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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 32
Chapter Title: The Cardinal's Request
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Was he angry that I’d made a flower garden without his permission, since he's the master of this house?

Or maybe he was just irritated that I was making a racket in the hallways, just to hand out four-leaf clovers.

‘Either way, I’m the one to blame.’

So Lily shouldn't be the one bowing her head. I should be the one to apologize.

But just as I stepped forward to bow to the Duke.

A large hand was suddenly held out in front of me.

It was Duke Elpinade’s hand.

Wondering what on earth this meant, I blinked and stared at the Duke's hand.

Unlike his refined appearance, it was a firm hand, one belonging to a swordsman.

As I stared blankly at the hand, the Duke prompted me.

“Why aren’t you giving it to me?”

“Huh…?”

“The four-leaf clover. Weren’t you handing them out?”

I snapped to my senses and nodded my head.

“Th-That’s right!”

I reached into the basket, took out a large handful of four-leaf clovers, and carefully placed them on Duke Elpinade's palm.

The Duke stared for a long time at the pile of four-leaf clovers in his palm, then clenched his fist tightly.

The perfectly fine four-leaf clovers were instantly crushed.

‘This is…!’

Was he threatening to crush me like these clovers if I kept causing a disturbance…?

‘That must be it.’

I let out a deep sigh and offered the entire basket I was holding to the Duke.

“You can have them.”

I’ll return them all and go back to my room quietly!

“You’ll give them all to me?”

As expected, this seemed to be the right answer, as the Duke's cold expression softened slightly.

“Yes.”

I quickly nodded and handed him the baskets the three flower-named girls were holding as well.

“You can have these too!”

“Hmm.”

Though his face was impassive, the Duke didn't refuse the baskets I offered.

He must have wanted to confiscate them all along.

[Message from Heaven]

(Notification) Quest successful!

Congratulations. You have been awarded 100 Heaven Coins as a reward. Would you like to claim it now?

[Yes/No]

Thankfully, it seemed that handing all the baskets over to the Duke counted as completing the quest, as about a hundred welcome message windows popped up all at once.

Since I was handing out the four-leaf clovers for this purpose anyway, I got everything I wanted.

‘Phew.’

I sighed in relief inwardly.

‘It's a good thing I'm quick-witted!’

I almost got on the Duke's bad side, didn't I?

* * *

“Oh. So these are the four-leaf clovers.”

The administrator, who had come to the office to deliver a letter for Duke Elpinade, smiled as he looked at the baskets full of four-leaf clovers.

He'd heard the Saintess was going around the manor handing out four-leaf clovers to people.

These seemed to be those very clovers.

He didn't know why all the clovers had ended up in the Duke's possession, but seeing the baskets displayed so prominently on the desk, he assumed it was a sign for visitors to take one.

A boss who shares good luck.

‘The blunt Duke has such a thoughtful side to him…?’

With that thought, the administrator picked up a four-leaf clover from one of the baskets.

The moment he did, a sharp gaze that felt like it could split anything in half pierced the back of his hand.

He turned his head stiffly to find the Duke, chin propped on his hand, glaring at his hand.

“I-Is something the matter?”

As the administrator asked with hunched shoulders, the Duke gestured with his chin.

“Put that down.”

“Pardon?”

“The four-leaf clover. Who said you could take one?”

“Pardon? Weren’t they placed here for people to take?”

“No.”

“Then why put them on your desk…?”

It's already crowded with so many documents.

As the administrator blinked and asked, Duke Elpinade leaned back in his chair with a somewhat arrogant posture.

“They’re just for looking at.”

“Pardon…?”

“So put it back quietly.”

“Yessir…”

He has so many, yet he's so greedy.

‘No, really, why would he put them in such a conspicuous place if he wasn't going to give them away?’

The administrator grumbled inwardly as he put the four-leaf clover down.

He was an inscrutable boss, at any rate.

But he didn't have time to grumble for long.

There was work to be done.

“A letter has arrived from Kidsha.”

“Kidsha?”

The corners of Duke Elpinade's mouth, who had been looking at the documents with a more relaxed expression than usual, hardened.

“Who is the sender?”

The Duke's demeanor changed in an instant, and the administrator froze up as he continued his report.

“Yes. It’s Cardinal Kaltas.”

After confirming the sender's name, the Duke held out his hand with a grave expression.

The administrator quickly placed the letter from Kidsha in his hand.

The Duke checked the letter with swift but unhurried movements.

The message in the letter wasn't very long, so he was able to grasp its contents quickly.

“The Central Church wants the Saintess. It’s a letter requesting that we send her to Kidsha.”

“Now, of all times?”

“Yes. They say that since she’ll soon be five, it’s right for her to be raised in the temple.”

The administrator tilted his head at the unexpected news.

“Until now, the church has shown no interest in the Saintess, have they? They never once inquired about her well-being.”

“That’s true.”

“Besides, it was His Holiness the Pope and Cardinal Bael who entrusted the Saintess to Elpinade…”

And now, out of the blue, Cardinal Kaltas was demanding the Saintess's return.

“That’s why it’s so strange. Who knows what got into them, but they say they’ve already sent someone to retrieve the Saintess.”

“What?”

The administrator jumped in surprise.

“Then this isn’t a request…”

It's a notification.

The Duke crumpled the letter in his hand as if he found it amusing.

“I don’t know where they get the confidence to notify us without even asking for permission. Lesia ‘Elpinade’ may be a Saintess, but she is also an ‘Elpinade’.”

At least in this empire, and especially within this Elpinade manor, the fact that Lesia was the Duke's daughter was more important than her being the Saintess.

“If they sent someone when they wrote this letter, they should have crossed the border by now…”

The Duke's eyes glinted coldly.

“We’ll have to prepare a proper welcome for our guests.”

The administrator sucked in a breath at the Duke's grim mumble.

“And…”

Duke Elpinade tossed Cardinal Kaltas's letter into the wastebasket and asked.

“When exactly is the little one’s fifth birthday?”

The administrator's eyes widened at the unexpected question.

“You mean, the Saintess’s birthday… sir?”

* * *

Unfortunately(?), the loudmouth wasn't expelled from the Ivory Tower.

Instead, he completely stopped leading the other kids around and bullying Leonid.

It seemed he got a serious scolding during his meeting.

‘Well… it was probably just a warning the first time.’

He must have realized that if it happened a second or third time, he could really be expelled.

With the ringleader now quiet, the other minions naturally lay low.

A semblance of peace had returned.

The really strange thing was…

“Hello.”

...that Leonid started greeting me first and naturally sat next to me.

If he were an ordinary kid, I would have thought he was doing it because he was grateful that I'd dealt with the bully.

‘But Leonid is no ordinary kid.’

Unlike me, who passed the test by guessing based on intuition, he was a true genius who had properly taken the exam and entered the Ivory Tower at the age of six.

He was also a foxy kid who knew how to act disgustingly sweet in front of adults.

‘…What on earth is he scheming?’

I was very suspicious of Leonid.

His father, the spiritmancer Servian, always acted strangely like this when he was up to something.

As if sensing my suspicious gaze, Leonid turned his head.

Our eyes met, and he smiled faintly.

Thanks to his handsome features, it was a very pretty smile, but to me, who was on high alert, it only looked sinister.