Chapter 47
About a week had passed since Karon acknowledged me.
Nothing particularly major had happened during that time.
The only real change was that I had finally been recognized as the legitimate heir of the Nebula ducal family and had begun taking heir's lessons in earnest.
Now, I have a question.
It was said that, in the past, the Empire's administrative power could not cover all of its vast territory.
In that situation, the Emperor signed treaties handing autonomy over to four dukes, right?
Then just how many businesses and affairs does this Nebula ducal family, the ruler of the south, handle?
"A hell of a lot..."
I muttered that while reading countless reports in what was essentially an office assigned to me.
Businesses involving mana stones, real estate, various transportation businesses, and exports to other countries.
Moreover, those were only the aboveground operations. There were also countless operations in the underworld—in plain terms, illegal businesses—so the amount was beyond imagination.
The reports were filled with countless businesses and tasks.
"Ugh."
While reading the reports, I stretched to loosen my slightly stiff muscles, then took a puff of the cigar I had prepared in advance and slowly drew it in.
Fwoooo.
After exhaling a mouthful of cigar smoke, I looked over the reports covering the desk.
'But compared to what I expected...'
To be honest, was it an enormous amount of work?
It wasn't quite that much.
The countless reports in front of me had been obtained mostly under the pretext that I wanted to understand what kinds of work there were.
The work I would actually have to handle after becoming duke was probably only about one-fifth of these reports.
In the first place, the ducal family was not in a position to perfectly control every business and order people to do this or that.
Nor was everyone running a business so incompetent that they needed to be given such orders.
The administration was filled with know-how accumulated over hundreds of years. What more could I possibly change here?
If I started unnecessary trouble, I would obviously only increase my workload. My goal was to maintain the status quo, nothing more.
Fortunately, I had experience running a fairly large organization in my previous life to screw over the country.
If I hadn't had that experience, I might have been quite lost.
'Urgh...'
Remembering my previous life, that unpleasant feeling began to rise once again.
To forget it, I began focusing on the reports.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
I had been skimming through the reports for about thirty minutes when I heard a knock.
"Come in."
Creeeak.
"Excuse me, Lord Abel."
"Hm? Mist?"
I turned my head toward the door and saw Mist, wearing her usual maid uniform, bow elegantly.
"I'm sorry to interrupt while you're working."
"Ah, it's fine. I'm almost finished anyway."
Indeed, I was nearly done skimming through the reports containing all the work I had received from the ducal family over the past week.
"So, what is it?"
I hoped it was what I thought it was.
I looked at Mist with that hope in my eyes.
"Lady Velias asked me to tell you that she would like to meet around 3 p.m. today."
"She did...?"
This might be a little late to mention, but I rather enjoyed researching abilities and mana.
Honestly, wasn't it fascinating?
Not to mention my smoke ability—was I really researching mana, an energy that had existed only in the realm of fantasy in my previous life?
I called it research, but, simply put, it was closer to playing around with mana.
Releasing mana, transforming it into threads of magical power like a spiderweb, or playing around with smoke.
The people of this world considered all of that a form of training, but I didn't feel that way at all.
No, if anything, I viewed it as nothing more than an entertaining pastime.
"Tell her I'll come by this afternoon."
In that sense, this meeting with Velias was one of the meetings I was looking forward to.
Telepathy magic was so difficult that few people used it.
So speaking with someone skilled enough to use telepathy magic freely was quite an exciting prospect.
"..."
As Mist watched Abel humming softly in his excitement, she remembered the conversation she had shared with Velias.
'Then I'll deliver that message as is.'
[Yeah...]
'But is there a reason we're having this conversation outside your door?'
Mist said that while looking at the door, which had even been fitted with a magical barrier that explicitly forbade entry.
The barrier, installed in layers upon layers, looked sturdy enough to keep even a skilled knight out for several hours.
[Please don't ask. Please...]
Velias's voice from inside the room was saturated with countless emotions.
And if one had to name the most prominent emotion, it was probably...
'Embarrassment?'
Why? How come?
Mist had no idea.
She didn't know that Sebastian and Nella had reacted almost as though they were going berserk when Velias mentioned having tea with Abel.
***
Velias fidgeted before the luxurious pastries and finest tea spread out in front of her, repeatedly tugging at her clothes.
'Aaaah.'
They were clothes Sebastian and Nella had prepared for her.
To be honest, Velias had planned to remove her most cherished perception-obscuring robe during the tea party with Abel so they could become familiar with each other's faces.
She knew very well how rude it was to have tea with someone while wearing a robe over her head.
But.
But!
'This is not okay!!!'
The dress Sebastian and Nella had prepared was a slightly ashen color that suited her violet hair.
But several problems had arisen.
She had lived for a long time with a robe pulled over her head.
Since the two of them did not know the measurements of her mature body, they had prepared the dress by estimating them with the keen eyes unique to assassins.
Her body had been hidden and distorted by the perception-obscuring robe.
They had taken that into account when preparing the dress, but...
As a result, she had ended up looking incredible in more ways than one.
Her breasts were almost spilling out, and the dress was so tight that it looked as though it might burst unless she held them in place with her hands.
In stark contrast to that enormous chest, the fabric around her slender shoulders had slipped down long ago.
'I just look like a slut?!!'
No, from her perspective, the outfit was even more revealing than that.
'Aaaah...'
Velias screamed inwardly.
She felt like she was going insane.
Was she really supposed to greet Abel dressed like this when they were meeting face-to-face for the first time?
There was another problem: because of her personality, she couldn't even ask them to bring her a different outfit.
No, how could she possibly say it?
If the clothes had merely been too large, she would have told them frankly without hesitation.
But the dress was too large even though her breasts were actually small. How could she ask them to change it?
'How could I say that?!'
"Ah... Aaaah..."
For the first time in ages, she made a babbling sound aloud rather than using telepathy magic.
Glance.
In the midst of her panic, Velias subtly turned her head and looked at the clock on the wall.
She had told Abel to come at three, so there wasn't much time left.
'Eek! There are only about two hours left?!!'
What should she do?
Was this what it truly felt like for one's mind to turn completely blank?
As Velias thought blankly about Abel, she initiated a sort of escape from reality.
It was an act close to a survival instinct, something she had done because she felt she would go insane otherwise.
'...'
Her mind was blank.
In that blank mind, a voice from the past echoed.
[Lord Abel is probably trying to build a relationship with Lady Velias.]
[Of course, that relationship might be between a man and a woman.]
It was Sebastian's voice, which she had heard about a week ago.
Build a relationship.
A relationship between a man and a woman?
Between Abel and me?
Wouldn't that be incest?
No, although it was less common than in the past, nobles who married cousins or even eighth cousins had not disappeared, so perhaps it wasn't that much of a problem?
'Uh... Is it possible?'
Her blank mind began to spin rapidly.
Though this was a sort of escape from reality, she was also a direct blood relative of the Nebula ducal family.
Her mind was not merely exceptional; it was extraordinarily brilliant.
Naturally. If she hadn't been brilliant, she could never have entered the field of magic and achieved outstanding results in both alchemy and magic.
Of course, she was currently using that brilliant mind for an escape from reality.
If the Duke saw her, he would be dumbfounded that she was using such a brilliant mind for something like that.
'Ah, so it is possible?'
Though Abel and she shared the blood of the same ducal family, that did not mean they were siblings.
Yes, in terms of degrees of kinship, they were far more distantly related than eighth cousins.
The blood relatives of the Nebula ducal family had once been stripped of all their powers.
The head of the ducal family at the time had taken a rather radical course of action.
He had released those blood relatives through contracts, on the condition that they promise never to threaten the Nebula ducal family in any form.
'I heard there were many arguments over it back then, too.'
Many members of the ducal family's direct line had wondered why such a choice had been made.
Well, in hindsight, that choice had allowed them to overcome the crisis the Nebula ducal family was facing now.
'So Abel and I are practically strangers...'
Velias began thinking blankly about Abel.
A man with grayish hair that looked like cigarette smoke, unlike her own murky violet hair.
She pictured herself, with her heavy dark circles, standing beside Abel, who had a decadent air about him.
'Would we suit each other...?'
"Hehe..."
A rather gloomy voice escaped her before she realized it.
After getting lost in her fantasies for a while, she came to her senses again and looked at the clock.
'Huh...?'
Abel was definitely supposed to come in the afternoon.
But what time was the clock showing now?
'2:30 p.m.?'
There were less than thirty minutes left?
[Huh...?]
Her sense of reality gradually began to return.
She could feel the blood from her rapidly pounding heart rushing toward her head.
There were about thirty minutes left until Abel arrived.
***
"Ugh..."
I looked at the clock and gathered all the reports I had roughly finished reviewing into one place.
Since I had checked all of them once from beginning to end, a sense of liberation began to envelop my entire body at the thought that I no longer had to look at those cursed letters.
'Thirty minutes from now?'
Hmm...
I looked at the clock on the wall and pulled a cigar from inside my coat.
'It's a little tight, but if I smoke quickly, thirty minutes should be enough, right?'
Thinking that, I leisurely cut off the end of the cigar with a cigar cutter, lit it, and began smoking slowly.
A plush sofa and the aroma of cigar smoke lingering in my mouth.
It was a very leisurely moment.
.
.
.
As time passed, I leisurely finished my cigar, changed my clothes, and headed out with Mist's guidance to build a relationship with Velias, the boss of [Dark Shadow].
The door opened.
I opened the door and, looking at the woman I had never seen before, could only say,
"Who...?"
[Please don't ask. Please...]