“Do I just have to find it and hand it over to whoever?”
[Of course you need to give it to someone who truly understands magic.]
“So as long as they know magic, it doesn’t matter who it is?”
[Right.]
The answer came out even more firmly than she had expected.
That’s unexpected...
Camilla, who had been quietly staring at Jishua, casually led into the next question.
“Is that all you want?”
[That’s all.]
Her expression turned a little strange.
Is it because he was a mage?
It felt odd that his final wish was merely to find the grimoire and pass it on to someone else.
Usually, wouldn’t people want to leave some last words for family, or for someone close to them? He had died suddenly, so it was not as if he could have left a proper will.
Or else they usually wanted some unresolved personal grudge settled.
“Don’t you have any family?”
Camilla had already realized that Jishua was not someone who had died all that long ago.
That emerald ring on his hand.
That’s from Cabile Jewelers.
Cabile Jewelers was one of the jewelers that had been drawing attention lately. She had heard it had only been around for a little over thirty years now.
Which meant that no matter how long ago Jishua had died, it could not have been more than thirty years. And if he had family, that was still recent enough that they could easily still be alive.
Of course, not every dead person missed their family or anything like that, but still...
[Family?]
“Yes. If you died that unexpectedly, it’s not like you could have said goodbye to them properly.”
[...I don’t have anything like family.]
“Really?”
Jishua wore a bitter smile.
[What right does a man who threw away his wife and children to chase magic have to go looking for family?]
“I guess that’s true. You don’t.”
[Hey, aren’t you agreeing a little too firmly?]
What was he talking about? He was the one who had said it first.
Bang!
“Hey!”
At that moment, the bedroom door flew open and Ravi strode inside.
“Brother, do you not know how to knock? Knock?”
“You’re alone?”
Ravi quickly swept his eyes around the room, then faintly furrowed his brow.
“Of course I’m alone.”
“No, you’re not. I definitely heard voices.”
It seemed he had heard a voice that sounded like she was talking to someone and thought Arsian had snuck in again, so he had burst through the door.
“Are your ears finally going bad?”
Camilla shamelessly played dumb. If anything, she pushed the idea that Ravi was the one in the wrong.
“You’re suspicious. You weren’t talking to the dead again, were you? I told you not to get close to those things!”
“I wasn’t. I really was alone. Your ears are the problem.”
That sly fox of a Ravi... his instincts were annoyingly sharp.
“So what did you come for?”
Camilla quickly changed the subject.
“You said it before. You wanted to look through Mother’s things in the storage room yourself.”
“Oh, right.”
Because of the Duke of Esclara.
Before he had left, he had asked something of her. If there was anything left behind by their late mother, could she give it to him?
Why all of a sudden?
I thought I ought to remember.
What?
She was once my wife, and your mother.
Things that might help recover his lost memories. Something like belongings, or a portrait.
“They’re going to do a full cleanup of the storage rooms this time. They said if there’s anything you want to sort through yourself, you should do it beforehand.”
“Okay.”
“You... really were alone, right?”
“I told you I was.”
Persistent bastard.
Ravi, who did not let go of his suspicious look until the very end, finally hurried out of the room.
Click.
[That one looks like a mage too.]
The moment the door shut, Jishua’s voice rang out again. Keeping his gaze on the spot Ravi had left, he ~Nоvеl𝕚ght~ continued,
[And he looks pretty skilled.]
“You can tell that just by looking?”
[You can feel the magic he carries. Then I can just give it to him.]
“Give him what? The dragon grimoire?”
[Right.]
“Hm... sure, I guess.”
Our Ravi was really hitting the grimoire jackpot this year.
Chapter. The Dragon Grimoire
Slide.
What time was it by now? She had dozed off while looking over documents.
Maybe it was a habit left over from when her body had been small, but even now, whenever it got too late at night, she still tended to fall asleep without realizing it.
Camilla, who had drifted into a light sleep with her head down on the desk, faintly smiled at the warm touch of a blanket wrapping around her shoulders.
“Arsian?”
Raising her head with bleary eyes, Camilla called out one person’s name. At this hour, the only one who would come in soundlessly and do something like this was him.
“My apologies. I’m afraid I’m not Arsian.”
At the familiar voice laced with laughter from right nearby, Camilla quickly sat upright and hastily rubbed at the corners of her still-sleepy eyes.
“Jayner?”
Why was he here at this hour?
Blinking a few times, Camilla asked in a dazed voice,
“When did you get here?”
“Just now.”
After giving that brief answer, Jayner stared at Camilla intently.
“So that bastard comes by often at this hour?”
“Who? Arsian?”
“Yeah.”
He pointedly brought up the fact that she had woken and called Arsian’s name just a moment ago. A strange embarrassment crept over her, and Camilla scratched at her cheek.
“He drops by without notice sometimes.”
“Hm.”
What had gotten under his skin this time? One corner of Jayner’s mouth lifted crookedly.
It always made her a little uneasy when that man wore an expression like that...
Because among all the lunatics she knew, he stood at the absolute peak.
“Anyway, what brings you here this late?”
At Camilla’s question, he erased the playful expression he had been wearing until now and put on a smile like a mask.
“I came to report on the matter you commissioned.”
“The commission? Ah.”
Only then did Camilla remember the matter she had personally gone to the Khan branch to entrust not long ago.
The thing Jishua, the ghost who had come to find her, had asked of her: to retrieve the grimoire left behind by the dragon. She had put in a request with Khan for that.
It wasn’t somewhere I could go myself.
She had had a feeling from the moment Jishua told her about it. A feeling that the place where the grimoire was hidden would be somewhere incredibly remote.
And that prediction had not been wrong.
“Aren’t you busy? You don’t have to come in person every single time.”
“It’s fine.”
Camilla’s expression turned a little sour.
It was not as though Khan had no people. Why did the head himself have to come every time? It was not like you were such an idle man.
And that was unbelievably fast.
Hadn’t he said it would take over a month at the very least?
The reason had been that there were a lot of backlogged commissions these days.
That seemed to be true. Even the people she had seen before when she went looking for Jayner were nowhere to be found. Temporary staff had been covering their places instead while they stayed busy.
The distance had been great, and the location had been so remote that she had never expected the commission to be finished this quickly.
“It’s my little sister’s business. Even if I’m busy, I should come in person.”
Jayner smiled brightly.
Camilla did not know it, but the temporary clerk who had accepted her commission that day had lost his job the moment his superior returned.
*****
What? You reported Lady Camilla’s commission last?
Pardon? Yes, I did. Is there a problem with that?
You little—!
Why are you angry...? Isn’t the rule that you report and assign things in the order they come in?
Have you never heard of exceptions? Exceptions! Hey, didn’t anyone tell this idiot who Lady Camilla is? Temporary or not, you can’t even identify an important figure? Have you actually memorized your major client information properly?
I-I was going to study it today...! J-just who is she?
What use is it to you if you’re about to get fired anyway?!
*****
The original handler, once back on the job, had indeed taken Camilla’s commission and handled it as top priority, but delayed was still delayed.
The cool smile that had lingered at the corner of Jayner’s mouth disappeared the moment he turned his head toward Camilla, who was tapping the desk in complaint.
“Can you stop calling me little sister?”
“If I don’t call my little sister little sister, what am I supposed to call her?”
“...Call me whatever you want.”
He was definitely doing that just to tease her, wasn’t he? Lately, for some reason, he seemed to emphasize the words little sister even more than before.
Almost like he’s repeating it to himself.
What, did he have to do that just to convince himself to see her as a little sister?
“If you hate it that much, you don’t have to treat me like a little sister.”
“Hate it? Who would reject such a pretty, accomplished little sister?”
You would.
Then at least stop smiling like that.
Camilla knew very well the particular smile Jayner wore whenever he was lying, and Jayner knew that she knew. It was an obvious sham.
If he disliked treating her like a little sister that much, he could just treat her like a stranger. Camilla gave a small shake of her head.
No matter how much time passed, she could never figure out what went on in that man’s head. She had no idea what he was ever thinking.
“Here. The commissioned items.”
After looking at her for a moment with an unreadable gaze, Jayner changed the subject. He set down the things he had brought in front of Camilla.
“There’s a lot.”
She had only asked him to bring back one grimoire, but what Jayner laid out was more varied than she had expected. What was all that stuff?
