Adel had hitched a ride on the footman's seat of a carriage that had stopped right in front of her.
What incredible luck.
Of all times, a delivery carriage from her part-time workplace happened to be passing by right now.
"You know I'll be deducting the fare from your weekly pay, right?"
Her corrupt supervisor, wearing a long hood, grumbled.
The corrupt supervisor, 'Earl Windrop', was the same age as Adel.
Pale skin and snow-white hair.
Despite his almost transparent coloring, every time Adel saw him, she was reminded instead of a dark night.
Was it because his mood always seemed low?
"So, where are you headed?"
"The Merriweather mansion."
At this, Earl turned his head toward Adel, his lips twisting wryly.
"I must have heard you say you were leaving home five hundred and seventy-five times by now."
"I did leave!"
Adel patted the leather bag on her lap.
He snorted and turned his attention back to the road ahead.
"But?"
"Well, that's..."
As Adel hesitated, he curled one lip as if he understood.
"You saw something, didn't you? With those eyes."
Adel gave no answer.
"...Troublesome."
Even as he said that, he increased the carriage's speed.
"Earl, by the way. Could it be that..."
Adel's anxiety deepened.
The place where she worked was the 'Manpower Dispatch Office'.
It was a hub of information where all sorts of rumors from the capital gathered.
Earl, the director's adopted son, knew all of that information.
"You know your next week's pay is completely gone, right?"
As he said this, he pulled a small pouch from his pocket and handed it to her.
"What's this?"
"Insurance."
"...!"
For a moment, Adel felt her entire body go stiff.
At her workplace, the word "insurance" was understood to mean "antidote."
"Someone at the Merriweathers bought poison?"
"It's not just that."
He briefly stopped the carriage a short distance from the back door of the Merriweather mansion.
Another carriage was parked near the back door.
At a glance, it seemed to be there for a delivery, but the faces of the people dressed as deliverymen were familiar.
Relatives and retainers.
And specifically, those who had wagged their tongues like the previous marquis's crew.
As she tried to jump down from the carriage immediately, Earl grabbed her.
"Go through the front gate."
As soon as the carriage, which had entered the main road, stopped, Adel jumped down.
Without even properly thanking Earl, she rushed in a daze toward the main gate.
Stopping at the entrance hall, she looked around and saw maids cleaning, staring at Adel with strange eyes.
But only for a moment.
As usual, they ignored Adel and continued with their respective tasks.
This peace, no different from usual.
'Has nothing happened yet?'
Hoping that was the case, Adel hurriedly went up the central staircase.
She soon arrived in front of the study and pushed the door open without knocking.
"Marquess...!"
Her urgent call didn't reach its end.
The letters and documents Clara had been looking at were scattered on the desk, but the chair she should have been sitting in was empty.
And just then.
*Drip.*
A viscous liquid dripped down the edge of the desk and fell to the floor.
It wasn't hard to guess what might have been mixed into that liquid.
'Really?'
But it was unbelievable.
Clara was only ten years old.
No matter how much of a genius she was, feeding poison to a small child whose height barely cleared an adult's waist?
'You insane bastards!'
They weren't even human.
Adel turned from the study and ran to the end of the hallway.
If Clara had taken poison and collapsed, they would try to take her to the waiting carriage as quickly as possible.
'The fastest way to the back door is through the servants' stairs.'
Descending the narrow stairs, she saw the nursemaid hurrying along, a large sack slung over her shoulder.
"You look busy, Nursemaid."
Startled by Adel's words, the nursemaid finally stopped in her tracks.
"Ah, Miss Adel?!"
Adel smiled bitterly and descended the remaining stairs between them.
"Looks like you have luggage that needs to be moved urgently?"
"...!"
The nursemaid's pupils were trembling incessantly.
"So 'protecting the Marquess's health' meant this?"
"Wh-what are you talking about...?"
"How could you not know?"
As Adel took a sudden step closer, the startled nursemaid lost her balance and staggered briefly.
"Gasp!"
Adel didn't miss the opportunity and yanked the large sack toward her with both arms.
A flinch.
From inside the sack, she felt a momentarily startled movement.
Was she perhaps not unconscious?
"No!"
The nursemaid, having lost her grip on the sack, reached out.
Adel twisted her body to completely pull the large sack away from the nursemaid.
But at that moment, a strong force pushed Adel down the stairs.
"...!"
For a moment, she felt as if her body were floating.
Adel made a split-second decision, pulling Clara tightly into her embrace.
She had to minimize the impact on Clara.
She herself didn't understand why she was going to such lengths.
But wasn't Clara still a child who needed protection?
Adel soon landed on the floor with a thud.
"What's going on here?"
Had they heard the commotion?
Someone from the lower floor was approaching.
Adel, holding onto hope, barely lifted her aching head to see who it was.
"...Ah."
But she despaired.
The other person was a retainer disguised as a deliveryman.
He seemed to have grasped the situation immediately and soon called out to his colleagues at the bottom of the stairs.
The sound of many approaching footsteps.
Unable to count their number, Adel felt a chill run down her spine.
"How dare this filthy thing interfere! Drag her out too!"
Someone grabbed Adel by the hair.
"Ugh!"
At the same time, there was a strong pulling reaction from inside the sack, clinging tightly to Adel.
Was Clara really awake?
Anyway, for now, she just pulled the small girl clinging to her even more tightly into her embrace.
Suppressing a groan, she managed to lie, saying, 'It's okay.'
As Adel wouldn't budge, hard shoe soles now descended countless times upon her head.
It felt like her head would be crushed soon.
Adel tightly closed both eyes.
"Argh!"
A scream filled the narrow staircase.
It wasn't Adel's.
'Then whose was it?'
Turning her head with difficulty to look, she saw the figure of a retainer with his head slammed against the wall.
And the hand firmly gripping the back of his neck was...
'The Duke of Winchester?!'
Why was he here?
For a moment, their eyes met, and he smiled a picture-perfect smile even in this situation.
"I was right, wasn't I?"
"Huh?"
Adel prided herself on having encountered quite a variety of madmen in her life.
But this was the first time she had seen someone who could crush a person with one hand while smiling so brightly.
She wasn't the only one shocked by the sight.
The retainers were all frozen stiff, unable to move.
"We meet again. Quite delightful, isn't it?"
Delightful? It's just terrifying!
"Y-yes, it is."
But she couldn't give any other answer.
Somehow, he was the kind of person she really didn't want to get close to.
After the Duke of Winchester appeared, the situation was quickly resolved.
He had brought the 'Capital Investigation Unit' responsible for security, and they arrested the retainers and the nursemaid who had orchestrated the incident on the spot.
Fortunately, Clara was not injured in the slightest.
Not only that, she clearly testified to the investigators about what she had experienced.
Adel was sitting on the stairs when an investigator soon approached her as well.
"Miss, we'd like to ask for your testimony as well, but would it be possible right now?"
"Ah, yes."
Adel pushed herself up from the floor with trembling hands.
But perhaps she had hurt her back when she fell.
The pain that arrived momentarily was quite strong.
Just then, someone stepped between the investigator and Adel.
It was the Duke of Winchester.
"Why don't you speak with me first? My schedule is tight, so now seems to be the only time possible."
The words he delivered while glancing at his watch were not a request but a notification.
"Gasp! Yes! Understood."
As if he had forgotten he had offered the investigation to Adel, the investigator promptly went down the stairs with the Duke.
Suddenly left alone, Adel was dumbfounded, but she was still grateful to the Duke for intervening.
This gap would allow her to go apply some medicine.
Though whether Rose would actually apply medicine to Adel's back was another matter.
But just then, a doctor in a white coat, accompanied by nurses, approached Adel from the bottom of the stairs.
"Miss Merriweather, may we take a look at your injuries for a moment?"
It was someone she had never seen before.
Due to the complicated situation of the marquis's household, Adel naturally felt wary of these strangers.
Wondering if they were some intruding riffraff who had slipped in during the commotion.
The doctor showed a small badge attached to his coat.
It was the crest of the Winchester family.
"Though my skills are lacking, I serve His Grace, the Duke of Winchester."
The Duke had?
Come to think of it, last time, when Adel had wounds on her face, it was also he who had asked the nursemaid to treat her.
It seemed he had asked this doctor to tend to Adel's injuries this time as well.
Adel turned her head and stared blankly at the Duke, who was leaving through the back door with the investigator.
Even though the pain in her back made her feel like she would collapse any moment.