Chapter 5 – Adaptation (Part 1)

Elysia desperately wanted to sleep in more than ever due to the fatigue accumulated from the previous night’s banquet. However, she had no choice but to wake up to the bustling sounds made by the maid Millie early in the morning. Millie, who handed Elysia a freshly brewed cup of coffee as she rose with a disheveled appearance, continued to glance around nervously. It was clear to anyone that she wanted to ask something.

“Millie, if you have something to ask, just ask. There’s no need to be so cautious around me.”

Millie was startled, her face turning red for a moment, before she hesitantly opened her mouth.

“Well… Did you enjoy your outing with the Master yesterday?”

Seeing Millie’s sparkling eyes, hoping for a rosy report of a romantic date, Elysia felt a pang of sympathy. 

‘How stern must the Duke’s family be and how uneventful must those noble gatherings be, for her to think of it as an outing.’

Elysia always felt sorry for Millie, who had to endure hardships at a young age, but she couldn’t lie.

“It seems the Duke and Earl Kumaran’s family don’t get along very well. I don’t have much reason to like them either.”

“I know that… But still, it was the first time you two attended a gathering together since the engagement. The butler said the Duke seemed pleased with yesterday’s outing.”

Pleased? The Duke? 

Elysia, not understanding, could only respond with a “Did he?” She thought another tiring day was starting, and after finishing her coffee, she longed for the time when the staff would change shifts, allowing her to stroll alone in the garden.

***

Today, Cassius, having no urgent royal meetings, was working from his office on the first floor of the mansion instead of going to the Administrative Palace. While sorting out work, Cassius took out a box of pills from the drawer, locked it and pondered when he might need to use them again.

He soon made up his mind. It seemed best to carry it with him wherever he went, as a situation where it might be needed could arise unexpectedly. Cassius headed to his bedroom to fetch a small pouch to carry the pills separately.

The bedroom Cassius used was the one traditionally used by the Dukes of Grendel for generations, and he had continued to use it, only changing the basic bedding, since his father’s death. Walking towards the bedroom located at the end of the central corridor without windows on the second floor of the main building, the black curtain enhanced by alchemy hanging in the middle of the corridor caught his eye more than usual today. It was something he had tried several times to remove after the previous Duke’s death, but to no avail.

Perhaps it was because of the unexpected insight into Elysia’s true feelings at the Earl’s house last night, but Cassius felt today might be different. He slowly approached the curtain and reached out his hand.

Thud!

Before he could fully touch it, Cassius fell to his knees with a squeezing shock to his heart. He managed to fall to the floor avoiding the curtain, thanks to his reflexes honed by long years of sword training. Had he fallen onto the curtain, he would have felt even greater pain. 

Cassius felt relieved that no one had witnessed his embarrassing fall. He was unaware that his hair was disheveled from the impact of the fall.

His father had installed this curtain for his sake, but what exactly it was meant to protect him from was still unknown.

Despite the passage of time, the mental and physical aversion to the curtain did not lessen in the slightest. Cassius clenched and unclenched his tingling hand, then unbuttoned a couple of the stifling buttons of his upper garment as he headed to his bedroom.

***

Cassius found a pouch in the bedroom, put the pills in it, and placed it in the inner pocket of his coat. As he was about to leave the bedroom, he heard voices coming from outside the window leading to the balcony. Since the staff of the Ducal household never spoke loudly outside their quarters or the servants’ dining room, Cassius, curious about who was making the noise, opened the large window and stepped out onto the balcony.

In the garden visible from the bedroom window, Elysia was there. She seemed to be in conversation with someone. Cassius thought she might be talking with a maid during her walk, but as he turned to leave, the figure, hidden by a nearby tree, came into view. 

A tall man with reddish-blond hair, it was Ronan Hass, the head of the Haas Trading Company.

Regular deliveries from the Haas Trading Company to the Ducal residence were routine, with the butler managing the orders and the deliveries being small enough for a company courier to handle. However, the head of the trading company, who would never come unless there was profit to be made, was visiting the Ducal residence and, moreover, was facing the Duke’s fiancée. Cassius felt a faint displeasure.

***

“I’ve come to deliver what Sir Tobias von Serenze requested. This is what I procured as per request.”

Ronan pulled out an item wrapped in embroidered cloth from his bosom. It looked smaller than the garden shears Elysia had expected, but she thought her father must have sent something suitable for her. As Elysia reached for the item, Ronan quickly withdrew his hand. When Elysia looked at him as if asking what he was doing, Ronan smiled and unwrapped the cloth.

It was a knife with a handle, small enough to be held in one hand by a woman. The subtle patterns covering it made it look more like an ornamental piece than a practical tool.

“I wanted pruning shears, but you’ve brought me a knife for opening paper envelopes instead.”

Upon hearing those words, Ronan silently drew the knife from its sheath. The blade that emerged was longer than the entire length of the sheath. It extended from Elysia’s fingertips to her elbow, making it suitable for wielding with one arm. 

Ronan swung the knife towards a nearby garden tree, and a well-trimmed branch was cleanly severed and fell. When he held up the blade for her to see, it revealed a clean cut with no wood debris clinging to it.

Elysia looked at the knife with a surprised expression.

“The sheath is alchemically treated to condense the blade. So, even though the actual blade is longer than the sheath, it can all be stored inside. The blade is also treated to prevent anything it cuts from sticking to it.”

As Ronan slowly inserted the blade back into the sheath, the long knife fit entirely inside with a click as the sheath closed.

“Ordinary garden shears require a surprising amount of strength, and unless you’re a professional gardener, it’s not easy to prune accurately. So, I thought of something that could be both a self-defense weapon and make pruning easy. I chose a beautiful product that would suit any occasion.”

Ronan handed the garden knife to Elysia. She accepted it and examined it, drawing it out and sheathing it as Ronan had done. It seemed excessive for merely cutting branches, but she liked the idea that it was easier to use than garden shears.

“This is much more impressive than I expected. But did you have to demonstrate on that tree?”

Among the precisely measured garden trees, the one Ronan had just clipped stood out. Ronan smiled, showing he didn’t care about such trivial matters.

“The Duke’s gardener will trim it nicely anyway.”

Although it was presumptuous, he wasn’t entirely wrong, so Elysia continued to admire the knife she held. Despite it being a favor from her father, she was curious about Ronan Hass’s intentions in procuring such a rare item and delivering it with a letter.

“Though my father must have compensated you, I feel I should also offer my thanks. It can’t have been easy to acquire such an item on short notice.”

Elysia wanted to properly acknowledge and dismiss Ronan Hass as soon as possible, not wanting to owe him any debt.

Contrary to Elysia’s concern, the item had long been sitting in a corner of the Haas Trading Company’s warehouse. A noble had commissioned a self-defense knife with all sorts of enhancements to give as a gift to a lover. The Haas Trading Company had placed an order with a famous alchemical workshop in the southern region. However, by the time the item was ready, the noble had broken up with the lover. Despite it being a custom-made special order, the noble insisted on canceling the order and demanded a refund, leaving the trading company with the item.

‘There’s no need to explain all that.’

Ronan intended to decline any compensation, as he needed to leverage this small exchange into something greater.

“Ronan Hass. Is there a matter important enough for the head of the trading company to come personally?”