Chapter 13
<14화>
The duke carried me in his arms straight into his office.
And then—
“Eat.”
He stuffed a whole chunk of the cake he’d prepared beforehand into my mouth.
It was an unexpected move, but the sweet cream and cake instantly washed away my lingering discomfort.
‘Strawberry. Whipped cream. The best.’
As my expression softened and my mouth curved into a happy smile, the duke, who had been watching me while resting his chin on his hand, finally let out a sigh of relief.
“Is someone bullying you?”
At those words, my dazed eyes went wide.
This man has quite the intuition, doesn’t he…?
“No. Nothing happened.”
However, I had no intention of telling him the truth about the maids’ subtle hazing.
It wasn’t as if they openly hated me.
Besides, I could understand why they were wary of me.
Moreover, a model child shouldn’t bother adults with such trivial matters.
But still.
“…….”
The fact that someone had been watching me from my bedroom window weighed on my mind.
I took another bite of the cake waiting at my lips and asked him.
“Mister.”
“What?”
“There aren’t any dangerous people in the Crost Duchy, right?”
“What do you mean by that?”
Frowning at the sudden question, he took off his reading glasses.
“For example, someone who could spy on me through my bedroom window…”
“Who’s bullying you?”
“Um, it’s not that, but…”
His eyebrows shot up at my vague answer.
“Who would try to haze a tiny bean like you? Who is it? The head maid? May?”
“No.”
“Don’t tell me it’s the chef?”
“Um, no… Ah!”
“Aisha!”
My fall from his lap and Calips’s startled shout happened almost simultaneously.
It was because I had spotted something darting quickly under the desk.
“Gotcha, you little rascal!”
As a spy from the Pose family, there was no way I’d miss it. I captured it with my tiny fist.
“Reveal your identity!”
“Squee, squeak!”
That familiar squeak.
‘No way.’
Gulping, I slowly opened my small fingers one by one—
“…Squeak.”
A grumpy gray snout poked out from between them.
It was a mouse.
And not just any mouse. It was a messenger mouse sent by the Pose Duchy.
“Mister.”
“…Aisha. If you’re going to act like a frog, just go play in the pond.”
“A message has arrived from the Pose Duchy.”
Calips, who had been sighing with his eyes closed, stiffened.
“What?”
The atmosphere shifted in an instant.
His red eyes glinted sharply through the fingers resting on his forehead.
* * *
Now, here’s a quiz.
As seen in Dorothy’s arrest, spies from the Pose family write their reports on their clothes.
Then, they deliver them to a base located near their workplace.
In Dorothy’s case, she used a place called ‘Percus’s Bookstore’ in Torn City, located near the Duke’s Castle.
Once she sent the report there under the pretext of going into town?
The report would be delivered straight to the Pose Duchy.
Then, conversely, how does the Duke send a message back?
Use a carrier pigeon?
Oh, please. That’s too cliché and has a high chance of being caught.
The answer was mice.
The heart of the royal palace. The hallways of noble castles. Restrooms. Nurseries. Even the cold North.
Mice could reach any destination by hiding in inconspicuous passages.
That was why the mouse was chosen as the messenger animal for the Pose family.
“Oops—hold on a second.”
“Squeak?”
I opened my palm and set the mouse down.
After looking disgruntled for a moment, the mouse sniffed the air and approached me.
It was proof that it had followed my scent, which it had been trained to recognize.
“Mister. Could I borrow a pen and paper?”
“…Fine.”
With a confused expression, Calips handed me a pen and paper. I placed them on the floor.
Scuttle, scuttle—
As if it had been waiting, the mouse darted forward and grabbed the pen with its long snout.
“…….”
Watching the bizarre scene unfold, Calips was lost for words.
The mouse was writing with the pen.
“…Kid. Is that actually possible through training?”
“Yes. If you put them in a maze shaped like letters with a pen in their mouth and drop food inside, they eventually memorize the shapes and write them after a few laps.”
“…I see. Certainly…”
He trailed off for a moment, looking dumbfounded, before muttering.
“It writes better than you do.”
“……?”
Friendly fire, much?
My eyes narrowed at the unnecessary truth bomb.
“Are you saying I’m worse than a mouse?”
“What kind of nonsense—don’t start another ridiculous argument.”
“Mister.”
“What.”
“Even a golden seed can become a tree or a weed depending on how it’s raised.”
“Where did this golden seed talk come from all of a sudden?”
I protested with my arms crossed.
“I’m saying that even if I am a golden seed, your comment could hurt my feelings and stunt my growth.”
Of course, Calips just shrugged with an unfazed face—
“My apologies. You are better than a mouse.”
He only offered that sarcastic remark.
“Mister!”
As I huffed in frustration, the corner of the mischievous man’s mouth twitched upward.
He actually tended to burst into laughter whenever I got angry.
He said it made me look like a normal child.
“What’s wrong with being worse than a mouse? You are always my perfect daughter.”
“That’s n.o.t. what I want to hear!”
“…Ah. Is this the joy of raising a daughter?”
Scratch, scratch—
Flick.
He even had the audacity to pick his ear and blow on it as if he didn’t have a care in the world!
“Mister!”
“Squeak.”
Fortunately or unfortunately, our bickering was interrupted by the little mouse.
The messenger mouse had finished writing.
“Squeak, squeak!”
Its task complete, the mouse rubbed its nose against the back of my hand.
“…Mister.”
“Aisha.”
And one thing was definitely fortunate.
My father became incredibly reliable when things got serious.
Bending down to my eye level, he placed a hand on my shoulder.
“You’re not a spy anymore.”
He spoke to me gently.
“…Don’t worry about the message. I’ll handle it from here.”
One moment we’re fighting, and the next he’s striking a cool protagonist pose.
“…No. I’ll read it.”
His presence gave me courage. My desire to be of help to him burned even brighter.
I held up the message so it was easy for him to read.
[Confirmation of adoption mission completion.]
Luckily, I had already told Calips about this, so we passed over it without much thought.
The problem was what came after.
[Discard Dorothy.]
Discard.
Not execution, death, or disqualification, but discard.
A term used to describe the end of a failed spy—treated as something less than human, someone who shouldn’t even remain in this world.
My whole body tensed as if something were tightening around me.
Dorothy wasn’t a good person, but the fact that a person named Dorothy existed in this world…
‘Now, only I will know.’
My small, maple-leaf-like fingers gripped the paper tighter.
After lingering on her name for a moment, I moved my gaze to the next line.
[No need to know information beyond that.]
I had wondered, but.
‘As expected, there’s no information about the princess.’
But it was a bit strange. “No need to know.”
‘It sounds like they know something about the princess but just won’t tell me.’
[Focus on the upcoming successor trials.]
And finally, the mention of the successor trials.
The successor trials of the Crost Duchy were a hot topic even in the original novel.
The Crost family had saved humanity from monsters using the Ice Wall created with their Ice Ability.
As the head of the family, Calips regularly maintained the Ice Wall and conducted monster subjugations, and he needed to train a successor to take over these duties.
The time had come to decide that successor.
‘In the original story, the son of Marquis Lillis, who was from a branch family, took the position, but he was kicked out a few years later.’
I couldn’t quite remember the reason.
Anyway, there was something more important right now.
“Mister. This means…”
When I turned my head, I met his red eyes, which looked slightly angry.
It seemed he was thinking the same thing as me.
“This means…”
“This kind of thing…”
We muttered at the same time.
“Duke Pose wants me to become the successor of the Crost Duchy, right?!”
“Is this the level of a letter the Pose Duchy sends to a five-year-old?”
Huh?
…We weren’t thinking the same thing?
I looked at him in confusion.
Before I knew it, he was clenching his jaw so hard it looked menacing as he crumpled the letter.
“Ack! My precious evidence!”
“I thought I’d been seeing rats around the castle lately. I’ll have to conduct a massive pest control so these ridiculous, bossy letters never see the light of day again.”
No, no, you can’t crumple that!
That’s all evidence to catch Duke Pose!
“That’s not the point, is it?”
Right, right. That’s not the point…
“…Eh?”
“What?”
Whose voice was that?
“I didn’t answer.”
“…Aisha. Come here.”
As I looked around in surprise, Calips threw the letter aside and instinctively pulled me into his arms.
“The important thing is that the kid really was a spy for the Pose family.”
Rumble—
And then, that eerie voice spoke once more.
“It seems the mouse wasn’t the only one who snuck into the office.”
Calips’s other hand, which wasn’t holding me, was already gripping the hilt of his sword.
Despite the sudden situation, I didn’t just sit there trembling.
‘Who is it? Did Duke Pose send an assassin?’
I peeked my tiny, hamster-like hands out from his sturdy frame.
If the enemy targeted me.
‘I won’t go down easily.’
“…….”
Both he and I were staring into the air, ready to attack at any moment.
Pop!
It happened then.
A flowerpot in the corner of the office shot upward.
No, to be precise.
“You really aren’t an ordinary kid, are you?”
A man wearing a plant-shaped headband rose up from the soil.
It was Knox, the aide of the Crost Duchy.
