Viscount Gottlieff.
The loudest and most luxurious bedroom there resounded in broad daylight.
"So you haven't caught anyone?"
The soldiers bowed their heads at the sound of Letie's annoyance.
"Yes, I thought it might have been hidden, so I went to find it unexpectedly, but there was no contaminator."
"It can't be! The mercenaries came back after making contact with the monsters! I'm sure some of them were contaminated!"
Letie also knew that the Black Panther mercenary group had come to Viscount to defeat the monsters.
She had also heard that they had returned after several failures.
Since they had returned from dealing with monsters, she naturally thought that there would be contaminators, so she sent soldiers.
But there is no one.
"I guess they hid it. Did you look for it correctly?"
Letie asked, and the soldier lowered his head even more.
"It didn't seem to be hidden. I searched every place where they could hide, and I searched every area around their dwellings, but I couldn't find it."
"Strange..."
It was incomprehensible to Letie.
"I even received a report that you could hear the screams peculiar to the polluter from the mercenary group's residence, but there is no way there won't be. How did they hide it? How did the polluters disappear like that..."
As she was thinking about it, she suddenly remembered an unpleasant name.
'Elona. Speaking of which, she used to talk about the Black Panther Mercenaries as if she knew them well.'
During a monster hunting tournament held in the Grand Palace, Elona said to Letie, who was puzzled by the banner with the black panther pattern.
That's the symbol of the mercenary king Rodrick.
When asked how she knew right away, Elona replied that she knew about him because of his fame. Maybe it wasn't.
She didn't get to know him because of his fame, but she thinks they had known each other from the beginning.
'...Are you really relying on the mercenary group?'
There would not have been many places where Elona could stay safely after being freed from the Grand Siege.
She couldn't stay in an aristocratic house.
They will always be ready to offer Elona to the Kishian.
What if she paid the mercenary group and hid there?
If so, it was explained that all the polluters had disappeared from the Black Panther Mercenary Settlement.
Elona, who was in charge of the mercenary group, might have been asked by the Mercenary King to heal the polluters.
'Unless the pollution is cured, the polluters can't suddenly disappear. I have to check it out.'
Letie ordered his soldiers with a slightly softer voice.
"Keep an eye on the mercenaries. Secretly."
"Yes, Your Highness."
If Elona was really there, she had to find her before the Grand Duke or her father could find her.
She must be a special being who should disappear from the world.
Without Elona, Letie herself would have been born as the precious only daughter of the imperial family and would have enjoyed everything.
She was born under the name of a twin.
As if that wasn't enough, she was treated as the same Princess, and she even stole her purification powers.
The time has finally come to completely remove the person she doesn't even want to call her sister.
***
By the time Letie was thinking about Elona, she was with the Kishian.
It wasn't because she wanted to be with him.
He kept coming to her room, so she had no choice but to let him in.
If she left it as it was, he would be noticed by other mercenaries, and their relationship would be suspicious.
"Don't keep coming back. Hertha must be suspicious by now."
"What do you think is suspicious? Why don't you go to a mercenary? If it's really uncomfortable, will I stand outside the door?"
"No, there is no need for that. Anyway, clients don't usually come to my room. And you, you really don't have to go back to the Grand Duke? What if the imperial family suddenly makes a move?"
Because she was worried about that, Elona had suggested it to Kishian at the inn.
She said that she would return when the situation here was cleared up, so go to the Grand Duke first.
But Kishian did not listen.
"My subordinates aren't so incompetent that they have a problem if I'm away for a while. Even if the imperial family makes a fool of themselves, they will deal with it."
"..."
The embarrassingly irresponsible attitude left Elona speechless.
Kishian nailed it in a more definite tone.
"I'm not going to leave here until you say you'll come with me."
It was what Elona was going to say.
The butterfly-shaped brooch he had placed on the table shone brightly
"Ah, the Duke of Hersen..."
"Duke Hersen?
Kishian reacted sensitively to Elona's mutter.
Elona motioned for him to be quiet for a moment and then grabbed her brooch.
- Finished. I deciphered every ancient word engraved on the cube.
Kishian, who was leaning against the wall, heard a voice from the brooch and approached her.
"It's really the voice of the Duke. Why are you still in contact with him?"
"Shhh."
- Hmm? I think I heard someone else talking, but is there anyone besides you?
Surprised by the Duke's question, she hurriedly closed the Kishian's mouth with her palm, and his eyes curled up in dissatisfaction.
Elona replied, not caring whether he did or not.
"No, it's from outside. Did you find out more than that..."
- How to use the cube. I think I figured it out. But I don't have a cube. Did you go there again?
"I haven't checked it, but I think it probably went into the safe... Did you figure out how to use it?"
The Duke explained in a slightly excited voice.
- There was a red gem embedded in one side of the cube. Especially more protruding than other gemstones. If you turn it clockwise one hundred and eighty degrees, it will work. It is a compass that turns spirits into monsters and finds the source of pollution.
If she had a cube right now, she would have turned the gem, but unfortunately, it wasn't in Elona's hands.
But she knew what the Duke was talking about.
Clearly, the cube had a particularly large protruding red gem embedded in it.
- And there is one more thing that I have discovered, the source of the pollution... It seems that spatial distortion occurs near the pollution source, which the ancients called the "contaminated seed." It also seems to spawn powerful Guardians.
"Guardians? Space distortion?"
- Guardians are probably the monsters most affected by the tainted seeds. The monsters would hover near the seed and attack anything that approached it. They are called guardians in the sense of protecting seeds. Space distortion seems to literally mean the warping of space with a special force. This is also a protection to prevent access to the seeds.
Elona slowly sorted it out in her head.
In short, it is the object called the contaminated seed that creates the monster, and you can use the cube to find it, and you need to be careful because the space is warped, and strong monsters appear near the seed.
Just as she had thought about it, the Duke of Hersen said.
- I think we need to take measures based on what we have learned so far.
"What specific measures are you thinking about?"
- I don't know. Originally, they would have informed the imperial family about this and asked them to form a punitive squad to destroy the contaminated seeds. But now the situation of the imperial family... It's not very good.
He said that it was not good, but the conclusion was that the imperial family was not doing its job.
Elona glanced at the Kishian without realizing it, and the Duke mentioned him as well.
- I think you should take it to His Highness Kishian Lynn Lennon, Grand Duke of the North.
"Bring it to me ?"
- Hmm? Wait, what is this voice...?
The voice of Kishian interrupted from the sidelines, and this time it reached the Duke's ears properly.
The Duke stammered.
- Is the Grand Duke with you now? No, wait... Speaking of which. Hilda's voice was somehow familiar to me... No way...
If left as it was, it seemed that he would never be able to get out of the shock.
Inevitably, Elona revealed the truth in the tone she spoke when she was the Grand Duchess.
"Yes, it's me. As you might expect."
- Your Highness, the Grand Duchess?!
For a while, she didn't hear any sound from the other side of the brooch.
He seemed to be frozen in surprise.
- No, you happened to be in the mercenary group, and you certainly had a completely different face when you visited to see the cube before... Oh, did you use magic tools? That's why your voice changed halfway through. When I visited you before, your voice was definitely a little lower, but when I contacted you with a brooch, you were somehow higher, so I thought it was strange...
"When I met you in person, I had changed my face and voice with a magic tool. When I communicated with each other through brooches, I didn't use tools and talked with my own voice."
Somehow, every time they talked through the brooch, it seemed to be a familiar voice, so he muttered to himself, and then the Duke said.
- I thought you escaped from the Grand Siege well, but you were caught in the end...
Hearing this, Kishian's brow wrinkled sharply.
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