Chapter 3
t/l penny
Following the teahouse manager, I headed toward a wall disguised as a bookshelf drawer.
When the manager wordlessly pulled out a book with a thud, the bookshelf twisted to the side and creaked open. Behind it, an underground passage radiating cold, damp air revealed itself.
"Follow me."
He spoke briefly and went down first. I followed a step behind him.
A narrow, endless spiral staircase. With every echoing footstep, a chilling dampness crept up my legs.
Had we walked for a good ten minutes? The manager walking ahead glanced back several times. As if my silent following was incredibly bothersome to him.
Then, at last, the stairs ended.
At the very bottom, deep underground. Amidst smooth rock walls that looked as if they had been ground down hundreds of times, a strangely out-of-place, ornate door stood alone. It felt as though only this spot had been carved out of reality.
The manager stopped in front of the door.
"Because of your audacity... I've guided you to where Her Highness the Princess is, but..."
His voice sank low.
"You'd better not even think about... trying any funny business in there."
A cold gaze that promised a quiet disappearance until death. He seemed more like some beast living underground than a human.
I smiled gently and nodded.
'The room is probably loaded with magic anyway. It's obvious I'd be turned into a honeycomb at the slightest strange movement...'
But seeing how he deliberately didn't mention that, it seems he still suspects me completely. However, that very suspicion was exactly what I needed. Because that was the key to unlocking the first wall of my plan.
If my memory served me right, this was the most infamous secret organization in the Abellan Empire.
'Ashen Hand.'
On the surface, they were called a 'righteous outlaw group that fights evil with evil' and were rumored to save persecuted citizens throughout the empire, but the reality was completely different.
A secret organization personally founded by the Abellan Empire's Second Princess Evelyn, to save the increasingly corrupt royal palace.
Others didn't know, not even the Emperor. A shadow-like army whose movements were controlled solely by the princess.
And now, I was standing before the door to their headquarters.
"Your Highness. I have brought the person I mentioned before."
The teahouse manager knocked carefully three times on the door. His voice was low, but every single word was exceptionally clear.
He had probably already reported everything about me through their private communication magic while we were coming down the spiral staircase. This was the method the Ashen Hand used to exchange information with each other in the original work, Vengeful Goddesses.
So I wasn't all that surprised.
Click—
The door unlocked from the inside and slowly opened.
A quiet, library-like room where blue candles burned brightly revealed itself.
'...It was eerie when I read it in the original story, but seeing it in person is even worse.'
This room, where the Leader of the Ashen Hand, the princess, resided, wasn't a place just any organization member could enter.
Only two types of people could enter here. Subordinates personally acknowledged by Second Princess Evelyn enough to keep them by her side, or beings who had extremely stimulated her interest.
The three heroines of the original story belonged to the 'latter'. Ten years later, they would become the first outsiders to set foot in this room.
And now, I had arrived at this place much earlier than that.
As I stepped into the room—
Fwoosh.
Blue flames that had been dormant in the air quietly flared up, lighting up in sequence as if paving a path. At the end of that line of flames... a hooded figure sitting at a desk, writing something on parchment, revealed themselves.
They were far away, so I could only see a silhouette, but they were roughly slightly taller than the current Lucas? According to the setting, she should be about a year older than me.
Right at that moment.
Thump—
A chair behind me nudged the back of my legs with a subtle force. I naturally sat down, pushed by it, and the chair smoothly moved forward like a ritual until it was directly opposite the hooded figure.
And the pen nib stopped on the parchment.
"Welcome."
The hooded figure raised their head.
"I am the Leader of the Ashen Hand, Jin."
The blue flames faintly revealed the contours beneath the hood.
"...Or so I say, but it would be impolite to use an alias in front of someone who already knows my true identity, wouldn't it?"
A subtle smile. Her tone was polite, but the atmosphere was as cold as the tip of a blade. Did she judge that there was no need to hide?
Soon, as she slowly pulled back her hood, sapphire-bright eyes and sea-colored hair were revealed in turn. Colors that one couldn't possess unless they were of imperial blood.
She took her hand off the quill and flicked her fingers lightly toward the empty air.
Cra-crack—
In an instant, the surrounding blue candles began to change shape. The soft flames that had been lighting the path just moments ago turned into spearheads as sharp as shards of ice, aiming at me from all sides and stopping right in front of my nose.
"For your information..."
Princess Evelyn shrugged slyly.
"You'll be in big trouble if you underestimate me for being young. Even though I look like this, I reached the 5th Circle as a mage last year at the age of 10. I'm a top prospect in the empire."
...Gulp.
By real-world standards, she only looked about the age of an older elementary school student, but I didn't expect her to be this vicious.
In the original work, she only made her appearance in earnest 10 years later, speaking little and keeping a stiff expression. Right now, she just talked a bit more and showed more emotion. Her abrasive attitude toward people, like broken glass, was the same then as it is now.
Princess Evelyn's voice sank sharply again.
"So, I'll ask. Who are you to know not only our organization's secret sleeping pill formula... but also my identity? You'd better speak right away. I'm not kind enough to let you off just because I'm young."
...Treating someone else like a kid when she's a kid herself. Or maybe it's just a habit. Even in the original story, the alliance with the protagonist's group almost fell through because of that way of speaking.
But since I had come all the way down here, I had no intention of hiding anymore either.
Nodding slowly, I took off my hood.
At that moment—
"Uh, u-uh...?"
Princess Evelyn's composed expression slowly, very slowly, crumbled.
"Y-You are...?!"
Her sapphire eyes wavered wildly. Like someone who had discovered an answer they didn't want to believe.
Toward her, I put on the gentlest smile possible and calmly bowed.
"It is a pleasure to meet you, Your Highness."
In a space so quiet it could take your breath away, my voice rang out even more clearly.
"I am the youngest of the Argent Family, Lucas Argent."
Princess Evelyn's lips trembled slightly, as if she had swallowed her breath.
A brief silence. Even the blue flames in the room didn't flicker, as if holding their breath.
And then—
Swoosh!
The moment Princess Evelyn swung her arm, the ice shards in the room shuddered and rose all at once. The spearheads that had merely been aiming at me moments ago now circled around my neck, revealing clear murderous intent.
"Lucas Argent..."
The princess's voice twisted low, very low.
"There is an Eastern proverb that says, 'Enemies meet on a single-log bridge.' This is exactly that moment."
"Enemies? I'd like to hear the reason."
"Nonsense!"
Her voice echoed with a bang.
"If you know my identity, there's no way you don't know who the Ashen Hand is hostile towards! The dark forces making the empire sick... and among them, the Argent Family that rotted the royal palace with illegal slave trafficking and drug dealing! Your family!"
Her anger clung directly to the ends of her words.
...Right, that was how the 'Ashen Hand' was born in the original story too.
Illegal slave hunting, drug distribution, corrupt nobles, and the darkness of the rotten imperial family. Unable to endure all of that, Princess Evelyn created this secret organization herself at the age of 6, the year her mother was poisoned.
The teahouse manager who brought me earlier was an escort knight who usually guarded Princess Evelyn. And most of the core members making up the Ashen Hand were the closest aides who had served the former Empress when she was alive.
To her, I, born into the 'worst dark family in the empire,' was a thorn in her side itself.
However, I came all the way down here to clear up that misunderstanding.
"I will eliminate you right here, right now!"
As Princess Evelyn's hidden weapons spun and drew closer, I quietly spoke.
"You're struggling right now because of the drug 'Lupong' circulating in the slums, aren't you?"
"...What?"
The magic hesitated for a moment.
"How do you—"
"I know where you're searching, but..."
I flicked my finger in the air as if tapping it.
"It's not the slums. You're barking up the wrong tree entirely."
The ice shards made a faint trembling sound.
"The real culprit is on the opposite side of the slums. It is... the Versailles Barony."
"T-The Versailles Barony... That's ridiculous nonsense!"
Princess Evelyn's face instantly stiffened. Like someone who had heard a name that should never be spoken, murderous intent and fear mixed at once.
But that trembling was only for a moment. Soon, her eyes sharpened coldly like a blade again.
"There is a limit to your nonsense."
Princess Evelyn swung her hand like lightning. The ice shards trembled sharply in unison, aiming at my neck again.
"Right here, right now—"
At that split second. I moved faster than her.
Slide.
"?! What... are you doing right now?"
The moment I reached into my hood, Princess Evelyn instinctively brought her arms together, wrapping them around her body and stepping back. As if I were going to pull out an explosive from inside.
But what I pulled out was a single small branch. It was a poisonous plant with a blue berry on one end and a red berry on the other.
The princess's expression hardened.
'Adam and Eve's Fruit.'
I pinched the red berry between my fingers, holding it up so she could see it clearly, and—
Gulp.
Swallowed it in one gulp.
The ice shards trembled nervously.
"Did you just... eat that?"
Princess Evelyn's voice cracked.
I held out the remaining blue berry toward her.
"I ate the red poisonous berry. So... Your Highness can keep this blue antidote berry."
"Lucas Argent. Did you eat that knowing what kind of fruit it is?"
"Of course."
I simply smiled calmly at the question that followed.
"Adam and Eve's Fruit. A heinous poisonous plant used when 'training' intelligent beasts."
My voice echoed in the quiet room.
"If you eat the red fruit, you die in a week. The antidote... is only the blue fruit on the opposite end."
The ice shards wavered slightly at Princess Evelyn's fingertips.
"Even animals know. The comrade who ate only the red fruit dies, and the one who ate the blue fruit lives. So, not wanting to die, they frantically cling to their training."
Without having chewed the fruit, I looked straight at her.
"And the reason I just poured this worst kind of poison, used for training beasts, directly into my own human body is simple."
Quietly, and with absolute certainty.
"If evidence of drug smuggling does not come out of the Versailles Barony, just throw that blue fruit away."
"...What did you say?"
I said calmly.
"But if my words are true, Your Highness must accept me into the 'Ashen Hand'. That is my sole condition."
The ice shards trembled, this time with astonishment.
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