Chapter 2
“Why on earth did you accept this?”
Fulcare always wore a goofy grin, but as a mage, he generally maintained his composure.
Seeing him flustered suddenly made Vieta uneasy too.
Yet, contrary to her feelings, her thoughts began racing.
“…A lie.”
Vieta frowned at Fulcare.
How dare he try to deceive me.
She knew he had always been a prankster, but she never expected him to drag the imperial family into it.
Even though he knew better than anyone how much she hated the imperial family.
Fulcare's face was just as creased with displeasure, but Vieta ignored him and continued.
“Quit spouting nonsense! You used to go in and out of the imperial palace all the time—do you really think I don't know the name of the Empire's crown prince?”
Who did he take her for, a fool?
Vieta continued to rake Fulcare over the coals.
“Besides, the crown prince died not long ago! What do you mean, the crown prince? Did the guy in the afterlife get back up? Did the goddess take pity on him and bring him back to life?”
Fulcare ran a hand over his face, then pulled a newspaper out of thin air.
“This is the newspaper from a week ago. See for yourself.”
He must have been furious; he slammed it down on the desk.
“What! You think I can't read it if you tell me to?”
Bang! Vieta slammed her hand on the desk too, refusing to back down.
As a result, every teacup on the desk overturned.
“You're paying for this.”
Red tea stained the pristine white paper.
Clicking her tongue at the wasted paper, Vieta turned her attention to the newspaper.
[The Next Crown Prince?]
[Prince Roen Bernard de Salliere, second in line to the imperial throne, secretly returned to the Empire a week ago….]
Since Crown Prince Gavin, first in line, had died not long ago, Prince Roen had become the next crown prince.
Vieta hummed as she read the newspaper, then slapped it down on the desk.
“Hey! But the names are different. Look closely—the name on the document is Blanc! It says Blanc!”
“…Don't tell me you forgot that too.”
Meanwhile, Fulcare froze with a teacup in hand.
Seeing Vieta stare at him with an utterly confused expression, Fulcare felt dizzy.
“The name written on that document is used only within the imperial family. It's his true name, used when he's in disguise.”
“Whaaat?”
Vieta's mouth fell open.
She couldn't believe Fulcare would lie to her.
Using an alias to protect one's privacy or avoid assassination was common even among nobles.
And Vieta herself was living under the alias Vieta, to begin with.
“Is that really true? Blanc is Roen, the one in this newspaper?”
“I told you it is. Damn, I can't believe I've followed that idiot and called him my leader all this time. Did you pawn your brain off while gambling?”
Despite his harsh words, Fulcare calmly tidied the desk.
Although Vieta had been insulted to her face, she couldn't bring herself to say anything carelessly.
If Fulcare was right, Vieta now had to find a partner for the next crown prince to take to an imperial ball.
And there was no way Fulcare would lie to her.
“…Hey, Ful.”
Vieta called to Fulcare, who was sitting in a chair.
Like a true mage, he had merely waved his hand a few times, and the tea-stained desk was clean before she knew it.
“Why?”
“What am I supposed to do?”
Vieta genuinely felt like crying.
“I don't know either.”
Fulcare shrugged.
***
Idiot.
The next morning, after arriving at the office, Vieta knocked her forehead lightly against the desk over and over.
Vieta's grand plan to cancel the job if anything went wrong had gone up in smoke.
She had hardly any customers as it was—if she turned down a job after taking an advance?
She would lose all her customers in an instant.
Since the client was still a member of the imperial family, rumors might not spread as far.
No, surely they wouldn't spread at all.
But her paltry hero's pension would surely vanish with a little poof.
He had only just returned to the Empire, so his footing there was probably still weak, but he was nevertheless second in line to the throne.
He could become emperor one day.
No matter how recklessly Vieta lived, she didn't want to get on the bad side of the imperial family that paid her pension.
Just as Vieta was agonizing over how to deal with the situation, a bell jingled.
A customer had arrived.
When your heart's troubled, you might as well work.
Vieta went out to the waiting room to greet the customer with the most welcoming smile she could muster.
“Welcome. Have you come to place a request?”
A girl with the air of a typical country maiden glanced around the office awkwardly.
She was an adorable little girl with red-flushed cheeks and an abundance of freckles.
‘Must be her first time.’
The girl couldn't even meet Vieta's eyes.
It was only natural; good-hearted commoners rarely had any reason to seek out a fixer like this.
“Don't feel pressured. Come on in.”
Vieta guided the girl to the consultation room, then handed her a request form.
While the girl filled it out, Vieta even brought out the finest refreshments from the pantry—things she normally wouldn't serve.
*
The girl's request was simple.
Find her lost cat.
“It's a yellow, cheese-colored cat wearing a red ribbon around its neck.”
From what Vieta gathered, it was a very nimble little thing.
She had found it collapsed in a field, drenched by rain, while worrying about mice overrunning the farm, and brought it home, but
it had run away after only two days.
Since it was a stray, running away was only natural.
But the girl's younger sibling seemed to have trouble accepting that.
So she and her sibling scraped together every bit of their saved pocket money and came to find Vieta.
They had also asked the village guards and other fixers,
but everyone had refused because the fee was too low, and when the girl burst into tears, Vieta couldn't bring herself to turn her away.
“Where could our Chichi be?”
Upon arriving at the farm with the girl, Vieta cast a tracking spell on the blanket that had wrapped the cat.
Before long, a glowing white sphere bobbed up from the ground.
“Lady Vieta, please, you have to find Chichi.”
The girl repeatedly bowed to Vieta.
“Don't worry. I'll bring it right back as soon as I find it.”
Vieta set off from the farm after the sphere with confidence, but before she'd gone far, she had no choice but to stop.
“Could the magic have gone wrong?”
She had assumed that, being a stray, it would naturally have run into the field,
but the direction indicated by the tracking spell's sphere was the capital within the city walls.
Just in case, she cast the tracking spell once more on the blanket she'd brought along, but the direction remained the same.
The cat's path from the field, past Vieta's shop, led to….
The imperial palace.
“Ah….”
That damn Blanc.
Having ended up at the one place she least wanted to visit, Vieta's unease returned.
“What should I do? Should I just give up now?”
Vieta paced back and forth near the palace wall for a long time.
Perhaps the guards who had initially paid her no mind began to suspect her, because they gradually started casting increasingly blatant, pointed looks in her direction.
“Right. It's not like I'll get caught.”
She didn't know anything about that prince named Blanc, but she was confident he wouldn't catch her.
Within the imperial family, the only people capable of stopping Vieta were Fulcare and Laurent.
And as a fixer, her pride wouldn't let her give up without even finding one cat.
After checking once more the spell cast over her body and erasing her presence as much as possible,
Vieta became a cat burglar and leaped over the imperial family's impossibly high walls in an instant.
***
Blanc, who had dropped an enormous bombshell on Vieta, was taking a stroll through the imperial garden.
“Your Highness, might I suggest getting some fresh air?”
Chief Chamberlain Raimond had forcibly gotten him to his feet after seeing how deathly pale he was.
Blanc didn't want to stay in his study any longer either, so he accepted the chamberlain's suggestion.
‘I miss the Kingdom of Madak.’
Although His Majesty the Emperor had summoned him two weeks earlier and he'd hurried back, the Empire of Dikram was another prison to him.
Seven years was a short time, but
Blanc had fallen completely in love with the Kingdom of Madak, with its blue sea and expanses of white sand.
And above all, in the Kingdom of Madak he had been able to escape the tiresome power struggles.
Of course, as a foreign prince, he had still been watched and checked, but that degree of scrutiny was mild.
“….”
The walk continued in silence.
The large gray wall beside Blanc somehow felt like a prison meant to confine him.
The ball to be held the day after tomorrow was a problem too.
He had attended balls until he was sick of them since childhood, but this one was especially uncomfortable.
It wouldn't be a large-scale event, but it was the first official occasion on which he would appear as the next crown prince.
Choosing a partner was troublesome as well.
Even a child on the street could tell what it meant for the woman entering alongside the next crown prince.
From the moment the welcome ball was decided, letters had begun pouring nonstop into Blanc's residence.
Blanc had rejected every offer on the pretext that he already had a partner.
Thanks to that, he was glad the letters had stopped coming.
He hadn't made up that excuse without thinking.
He had done it because the Third Princess, whom he had been close to in the Kingdom of Madak, said she would help him.
After asking the Third Princess several times, he officially declared that he had a partner,
[Sorry.]
and that single, utterly pathetic letter from the Third Princess sent everything spiraling.
“Raimond. Can I really trust that fixer?”
“Of course.”
He had to find a partner somehow.
But he didn't want to contact those demonic nobles again.
So he'd asked Raimond, who had looked after him since childhood, to find a fixer, only to find her even less capable than he'd expected.
When told to fill out a request form, Blanc did so under the name Blanc.
Anyone deeply connected with the imperial family would know his real name, at least.
Then they would be able to understand what kind of position the partner he was seeking would occupy.
Yet even after seeing the name, that fixer named Vieta had acted as though nothing were amiss, simply taken his money, and sent him on his way.
‘Well, I suppose I'm the strangest one here, since I was the one who even paid the retainer.’
After returning to the palace and thinking it over carefully,
he had even begun to wonder whether she would disappear after taking only the initial fee.
As he walked, he had reached the most secluded garden in the imperial palace.
It was plainer than the other gardens, so few people visited it.
“Raimond, I would like to walk alone from here.”
“Understood.”
Raimond asked nothing.
Thanks to that, Blanc was able to enjoy the stroll with a much lighter heart than before.
“Right. At worst, I'll just become a bit of a laughingstock.”
Even if the fixer failed to find a partner,
he might get an earful from His Majesty, but surely he wouldn't be killed for it.
Perhaps they might even send him back to the Kingdom of Madak for disgracing the dignity of the imperial family.
As he tried to calm himself with such absurd imaginings,
“?!”
A woman suddenly came tumbling down from the wall.