Chapter 117: The North (1)

Alice was buried in paperwork again today. The busyness of the office, which she had only vaguely heard about through rumors, was more tiring and infuriating than she had imagined. Looking in the mirror, her face showed signs of fatigue, and next to her office, Lorena was working out diligently in just a thin top.

“Aren’t you tired?”

Lorena, who was doing sit-ups, turned her head at Alice’s question. She wiped the sweat dripping from her forehead, stared blankly at Alice, and said with a grin.

“Huh? Why would I be tired? There’s no farming, and all I do is exercise and follow you around.”

There was no malice in Lorena’s words, but Alice felt a strange sensation. She looked out the window at the bustling citizens and said,

“Must be nice to have it easy. Are you satisfied with the work?”

“Yeah! It’s great. It’s fun dressing up in a suit and following you around, and meeting important people is fascinating. Don’t you like it, Alice?”

“No.”

Alice was not satisfied with the experiences she had since coming here. This was because the law firm she had envisioned was very different from the work she was actually doing. She believed she could save the wronged, just like she had in Poar Village. She believed a world of dramatic reversals, where good intentions and the law triumphed, was within reach.

But such things didn’t exist in Ithaca. As someone once said, words like love or justice were merely outdated customs. The cases Alice handled could be summarized by the term ‘corruption’.

She assisted in collecting data to justify the corruption she was involved in, or negotiated to bribe witnesses. Amidst the piles of complex documents, the word ‘justice’ had long since disappeared.

“It’s different from what I expected, so I’m a bit confused.”

She wasn’t ignorant of reality. But the reality, more exhausting than she had imagined, kept confusing her. Alice asked Lorena,

“Lorena. What would you do if your knight’s life wasn’t as satisfying as you imagined? You couldn’t do what you imagined, and you only had to do things you didn’t like. But if you didn’t do it, you couldn’t continue your life as a knight, and your family could be in danger too.”

Lorena gave a wry smile at Alice’s question. She stopped exercising and stood up. The mat she had laid out for her workout was soaked with sweat.

“…That’s a tough question. Still, wouldn’t there be something I could do within it somehow? I believe there will surely be moments where I can exercise the values I dreamed of and hoped for as a knight… you know, those values.”

“You’re suffering just for that one moment? Isn’t that a bit of rationalization?”

Lorena shrugged.

“I don’t know. But I’ve chased after this because I wanted to. I believe there’s definitely a way for me to work it out my own way.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Did it sound strange?”

Alice chuckled again at Lorena’s slightly hesitant look. What would Dad have done in a situation like this? Evan, the great Demon, would surely have resolved this difficulty with flair. Alice murmured without realizing it,

“I miss Dad.”

Lorena nodded at Alice’s soliloquy and added,

“…Me too.”

“…My dad, your dad?”

“B-both.”

Lorena blushed.

Alice shook her head at Lorena’s words and looked down out the window. Amidst the comings and goings of people, she spotted a customer approaching the office. Alice waved her hand and said,

“Hey, a customer’s coming. Hurry up, wash up, and change into your suit.”

“A customer? You said there were no customers today. Ah, okay.”

Lorena, with a flustered expression, grabbed her suit and hurried towards the shower room. Alice looked in the mirror, checking her own attire once more. A neat office suit and tired eyes. Her red hair, with its intense color, made her face look even sharper.

“Should I smile?”

This was a constant thought whenever she spoke with high-ranking individuals. For her, words like socializing, politics, or entertaining were still more difficult than legal documents.

The doorbell installed at the first-floor entrance rang. Alice stiffly organized the documents on her desk, her face tense. Someone spoke to her through the intercom from the first-floor reception area.

“Miss Alice. We have a visitor.”

“Yes.”

Alice stacked the thick documents to the height of an encyclopedia, then secured them with a desk clock.

“Excuse me.”

A man with a thick belly and a lush beard like a lion’s mane opened the door with a solemn voice. His burly physique, capable of taking down a bear, and his cute fedora evoked an unreal feeling in Alice. The man had a cigar in his mouth and wore jeweled rings on his thick fingers.

Because he exuded such a strong impression of greed, Alice expected this visitor would surely request assistance for a very messy and trivial matter. During her time working here, most of the cases she handled were like that.

So, Alice faced the man with an unexpectant expression. Her face only showed the fatigue from accumulated work. The man puffed smoke from his thick cigar, opening and closing his mouth like a goldfish.

“Flancia Alice. Daughter of the Flancia family, I hear. Pleased to meet you.”

Alice flinched when the family name was mentioned. While the name Flancia Family had brought Alice many benefits, she herself knew well that she would eventually have to break free from the family’s influence. Meeting acquaintances connected through the family in this manner was burdensome for her as well.

The man scanned the room. His large eyes felt like a robber searching for something profitable. Alice knew she shouldn’t judge by appearance, but his look was textbook.

Alice’s tension reached its peak when the man’s eyes turned towards the shower room. The man, listening to the faint sound of running water, asked Alice,

“A knight. The daughter of Jack is your bodyguard, isn’t she?”

Alice faltered slightly at his words but quickly composed her expression as if nothing had happened. Smiling to appear as relaxed as possible, she replied,

“I don’t know who you’re talking about. My bodyguard isn’t like that. She’s just… a child I happened to meet luckily in the countryside.”

“I’m sure.”

The sound of water stopped. The man squeezed his bulky body into the guest chair and closed his eyes. Alice felt even more uncomfortable as he didn’t state his business. This was because most visitors here would push their agenda strongly and act arrogantly.

“Oops.”

The shower room door opened, and Lorena, dressed as a bodyguard, looked at the visitor with a surprised expression. The visitor carefully opened his closed eyes. Lorena stood rigidly at attention, visibly tense. The visitor spoke towards Lorena,

“Lorena.”

Lorena reflexively responded to the call.

“Yes… Ah!”

“Ah…”

Alice let out a heavy sigh, and Lorena also clapped a hand over her mouth in surprise. However, unlike the startled reactions of the two, the visitor looked at Alice with a nonchalant attitude, as if confirming something obvious.

“Flancia Alice. Daughter of the Flancia family, but your mother, Flancia Isabel, was cast out by the family, and your father, Carlson, was a devil worshipper. You received some support from the Flancia family… but I suspect you want to escape their shadow, don’t you?”

Alice’s face hardened. The details of her life pouring from his mouth were accurate yet unpleasant. The man said,

“Otherwise, why would you try to hire the knight Jack’s daughter as your bodyguard at a time when the Flancia family is preparing a second marriage alliance with the Hero family? Wouldn’t you agree?”

“What is your business here?”

Alice didn’t want to receive psychological counseling from a man she didn’t even know. Lorena fidgeted nervously, her expression a mix of confusion and unease. The man said,

“Let me tell you a complicated political story. The extravagance of Hero Wolf and his family has reached its peak, and the capital’s finances have been ruined for a long time. They’re using funds from other cities or siphoning off temple donations, and the Mage Tower is pouring money into bizarre research under the direction of the wizard Mobius.”

It was a terrible truth. Everyone knew that Wolf had been spending money lavishly since taking power. Alice nodded, and the man continued,

“There was a witness who reported that members of the Hero family were embezzling Ithaca’s city finances for their own luxury and pleasure.”

Alice had heard whispers of this story. It was a story about Ithaca’s funds leaking somewhere, but none of the nobles in Ithaca dared to investigate, preventing anyone from tracing the flow of money. The man boldly brought up a matter that Alice couldn’t investigate herself and had kept to herself. Both Lorena and Alice focused their attention on the man’s story.

“He chose the wrong target for his accusation. The noble he accused happened to be connected to the Hero family. An assassin from the Thieves Guild was dispatched to silence the loose-lipped witness, but luckily, the witness survived.”

The man said,

“It’s because the witness, realizing things were going wrong, fled north.”

Alice waited for the man’s next words. She knew he wouldn’t have come just to tell her some witness’s sad story. The man fiddled with his large ring. A jewel as large as a snake’s eye gleamed with a smooth luster.

The man placed the ring on the desk and said,

“The problem is, the witness fled with all the evidence they possessed. To publicize the corruption happening in Ithaca, that evidence is necessary.”

Alice held her breath. The matter was bigger than she had anticipated. Alice knew what kind of request this man was about to make. She asked,

“Why did you come to us? There are many more trustworthy people. I’ve seen you a few times at society balls. Why would someone of your standing entrust this job to us?”

The man removed the cigar from his mouth. He took out a portable ashtray from his pocket and crushed the cigar into it, saying,

“Because there’s no one I can trust.”

“…What if I’m just trash who wants to make money relying on the Flancia family? What if I’m a person who has no interest in such justice?”

Lorena fidgeted nervously at Alice’s aggressive stance. As she stamped her feet in her bodyguard uniform, her shoes made a nervous tadak-tadak rhythm against the hard floor. Stroking his ample chin, the man closed his eyes.

“In the old days, you know. People used to talk about love and justice. People nowadays are so inhuman. They spout such words, yet they aren’t honest.”

The man rubbed his overflowing cheeks.

“Was protecting Lorena purely a coincidence? I don’t believe it was. And, I trust you just as much.”

Alice lowered her head. She had no choice but to go north. Because everything she wanted to achieve lay on that path.