I've Decided We'll Say You Planned This Whole Thing

Chapter 150

Seeing him show such a clueless opening definitely raised my opinion of him from an obnoxious pretty-boy parasite to an ordinary classmate.

Is this why men say you have to get thoroughly shitfaced together to know what someone is really like?

I chuckled and patted him on the back.

"What's it matter? When men drink together, sometimes they black out a little. Has that knot in your chest eased up?"

Only then did Lucius awkwardly pull up the corners of his mouth.

"……Yes."

Looking at me, he showed me a sincere smile that he hadn't forced.

"Thank you. Thanks to you, Lord Cassian, the congestion in my chest has completely cleared. I was indebted to you in so many ways yesterday."

"What do you mean, indebted? You paid for the meat."

"What does the price of a meal matter? Compared with the time you gave me, it was nowhere near enough."

Lucius lightly straightened his collar and added in a serious voice,

"Also, tomorrow…… please take good care of Sophia."

"Good grief."

I pressed a hand to my forehead and shook my head.

"Stop worrying. I'll escort her properly and take care of everything. Do you think I'm some monster who'll eat your little sister, you crazy siscon?"

"She's merely a girl who knows nothing of the world, so naturally I worry as her older brother."

We were bickering like that as we walked toward the main building.

Thud, thud.

"……?"

The rough sound of boots echoed across the ground.

"Huh."

I stopped and looked ahead.

The fearless confidence of a perfect capitalist and noble who bowed to no one's gaze.

"Viscountess Müller?"

What was this?

Lucius also spotted Viscountess Müller approaching beside me and bowed deeply in greeting.

"Good morning, Professor."

"You're Lucius from the Department of Alchemy. Good morning."

Viscountess Müller returned Lucius's greeting with a smile, then immediately fixed her gaze on me.

Her eyes curved alluringly beneath the brim of her hat.

"Good morning, Professor."

I also gave her a slight bow.

"What brings you here so early? Aren't you going straight to your laboratory?"

"Hehe. I thought it would be nice to run into you by chance, and there you were."

Viscountess Müller came right up to me and stopped.

"Cassian."

"Yes."

"Let's talk for a moment."

"All of a sudden? What is it……"

I started to ask why, then stopped.

For an instant, the conversation I had shared with Father in his study early that morning drifted through my mind.

-"I can't tell you all of the Intelligence Department's classified information."

-"The Saintess is, by position alone, a person of considerable importance, ranking within the top twenty in the state protocol."

-"Yes. Keep looking after her."

Ah.

This was it.

I glanced at Lucius standing beside me.

As the quick-witted bastard he was, Lucius immediately took a step back and bowed his head.

"Then I'll head to the lecture hall first. See you later, Professor. I'll see you later too, Lord Cassian."

"Oh, yeah. See you later."

After confirming that Lucius was moving away, I turned my gaze back to Viscountess Müller.

The surrounding noise felt as though it had been blocked by a transparent curtain and receded into the distance.

"Professor."

I lowered my voice as much as possible and asked cautiously,

"Is this about Lily, by any chance?"

At my blunt question, Viscountess Müller lightly raised the brim of her hat with her fingertips.

Her gaze, far closer to that of a merchant than a professor's, stared directly at me.

"That's right."

* * *

Thud, thud.

My footsteps joined Viscountess Müller's as we walked through the corridor of the Academy's main building.

Viscountess Müller's back was more relaxed than ever, but I wasn't.

'About Lily?'

I silently followed her, turning the matter over in my head.

Father had clearly warned me that morning while mentioning the Saintess's protocol ranking, so some major matter involving Lily must have come up.

But no matter how I thought about it, I had the reasonable suspicion that the head of this trading company hadn't come all the way to the campus and dragged me away personally this early in the morning solely because of Lily.

We finally arrived at an empty lecture hall in the Department of Magic building.

It was still early, leaving the space quiet and deserted.

Creak, click.

Only after the lecture hall door closed did Viscountess Müller turn around with an alluring smile beneath the wide brim of her hat.

"It should be quiet here."

"Yes. But has something happened to Lily?"

When I asked, Viscountess Müller shook her head and smiled.

"It is about Lily, too, but."

She took a step toward me and whispered softly,

"At the same time, it's about Sophia von Rohanna."

Huh.

A spark suddenly flashed through my mind.

"Sophia? When you said outside just now that it was about Lily……"

"Of course, that was a bluff because I was conscious of the gaze of Student Lucius, who was standing right beside you."

Viscountess Müller shrugged and answered leisurely.

"That child is extremely perceptive, so if I brought up Sophia openly, he would obviously start thinking about it unnecessarily. Now, shall we get to the main point?"

She perched lightly on the desk and began explaining what had happened with the unwelcome visitor who had barged into the trading company's headquarters at dawn.

Wilhelm, the Academy's inflexible tactics professor.

And the request—and deal—he had brought with him.

"Professor Wilhelm asked me to become Miss Rohanna's patron in high society."

"……What?"

I doubted my own ears.

"The professor personally asked you to do that, Viscountess?"

"Yes. But in the process, he offered a very interesting condition. He said you had promised to escort Miss Rohanna yourself and draw the attention of high society."

I pressed a hand to my forehead.

That old sly bastard really had.

Clearly, the moment he had wrung an "I understand" out of me yesterday,

he must have gone straight to Viscountess Müller and struck a deal while using me as his shield.

"Besides, the professor made one more request of me."

A secretive light gleamed in Viscountess Müller's eyes.

"In all this debut and patronage work in high society, he asked me to conceal completely the existence of the military generals, including himself."

"Conceal it?"

Looks like he made the exact same request here, too.

Well, that made sense.

But.

Then how was she planning to get involved?

Become the patron?

Her red lips curved into a smooth arc.

"I've decided we'll say that you arranged this entire game."

"……What?"

What did that mean?

The gears in my briefly blank mind gradually meshed and began turning, and the pieces of the puzzle started falling neatly into place.

The military generals' involvement behind the scenes had to remain hidden.

Miss Rohanna's dependable patron was Viscountess Müller.

But they needed a justification to connect these two people who had no point of contact.

……Ah.

"So……"

A strong sense of foreboding welled up inside me.

"At today's meeting, we'll say that I personally asked you to look after Sophia? I mean…… to become her patron?"

"That's right. I'll become her patron because I couldn't bring myself to refuse your request, and I'll give her a lavish debutante ball no one could envy."

Crazy.

I gaped at her.

"So I'll become a man desperate to shower Sophia with favors?"

"I suppose so?"

Damn it.

From a third party's perspective, this was practically the romance of the century.

The second son of House Farne, who had never interacted with her before, had one meal with the head of a trading company at a riverside café in broad daylight, fell for her on the spot, and got the trading company to move!

Ha.

I let out a hollow laugh.

I wanted to object with, 'That is a bit much, bit much, bit much. Is that not three strikes and out?' but rejecting it was fucking difficult.

Wilhelm was a client.

And the Viscountess before me was also a VVIP client.

It wasn't as though the two of them were plotting some treasonous conspiracy to damage my reputation or scheming to sell Sophia off.

If anything, they were pouring money and power into saving the poor young lady.

"……You really are only trying to do good, right?"

When I asked suspiciously, Viscountess Müller shrugged and smiled.

"Of course. And as a bonus, you'll gain an enormous amount of honor."

"Honor?"

"You'll be seen as a very righteous and warm-hearted person who, thinking of the greater good, willingly extends a hand to a poor noble lady marginalized and persecuted in a power struggle."

She winked at me.

"What do you think? Not a bad deal, right?"

Not bad, my ass.

Being righteous and warm-hearted didn't put food on the table.

I quietly studied the expression hanging around Viscount Müller's lips.

No matter how lavishly she dressed it up, her expression was thick with mischief.

She had already run a complete simulation in her head and prepared the popcorn, imagining how awkward I would look in front of Elysia and Lily when I played the pure-hearted man of the century for Sophia.

'Ha.'

Life was fucking hard.

I had been happy that morning because the alcohol had completely left my system, but facing this situation made me crave a refreshing glass of whiskey all over again.

Suppressing the urge to quit everything and hole up in my room, I nodded resignedly.

"All right. Well, it's not like I'll get cursed at, so I'll put on a thick face and play the good guy properly for you. I'm escorting her to the debutante ball anyway, so how much difference will it make?"

"As expected, I like how well we understand each other."

Viscountess Müller lightly clapped her hands, looking satisfied.

"But, Cassian."

Her voice dropped by a tone.

The merchant's face, full of mischief only a moment ago, instantly changed into the cold, clear-eyed face of a noble.

"I do have something to ask you about Lily as well."

Huh.

I straightened my back slightly.

It seemed she hadn't mentioned Lily solely as a complete bluff to throw Lucius off.

Come to think of it, if that had been the case, she wouldn't have said that it was also about Lily.

"What do you mean?"

"Sophia's debutante ball will be quite grand. I'm hosting it myself."

Müller lightly tapped the lectern.

"In other words, every notable power and informant in the capital will attend that party. And Lily will naturally be there, too."

"I suppose so."

"There is a very high chance that unknown people will repeatedly show interest in and approach Lily in a public setting."

Her sharp gaze stared directly at me.

"Since Cardinal Varneo's downfall, the power opposed to the Pope has been left vacant. The Pope is reportedly not inclined to claim even that vacancy for himself."

"……."

"So you must take good care of Lily at the debutante ball, too. If she is alone even briefly, there will be people who target that opening and approach her."

I rapidly turned the matter over in my head as I listened to Viscountess Müller's warning.

This did not sound like a warning given merely out of concern.

Although the head of the Empire's greatest intelligence network had vaguely referred to them as unknown people, her gaze was far too firm.

'So there are already specific people planning to approach Lily at the party.'

A faction seeking to seize new power within the Church after Cardinal Varneo's downfall.

Or a third force seeking to exploit the Saintess's value and drive a wedge between the Empire and the Church.

Whoever they were, it meant that people ready to whisper plausible words to Lily or make some ulterior move had already been included on the debutante ball's guest list.

"Understood."

I nodded calmly.

"I understand exactly what you mean. She's practically glued to me anyway and wouldn't leave even if I told her to, but that day I'll keep a tight grip on her leash."

"Good. I can rest easy with you."

Viscountess Müller once again showed me her hearty laugh.