YMPDKMA Chapter 34

When I carefully placed my hand on the damp wall that smelled of wet sand, he immediately entered a different path. Whenever he found a lamp that had gone out, he lit it with irritable gestures—without any kindling in his hands, so it had to be alchemy.

I'd never seen an actual alchemist in all my lives, even counting the time before I returned to the past, so I kept stealing glances at him.

The dark lines made more prominent by his tightly bound hair were growing increasingly similar to the Emperor I remembered. Rupert, who would soon become Emperor, who had certainly existed as Emperor in the past—I pondered why he'd revealed to me that he was an alchemist, and realized he'd accepted me as a nuisance to some degree.

Alchemists weren't welcome even in the capital, which was fairly open to magic. They didn't possess the nobility of mages who shaved their own lifespans, nor did they have the cleverness of scientists and inventors who developed techniques more magical than magic itself through pure knowledge, without borrowing magical power, and spread them to the masses.

How those without magical talent could steal such abilities remained unexplained. So even I, who had no particular reason to dislike them, thought alchemy was somewhat cowardly. They didn't work to obtain gold; instead, they struggled to create gold. The results might be similar, but would the gold they made have value as true gold? Wasn't gold precious because it had always been gold?

Rupert turned as if he'd read my thoughts. Standing at the cold, damp, dark crossroads, receiving dim light like a shadow, he looked like a pale ghost as he opened his mouth with the same bluntness as his face.

"Are you laughing at me?"

Before I could answer, he quickly turned forward. I followed a span behind him and hurriedly spoke.

"No. Why would I?"

"For worshiping fakes and following lies. That's what you nobles usually do, isn't it? You only acknowledge the usefulness of mages or scientists."

Rupert spoke as if he himself weren't of noble blood, which made me laugh a little. At the sound of my laughter, Rupert tilted his head at an angle to look at me. His head brushed the ceiling of the passage, which had grown narrow and low as we neared the exit.

"Have you ever seen the Emperor—no, my father?"

"I might have seen him when I was young, but I don't remember well."

"He and I look nothing alike."

There was subtle arrogance dissolved in Rupert's voice, which puzzled me. Was he pleased not to resemble his father? He seemed almost glad about the Imperial family's unsavory scandal.

While I pondered the meaning of his words, Rupert reached a dead end and tapped the floor several times with his foot, then pulled a dagger from his coat. With an expression that knew no pain, he cut his finger and squeezed out blood. When the blood drops fell on the floor he'd tapped, the wall that had produced a door before now produced a door from the floor.

Rupert bent over and opened the door as if having doors in floors were common sense, then disappeared like a rabbit diving into a hole. I hesitated while looking down at the gaping doorway, then grabbed my skirts and jumped after him.

"Kyaaa!"

Embarrassingly, the hole wasn't deep. I was already pressing my hands against solid ground. The room we'd fallen into through the door wasn't spacious, but it looked like an office decorated with quite antique furniture. Rupert glanced at the mountain of piled documents, sighed slightly, and walked to the large desk.

I watched him nervously, hesitating, then soon pulled a handkerchief from my inner pocket and approached him. When I wrapped the handkerchief around Rupert's still-bleeding finger, he raised one corner of his mouth.

"What are you doing?"

"Stopping the bleeding."

"You should have brought ointment."

"I'm poor, so I don't have things like that."

"I gave you some."

At Rupert's rebuke, I mumbled an excuse about giving it to my brother. But my excuse seemed to worsen his mood. He frowned at an angle higher than his raised lip corner and swatted my hand away.

"Who said you could give it away on your own?"

"I'm sorry."

It was petty of him to scold me over something he'd already given me, but I wasn't stupid enough to voice my complaints. Rupert ignored my halfhearted apology, turned his head, and directed his gaze toward the man who had entered through the office's 'normal' door along with Max.

The old man with golden hair gone white was short with a comically protruding belly like a pregnant woman. From his obsequious eyes, I guessed he was a merchant, and I must have been right because Rupert called him Fassbender. Then he must be Tori's father, though he shared nothing with Tori except his short stature.

"Report."

"Fifth Avenue has mostly come under Your Highness's trading company as you instructed. We've absorbed over half the trading companies around Champagne, and Ardel only does business with us anyway, so no particular measures are necessary..."

The man reporting while quickly scanning his papers finally noticed me standing blankly and stopped. Rupert tilted his head and pushed me aside like trash.

"Don't mind her. Continue."

"Ahem, yes. Several companies managed by Gorten absolutely refuse to do business with us. His southern influence is so great that trade with foreign countries via land routes is nearly impossible."

"Crush Gorten first. What is Gorten collecting?"

"We haven't discovered that yet. My apologies."

Rupert didn't rebuke the man's obsequiously apologetic face.

I could deduce quite a bit from their conversation. Tori—Fassbender, who had backed her when she was Empress in the past, must have been a trading company Rupert cultivated since he was still a princess. It made sense that the Fassbender Company could grow so much in a short time after his ascension.

This company was clearly an important card Rupert held, and he and Gorten seemed to have been in a power struggle for quite some time. Yet the one who received his blade wasn't Gorten but Bellua. The person branded a traitor wasn't the Marquis who had established himself in the capital and occasionally acted like a merchant, but my father, who'd been far removed from merchants.

I clenched my fist with the hand hidden in my sleeve and turned my head, pretending disinterest in their conversation. Rupert had ordered me to find out about Gorten. I was newly pleased by that command. Gorten—that man who had stood by and pretended not to see my father dragged to the guillotine like a dog—was more deeply connected to Rupert than I'd thought.

I thought about the relationship between Gorten and Bellua that I'd missed in the past, struggling not to let my itching mouth run. Questions were piling up at a rapid pace, mountain-high, that I wanted to ask Rupert. But there was no way he'd answer even if I asked.

Rupert left the room, abandoning Fassbender who had finished reporting and started processing documents. He pushed me away again as I followed him like an arrow, annoyed. Dumped in the corridor, I didn't show any sign of pain. At my straight gaze, he slowly turned around.

"What."

"Pardon?"

"Ask. Don't stare at people annoyingly."

"How—how many can I ask?"

Rupert let out a hollow laugh as if dumbfounded. As he laughed, the door to exit the building opened, and I was momentarily captivated by the unfolding scene. Surprisingly, we were standing in the middle of the market street. Despite the considerable distance between the military academy and the market near Fifth Avenue.

"One."

"How did we get here?"

"Alchemy. Is that your question?"

"Ah! No! Cancel! That's not a question!"

His answer and my question were almost simultaneous. I shook my head in panic, but Rupert snorted and grabbed my forearm, pulling me to his side.

"Can't do that. Once you miss an opportunity, it's over, idiot."

He flicked my nose as if pinching it, then picked up a dumpling from a nearby stall and put it in his mouth. He didn't pay, didn't even ask permission, but the owner who lost the dumpling bowed obsequiously as if the act were natural and even offered him a drink.

At this attitude, as if Rupert owned this entire street, I finally realized this was where I'd first met Rupert. Back then, he'd scorned me as a clueless noble lady, but I was the one who knew nothing. His claim that I'd stolen his dumpling had actually been valid. He truly was the owner of all this.

Rupert passed by me with my mouth hanging open in surprise, his face indifferent, and began wandering the market in earnest. He navigated the largest market in Champagne as familiarly as his own home, occasionally barging into shops to rummage through ledgers.

Surprisingly, merchants either treated him like an invisible ghost, laughed heartily and patted his head like a cute neighborhood child, or bowed obsequiously while averting their eyes with slightly fearful faces.

They showed various reactions, but no one drove Rupert away or tried to hide their ledgers. No, they couldn't. Despite being practically confined to the Red Palace, he uncovered merchants' dirty secrets quite skillfully—when had he been doing this?