The last chief, Ruth.
She was a decent person who treated even the necromancer Simone with proper courtesy.
A woman like that was loitering around the building, looking disheveled and sweating profusely.
She looked absent-minded as she looked at something.
The moment Simone found her here, she felt like she had caught the wind of an unexpected incident.
“Wait!”
Louis, who ran faster than Simone, grabbed Ruth, and Ruth struggled to get away from him, shivering with a surprised face.
“Wre, Wren? This, let go of this! Let go of this!”
“Why are you doing that?”
“A question... You have to ask questions!”
Question? Louis tilted his head silently. A question? What are you talking about out of the blue?
Simone came up at that moment and asked.
“A question? What are you talking about? What are you doing here? Are all the other residents in this village?”
“Questions! Questions...”
She just flailed around with an anxious expression, not even in the mood to listen to Simone's questions.
She struggled to escape from Louis's grasp, but then suddenly started crying, perhaps because she thought she had failed to escape.
“...Hey?"
"Oh my God... Caught. Oh my God... In the end, I have no choice but to commit suicide tonight...”
There was a strangeness in Simone’s eyes.
"Suicide?"
She caught her while wandering around town and she suddenly committed suicide?
“Suicide, what do you mean?”
It was obviously an incredibly scary word, but Simone could only begin to get a sense of the situation after hearing her words.
“I will be cursed by Osasanisasao. Ask me a question or I'll die.”
“What question? Why do you commit suicide if you don’t ask questions?”
“I don’t want to die... I don't want to die... Come on...”
“Who is Osasani Sasao?”
Louis looked at Simone with a surprised face. Simone was asking questions to Ruth, who was struggling frantically with her eyes shining.
Naturally, there was no answer. It seemed like all Ruth had in mind was that she had to ask a question.
Then suddenly Ruth's struggling stopped. Then, just as Louis caught her, she started laughing.
"Haha... Right... You two are people too, right?”
"What?"
Ruth opened her eyes. A strange current flowed. Louise, who had been looking at Simone, frowned and glared at Ruth.
Ruth opened her mouth wide.
The Lord Osasanisasaosao asks Simone a question-
Puck!
Keekeeek...
“Stop talking nonsense and just answer Simone’s questions.”
It's been almost a month since Louis started working as Simone's employee at the Illeston Mansion.
Louis, who quickly noticed something strange, lightly tapped Ruth's back and blocked her question in advance.
“Wow...”
Simone took a small step back in surprise, then looked at him and stood up straight again.
Louis asked.
“What should I do? She seems to be possessed by something. Wouldn’t it be better to knock her out and calm her down before asking her anything you’re curious about?”
“...”
'Just knock her out first.'
He is the crown Prince of an empire who speaks just as loudly as Simone.
However, as Louis said, Ruth, who had finally caught it, was in no condition to have a conversation.
After hesitating for a moment, she gestured to Louis.
“Let’s go to a quiet place first. Drag her and follow me. Don’t faint.”
“Yes, I know a quiet place well. Here.”
Louise walked ahead, dragging Ruth, who was beginning to struggle again.
***
Candles are lit here and there in the dark underground hallway. Six thick doors line both sides of the hallway.
'I can't believe there's a place like this in this town.'
It was a very quiet and secretive place. As Simone looked around, Louise covered Ruth's mouth, who was about to ask a question without any reason, and spoke.
“Isn’t this a den of informants? Established informants also exchange very important information here. There are eyes and ears everywhere.”
Simone laughed. Does the lord, Grand Duke Illeston, know that a place like this has been created underground in this small town?
This village was truly a den of full-fledged informants.
Simone shook her head and asked.
“Can we use this place as we please?”
“It’s a place without an owner anyway. I just made it up and used it to make it easier for informants. All you have to do is go into an empty room.”
As the two men, dragging Ruth along, walked down the hallway, someone came trudging out from the other side.
A man who appears to be a nobleman and a man who appears to be an informant.
The two men glanced at Simone and her group and passed by pretending not to notice them.
As Simone looked at them, Louis said quietly.
“By the way, the only rule in this space is that whoever you meet in this hallway, you must never reveal anything outside. This includes customer information, of course.”
Louis opened the door to the empty room and gestured for Simone to come in.
“Come in.”
Simone entered the room first, and Ruth and Louis followed suit.
Squeak- crunch!
The thick door closed tightly and a small interrogation of three people began.
***
Tlop-tap-tap.
The Marquis of Barrington stopped in front of the stairs leading down to the ground. Then he turned around and stared into the dark underground corridor.
“Who are they? They’re people I’ve never seen before in this town.”
The informant laughed heartily at the Marquis' words.
“Your Excellency, you know the rules of this space, right? About the people you meet in this space-”
“So I’m asking you this before I leave this hallway.”
"Haha..."
The Marquis of Barrington recalled their silhouettes and figures, however dimly they appeared.
He usually didn't pay much attention to others, but this time was different.
Because among them, there was someone with a very familiar appearance. The silhouette of an upright and innocent person who would never come to a place like this.
“I ask again. Who are they?”
“Marquis, I’m sorry, but I can’t tell you.”
“I guess it’s because they are the people I met in this space.”
“There is that, but you know that, right?”
The informant looked at him with a mean yet greedy expression.
“I sell information even to complete strangers. But every word that comes out of my mouth is ‘information.’ Do you know what I mean?”
The Marquis of Barrington walked up the stairs as if he knew this would happen and handed the informant a gold coin.
“Just listen to the information worth a gold coin. He’s not even that important to me.”
“Yes, to this extent, I can tell you right here. Let me see.”
The informant tried to recall his memories and said:
“One of them, a young woman. She is a member of the House of the Duke of Illeston, and has been to this village twice in total today.”
“...Illeston? If it’s the Grand Duchy.”
"Yes, that's right. I’m talking about the rumored cursed noble family.”
A Grand Duke family cursed and shunned by the empire for 300 years.
Yeah, now that he think about it, this village was that dukedom.
“Then is she the Grand Duke of Illeston’s wife?”
“Well, we don’t have much information about the Illestons either. However, since the lord has no daughters, our informants believe they are either hired servants or adopted daughters.”
"...Right."
He heard that the man-eating tree that was said to be at the front gate of the Illestons family disappeared some time ago.
With a curse lifted, will they begin their activities now? He can't believe that Grand Duke Illeston's people appeared in this village, and in the informant's territory.
“And the young man is an adventurer belonging to the Adventurer’s Guild.”
“Be an adventurer...”
Adventurer. Despite all that, the visible silhouette looked very precious.
The Marquis of Barrington made a meaningful expression and nodded as if to continue speaking.
“The name is Wren. I don’t know if it’s his real name because people in the Adventurer’s Guild often use pseudonyms, but he is said to be the best swordsman in the Adventurer’s Guild.”
His appearance reminds him of someone, even a prosecutor.
"What the..."
Barrington burst out laughing.
“Why are you doing that?”
“No. Keep talking. Why is an adventurer from the Adventurer’s Guild here with someone from the Illeston family?”
“I heard through the Adventurer’s Guild that a man named Wren was hired by the Illeston family, so that’s why he’s with them, and I don’t know why he’s here. And the middle-aged woman they were dragging away-”
Barrington raised his hand to silence the informant.
"Done. I’m not really curious about that woman’s information.”
The Marquis of Barrington finally came to the ground and spoke to the informant with his usual gentle smile.
“I’ll give you money. Bring me information about the woman who is said to be of the Wren and Illeston families.”
“Oh, thank you. Of course, I should accept your request, Marquis.”
“Find out what the Illestone family is connected to, what Wren does there, and when she joined the Illestone family.”
Berrington shifted his gaze in the direction of Illeston Mansion.
Over there in the distance, he could see the highest roof of the mansion.
Mana felt as she passed by. She was not an ordinary person.
If there is any connection between that woman and the lifting of the curse on the Illeston family, then she must be the one the lord was looking for.
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