The next few days were bright and clear for us. Albeit not for everyone, for the death of the prince and the Marquis had been made public. The reasons were concealed amidst many conspiracies, but almost everyone knew that the Marquis had been murdered in the gallows. But I didn’t share the sentiment, for if the Marquis was alive and hiding, there would be repercussions.

The Escavs had lost their babysitter status and were labeled as malevolent by other noble houses, for Marquis’s connections spanned far in the aristocratic circle. The King himself had lost the support of a few of his retainers, and the crown prince was busy playing around with his heroine as always.

We were commuting through our usual route, my [Devil eye] eavesdropping on people’s conversations to gather the rumors that required recurrent filtering. The sisters had locked themselves in the mansion, crying their hearts out, while my lady hadn’t even stayed at home following the funeral, which involved some intricate chanting that made little sense and mages burning the body.

Two new labels were strapped over my lady, for she had become an unfilial daughter, in addition to cursed, since we had deliberately made the engagement public. At the orders of my lady, of course.

The King’s birthday didn’t have the same jubilance of the season, and the royal family had decided not to celebrate it to honor the perverted prince. My lady was happiest among all, for she had got rid of two thorns with one undead. Her flirtations were becoming bolder each passing day, and that was one problem I needed to address sooner or later. For now, I was happy with our current circumstances and eagerly waiting for some more thrilling jobs to fill my boredom.

My lady was silent throughout our journey, and her deep violet gown fluttered in the winter breeze. She didn’t quite like the black front-up laces of her gown, but the white dress underneath complemented her embroidered gown really well. The floor-length dress was shortened to reach her ankles, but it had taken considerable effort, for my lady didn’t prefer maxi gowns.

I was decked in one of my usual suits that recognized the modern ones, except for the tailcoat. My overcoat did enough to ward off the frost of the winter, but I had to keep myself warm using fire spells. Not that it particularly required additional efforts, but it was a conscious chore that I needed to indulge in.

“Hey, mongrel,” my lady talked for the first time since we had left home. I had tied her hair to a high pony, and it had grown longer over the past few months, reaching past her shoulders. “What will you gift me for my birthday?”

“Is your birthday approaching, my lady?” I asked in surprise.

“You want me to torture you?” she paused her steps and glared at me.

I grinned and touched my chin in thought. “I was thinking about buying you some frocks, but I’m not quite sure anymore. What if your growth spurts over the next two years?”

She held her hand over her bust and looked at me. “Certainly. You have no idea how voluptuous I’ll become, mongrel.”

“Sure, sure,” I sighed. “It’s not like I want them to grow, my lady.”

“Let’s see if you’ll stay the same in a couple of years,” she offered me a flirtatious glance and rushed towards the gates where the two troublemakers were waiting for her.

“Ruddy!” Beth shouted my name, and Garlan peered out of the booth with a grin. That meant our first installment was in our hands. I grinned back at him, and he rushed outside, leering at the noble women trudging through the gates, only to earn a [Spark] from Casey.

“Volch wants you to have you over for dinner, Leti,” Casey said once I reached them. “And Ruddy too. Even my sisters want to thank both of you.”

“Sisters?” My lady’s gaze turned cold, and she shook her head. “If you sisters want to meet my mongrel, then forget about it. I won’t be coming.”

“Leti…” Casey glanced at me. “Ruddy, help me out, at least.”

I shrugged. “I’m not a social person either–“

“There’s gonna be a lot of bread,” Beth said, her gaze taunting me.

I turned to my lady, “There’s no harm in attending a dinner, my lady.”

“You bastard! How can bread be enough to lure you?!”

“Garlan’s invited too,” Casey said before my lady could reject again. “Though I’m not quite sure my sisters would welcome your leery gaze. They are conservative nobles who rarely associate with commoners, so you can expect some snickers.”

“Then they better be ready to lose their tongue,” my lady said, her soft appearance quite misleading.

“I’ve warned them already, Leti,” Casey laughed, stopping short of patting my lady’s head. Both of them were taller than my lady, which annoyed her at times. Or most of the time.

They indulged in idle talk and walked toward the gate, my lady earning more hateful gazes than usual. Perhaps, she might get bullied one of these days, but well, it was good for her blackening. Not that I was apprehensive about it either, because her two friends had enough fame for being the most ruthless of all.

“Are you coming, mongrel?” My lady stopped by the gates and turned to me.

“Later, my lady,” I said and waved my hand. “I have to settle some accounts with my bread lad.”

She nodded in understanding, though her glare forced Garlan to retreat to his booth.

“Why is she so damn possessive, Rudolf? It’s not like I’m going to steal you from her.” He said once I entered the booth. “I might even get my head chopped one of these days if I’m not careful enough.”

I shrugged and glanced at the empty packets of bread on his worktable. “How much did we earn?”

“Sharp two thousand shins, my bread lad,” he grinned. “How are we diving it? Fifty for me and fifty for your lady?”

“You get thirty percent,” I said, ignoring his drooling mouth. “That’s what we agreed on previously, and it won’t change. Aren’t you already earning from your job? Also, our portion will go to Hesroeder manor, so we can’t really curtail a few shins from that.”

“What?!”

“Well, you know their situation better, don’t you?” I sighed, remembering my conversation with my lady. “For now, my lady has agreed to sell her mother’s jewelry, so we don’t have any problems with cash for the next couple of years. Further, the Hesroeder household already had a bitter fallout with the crown prince, so a few machinations would be enough to get them to raise an army.”

“Wait, wait,” Garlan raised his hand before me. “Did tell me that a seventeen-year-old maiden thought about all these things.”

“It was my lady’s order,” I shrugged with a grin.

“Though, everything sounds feasible now that I have seen your evil side,” Garlan scratched his stubble, and a crafty smile replaced his worried expression. “Then, I’ll invest my funds in Hesroeder household. If they succeed, I’m earning a kingdom, and if they don’t, I am losing nothing. It’s not a bad deal, no matter how you look at it. But convincing Baron Volch is going to be hard.”

“That’s why I exist, my bread lad,” I smiled. “Then again, we lost our allowances, so we might be forced to sell jewelry every month to meet our needs.”

“You shouldn’t have killed him if you were worried about the allowances,” Garlan said.

I raised my eyes at him, and he continued, “Who else has the guts to barge into the gallows uninvited and kill a noble? It’s too obvious, Rudolf.”

“Well, if it wasn’t for the fact that you love bread, I would have killed you already,” I gave him a flat look. “But I doubt he died. I didn’t get to personally verify his body, thanks to the royal guards.”

“Fuck! Doesn’t that mean we are in trouble?” Garlan obviously appeared horrified at the prospect, but the ‘we’ in his speech didn’t fail to bring a smile to my face. He was an interesting mortal, just like my lady.

“Even the entire kingdom against me is hardly an issue. But,” I paused for a grin, “would you be able to speak coherently if I nip all your fingers and ram your head with a battle-ax? Everyone’s lives are betting on the odd chance that the Marquis has gone senile. If not, it would rain cats and dogs. With human bodies.”

“What the hell did you do to him?” Garlan laughed despite his horrid expression.

“Just some casual touch up,” I said, patting his shoulder. “Anyway, hand over fourteen hundred shins. Or notes, or whatever they gave you.”

He did, begrudgingly, and it took considerable efforts for the notes to change hands. “Say,” I asked him once the notes were in my hands. “What do young girls prefer?”

He was taken aback for a while and elbowed me teasingly. “Are you fond of anyone, my bread lad?”

“I’m buying a gift for my lady, Garlan. Do you think I got enough time on my hands to buy gifts for random strangers?” I rolled my eyes. “I’d rather enjoy their agonized cries.”

“How is your lady a girl?!” he was dumbstruck. “She is a demon incarnate, bastard! Get her a battle-ax or armor. She might prefer it more than a hairband or ornaments. I always thought lady Letitia was the only one deranged, but you are not far off.”

“True, she may not prefer the usual gifts,” I disregarded his remarks.

“What did you gift her every year?” Garlan asked, scratching his stubble.

“Clothes, most of the time. And some towels when we were low on cash. My lady didn’t let me buy underpants, so that was my option,” I said after some thought.

“What are you? Her mother?!” he gawked at me.

“I’m her butler, Garlan. She doesn’t have a mother if you didn’t know already,” I said with evident annoyance.

He sighed. “How about you gift her clothes again?”

“That won’t do,” I waved my hand and disregarded his option just as fast. “My lady might grow up a lot in the following year.”

He nodded, already fantasizing about things. Nevertheless, he snapped out with a shudder and said, “Then ask lady Letitia what she wants.”

That was certainly a good option. Maybe I should ask my lady one of these days. Either way, she pays me money to buy gifts for her, so it was a better idea to ask her beforehand. As long as my lady didn’t ask for the impossible, getting anything wasn’t hard. If she asked for some heads, that would be even better.

“I met your granny, Garlan,” I said, changing the topic for Garlan had given me the answers. He was quite efficient as usual, so exploiting him came naturally for me.

“That screwed-up old hag?” he was clearly irritated. “That bastard of a father never even knew I existed. And I got more half-siblings than you could ever imagine.”

“That’s harsh,” I said.

“Then wipe that grin, bastard!” he punched my abdomen and snickered.

I laughed and patted his shoulder. “It is amusing, Garlan. Never knew you had such a tragic past. I reap happiness from your misery, so you can’t really blame me for being elated.”

Garlan grunted, oblivious to my remarks. “She was in search of crazy undead magic. Wasted her life instead of disciplining her son. Old age makes you wise, they say, but she was pretty much the same deranged mage all her late life.”

“You cannot understand her insatiable thirst for knowledge, my bread lad,” I crossed my arms and nodded with pride.

“And you can, damned butler?” He tossed me a pack of bread from his table. “Don’t act all high and might, Rudolf. We, commoners, are nothing more than fodder.”

“Your old woman begged to differ, though. Knowledge doesn’t have restrictions, and if you need books to discover the nature of magic, what you are garnering is not knowledge. Anything in its purest form is violated when books trap the unknown through the eyes of a single ignorant mortal. If I’m torturing for money, it’s adulterated torture.”

“So you want me to learn casting on my own?” He waved his hand. “I’d rather start raising a toddler.”

“Then raise a toddler instead,” I shrugged. “There’s nothing wrong with not craving for the unknown.”

Garlan grumbled as we nibbled on our respective bread, and I strolled out after we exchanged greetings.

I sent my [Devil eye] to my lady’s classroom and didn’t find her anywhere in the occupied room. The heroine was crying, seated in the forefront, her entourage, which included harem members and other ignorant nobles, consoling her. Beth and Casey were sitting in their usual seats, having an idle chat. My eye floated around them for a while until Beth flicked it away.

“She went to the bathroom, Ruddy. A long time ago, though,” There was evident worry in her voice, and she got up to follow me out when the mage dropped by the classroom. With a grunt, she settled down in her seat.

My [Devil eye] floated in the direction of the washroom and waited outside the door for a while. Seconds ticked to minutes, and when she finally came out, her clothes were dripping wet, her hair slightly deranged, as if she was just involved in a scuffle.

She noticed me and raised her eyes. “Where are you?”

I led her through the isolated corridor, then sought the stairs before leading her to my usual nameless tree. Shrubs lined her uninterrupted walk through the campus, the shedding leaves of the trees accompanying her at times.

“You got a towel?” she asked once she reached me and pulled my tailcoat.

“I got one, my lady,” I said and took my napkin from my coat pocket. It wasn’t enough, but my spells would do the rest of the job.