~57~

“Are you crazy? This is the third floor.”

I hurried up to the window and whispered.
“I won’t get hurt even if I fall from the third floor.”
Ah, really? You know, I’ve killed someone by pushing him off the third
floor. Of course it was on a construction site, full of stone blocks...
I stared at him and eventually stepped back.
“Come in before you actually fall and I have to call a healer. Amy, go
out into the corridor and make sure no one comes in this room.”
“What? Oh, but…”
Flustered, Amy switched from looking at me and Rion who was
climbing through the window pane. No, the Grand Duke of Glouster.
Don’t I know how to call him?
After stepping his feet on the floor, he swept down his clothing. The
clothes didn’t have a single piece of dust on them, neither were they torn
or scratched. What has he been doing? No matter how young you are,
doing such things is hard if you’ve never done them before. Come to
think of it, he did say that his muscles grow even by repeating the same
exercise. That must mean he exercises constantly.
My gaze automatically turned to his body. Even if he’s covered by
clothes now, I could remember his hard, muscular upper body
underneath them vividly. Scared that my gaze would go lower, I hurriedly
looked up.
 Seeing him after such a long time, I thought how he had become more
handsome. Dark hair falling above his forehead, clear silhouette,
eyebrows clean as if someone had drawn them on, sunken eyes and
high nose, a slightly thin upper lip with a plump lower one… I already
know what those lips feel like. They’re softer than they look and they
bounce when you bite them…
No, stop. Really you should stop here.
Oh, he’s cut his hair in the meantime. His hair that used to be tied at
the back of his neck was now shorter and his solid neckline was
exposed more. His hair was curlier at the back of his neck. If I just put
my arms around that neck and stroked his hair…. that smooth feeling…
“My lady, still I need to stay here to…”
I came to my senses at Amy’s words. What’s wrong with me?!
“I won’t do anything to bring shade to Miss Alice’s reputation, so you
can leave without worrying.”
He said, smiling at Amy faintly. Amy’s face reddened for a moment.
She hesitated after glancing at me and since I didn’t say anything she
must have taken it as a sign of agreement, so she quietly left the room
and closed the door behind her.
I crossed my arms, sweeped all those disturbing thoughts in a corner
of my head and glared at him.
“So, you won’t do anything to bring shade to my reputation?”
“What could I do that would ruin your reputation? When lovers
promised to marry act precariously, everyone just regards that as their
youthful passion gone too far.”
 He spoke brazenly with open arms. I think this man has really lost it. Is
he living in his own reality?
“Who promised to marry here?”
“Miss Alice and I did.”
“When?”
He stared at me blankly and suddenly dropped his shoulders.
“Ah, so it must be that you just think of me as just an object to relieve
your desires, Miss Alice? I thought it was the proof of our promise? It
was my first time experiencing such passion.”
What is he talking about? Is he trying to put everything on me?
“You were the one to hug and kiss me and now you’re trying to push
that responsibility onto me? You did it first!”
“How could it be? I never do such an atrocious act as kissing a girl
without her permission.”
Wow, really. If I continue talking to him maybe I’ll start believing that
reality he’s writing in his head too.
The uncle and niece are talking about different realities.
“Leave it. If you continue like that I feel like you’ll become some mad
stalker.”
I pointed my finger at him but he just grinned and sat down in the chair
Amy had emptied.
“How have you been? I heard suitors asking your hand in marriage
line up at your doors.”
“It’s not like that. We’ve been through the general candidates anyway.”
I sat down as well and faced him.
“Which candidates? People who will make you a happy widow?”
 “Well, I made sure you’re included too.”
Choosing such people is easy. The problem is that the list is too long.
But some people are on the top of it so, I could choose them if we’re in a
hurry.
“Where is Hugo Duplo on that list?”
“Why would you ask?” I raised my eyebrows.
“I need to know. I might need to do some benchmarking.”
Ha, ha, ha. Just imagining him acting like Hugo makes me laugh. It’s
like a tiger acting like a housecat so that you take him in.
I stopped laughing and asked him.
“Why would you do that?”
He took a few seconds to answer.
“I don’t know what type of men you like. So all I can do is follow
everyone who you seem to show interest in.”
“I like my dad and brothers.”
He laughed out loud at that.
“But you don’t like them as men.”
“Men, women, everyone's the same. I like those who love me.”
He was silent for a moment.
I’m telling the truth. No one hates people who love them as they are.
They could love my fortune, my looks, my skills or every other part of me
that adds up and makes up my existence. I like those the best. And for
me those people are my family.
Of course, there are things that my family members don’t know about
me, but so what? I’m hiding that on purpose so it’s natural that they’re
oblivious. Wouldn’t it be weird to accuse people of not loving parts of you
that you purposely hide from them?
“But didn’t you like the past me even just a bit?”
This time I kept my silence. No, I won’t admit it. How could you ask me
to admit that I liked you, when you didn’t realize your feelings for me until
I was gone?
“Psychopaths can’t love anyone. Isn’t that right?”
At my answer, he shut his mouth and rubbed his short hair, and I was
uncertain if he was smiling or frowning.
“It’s not like I’d never wanted to beat myself up in my past life, but I
really would like to do that right now.”
He whispered finally and looked at me with that faint smile of his.
“Did you find out anything about the murder in the Underground
District?”
The Underground District? I stared at him with wide eyes.
“Did you go to the Underground District?”
“I just gathered some information.”
Just some information? From who? How?
Of course, now that he has a title of a Grand Duke he can’t do such
things by himself. Right? If even one person had recognized him it would
have caused chaos. Well, if he wasn’t recognized and just killed, it would
cause chaos as well.
The Princess and the King would be happy, though.
Anyway, he wouldn’t have gone there by himself. He would have paid
someone from that slum and bought the information. I want to believe
that he’s not foolish enough to have gone by himself.
 “And?”
“It seems like they just know how someone from the nobles was
murdered and that’s why the security leves in the aristocratic districts
have risen. I don’t think they know that that noblewoman was killed in the
same manner as those prostitutes. I don’t think the capital guards want
to share that either.”
He crossed his legs, leaned on his elbows and laid his chin on his
hand as he looked into thin air. It felt as if he was not asking me to listen,
but was organizing his thoughts, but he must have already done that. He
wanted to see my reaction. He wanted to know what I think of his
hypothesis and in which direction to lead it.
“It seems like the nobles haven’t connected this murder to the ones in
the Underground District, either… It was mentioned in “One Week in
Schway” but no one would imagine that the murder case in the
Underground District would reach the aristocrats. The people from the
Underground District wouldn’t imagine that their murderer killed a noble
either. If we think that way…”
He moved his gaze towards me and spoke.
“I think this murderer is an aristocrat.”
Huh.
A noble murderer.
He started killing in the Underground District and spread his hunt to
the nobles?
It wouldn’t be odd. People usually start killing from those weaker than
them. Not many kill monsters like them and realize that they’re monsters
themselves. So a nobleman starting his murders from the poor is a valid
guess.
“If he’s a noble he must have his own estate. Only that way would he
be able to practice those preliminary murders.”
“Hunting?”
“Yes, probably. That’s how he would have started. Peeling off the skin
of the hunt, emptying them from the insides. Even without the wish to eat
it, he would have enjoyed that. You can tell looking at the bodies of the
prostitutes at the Underground District.”
I thought about it for a moment more and added.
“There would have been many disappearances in that estate too. We
can’t consider the murders in the Underground District as the first ones.
He would have started before that, with more average kills. He would
have moved to such a crowded place as the Underground District after
gaining some confidence.”
“Finding out about the disappearances of each estate exceeds even
my abilities. It’s not like there are only a few estates. We need a
narrower condition.”
I chuckled.
“A professional investigator should do that. Should I think of those
conditions?”
“You’re good at that. Finding small hints. Give me a clue. And I’ll look
into it.”
He egged on with a smile.
“I don’t know…”
 There’s so much I want to tell him, but I don’t know where to start.
Then he asked first.
“Did Lord Aaron Warwick move to the Royal Palace? Under the
Princess? What on earth is his role? A lover?”
“I think that would have been better.”
I breathed out in irritation and told him about Aaron while shaking my
head. He frowned after listening to me without interrupting me once.
“I don’t know what on earth is going on.”
“If I knew that I would have resolved this. And thinking of it, there’s
another problem.”
He looked at me, asking me to continue. I hesitated and asked.
“Have you heard of web novels?”

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