa turned to look at me.

“…Is that what you think, too, Unnie?”

Rashak looked at me as well.

I gathered my courage and nodded.

“That’s right. I don’t have time to help you. There are servants in the house, so I don’t see why I should be the one cooking, either.”

“Unnie!”

“Or are you planning to use the food I make to claim that ‘my older sister also blesses this marriage’? Is that your real goal?”

Lenoa glared at me with blazing eyes, as though I had struck a nerve.

But Rashak was standing between us.

What could Lenoa do against him? She was smaller than the average woman, not to mention pregnant.

“…I’ll come back another time.”

Her voice was weak, but the determination in her eyes didn’t waver.

With that, Lenoa spun around and stormed off. Her furious footsteps seemed to pound against the ground with every step.

As I watched her retreating figure, a thought suddenly occurred to me.

“Boss, I was thinking this a little while ago, too, but…”

“What?”

“You’re surprisingly good at talking at length.”

He stared at me as though he couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

“Is that what matters right now?”

“No, it’s just that yesterday, you only spoke in short sentences…”

I remembered that chillingly low voice of his when he had asked for a knife. He had genuinely terrified me back then.

“I heard you threw your harasser over your shoulder. What about your younger sister? Did you just let her go?”

“How could I hit a pregnant woman?”

“What about your fiancé?”

“……”

“So you didn’t hit him, either.”

I didn’t try to make excuses.

Even I thought I was pathetic.

I wondered what cold remark he would make next, but, unexpectedly, Rashak didn’t say anything more. He simply walked inside.

“I thought you were going to insult me…”

“I don’t insult people I don’t know well.”

“But you just insulted my parents…”

Rashak turned to look at me sharply. I hurriedly covered my mouth to suppress a laugh.

Oops. Sorry.

“It’s fine. I’m not offended at all, so you don’t have to worry about it.”

I endured the awkward atmosphere for a while until, thankfully, the carriage arrived in front of my house.

“Um, Boss!”

I stopped him just as he was about to climb into the carriage.

His golden eyes gleamed with a cold light. But he wasn’t quite as frightening as he had been yesterday.

…That didn’t mean he wasn’t frightening at all. Perhaps I should say he had become a little less terrifying. Just a tiny bit. Really, just a tiny bit.

“Thank you for today. For chasing her away on my behalf…”

“……”

“But please don’t come here again. It would be troublesome for you if something like today happened another time.”

I bowed my head politely.

“Have a safe trip home.”

Rashak didn’t answer. Still, feeling grateful, I continued watching him leave from the entrance of my house.

When Rashak emerged from his bath, he was greeted by his secretary, Pierce.

“I’ve brought what you requested.”

It was a file containing information about that woman, Hiel Kevernon.

If the documents Rashak had shown Hiel earlier that day covered the story of her life, these contained detailed information about the people who appeared in it.

As Rashak read through the documents, Pierce remarked casually,

“As you can see, there isn’t a single person among them who has their head screwed on straight.”

Her schoolmates, her colleagues and juniors in the merchant guild, and even the people who could be considered her acquaintances—all of them were strange.

But the worst offenders were undoubtedly her parents.

“She was in a relationship with that fiancé for five years. That means her parents had been watching the whole thing unfold right beside them…and yet I heard they took the younger sister’s side.”

“…They probably thought it didn’t matter which daughter married into that family, as long as one of them did.”

“Realistically speaking, I suppose that’s true, but… well, there’s also the emotional side of things, you know.”

Rashak looked at the name of the former fiancé.

Allen Brent.

He was the only grandson left behind by the son and daughter-in-law of Count Brent, who had died in an accident.

“Are you acquainted with Count Brent?”

“I happened to meet him a few years ago.”

Rashak had heard that the count was once a central figure in the capital’s political circles. When he actually met him, however, the man had seemed like an ordinary, listless old neighbor, which had left Rashak somewhat taken aback.

“I’ve also heard that although he has withdrawn from politics and rarely leaves his estate, plenty of nobles still seek his advice.”

The Kevernon couple had been Count Brent’s personal physicians.

According to the records, both Hiel and Lenoa had been born and raised on the Brent estate. It wasn’t difficult to imagine just how close all of them must have been.

“Apparently, Count Brent was very fond of Miss Kevernon. That’s why he was delighted when he heard that she and Allen Brent were dating.”

The Brents were a count’s family with their own territory. No matter how close they might have been, allowing a commoner to marry into their family was an extraordinarily unconventional decision. However…

“If he had truly cared about her, he wouldn’t have allowed that younger sister to marry Allen.”

“Well… I suppose his biological grandson matters more to him. Especially now that she’s pregnant.”

In the end, it meant that not a single person had taken Hiel Kevernon’s side.

Rashak recalled the woman he had met that day.

To be honest, she hadn’t seemed particularly vulnerable. Even when dealing with Lenoa, her expression had remained remarkably composed.

Yet that very composure gave him a strange feeling. It was like looking at a rock that had endured years of wind and rain.

A rock that had endured everything alone, in lonely silence…

Rashak pressed firmly against the side of his forehead.

That wasn’t a particularly useful memory to dwell on right now.

So he deliberately redirected his thoughts toward the matter of the spy. Yet somehow, he found himself thinking about Hiel Kevernon again.

Yesterday, that woman had truly been…

“…She was more than just memorable.”

At his absentminded murmur, Pierce’s eyes widened. He quickly chimed in.

“That’s certainly true! I also thought she was quite beautiful…”

“I’m not talking about her face. I mean her movements.”

“Pardon?”

Rashak revisited the events of the previous day in his mind.

The surprise he had felt in the instant she clenched her fist. The satisfying impact of that strike.

Even when he had watched martial arts matches as a child, he had never experienced that level of vicarious satisfaction.

“For something that came out reflexively, her form was remarkably solid.”

“Pardon?”

“I heard her shoulder throw was a work of art, too.”

The shoulder throw was the technique Hiel Kevernon had used to send her sexually harassing superior flying.

Word had spread through eyewitness accounts, and the rumors had grown increasingly widespread. Concerned that the situation would become even noisier, the merchant guild had dismissed both of them.

“I should find out who taught her… Though that might be difficult, considering how none of my available people have any free time.”

More precisely, none of the people he could spare were people he could trust.

Every intelligence operative he considered unquestionably reliable was currently busy trying to identify the spy.

There was no helping it.

Rashak put Hiel aside for the time being and headed toward his desk.

He picked up his pen and began examining the documents submitted by the intelligence team, but Pierce approached him and spoke cautiously.

“As I’ve mentioned before, would it be possible to hire just one more secretary?”

“Where am I supposed to find someone to bring in right now? I can barely trust the people I already have. At this rate, I’ll have to get rid of all of them.”

“But you’re far too busy…”

Should I make you even busier?

Rashak shot him a glare as he said it. Only then did Pierce retreat to his place.

A secretary, huh…

A little while later, Rashak returned his attention to work.

From time to time, he remembered Hiel Kevernon standing at her front door, watching him leave, but he quickly refocused on his duties.

He was so busy that he almost completely forgot about her starting the very next day.

The biggest headache was identifying the spy.

He could narrow down a list of suspects, but verifying their identities was the problem. Every one of them was just as wary and suspicious as he was.

And so, one day passed, then two…

By the time four days had passed since he had proposed using Hiel as bait—

“Boss, Hiel Kevernon is here to see you.”