Chapter 51
「What a truly adorable young lady.」
The midday tavern smelled of acrid tobacco smoke. Bibi ignored the mocking voice and stood on her tiptoes to check the clock hanging on the wall.
It was a wooden clock, so old and stained that it was impossible to tell when it had first been hung, its hour, minute, and second hands crossing in a haphazard dance.
Perhaps it was broken from age, as the spaces where the numbers 3 and 5 should have been were empty.
「Our establishment doesn’t have anything suitable for a cute lady like yourself to drink. Whatever shall we do?」
The voice was as soft as a fluttering butterfly. Bibi watched the woman approaching her with a smiling face, her own eyes remaining cold and discerning.
The woman’s fingernails were white and clean. There wasn’t even a trace of polish. However, on the tip of her pinky nail, there was a tiny black butterfly tattoo—so small that an uninformed observer might have mistaken it for a smudge of dirt.
‘—If I had known sooner that every single bitch working at Hecate’s Tavern was a daughter of the Butterfly, I would have saved myself a lot of wasted effort!’
Suddenly, a memory from the past gnawed at the young girl’s mind.
A mage laughing maniacally, claiming he had obtained excellent experimental materials. Transparent, thick glass walls. Iron bars blocking the gaps between the walls. The test subjects dying inside those cages….
‘Little lady, don’t cry.’
That woman had been among them.
‘Crying drains your stamina. If you know of any dog holes to crawl out of, would you mind telling your unnie? Ah, if you knew that, you wouldn’t be stuck here like a fool, would you? Little lady, you’ve got quite a temper….’
No matter what cruel experiments she endured, she never intended to reveal her secrets. She insisted that she must not bring harm to her family or her comrades. But in the end, the mage broke the spirit of the subject in his hands.
Through unidentified magic and drugs that smelled unnervingly sweet. Through torture that continued time and time again.
The woman, realizing that she had vomited out the clan’s secrets and meeting places while unconscious, had….
‘…Little lady, you must survive and tell them, okay? Tell them I’m sorry….’
Regardless, it was something that hadn’t happened yet. The woman who, sensing her own death, had implored the youngest test subject—who was trembling and wailing for her not to die—to ‘tell my comrades if you get out of here alive,’ did not exist in this moment.
「It’s okay, Bibi understands. Not every shop can be perfectly prepared for guests, right? If you don’t have it, you can just go buy it!」
Bibi smiled brightly and clapped her hands together. Lucy, the maid who had been waiting behind Bibi like a shadow, appeared and handed over a pouch.
Bibi personally took a gold coin from the pouch and flipped it into the air. The woman caught the coin, though her expression remained dissatisfied.
「Bibi, hmm, doesn’t want much! For a drink, lemon water with an Isel flower dipped in for exactly three seconds and then removed. For a snack, hazelnut butter financiers from Honey Honey Bakery. If there’s money left over, you can buy me orange and lemon bonbons from Rone’s Candy Shop. Oh, and the weekday-limited orangettes too!」
「……」
The woman’s forehead pulsed with a vein after hearing a request as absurd as ‘here is a dollar, buy three loaves of bread and bring back fifty cents change.’
Taking in Bibi’s beaming, polished face, her well-groomed hair, and her clothes that screamed high quality, the woman barely managed to construct a smiling mask.
「My, little lady, this isn’t a restaurant, you know? What are we to do?」
「My name isn’t “little lady” either, you know?」
「Then may I know the little lady’s name?」
「Bibi has been saying she’s Bibi for a while now! Adults are so strange! Don’t ignore me just because I’m a kid; listen well from the start!」
「Then, Lady Bibi.」
The woman’s voice grew gloomy.
「This isn’t the kind of place for children to come for games.」
「Bibi didn’t come here to tease adults, either.」
Bibi smiled broadly and tapped the gold coin the woman held in her hand. The woman’s face hardened as she inspected the coin.
A thin engraving of three snakes and a laurel.
It was the symbol of .
Engraving the symbol in gold foil on a black card was for temporary passes. It waived the fee for a single request, and the moment that request ended, the status as a guest vanished.
However, if one was recognized as an official guest by , they could enter even without a card.
One such proof was that very gold coin. Not a flimsy gold leaf that would disappear if burned, but a symbol pressed directly into real gold.
The Castline family was a significant VIP and partner of . But even so, not everyone in the family could possess such an item.
「I’ve heard many rumors that Duke Castline gives his precious youngest foster daughter anything she wants in his old age.」
The woman curled the corners of her mouth.
「But seeing it in person exceeds my imagination, Milady?」
「You can just call me Bibi.」
「Yes, Lady Bibi. So, what is it you want, coming here with that in your hand?」
「All the information on Imperial Consort Elaine.」
「……」
「Everything she did before entering the Imperial Palace, and everything after. Oh, and you have to sell it to me exclusively. You can’t sell it to anyone else.」
「Did you come all this way just for that?」
「No? Because Bibi is greedy!」
Giggle. Bibi let out a clear laugh and wore an innocent smile.
「I also have information to sell.」
「We don’t buy just any information.」
「Really?」
The smile vanished from Bibi’s face.
「Even information that someone targeting the blood of the Butterfly clan is likely to attack ?」
「……!」
The air froze in an instant.
As Lucy tried to step forward to protect Bibi, Bibi raised a hand to stop her. With eyes colder than before, the woman replied, pretending to be nonchalant.
「My, Lady. I don’t know what you’re talking about. Why would someone targeting the blood of the Butterfly clan attack ?」
「That’s because the Hecate of was the last High Priestess of the Butterfly clan. And I know that was established as a means to safely protect her kin within human society.」
The Butterfly clan was a non-human race that lived in caves and possessed the power to communicate with bats.
While their appearance was no different from humans and they had little power beyond controlling bats, their image was poor because the appearance and characteristics of bats were similar to demon beasts. They were often persecuted as a race that colluded with demon beasts.
Thus, Hecate, the High Priestess of the Butterfly clan, made a decision. They would abandon the forests and caves and attempt to survive by blending in among humans.
The ability to command bats was, surprisingly, a useful skill for gathering information.
Not only could they know everything a bat saw and heard in real-time, but they could also communicate remotely over long distances via ultrasound.
They could even use the bats themselves to exchange letters and the like in secret.
They were people who could exchange information faster than anyone else in the Empire and gather intel while hiding among humans. Thanks to that, they were able to form a connection with the House of Castline, which collected rare bloodlines.
Of course, the origin of was definitely the Butterfly clan. However, while members of the clan were mixed among the executives, the current was strictly an information organization. And the finest one in the Empire at that.
「Little lady.」
The woman spoke, her smile gone.
「Where did you get that information?」
「I can’t reveal the source, but I looked into it because my enemy is targeting it!」
Bibi smiled broadly.
「Information with an unrevealed source is close to mere speculation. And you want to sell that to us? Yes, Hecate’s Tavern is very famous, and there have been many fools who thought they could attack it and get what they wanted.」
「If you can’t believe it, then don’t.」
Bibi said dismissively.
「But even if it’s information obtained from a ‘little lady,’ wouldn’t you naturally be on guard if it came from the ‘House of Castline’ and contained the organization’s greatest secret? You won’t be foolishly caught off guard even if someone does target you, right?」
Bibi was no fool.
Just because she had returned to her childhood and was living again, she didn’t believe she could accomplish everything.
For reasons unknown, she was living a second life. If that was the case, she would simply do her best in every moment.
‘And I don’t think I’m the only one who changed.’
Bibi thought as she heard about the events that had unfolded in the Imperial Palace.
‘Did Titania unnie die and return to the past like me?’
The path Princess Titania had taken before Bibi died was too different from now.
To think she would offer a deal by providing information that even the House of Castline didn’t properly know?
Furthermore, to think she had wiped out a demon beast by boldly brandishing that problematic sword—the one the Imperial Consort had framed as a demonic sword—a sword whose very origin was unknown. It was enough to make one suspect that another person had literally taken over Princess Titania’s shell.
However, Bibi could not recklessly reveal her own secret, nor could she ask Titania about her suspicions.