Chapter 63
<65화>
In other words, he had realized she wasn’t a bad person.
After that, Lucas stopped shouldering Kyle aside or glaring at him.
‘Big Brother Lucas. Hello.’
Whenever Kyle greeted him during lessons, Lucas would rub the back of his neck with an awkward expression.
‘Yeah. Hey. Hello to you too, Dandelion,’ he would mutter before quietly focusing on the lesson.
There was another change as well.
Specifically, the duration of Kyle’s human transformation had increased.
Originally lasting only an hour or two, his human form began to hold for half a day, then a full day, and eventually, for an entire week.
And so, one evening, I opened my bedroom door to go to sleep.
‘I want to sleep too. I’m going to sleep in Aisha’s arms.’
Kyle, in his human form, was pestering me and following me inside when he was caught by Dad.
‘You little beast—no. Kyle. Come see me for a moment.’
Dad grabbed Kyle by the scruff of his neck and fell into thought for a moment.
Then.
‘From now on, you will stay with Knox. You’ll sleep in the room next to his.’
‘No! Knox is boring! I like Aisha!’
‘Still, the answer is no. To the room next to Knox you go.’
‘Um, are you not going to ask for my opinion?’
In the end, Calips dragged a vehemently protesting Kyle away and tossed him into the servants’ quarters where Knox lived.
Of course, no one answered Knox’s final question.
And so, peaceful daily life continued.
‘See you later, Aisha.’
I would drop Kyle off in time for his lessons.
Some days, I would clap for Lucas as I watched him clumsily practice the noble table manners he’d learned in class.
‘Whoa— Yay!’
‘Dandelion! See? I’ve got the basics of dining etiquette down just like you now!’
On other days, I sat beside Dad in his office while he wrote reports, drawing in my sketchbook.
Particularly on days like today, when neither Kyle nor Lucas was around, I spent the whole day thinking about the Pose Duchy.
Inevitably, a question I had been putting off resurfaced.
‘What on earth do they plan to do with the Magic Power Amplifier?’
The more I thought about it, the more curious I became.
Until just a few days ago, everything had been in chaos because of the rampaging monsters, yet Dad hadn’t made a single move against the Duke of Pose.
Though at first it seemed like he would hunt the Duke of Pose down immediately, he had been unexpectedly quiet.
He hadn’t done anything with the potion, nor had he sent any messages to the Duke of Pose.
‘Come to think of it, there’s been no word from the Duke of Pose either.’
There hadn’t been a peep since that day at the Royal Palace.
I wondered if he’d given up on me… but that didn’t seem likely.
‘Thanks to that woman, you’ve become a very interesting toy that must not be scrapped under any circumstances.’
There was definitely something.
A secret about Aisha that hadn’t been revealed in the original story.
‘It seems some woman is involved in this, too.’
Dolly had clearly said that thanks to “that woman,” I had become an interesting toy.
‘Who is she? Dorothy?’
I was curious, but at the same time, I didn’t want to dig too deep.
If a secret of mine that wasn’t even in the original story were to be revealed…
‘The better you get along with the Ice Duke, the more destroyed he will be in the end.’
Dolly’s warning flashed through my mind, and the hand I was using to draw with a crayon faltered.
If that really happened.
If something truly irreversible were to occur between Dad and me.
…I’d rather.
‘Let’s just bury it.’
I decided to ignore the creeping sense of foreboding and focus on my peaceful daily life.
Then one day.
“Lucas. Aisha.”
“Yes?”
“What is it, Father?”
Dad called the two of us to his office.
As we looked at him inquisitively, he held out an invitation. It bore a lion-shaped seal made from melted genuine gold.
“This is…”
Lucas, who must have learned about it in his noble studies, stared at Dad with wide eyes.
Calips nodded.
“It’s an invitation from the Royal Castle. The three of us will be attending the regular banquet held once a year. And.”
He fell silent for a moment, gazing at me, before quietly continuing.
“The Duke of Pose will be there as well.”
A brief silence followed.
Calips’s gaze, fixed intently on me, held an unfamiliar resolve.
“…The Duke of Pose?”
Lucas, who had learned of my situation during the incident with Marquis Lillis, cut in with a flustered expression.
“That Duke is a total villain, and he’s from another kingdom. Why is he coming to a banquet in the Frozen Kingdom?”
“It hasn’t been officially announced yet, but His Majesty the King will be inviting high-ranking nobles from the Doctia Kingdom. The intention is to strengthen the strained relationship between the kingdoms.”
“But then Aisha will…”
“I know.”
Dad’s gaze remained steady as he looked at me.
“That is exactly why I intend to take Aisha with me.”
Lucas still looked like he didn’t understand. He gripped my hand tightly, casting a slightly wary glance at Dad.
His hand was warm.
So this is what family feels like.
And—
“Aisha. Listen carefully, and don’t misunderstand what I’m saying.”
Calips, who was about to explain the situation in a firm, low voice, was also an indispensable part of my family.
“…Yes.”
I nodded cautiously.
“Taking you to a place where the Duke of Pose will be does not mean I have any intention of letting him take you away.”
Of course. I trusted Calips.
“I plan to separate you from that Duke as quickly as possible.”
“How?”
“I’m going to bring down the Duchy at this banquet. So, can you make one promise to your dad this time?”
He walked over to me, knelt down, and met my eyes.
“During this banquet, no matter what good ideas you might come up with, trust your dad and wait.”
Then, he held out his long pinky finger.
“Basically, I’m saying please don’t cause any trouble.”
Seeing my startled expression, Dad let out a small chuckle as if trying to lighten the mood, keeping his finger extended.
“…….”
Thinking back, from Calips’s perspective, raising me must have involved a lot of heart-stopping moments.
Suddenly disappearing at the Royal Castle.
Showing up at a monster subjugation site.
And this time, crying and wailing that Kyle had disappeared and heading off to the end of the world.
‘…I did cause a lot of trouble.’
It was true. I had no excuse.
‘I’m supposed to be a former spy, but instead of being a perfect daughter, I’ve only given my dad reasons to worry.’
Several ideas I wanted to try had immediately popped into my head the moment I heard we were going to the palace, but—
“Okay. I promise!”
I shook my head vigorously to clear those thoughts and hooked my pinky around his.
At the same time, in the Pose Duke’s Castle.
A pawn on the chessboard was flicked down by a long finger.
The Duke of Pose watched the pieces tumble one after another before asking the person beside him.
“A failure again?”
“Yes. That is correct.”
The knight standing like a shadow behind him nodded.
“That makes nine already.”
Since becoming the head of the Pose family, he had never experienced such a loss of manpower in a single matter.
‘What on earth is that Aisha brat doing that every person I send ends up dead?’
When the identity of the spy Dorothy was first revealed, he had simply thought it was her misfortune.
At the time, the Duke had merely found it clever of Aisha to claim a direct-line daughter was in a Doctia Kingdom orphanage for her own sake.
But one by one, every spy he sent died helplessly.
Since the sudden death of the spy at the Royal Palace, the pace had quickened.
Spies who used to die once a month were now being killed off every three days.
There was definitely something about Aisha.
No, at this point, it would be more strange if she hadn’t betrayed him.
“I told her to play the role of a cute daughter, but has she really decided to become Duke Calips’s daughter?”
“It is difficult to grasp the exact situation, but it appears she has decided to side with the Crost family.”
“Tsk.”
Things had become a nuisance.
The Duke of Pose sighed and rubbed his face.
“What shall we do, then? Shall I kidnap Aisha myself at this banquet?”