Episode 88 – Invitation
by Afuhfuihgs
*
“Ed-nim,”
“Hmm? Mena, is something the matter?”
“We have a guest.”
“A guest…? Who is it?”
“…Who else could it be?”
“Ah, right, I was wondering when she’d show.”
Today, exactly three weeks before the social gathering at the Royal Castle.
A sudden guest arrived at my mansion.
Of course, I don’t think there was ever a time when she didn’t appear suddenly, but this time I had been waiting for her visit, so I greeted the guest warmly in the first-floor reception room.
As expected, the guest was her.
“Welcome, Ellie.”
“Tada~”
Ellie grabbed the hem of her skirt and spun around in place.
The pure white blouse, revealing her bare shoulders, fluttered before being caught by a black leather vest that tightened around her waist like a corset, emphasizing her slender figure.
The fluttering brown skirt briefly floated into the air before falling back down.
It was the commoner’s outfit Ellie wore on the day we first met beneath that dog-like statue depicting my likeness.
The only difference was that her upper chest was even more exposed than it had been back then.
“Wow, you’re looking pretty daring again today, is royal life stressing you out or something?”
“Why? Do I look good?”
Ellie smiled, revealing her even teeth.
With that kind of outfit and an innocent smile, she looked just like a pure village maiden.
I shook my head and replied.
“Nah, I’m kinda tired of naked women now.”
It had only been two days since Lara had jumped me in the nude.
Of course, Lara didn’t have breasts as ample as Ellie’s, but her long, slender limbs and the smooth, bronzed skin covering her well-proportioned, firm waist were certainly enough to ignite a man’s heart.
But, unfortunately or perhaps fortunately, my mind wasn’t relaxed enough to be captivated by such things.
Of course, I wasn’t sad about it.
After all, I’ll never be able to love someone again.
“Wow, what a trashy thing to say.”
Ellie clicked her tongue at my words, looking dumbfounded.
Deborah, who was standing behind Ellie in equally plain clothes, was the same.
Deborah glared at me with a cold look and said.
“Ed, you didn’t seem like the type, but it looks like you’re doing everything you want to do?”
“Ah, no. Master, that’s not it.”
Of course, Master didn’t really think I was that kind of person.
I was already used to her teasing people like this.
When she playfully teased me, my stammering denials were a source of amusement for the soldiers in the training grounds at the time.
I’m supposed to be a charismatic figure in the underworld, but for some reason, I’m helplessly drawn into Master’s pranks.
“I wondered why this guy was so easily defeated by a cowardly bastard like Robin, turns out he was distracted by chasing skirts,”
“Ah, that’s not it! Besides…”
“Besides?”
“…It’s nothing.”
I stopped talking.
In this country, it’s not unusual to have two or three children by the age of twenty, so there was no need for me to say that I had no experience.
[Oh my, how pathetic.]
[Ed’s just been working hard, that’s all!]
‘Both of you, shut up.’
Ellie chuckled and then came closer to me, taking out a crisp letter envelope from the pouch at her waist and handing it to me.
“Here, it’s an invitation to the welcoming party for the Inquisition belonging to the Holy See.”
“Ah, right, I was wondering when you’d give it to me.”
I thanked Ellie for changing the subject and received the invitation.
It was a high-quality paper envelope with the imperial family’s emblem 멋들어지게 engraved on the sealing wax.
I put the envelope on the table and opened my mouth.
“Are you less worried that I’ll harm His Majesty the Emperor?”
“Ahem, I was a bit excited back then, Ed. I hope you’ll take into account that you had just killed Jennifer and still had a murderous aura about you. And that I was angry about the sacrifice of the innocent guards.”
“Alright, for the sake of you who gave me this wonderful mansion, if there’s anything to avenge, I’ll quietly do it later, away from people’s eyes,”
“Ed…”
“…I want to say I’m joking, but now that I’m learning about facts I didn’t even know about my own death, I can’t give you a definite answer.”
I didn’t mean to say it coldly, but honest and sharp words came out of my mouth without me realizing it.
Even Deborah seemed a little surprised by my words.
Ellie lowered her head for a moment, seemingly lost in thought, but then suddenly lifted her head and said in a nonchalant tone.
“It’s okay – I’ll act even more charming so that I can soothe your anger.”
“What?”
“Why?”
“No, as a princess, don’t you have any authority, pride, or anything like that?”
“Hehe,”
Ellie leaned her upper body towards me.
Her face and mine were facing each other, about two fists apart.
Ellie narrowed her eyes and slowly licked her lips with her tongue, wearing a seductive smile, and said.
“To someone I like?”
“…What?”
“You know, Ed. I like Ed.”
I widened my eyes at the sudden confession.
After Lara, is it Ellie today?
Did these guys suddenly eat some kind of drug together?
I frowned slightly, feeling like my head was throbbing, and said.
“What’s with you all of a sudden.”
“It’s a flaw that you’re a bit dangerous, but well, that’s part of the thrill, so I like it.”
“You’re a really weird princess.”
“But to the same extent, I cherish this country and the current imperial family, you know?”
“So, if Ed’s okay with it, I’d like to have a ‘deeper’ relationship than we have now and become a more solid cooperative relationship.”
“Hey, I’m a demon… does that even make sense?”
“It might be impossible with the undead ‘Edward’, but it’s possible with the mysterious tycoon, Baron Salvier.”
“What?”
“Ed, at this event, let’s be partners.”
Ellie said that and stared at me.
Her chest, which was fully exposed due to her leaning forward, was barely clinging to her clothes as if it were about to spill out.
My eyes were momentarily drawn to her cleavage before I looked away.
Ellie read my gaze and smiled.
“Thankfully, Ed doesn’t seem to hate it that much either.”
I turned my head away from Ellie and looked at Deborah.
‘Do something about her’
That’s the expression I had.
Deborah looked at me and raised both hands near her shoulders, palms facing up, as if to say, ‘What do you want me to do?’
[You’re quite popular for a bachelor, Ed.]
[Ed’s a good person, after all.]
‘No, please, both of you stop adding fuel to the fire.’
I sighed and pushed Ellie back into her chair with my hand, then said.
“Ellie. Please don’t make things more complicated,”
“Oh? Has someone else made a move besides me?”
“…No,”
“…Could it be Lara-nim?”
“…No, that’s not what I mean, it’s just that you want to control me anyway. Of course, if you become lovers with the Empire’s princess, my actions will inevitably be restricted. But you know that’s not what I want.”
Ellie pouted and made a sulky expression.
“Tch, even though I’m a virgin, I was honestly confident in my looks to some extent.”
“Even the most beautiful woman in the world looks like meat to someone on the verge of starvation.”
“Oh? So you admit I’m beautiful?”
“…That’s not what I… Haa, never mind.”
Ellie giggled.
She was always playful like this, but for some reason, her appearance seemed even cuter today.
Perhaps it was because her ordinary clothes, unlike the expensive dresses she usually wore, made her look like a ‘playful girl’.
Deborah was also wearing ordinary clothes, and seeing that there was no carriage outside, it seemed a little dangerous to enter and exit other people’s mansions without hiding her identity as a princess.
It was just clothes worn to hide her identity, but Ellie was a girl who looked better in simple clothes than in fancy dresses.
Clatter
Mena, who had already brought the tea, placed the teacups in front of me, Ellie, and Deborah, bowed, and then went back out of the reception room.
I closed my eyes, smelled the aroma of the tea, and said to Ellie.
“Let’s stop with the useless talk, I have a lot to talk about right now anyway.”
“Alright, let’s stop the banter here.”
Ellie also picked up her teacup, smelled the aroma, and replied.
Deborah blew on her steaming teacup a few times, then downed the tea in one gulp like soldiers downing shots of whiskey.
Thinking, ‘That’s so like Master,’ I slowly opened my mouth.
“Ellie, I didn’t need it until now, but it seems like I need a way to contact you.”
“Hmm? *Hureup*, what’s gotten into you all of a sudden?”
“After going to this event, I’m going to start holding balls and social gatherings, so I need to discuss what I need and what I need to prepare.”
“That’s definitely a difficult problem for someone without experience to solve alone.”
“Yeah, and the second problem is that Mena is managing this big mansion all by herself.”
“Ah, so you don’t have any trustworthy workers.”
“Yeah, do you have any good ideas about that? Honestly, looking at the amount of work Mena is doing, that’s the most urgent thing.”
“There’s a really simple solution to that?”
“No, think about it, there are so many people whose identities can’t be revealed: me, Lara, Banata. How is that a simple problem?”
“Buy slaves.”
Ellie said it really simply and then drank her tea again.
Slaves.
She said it so simply that it was almost 허무, but it was a method I hadn’t even thought of.
It was because I, who came from a commoner background, wasn’t familiar with slaves.
[S, s, slaves?! Isn’t that too bad?]
[Slaves are kind of necessary, though.]
Ellie savored the tea in her mouth, wearing a happy smile, and then opened her mouth again.
“You can cast a spell so that they can’t reveal your secrets. As long as you don’t severely abuse them, most things are allowed.”
“…If all the employees of Baron Salvier’s mansion are slaves, won’t people find that strange?”
“No, they’ll just think you’re incredibly rich.”
“Are slaves expensive?”
“They’re on the expensive side. But this mansion doesn’t have many family members, so you’ll probably use most of the rooms as storage, so you don’t need dozens of people doing housework like other mansions.”
“But I have to hold an event big enough to screw over Robin.”
“You might think that preparing for a ball requires a lot of manpower, but usually there’s an outside contractor who sets everything up nicely.”
“Hmm, I see.”
I rested my chin on my hand and fell into thought.
I didn’t really have any aversion to buying slaves.
It’s not like I was planning to treat them harshly.
However, my concern was whether I could perfectly control secrets just by magically binding their mouths.
In my opinion, the most reliable constraint in this world is not magic or shackles, but trust.
In fact, the reason I was so 병신-like defeated by Robin was because I trusted him, and the reason Jennifer died so cruelly was because she tried to control me with a mere oath magic.
Seeing me lost in thought, Ellie put down her teacup, stretched, and opened her mouth.
“Aigoo, I’ll find someone suitable for Ed, who doesn’t know the ways of the world. But this isn’t like gifting you this mansion. You have to pay for it.”
Ellie stretched out her arms, pushing out her chest that looked like it was about to spill out.
I made eye contact with Deborah and replied.
“Okay, I understand. Thanks, Ellie.”
“Hehe,”
It was then.
Deborah, who had been quiet until now, spoke to me since she had made eye contact with me.
“Ed, I have something to ask you.”
“What is it?”
“What are you planning to do for your next revenge?”
“…Pardon?”
I tilted my head at Deborah’s sudden question.
It was because I didn’t understand why she was asking me this question.
Deborah saw my blank expression and chuckled before answering.
“I’m not trying to interfere with you or blame you. Ed. It’s just that Jennifer’s death is having a surprisingly big impact here and there. Her Highness the Princess has been working quite hard to clean up after it.”
“앗쁘쁘, Teacher, that’s a secret. It makes me look like I’m showing off!”
Ellie looked at Deborah and brought her index finger to her lips.
Deborah smiled and continued.
“If I could get a heads up on who the next target of your revenge is and how it will be done, it would be easier to clean up afterwards.”
I nodded.
It was because I hadn’t even thought that Ellie would be going through such hardships behind the scenes.
I realized after killing Jennifer that I had to think about what would happen after the revenge as it progressed.
I could just sink into the sea of Plavis forever, but I couldn’t just abandon Lara, Lily, Mena, and Banata, who would be left behind after my revenge was over.
The reason I was accommodating Ellie to some extent was also to ask her to take care of them after I left.
If I didn’t do anything too outrageous, Ellie wouldn’t treat them badly either.
I had that much trust in Ellie.
I looked back and forth between Deborah and Ellie and said.
“I’m going to use the son of the Balguir family to hunt Villard on that day of the event.”
Deborah gasped at the words that I was directly targeting Villard, and Ellie wore a satisfied smile.
“Really, Ed would be perfect as my groom.”
Ellie said that and rested her elbows on the table, supporting her face with both hands as she looked at me.
.
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