Chapter 64
In the port town where sweet aromas drifted through the air, Melissa Roseberg, the fourth 〈Thorn Witch〉, walked beneath a parasol with a thoroughly fed-up look on her face.
"Ugh, I hate this. The sea breeze makes my hair all stiff, and port towns are just awful."
Melissa, dressed in a rose-colored gown with a plunging neckline and a glamorous rose hair ornament, must have looked wealthy. Beggars and candy sellers had been calling out to her nonstop.
She shooed them away with careless waves of her hand, then twirled the parasol she was holding.
Melissa had come to Southdoll for a certain job—or, to be more precise, for the cleanup after something she had messed up.
Honestly, she wasn't the least bit enthusiastic about it, but the elders of the Roseberg family had hinted that they would disown her. If she didn't finish this job, she wouldn't be able to return home.
"Oh, poor me!" Melissa wailed, looking up at the sky, when a familiar face appeared at the edge of her vision.
"No, surely not..." Melissa narrowed her eyes and spotted a pair who stood out from the crowd.
One was a handsome young man with rose-colored curls and green eyes: Melissa's younger brother, Raul Roseberg, the fifth 〈Thorn Witch〉.
The other was a slender young man with long platinum-blond hair tied behind his neck...
(Squeeeee! That gentleman is... Cyril-sama!!)
According to the information Melissa had casually pried out of Raul, his name was Cyril Ashley.
Though he was an adopted son of the Ashley family, he was apparently a promising young man guaranteed to become the next marquis.
There had once been several noble families that required magical talent as a condition for taking over as head of the family. The Roseberg family was one of them.
As a result, there had been an era in the Ridill Kingdom when an adopted child with a blood connection and magical talent could readily be approved to inherit the family headship.
These days, magic was no longer valued to quite such an extent, so it was hardly common for an adopted son to inherit a title.
But the Highorn Marquis had apparently gone so far as to negotiate with all the relevant parties to force the matter through.
(That means Cyril-sama is really that talented! How wonderful!)
Still, why were Cyril and her idiot little brother in Southdoll?
Melissa knew that they were conducting research into enchanting plants with magic in the Highorn Marquis's territory, but could they have business in Southdoll?
Raul, who usually wore a robe thrown over his farm clothes, was dressed fairly smartly today, so it didn't look as though he was on his way to work in the fields.
Melissa folded up her conspicuous parasol and tailed Cyril and Raul from the shadows.
They appeared to be heading into a residential neighborhood. It had many fairly neat houses, if not outright mansions, so it was probably an area populated mostly by the upper-middle class.
Raul and Cyril stopped in front of a relatively small house among them. Could they have business there?
If Raul and Cyril were visiting together, it was reasonable to assume that the resident was either a sponsor or a researcher involved in the magical-enchantment research. Judging from the size of the house, it was probably a researcher rather than a sponsor. Most likely, a magician.
(But I haven't heard of any influential magician taking up residence in Southdoll. Maybe they're not all that famous.)
Melissa had the utterly disgraceful distinction of being the Seven Sages' shortest-serving member, but she was still a member of the prestigious Roseberg family. She knew the whereabouts of all the country's influential magicians.
If even Melissa didn't know about them, they were probably either a relatively young magician or someone who moved from residence to residence.
This was merely Melissa's prejudice, but research-minded magicians were generally eccentric and wanted to live in gloomy places. They wouldn't take up residence in a sunny, prime location in such a lively port town.
What sort of person lived there, exactly? Hiding behind a wall, Melissa strained to listen to Raul and Cyril's conversation.
"Hmm, that's a problem. Looks like they're out."
"You told them in a letter that we'd be coming ahead of time, didn't you?"
"Ah, damn, I forgot."
"..."
Apparently, Raul was the one who had messed up.
Ah, my idiot little brother is so sorry, Cyril-samaaa... Melissa silently pounded her right fist into her left palm. It was a warm-up for giving her idiot little brother a thump later.
"Anyway, let's wander around here and come back a little later!"
"...Yeah, and it doesn't look like there are any cats around, either."
"Don't tell me you're thinking about fish..."
"Don't look at me like that! It's only one piece of dried fish!"
Raul and Cyril bantered lightly as they started walking.
Melissa hurried after them. But she was unfamiliar with the city, and the crowds made things even more difficult. After turning one corner, Melissa lost sight of the two of them.
"Aaaaaaagh, come on!"
Melissa thought as she gnawed furiously on her red-painted nails.
This was her one precious chance to get closer to Cyril. There was no way she could let it slip away. At this point, her job could come second—or third.
That said, Melissa had no sense of direction in the area and no acquaintances in Southdoll.
The only thing she knew for certain was the location of the house Raul and Cyril had visited... In that case, there was only one thing to do.
Melissa strode back the way she had come and opened her parasol in front of the house Raul and Cyril had visited earlier.
She didn't know who owned the house, but apparently, the owner was acquainted with Raul and Cyril.
In that case, she would get to know the owner and have them introduce her to Cyril.
Melissa stood in front of the door and waited for the homeowner to return for several dozen minutes.
Just as short-tempered Melissa was about to reach her limit, a girl came walking toward her.
She was an unremarkable little girl with a plain, rustic face and light-brown hair braided and tied up behind her head.
When the girl noticed Melissa, she opened her mouth with an anxious look on her timid face.
"Um... are you here to see someone at this house...?"
Melissa disliked the girl's mumbling, hard-to-hear voice and fidgety manner, but she was an adult, so she decided to be lenient for the moment.
(...She looks like a servant of this house.)
There was no way this child was the owner of the house.
She radiated the aura of a low-level lackey, and Melissa was certain she was right.
"Hey, I need to see your master. When are they coming back?"
"Y-your master? Um, I'm not really sure what you mean..."
Apparently, this girl was such a low-ranking servant that she didn't even know her master's schedule. She was probably a laundry maid or something.
Now what? Melissa breathed out through her nose.
Melissa had come to Southdoll for work, but to be honest, she had already lost all motivation for it. She had come to a port town overflowing with all sorts of tempting things, after all. She couldn't very well leave without eating some delicious fish and doing at least a little shopping.
True to her materialistic nature and frankness about her desires, Melissa ranked her priorities as follows:
Top priority: Food and shopping
Second priority: Getting closer to Cyril-sama
Put off: Work (which was really cleanup)
...That was her priority list.
Then Melissa had an idea. She could enjoy food and shopping while thinking of a way to get closer to Cyril-sama under the pretext of doing her job...
"Hey, little one. What's your name?"
The girl looked slightly crushed by being called "little one," then twisted her fingers together and answered in a tiny voice.
"Um, Mo, Moni... Monica Eva..."
"Then you'll be MoniMoni."
"Moni?! N-no, I'm Monica! Monica!"
The girl—now Monica—hurriedly protested, but Melissa loved bullying this sort of little girl, so she picked at her ear and brushed off Monica's objections with an annoyed, "You're too loud."
"You made a MoniMoni sound right in front of me, so you're MoniMoni now. Blame yourself for making such an undignified MoniMoni sound."
"N-no..."
Feeling pleased by the girl's tearful despair, Melissa brushed back her red hair and beamed.
"MoniMoni, show me around Southdoll."
"Huh? Why...?"
"I have business with the owner of this house. That makes me a guest, doesn't it? And as such, you have a duty to entertain me. Right?"
Monica opened and closed her mouth, saying things like "Um, for me..." and "What is it you need...?" in a faint voice, but Melissa was thinking about lunch and didn't hear her.
"Come on, hurry up, little one. First, take me to a place where I can eat. Just so we're clear, if you take me anywhere that doesn't serve fish in this port town, I'll knock you flat."
With that, Melissa briskly walked a few steps, then stopped and turned around to yell at Monica.
"You're slow! What are you dawdling for?"
"W-wait... Um, what's your name...?"
Realizing that she hadn't introduced herself yet, Melissa lifted her red lips into a sly smile and brushed back her dry red hair with a theatrical gesture worthy of a stage actress.
"That's right, call me Beautiful and Cool Melissa Big Sis!"