“Giselle, since when were you bad with bugs?”
The Giselle I knew had no problem with bugs. She even once grabbed a bug and chased me around with it.
I’m sure she was fine with it at least when she was in Duke Olivier’s mansion. I wonder if there was anything that could have ruined her after she was forced to leave the mansion.
In response to my question, Giselle gave me a puzzled look and then smiled.
“I’m not.”
“Huh?”
“The other day, it was just an act when I fainted at the sight of dead insects.”
What does this mean?
Why would she act in such way?
“I heard that there was a person who resembled you in Arburn, but I had no positive proof, so…”
I wonder if my disguise is so easy to see through?
I look quite different when I change my hair and eye color, but I wonder if someone who knows me would recognize me right away?
“I wanted to get involved with you to find out for sure. I was sure that you, with your strong sense of justice, would get involved once you learned about the case.”
It’s true that once I know about a case, I can’t help but solve it.
Giselle knew that very well.
She probably thought that by posing as a victim of the incident, she would be able to get involved with me on my way to investigate.
The whole thing made my head hurt.
“What did you plan on doing if I did not appear at that place?”
“I knew you were near the scene, and I knew you would have heard the scream and come running.”
How did he know that I was near the scene?
I don’t think it would be anything good to hear. It would be better not to ask, because it would be a little scary.
“Even if I couldn’t meet you at the scene, I knew that if the real Miss Elle knew about the incident, she would come to me, the victim.”
“You know exactly how I work, huh.”
“Of course.”
Giselle understood me better than anyone else. There was no way I could escape from her.
“There was no need for you to pretend to faint, then.”
“It’s because you brought a strange man along with you. I thought you were alone, so I got impatient when two of you came and pretended to be unconscious.”
What kind of impatience is that?
When I gave her a dumbfounded look, she laughed at me as if to cover it up.
I think she was trying to find out what kind of person Jed was while pretending to be asleep.
I’m sure she would have laughed to deceive me if I had asked.
I was curious about that as well, but there was something I needed to check first.
“Say, Giselle. Can I ask you something, too?”
“What is it?”
“Is my disguise easy to see through?”
“It’s easy to see through for me.”
She replied immediately.
“I think it’s easy for people who know you well to recognize you. If someone who knows you well were to see you up close, they would recognize you immediately.”
Thanks to that, I also recognized you right away.
I felt my cheeks twitch as Giselle smiled at me.
It’s a good disguise, but it’s not good enough if it gets me recognized by someone who knows me.
“In other words, a search party from Ansanse would recognize me immediately.”
“It depends. I don’t think a search party sent from the Royal Palace would recognize you. But if it was a search party from the Duke’s household, then…”
The Duke’s search party is a small group of elites. They are very good.
It is almost a miracle that I have not been caught yet. It’s almost as if someone was falsifying the information.
I’m sure it’s just my imagination, though.
“It will be okay. I will handle it, even if the search party shows up.”
“I can’t let my friend do something like that.”
“Then, as a maid…”
“I won’t allow you to go back.”
If I show an opening, she’s going to act like my maid again.
“You are my friend, so you should drop the honorifics.”
“That’s not possible. Please don’t think that an ingrained habit can be dropped so easily.”
“Didn’t you drop it in front of Jed?”
“You don’t know how nauseated I felt then. I felt like dying the more I continued talking like that.”
Isn’t that already a disease?
It’s true that ingrained habits are hard to break. I know how she feels, and I can’t force her to do anything, so I’ll try to get her to break the habit little by little.
I hope that one day we can be friends in the true sense of the word.
“Back to the topic at hand, is it true that there is a search party out there?”
“Yes.”
I have information that there is a search party.
“If there was a search party out there, I’m sure it would reach my ears by now, but… Lady Elle, I mean, Miss Elle, I did not hear anything about a search party from the Ansanse Kingdom coming after you.”
“I’m sure it’s His Majesty’s doing.”
No large search parties have been sent out.
My name has never appeared in any of the newspapers that I’ve seen since I was exiled out of the country.
If you take those two things together, then the Ansanse Kingdom has not announced to the rest of the world that they have exiled me out of the country.
To be precise, it would be more correct to say that they can’t announce it.
It would be an ugly story. There was no way His Majesty would allow that.
When I explained this, Giselle’s expression became distorted.
“The King of Ansanse is trying to keep this a domestic affair, isn’t he?”
“It can’t be helped. He’s the one who has to think of the country first.”
As a former noble, I understand that much.
“I wonder what’s going on among the nobility of the Ansanse Kingdom.”
“I couldn’t investigate that much into it.”
It is possible that a gag order has been issued regarding my exile and the charm magic of the Baron’s daughter.
I’m sure the nobles involved will keep their mouths shut for their own protection. That’s probably why the information hasn’t been passed on to other countries.
But it seems that some of the information has leaked out.
“Is that so… if you are interested, I can investigate further for you.”
“It’s unnecessary. It would be for the best to not get concerned with the Ansanse Kingdom at all.”
“Understood.”
There is nothing I can do now, even after finding out about the situation in the Ansanse Kingdom.
“Anyhow, I’m going to change my disguise.”
“That would be for the best.”
I have to make sure no one else recognizes me.