Benjamin didn’t believe Baron’s boasting.

But perhaps because of his throbbing headache, he considered showing unusual leniency.

And even if it was information close to nonsense, he wanted to hear it if it was related to Yerena.

He wanted to find her somehow and drive a wedge between Duncan and her.

He really couldn’t understand why such thoughts kept occurring to him.

If he met Yerena, he felt he would understand the reason for these thoughts unlike himself and why he felt so unpleasant.

That’s why he thought he needed to find her even more.

“I’ll say this only once. If you try anything foolish, I won’t go easy on you even if we’re from the same knights’ order. Bet your life on it.”

Baron put on quite a serious face.

“I know the last place Yerena visited right before she died.”

“Where?”

“Tell me the information you found first.”

At Baron’s provocative words, Benjamin smirked.

Action preceded words. Benjamin’s hand quickly shot out and firmly gripped Baron’s nape.

“Ugh…!”

“Think carefully. Who needs to speak first for you to survive?”

“Ah, ack! I got it! Kugh!”

Having obtained surrender, Benjamin withdrew his hand.

Baron panted with a reddened face.

“She… huff visited a potato wholesaler called ‘Hot Potato’ several times before she died.”

“Potato? Did you just say potato?”

“Yeah.”

Benjamin thought it suspicious how he’d been encountering potatoes frequently lately.

The potato smell Duncan gave off, the potato wholesaler Yerena visited, the potato field near where Lambert lost consciousness.

Benjamin knew that Lambert was looking for someone in the Pandora Forest.

According to Lambert, when he was injured and fainted recently, someone had held his hand.

Like others, Benjamin thought Lambert had seen an illusion.

But now, the fact that there was a potato field near where Lambert collapsed seemed somewhat strange.

Everything had at least some small connection to that damn famine crop.

“Benjamin, it’s your turn now.”

Baron pressed him, afraid Benjamin might leave like this.

“What I have to say is simple.”

Purple light flickered in Benjamin’s eyes.

As Benjamin drew up his energy like when facing monsters, his face began to be tinged with faint madness.

Seeing Benjamin’s crazed look, Baron naturally stepped back.

Despite encountering it many times, it was a madness he could never get used to.

“Yerena is really alive.”

Benjamin ran his tongue over his lips once and walked forward. As he did so, he deliberately struck Baron’s shoulder, making him fall.

Baron, sitting there where he fell, pondered the words Benjamin had left.

‘That guy’s confidence has grown. He must have found evidence that Yerena is alive.’

Having reached this conclusion, Baron swallowed hard.

He felt a greater thrill stirring in his chest than when he met Olivia.

Meanwhile, there was a man quietly observing their confrontation from a corner.

The man only caught his breath after confirming that the dazed Baron had disappeared.

“A potato wholesaler…”

After quietly leaving the Center, the man began heading somewhere.

The destination of the man, wearing drab clothes unsuited to the brilliant night streets during the Founding Festival and maintaining an expressionless face, was the potato wholesaler.

The man’s red eyes glared coldly at the wholesaler’s sign.

「Hot Potato」

It was Lambert.

***

It wasn’t that she didn’t believe the Guildmaster’s words.

Yet the reason she asked guild members to buy various newspapers was because she couldn’t believe reality.

Because she couldn’t believe that Benjamin had acted differently from the original story!

His injury wasn’t just a passing incident, but held important significance that presupposed deep entanglement between the male and female lead.

She couldn’t possibly gauge how the original story would progress without that incident.

‘This is really… What is Benjamin thinking?’

There were no articles about Benjamin’s injury in any newspaper sold in the capital. She couldn’t find any, no matter how carefully she looked.

If Benjamin, whose name was known even to common children in the capital, had been injured, there’s no way there wouldn’t have been an article about it.

I decided to check for more definitive data.

Flipping through the newspaper a bit, I found the section I wanted.

「Today’s Chelsea Center

<Status>

XX/XX > Deaths: 0 / Injuries: 2 (Guide: 1 / Esper: 1)

XX/XX > Deaths: 1 (Guide: 1) / Injuries: 0

：

：」

Among the articles that accurately tallied deaths and injuries, I found yesterday’s date.

「XX/XX > Deaths: 0 / Injuries: 0」

Yesterday, not a single person was injured.

With this, I really had to accept the reality that Benjamin had acted on a whim.

“I don’t understand what Benjamin is thinking, but I need to leave the capital as soon as possible.”

I had a bad feeling somehow.

It seemed I should stop dawdling in the capital just believing in the flow of the original story.

I had stayed in the capital because it was fun being with the Guildmaster, and I liked seeing Duncan occasionally…

At that moment, the wind coming through the open window turned a page of the newspaper.

The newly opened page contained an article unrelated to the Chelsea Center.

I cast my eyes on the headline.

「Empress Patricia Denies Poisoning Crown Prince! Who’s Behind the Forces Attempting to Assassinate Crown Prince Kenneth?」

It was about the imperial family that I didn’t know well.

As soon as I possessed this body in the original story, I went back and forth through life-and-death battlegrounds, and after leaving the Center, I was too busy making money to pay attention to the imperial family.

When I was worried about tomorrow’s living expenses, how could I care about the nation’s affairs?

Moreover, even in the original story, there wasn’t much content about the imperial family.

The original story focused on love rather than political issues or schemes. That’s why I, who hated complicated things, enjoyed reading it.

But today, since I’d already read the headline, I examined the article to the end.

There might be something useful for my business.

My impression after reading the article was simple.

“What a mess.”

Far from being helpful for business, the article’s content made me decide to stay far away from anything imperial.

The imperial conflicts I’d read about in other romance fantasy novels seemed to exist in this novel too.

Like most romance fantasy novels, the source of conflict was the Emperor.

To be more precise, it was the Emperor who had chosen the wrong spouse.

Surely there must be people with good and kind hearts out there, but the Emperor seemed to deliberately foster conflict by keeping a greedy person by his side.

That person was ‘Empress Patricia’ mentioned in the newspaper headline.

She wasn’t the original empress but had risen from being a concubine, eventually driving out the legitimate empress to claim the position – quite a remarkable woman.

Coming from a poor count’s family, her greatest weapon in reaching the pinnacle of power was her ‘appearance.’

She was known as a legendary beauty who could captivate any man within 10 seconds of eye contact.

Even the capable Emperor was so blinded by her beauty that he drove away his wise legitimate empress…

Perhaps because of this, throughout the newspaper, there were subtle phrases satirizing the Emperor and Empress.

Anyway, to continue, Patricia wasn’t satisfied with becoming Empress and tried to make her child the next Emperor.

However, the Crown Prince was Kenneth Eldora, born of the legitimate empress.

Kenneth was so exceptional in many ways that even the Emperor, blinded by Patricia, couldn’t dismiss him.

Not only was he handsome, but he was also brilliant, and even righteous and brave on top of that.

So Patricia was struggling to establish her child as Crown Prince.

At this rate, with the aging Emperor’s eventual passing, Kenneth was likely to become the next Emperor.

Unable to find fault with the impeccable Kenneth, Patricia seemingly attempted poisoning.

Ah, of course, Patricia vehemently denied doing such a thing.

But everyone reading this newspaper would know that ‘Patricia was behind it.’

Even I, knowing only fragments about the imperial family, could tell it was Patricia’s doing.

Now then, what about Patricia’s child?

Was he exceptional enough to compare with Kenneth?

The answer was written at the end of the article.