Chapter 156: The Hundredth Smile
“You traitor!”
It was late at night, in front of the townhouse gate. Sue smiled at Evan, who was pouting and fuming.
“Evan, what kind of language is that? Apologize to Byron.”
Acrea, his voice unusually firm, scolded Evan. Evan, intimidated, pouted even more.
“I’m sorry for causing trouble…”
“Not at all, I enjoyed your company, Master Evan.”
“Yes, good job, Evan.”
Acrea’s hand gently stroked Evan’s hair. Evan, his face softening, accepted his touch. He was still a child, after all.
“Well then, be careful on your way back.”
Evan, about to get into the carriage, turned to Sue. His face was still gloomy.
“Sue.”
The bold boy said to the gloomy girl,
“I’ll do it a hundred times.”
I won’t lose to someone like you!
His face, filled with defiance, disappeared into the carriage.
“…Pfft.”
It didn’t take her long to understand what he meant.
“Haha… Hahaha!”
“Byron? What’s so funny?”
“Nothing, just… Hahaha…”
Sue burst out laughing, tears streaming down her face. It was the first time she had laughed so hard.
“Master Evan is really like Master Fritz.”
He wasn’t trying to cheer her up, he wasn’t even trying to be friends with her. He just didn’t want to lose to her.
As expected of Sue Byron, that was the kind of treatment she deserved.
Acrea, who had been watching her laugh, tilted his head and smiled faintly.
“Really? What did you talk about with Evan?”
“He said he was struggling because of Master Fritz’s broken engagement.”
“Hmm, what did he mean by ‘a hundred times’?”
“Ah, that’s…”
Sue wiped away her tears.
“It’s a secret, Master Acrea.”
***
Acrea, after taking Evan back to the Fritz mansion, arrived at the Acrea mansion past midnight. He went straight to Reeves’s office, without even changing his clothes, and knocked on the door.
“Come in.”
Reeves was sitting in his office chair, but he wasn’t working.
“How’s Evan? I heard he jumped into the lake.”
“He seemed fine. He was asleep on the way back. I’m planning to visit him again tomorrow.”
“Haha, you’re going through a lot because of Shina, Woo.”
Reeves looked at his younger brother with pity. Even though he was the one who had ordered him to “go get Evan.”
“Shina will come back to the mansion on his own if you just wait a little longer. Grand Duke Antique will compromise with him. You just have to wait for that. The problem is the Lopetrefer side… Well, let’s not worry about that for now.”
Reeves picked up a document from his desk.
“Woo, I’ve read your report. Did you investigate the magic power contained in this pendant?”
He glanced at the tarnished raven pendant lying next to him.
“Why did you investigate this?”
He asked the most fundamental question. The Holy Demon Religion incident was already being swept under the rug. There were wanted posters of the high priest plastered all over the capital and beyond, but it was just for show.
And Acrea’s investigation wasn’t about the Holy Demon Religion, it was about the raven pendant Sue Byron had given him.
The Woo he knew wasn’t the type to delve into anything outside of work.
“As you’ve read, it was an indecipherable formula.”
“But those kinds of magic exist from time to time. The brainwashing magic on Lady Melaine was also almost impossible to decipher.”
“What if the caster is the same person?”
“Huh? Do you really think so?”
It was a plausible suspicion, but Reeves was too tired to care. He had failed to capture the high priest, he had been yelled at by Yuna, and the Imperial Family wasn’t interested, so he didn’t want to think about the Holy Demon Religion anymore.
“…I think it’s worth investigating. I just looked into it as a member of the Acrea family.”
“As a member of the Acrea family…”
He had definitely been raised with that ideology, but he had never acted on it.
But for some reason, Reeves didn’t think Acrea was lying or trying to manipulate him.
After a long silence, Reeves spoke,
“There are only three possible sources for the pendant: Sue Byron, Sue Byron’s aunt, and the person who gave the pendant to Sue Byron’s aunt. …Woo, which one of them do you think cast the magic?”
“I’ll have to investigate further to know. Elizabeth Perlman and Sue Byron.”
“Ah, right. But Patroclus, where the Perlman couple lives, is quite far. And I’m not going to go all the way there to find out the truth about this pendant, Woo.”
Reeves smiled slyly under the blue moonlight.
“Okay, I understand.”
“…You’re not going to try to persuade me anymore?”
“Why?”
Reeves, seeing Acrea’s puzzled expression, awkwardly touched his chin.
“…Never mind. Go back and get some rest. And keep me updated on Shina and Enzhe.”
“Yes, you get some rest too, Brother.”
Acrea, leaving the office, looked up at the window, his face emotionless. The full moon, shining brightly in the cloudless sky, was mesmerizing.
“A hundred times, huh.”
***
Enzhe was having tea with an unexpected guest in the greenhouse of the Lopetrefer mansion.
“Lady Enzhe! This necklace is made with the most precious jewels from the allied nation of Faul. I brought it as a token of my gratitude for allowing me to visit.”
“Ah, I see.”
Who is this girl, and when did I allow her to visit?
She couldn’t even remember.
A girl named Viscountess Giona Vercia had visited the Lopetrefer mansion early in the morning.
Enzhe didn’t remember her face or her name, but she must have been swayed by her flattery and the promise of a good gift.
And that was this mud-colored necklace from some unknown country.
Vercia, holding out the necklace, rambled on about the history of the Faul allied nation and the legend of the jewel embedded in the necklace, but Enzhe ignored most of what she said.
“It’s not fun.”
She had lost interest again.
“You’re not having fun.”
“Yes, it’s not fun at all.”
Her eyes were dry, her voice was dry. But Vercia, as if she had been waiting for those words, her eyes lit up.
Vercia carefully reached out and took Enzhe’s hand from under the table. Enzhe’s gaze followed her hand, reaching the face of the culprit, who was smirking.
Giona Vercia.
She was smiling, as if she was enjoying this.
“Lady Enzhe, may I have the honor of entertaining you?”
***
The spring evaluation was over.
Fritz had come to the academy for the evaluation. And the moment he appeared, all the criticism directed at him had vanished.
Enzhe, who had seemed like she was about to collapse at the sight of him, actually looked better than before. Her lifeless eyes, which had seemed to have lost interest in everything, had regained some of their spark.
‘Why is she so calm? Something’s strange…’
Sue, her suspicions growing, couldn’t relax, even in the best of circumstances. Enzhe’s nature was “evil.” And the fact that she was silent meant that she was plotting something. Sue’s paranoid mind couldn’t think any other way.
And then, an incident occurred that amplified her suspicions.
“Lady Byron!”
It was a surprise that Giona Vercia was greeting Sue Byron with such a friendly voice.
“Did you know? It’s my birthday next weekend.”
“Congratulations, Lady Vercia.”
Sue forced a smile, hiding her stiffening body. Vercia, not to be outdone, placed her hand on Sue’s shoulder.
“Hehe, don’t just say it, Lady Byron, will you come to my birthday party?”
“What?”
Sue’s shoulders flinched. Vercia placed an invitation in her hand and continued,
“What do you mean, ‘what’? I’m inviting you to my birthday party. Oh, I invited Lady Enzhe too, and she said she would be delighted to come. So please come.”
The only one who was happy to hear that Vercia had invited Byron to her birthday party was Azette.
“Let’s be together at the party!”
If there was a purifying light from an angel, it would be Azette’s smile.
Sue, enduring the feeling of being burned to ashes, wondered why Azette liked her so much.
She had never received such unprovoked kindness before. She wanted to ask Azette directly, but she was afraid of another twist, so she held back.
“You were invited too?”
Surprisingly, Noel had also been invited to Vercia’s birthday party. She later found out that Melaine and Acrea had been invited as well.
Melaine was wary of the invitation, remembering Vercia.
“This kind of invitation always has an ulterior motive. Let’s not go.”
Melaine had also become much more suspicious after the Holy Demon Religion incident. Of course, Sue didn’t want to go either. Vercia had been ignoring her ever since they became classmates, so her sudden friendliness only made Sue more anxious.
‘But I don’t have the right to refuse…’
And her worries were quickly proven to be pointless, as even Melaine’s attempt to get out of it was easily crushed.
“We should go, since she’s offering to entertain us.”
Enzhe smiled. And that was the end of it.
‘Something’s going on.’
Se a Enzhe não tiver um final horrível irei ficar muito frustada