Denise(1)
'I knew it would turn out like this.'
Young Lady Denise of the Beltus family lay with half-lidded eyes, quietly reading the letter her father had sent.
It was something everyone had already predicted ever since the sparring match between Young Lady Ellente and Young Lady Aiselin not long ago.
Whether it was Count Belmiard or Duke Duplein, in the end, when it came to matters involving their own children, they were all the type to rush in like mad.
If Aiselin and Ellente started a battle of nerves over recruiting the same teacher to their own side, this would inevitably develop into a clash between families.
"Bella. Since when was this letter here?"
"It arrived early this morning. It's been a long time since the Family Head personally sent a letter, so I remembered it clearly."
"If someone who never even asks how I'm doing is urgently looking for me like this, it must mean the fire's reached his feet."
Even though the sun was already high in the sky, Young Lady Denise was lying sprawled on the bed in her inner chamber. Soon, she let out a small shriek and stretched once.
Her pajama outfit, decorated here and there with ornamental lace, made it look like it was the middle of the night, but in truth, she was simply too lazy to get up. On holidays, it was common for her not to rise until late afternoon.
It was because she was tired from spending the entire week pretending to be a pretty and proper noble young lady.
Every time she saw Denise like this, the maid Bella would sigh in worry, but as the years passed, she had adopted an attitude of not caring anymore. Denise was not someone who would change just because someone nagged her.
Lying on the bed, Denise lifted the neatly written letter with a flick and read it several more times.
It was quite long, but there wasn't much substance to it. She casually tossed it onto the tea table and let out a deep sigh.
"I was going to make up my mind today and finish reading Master Railly's …"
"Are you going to get up? Then I'll have them prepare a meal."
"I don't have an appetite… Isn't there something light? I want to eat cherry pie…"
"Please also take care of your nutritional balance. If you get a skin problem, I'll be the one getting whipped…"
Senior maid Bella had served Denise since her childhood.
Because of the difference in status between a noble and a commoner, the distinction between honorifics and casual speech was clear, but since the two had practically lived together their whole lives, there was no great sense of distance between them.
Denise let out a groan and forced her stiff body upright.
"Ugh… It feels like all the muscles in my body are stiff."
As she forced herself up like that, Denise lifted her head with half-lidded eyes.
Duke Beltus had been asking around High Society for information about Derrick and had given orders to try to recruit him if possible. Denise already knew this would happen.
She hated troublesome things, but she also couldn't deny that it was better to deal with unavoidable matters quickly. That was why she had moved preemptively and already finished gathering information about Derrick.
It was Denise who had first sent a request letter to the Veldern Mercenary Corps among the three great families, and it was also Denise who had been indirectly keeping an eye on Derrick's movements.
If she had moved more aggressively, she might have tried to make direct contact with him, but if she did more than that, there was a high chance she would draw the wariness of Ellente or Aiselin.
Therefore, Denise had only made the preparations she could at this point.
Since orders had come down from Duke Beltus, all that was left was to quickly wrap up the rest.
"If you're going to get up, I'll open the window. We need to ventilate in advance."
"Kyaaah! My eyes!"
When Bella pulled the curtain open in one swift motion, Denise rubbed her eyes in surprise at the sudden flood of light.
*
'From what I hear, he's 1-star, but from what I can see, it wouldn't be strange if he's already over 2-star. Otherwise, there's no way Young Lady Aiselin would try that hard to seek his guidance.'
Denise left the noble quarter accompanied by two Guards and three servants.
Since it was rare for a noble young lady to come out beyond the noble quarter, wherever she went, she drew the gazes of Ebelstein's citizens. Letting the hem of her well-tailored dress trail gracefully, Denise smiled with an air of elegance and calmly walked toward the Tavern District.
The reason she didn't ride in a carriage was because she wanted to organize her thoughts while heading there.
'They said it's been about a week since he went missing, so the Belmiard family and the Duplein family must have started a full-scale investigation to find that wandering mage too. I need to move quickly.'
Denise was a person born with exceptional talent in Transformation-type and Search-type magic.
In particular, when it came to Search-type magic, she had already almost reached the 2-star realm. However, she hadn't told anyone about it except her childhood friend Bella.
Receiving everyone's attention like Aiselin might be important in noble society, but sometimes hiding one's ability was more efficient.
Especially since Denise hated getting entangled in unnecessary matters, she hid her abilities even more.
Even so, she was one of the three of the Rosea Salon.
If she completely threw away her duties as a noble young lady just because everything was bothersome, she would be treated as a nuisance by her family, so if she wanted to live comfortably while enjoying some honey, it was important to maintain a proper balance.
In the end, there were times like this when she had to roll up her sleeves while swallowing her tears.
Denise let out a deep sigh and organized her thoughts as she led her servants forward.
A momentary spark of vitality appeared in her eyes, which were usually drained of energy.
Walking calmly with her chin in hand, she looked like a small bisque doll, and passersby kept looking back at her again and again.
The road that left the noble quarter, crossed the commercial quarter, and led to the Tavern District.
Since the city of Ebelstein itself was enormous, traveling on foot inevitably took a considerable amount of time. Yet, throughout that long time, Young Lady Denise didn't change her posture even once and remained deeply lost in thought.
Young Lady Denise had only seen Derrick from afar exactly once. She had never even exchanged a single word with him.
However, through the descriptions given by Young Lady Aiselin and Young Lady Ellente, she could easily infer what kind of person he was.
Judging by how he, a commoner, taught noble young ladies without hesitation, he must be someone with strong confidence in his own abilities.
And judging by the results he produced that were worthy of that confidence, he was also a man of outstanding capability.
His build wasn't particularly large, but judging by the fine muscles and veins visible past his elbows, he was someone who used his body every day.
He wasn't particularly prideful, and when necessary, he knew how to lower his head and bend. He also seemed to like money.
And yet, he had a strong desire for achievement. It seemed that while teaching Ellente and Delia, he had not neglected his own magic training.
At the same time, he knew how to maintain at least a minimum level of dignity. Young Lady Aiselin did not favor vulgar people. He must know noble etiquette fairly well.
He had a calm disposition and deep inner convictions, but he probably didn't show them much.
He was good at hiding his true thoughts behind an expressionless face. If you peeled back one layer, there was a high chance he was actually quite emotional.
In Denise's head, an outline of what kind of person Derrick was began to take shape.
Surprisingly, the sketch she had drawn through a series of inferences and guesses almost perfectly matched the real Derrick.
'Since he's not someone who hates money, there's no reason for him to be stingy about a noble family's request. But is there any other reason he would refuse a noble family's request and even go into hiding like this? If I can pinpoint that reason, the picture should become clear.'
To track a person's movements, in the end, you had to be able to fully read that person's way of thinking.
"Young Lady Denise. From here on, it's the Tavern District. The public order isn't good, so please stay close to the Guards as much as possible."
"......"
"Young Lady Denise?"
Bella, who had been following Denise in a demure manner, asked again.
But there was no reply from Denise. With her chin in hand, Denise was muttering to herself.
Seeing that, Bella concluded that it would be better to ask the Guards to be extra vigilant.
'Desire for achievement.'
Denise had already traced more than half of Derrick's footsteps.
No one had told her anything, but by deducing his personality on her own, she was grasping the principles behind his actions.
'That magic master who doesn't refuse money… The only thing he'd value more than money must be that. But it's strange.'
'Either he found a good magic master, or he got his hands on a decent Magic Book… Anyway, something must have happened that helped his mastery of magic. Otherwise, this kind of disappearance is hard to understand.'
'But… wasn't he someone who ran out of the Duplein family's mansion saying he'd train magic on his own? With any ordinary trigger, he wouldn't be so easily absorbed into something…'
He was a boy who had even burst out of the Duplein mansion, where a 5-star mage resided, in order to learn magic in his own way.
What kind of master could teach him, and what kind of Magic Book could excite him to this extent?
Young Lady Denise's head began to spin.
From here on, she had to assemble all the scattered information into one.
Countless pieces of information that seemed unrelated entered and left her mind. Things she had seen in newsletters. News about the duel between Young Lady Ellente and Young Lady Aiselin. News about tariff agreements between the three great families, price information of various goods, rumors about some mage circulating among high-ranking nobles…
All the news she had heard indirectly over the past week and all the information she had gathered merged together, scattered apart, were assembled this way and that, and then dismantled again.
Even when she reached the tavern 'Tears of Veldern,' Young Lady Denise was still standing there with her chin in hand, muttering to herself. By this point, she had formed a certain hypothesis.
"Young Lady Denise. We've arrived at our destination."
"Hmm…"
Without changing her expression, Young Lady Denise walked straight into Tears of Veldern.
It was the base of the mercenary group that the magic master was said to belong to.
–Creak.
"Welcome… Oh my, to have such an honored guest in such a shabby place…"
"....."
As she opened the tavern door and entered, the owner Jayden greeted her with a smile.
It was rare for a noble young lady to come all the way into a tavern located deep in such a rough area. But Jayden didn't seem as flustered as one might expect.
Over the past few days, there must have been quite a few investigators from noble families who had come looking for that wandering magic master.
At first, he must have been quite surprised, but by now, he was probably getting used to it and might even be sick of entertaining nobles.
In fact, as soon as he saw Young Lady Denise, he quickly poured cold water into an elegant, clean glass and offered it to her.
"Aren't you the Young Lady of the Beltus family? It's a great honor to meet you in person."
"......"
"......."
Denise walked into the tavern, but she didn't say a single word.
Jayden also had an awkward expression. Over the past week, many people from noble families had come looking for Derrick, but this was the first time he had seen someone who just stared in silence for such a long time.
If Young Lady Denise didn't speak first, there was nothing Jayden could really say, so he just kept smiling awkwardly like that.
Jayden could already predict how the conversation would go from here.
She would ask various things about Derrick, but there was almost no information he could confidently provide.
After asking this and that, she would ask where Derrick's residence was and then go to investigate it.
Since he was used to this flow, Jayden didn't say anything in particular.
She would surely ask at length about Derrick.
But the question that followed from Denise completely went beyond Jayden's expectations.
"-Has a mage called Drest Wolftail come to this tavern?"
It was a surprise attack that felt like it pierced straight to the core.
It was a question that stabbed into his chest like a suddenly flying dagger, but Jayden only let the tips of the fingers resting on the table tremble slightly and showed a very brief silence that didn't even reach a fraction of a second.
Jayden's expression didn't change at all.
It was a gap so short that ordinary people wouldn't have felt anything strange. But Denise didn't miss that tiny gap.
Before Jayden could even answer, she raised the corners of her mouth and said,
"He was here, wasn't he?"
At the sight of her quickly cutting off his escape route, even the old veteran had to swallow his dry saliva for a moment.
If he carelessly denied it now and it was exposed as a lie, things would become hard to manage.
*
After that, things moved swiftly.
After leaving Tears of Veldern, the next place Young Lady Denise headed to was the coachmen's guild in the commercial quarter.
To access the internal records, she casually donated dozens of gold coins as a contribution. Since even most noble investigators didn't move with this level of confidence, the guild employee had a dumbfounded expression.
Among high-ranking nobles, it was already widely rumored that Drest, a 6-star Search-type mage, was drifting around Ebelstein like a drifting spirit.
Given his complicated relationship with nobles, there was no way he would be wandering around the noble quarter, and at best, he would be circling around the edges of the commercial quarter or the slums.
Derrick was someone who had even burst out of the mansion where Duke Duplein, a 5-star mage, was staying.
To captivate such a person, it was obvious that you would, in the truest sense, need to bring in someone like a 6-star mage.
That was why Denise formed a hypothesis.
Could it be that his disappearance was related to the 6-star mage Drest Wolftail?
After confirming that the hypothesis had gained some weight from Jayden's reaction, she immediately checked the list of carriages that had left Ebelstein.
If Derrick really had met Drest, there was no way the two of them would still be inside Ebelstein.
Drest was someone many people wanted to meet. If he had decided to pass on some magic to Derrick, they would surely have had to go out to the sparsely populated outskirts of Ebelstein.
However, there were hundreds of requests for carriages leaving Ebelstein every single day.
The list of requests at the coachmen's guild was so vast that it wasn't easy to look through everything. But Denise organized that enormous amount of data all at once.
Almost all carriages going out of Ebelstein were peddler wagons that followed fixed trade routes.
If you added in ordinary trade work and carriages for external affairs, nearly 90% of the data became meaningless.
There was no way Drest and Derrick would have followed the trade routes everyone used to secretly go train magic.
They must have headed for some 'special' place that ordinary people didn't bother going to.
The time frame was also more or less fixed. The point when he went missing, roughly a week ago.
The time frame was clear, the content of the request itself was unusual, and they even knew the appearances of the clients.
At this point, it didn't take very long to extract meaningful data.
After organizing the materials together with her servants for a couple of hours, a rough outline emerged.
'The large Laspa Cave on the outskirts of Ramhel Hill.'
It was a record of a coachman who, exactly a week ago, had gone out on a request from a robed boy and an old man.
The destination, the reward, the time it took to arrive, the date, and information about the clients were briefly written down.
Seeing that record, Denise smiled.
It had taken exactly half a day from the moment she rolled up her sleeves to find Derrick's destination.
*
"Bella, no matter how I think about it, I think I'm just too capable. What should I do?"
"......"
"When you're too capable, you only end up getting tangled in annoying things. Sometimes, I should be a bit incompetent… Sigh… What should I do…"
The behavior Denise showed at the Rosea Salon was always elegant and noble, but her private self couldn't be more irritating than this.
Even Bella had to admit what had to be admitted.
Denise had good initiative, a fast mind, and even good intuition.
Properly classifying materials, easily reading others' expressions, and pushing things forward decisively could all be called her abilities, but linking the rumors about Drest with Derrick's desire for achievement was almost in the realm of instinct.
She was a person born with strangely sharp intuition.
Inside the carriage heading to Ramhel Hill.
Denise, who was lying back on a magnificent and luxurious seat and being fanned, spoke in a satisfied voice.
"I should hurry and finish this and go read Master Railly's new work. I'll persuade that so-called magic master this evening and turn him into a person of the Beltus family. Father will probably be satisfied too and won't bother me for a while."
"But… even if we go, will we be able to meet him easily? If he's really traveling together with a 6-star Search-type mage… If they're determined not to meet us, we have no way."
"Don't worry. If we go all the way to such a remote place and make a fuss, do you think they won't show even the tip of their nose?"
Young Lady Denise laughed lightly and spoke as if she had a plan in mind.
"Even if we can't meet him, we can at least leave an impression. If we even go so far as to track down a secluded closed-door training ground he's hiding in, he'll at least feel that sincerity, right?"
"But still, he's someone even Young Lady Aiselin and Young Lady Ellente couldn't easily recruit… Won't he be difficult…"
"Don't worry, Bella. I told you I have a plan, didn't I?"
"May I ask what that plan is?"
When Denise rolls up her sleeves in earnest, results always come.
Bella knew that well, but even so, she had an uneasy expression. Once Denise rolled up her sleeves, her drive sometimes went in strange directions.
"A honey trap."
"....."
"As you know, if I captivate him with this bewitching appearance of mine, he'll fall for it one way or another. As everyone knows, I'm a charming woman."
"…You do know that Young Lady Aiselin and Young Lady Ellente are your competitors, right?"
"So what? I'm prettier than them."
To be able to smile so broadly even with Young Lady Aiselin, said to be like a single white lily, and Young Lady Ellente, said to be like a splendid rose, as her rivals, was certainly not something just anyone could do.
Where in the world did this self-confidence come from? It was Bella's longest-standing mystery.
"I feel a bit sorry for Young Lady Aiselin and Young Lady Ellente. But… human relationships are like the wild too, so it's natural to take and be taken. Ahem."
"...."
"From the standpoint of representing the Beltus family, it can't be helped, but it would be troublesome if our relationships turned bad, so I should think about how to handle things… The Rosea Salon always has to be harmonious…"
"....."
Bella didn't bother to argue.
They were childhood friends, but in the end, it was still the relationship between a noble young lady and a maid.
If this went any further, harsh words would probably come out, so she had to shut her mouth.
*
"Someone has come."
In a clearing deep inside the cave, Drest Wolftail, who had been sitting on a rock with his eyes gently closed while adjusting mana, spoke in a low voice.
On the other side, Derrick, who had also been concentrating on the flow of mana, slowly opened his eyes.
He had eaten almost nothing for the past week. His food pouch was already completely empty.
He looked quite haggard, and since he hadn't been able to wash properly, his hair was a complete mess.
Having been immersed in Search-type magic all day and night without even distinguishing between day and night, Derrick looked almost like a wreck.
And yet, there was vitality in his eyes, making it feel as if he had returned to his slum days.
This kind of environment was familiar to him. Hunger and thirst were things you naturally had to endure when going on subjugation expeditions.
"Someone has come? At the cave entrance?"
"It seems to be someone from the Beltus family. It would be good to go out and meet them once. It's about time we needed some ventilation too."
"......"
When Derrick stood up from his seat, his whole body tried to scream.
It was the aftereffect of pushing his mana senses to the absolute limit and training them for the past week.
Compared to when he trained Ellente, his realm had risen to an incomparable degree.
With his eyes gently closed, Derrick released his mana.
Even without activating dark adaptation magic, the structure of the nearby cave was clearly etched into his senses.
He had already reached a higher realm.