Chapter 54

The Disappearing Young Lady
The ball was about to begin, yet the star of the event—the young lady of the McCreed family—had suddenly vanished.
Gary and Miracca had told me as much, but I couldn’t believe it right away and decided to ask one of the nearby servants myself.
To my dismay, their answer confirmed it. I couldn’t stay quiet after that.

“We need to start searching for her right away!”

“Yeah.—But you stay by your master’s side. Don’t leave your post.”

“He’s right. This is our job.”

“Ugh…”

They had a point.
There was no helping it—I had to leave this to them… or rather, to the knights in charge of guarding the estate.
But still, was it really possible for someone to disappear under their watch?

If someone had used teleportation magic, it might have been possible to sneak into the mansion and abduct her without anyone noticing.
But the grounds were protected by barrier magic for exactly that reason, and any use of such spells inside the estate would be detected immediately.

Which meant the most likely possibility remaining was—

“The young lady must still be somewhere inside the mansion.”

“I-I think so too.”

Elina and I were in agreement.
Gary and Miracca had already left to return to their original duties, so we couldn’t pass this information along to them, but if I could figure it out, they likely had too.
The real issue now was figuring out where she might be hiding.

“Do you think she’s deliberately hiding to get the ball canceled?”

“Hmm… I doubt it’s that simple.”

That’s what didn’t sit right with me.
If she’d run far away, I could understand, but just holing up somewhere inside the estate wasn’t going to solve anything.
Even if today’s event were canceled, the ball would likely just be rescheduled.
The other side would definitely want to preserve relations with the duke’s house, so they’d push for it to happen eventually.
This wouldn’t lead to a real solution.

Then, why did Lady Alyssa disappear?

Just as Elina and I were puzzling it over—

“Is something the matter?”

—head maid Marietta appeared.
Which meant Lord Doyle’s preparations must be finished now too.

Marietta quickly picked up on the commotion around us.

“Has something happened?”

“Lady Alyssa has gone missing.”

“What!? Then… what will happen to the ball!?”

“No official announcement has been made yet, but… if she doesn’t show up, it’ll probably be canceled.”

“Oh no…”

Marietta looked crushed.
She must’ve been thinking all of Lord Doyle’s hard work would go to waste, so I assured her the event would likely be rescheduled soon.

Even so… where had Lady Alyssa gone?
I could only hope nothing bad had happened to her.

What do you think about this chapter?