30

“I apologize.”

“Ah, let’s have lunch tomorrow. I’m giving you advance notice this time, so that should be acceptable.”

It was a ‘one-sided’ arrangement, but he couldn’t block even that.

Zayed gave a small nod and rose from his seat.

It seemed the first meeting with his grandfather had gone reasonably well, but…… to keep the contract marriage from being discovered, he would need to act more affectionate.

***

The next day, Elia met Gillian Idmazel after preparing herself mentally.

She wanted to start plotting how to kill Jeremy immediately, but there was no time for that.

Jeremy had accumulated a debt he couldn’t pay off even working like a slave for ten years, so dealing with Gillian had to come first.

“When my wife was young, she was something else. She loved playing tricks so much…… she loved games, loved bets, loved all of it!”

The meeting with Gillian went better than expected.

As old people tended to do, Gillian was not particularly inclined to listen to what young people had to say. He preferred to look back on the past and revisit his memories endlessly.

So all Elia had to do was sit and listen with a polite and respectful manner.

“She was the only person who could beat me at chess! Hahaha, yes. Can you play chess, my dear?”

Gillian tossed out the question with a wink, and Zayed moved to answer on her behalf.

She had been locked in a closed ward for a long time.

She couldn’t possibly have learned something like chess.

But Elia nodded, unexpectedly.

“Yes, I can.”

“Oh?”

“Would you like to play a round?”

About three hours later.

The smiles had completely vanished from the faces of both formidable figures.

“Ha, one more! Let’s play one more!”

“Please maintain your dignity, Grandfather.”

“Ugh. I simply cannot understand it. I cannot understand it.”

Gillian stared down at the board with a bewildered expression and fumed.

Childish as it was, it couldn’t be helped.

Gillian hated losing more than anything else in the world.

Elia sat across from the old monster and sipped her tea. She picked out only the cookies with the most chocolate chips and ate those.

The one whose insides were turning was Gillian, watching her look so utterly calm and at ease.

“How did I lose five games in a row!”

Gillian finally exploded, eyes flashing as he opened his mouth.

“Just once more! Just one more time, my dear.”

“That’s coercion. Do you think it’s enjoyable to entertain an old man? Please stop.”

Zayed tried to intervene, but it was no use.

Who could stop Gillian once his competitive spirit had been ignited.

Elia looked at the two of them for a moment, then spoke without any particular expression.

“If you give me one chest of gold for every game I win, I’ll continue. But if you manage to beat me even once, I’ll return everything I’ve received.”

“Ha! Are you challenging Gillian Idmazel to a wager?”

“All you have to do is win one game. You’ll have an enjoyable time, and you’ll get all your money back. What do you say?”

Elia’s face showed no expression at all.

With a face as blank as a mask, no trace of joy or anger or sorrow or pleasure, moving only her lips, it was impossible to tell whether this was a provocation or not.

So…… it wasn’t irritating.

A loss like this was rare, and that alone was enough to make his blood boil, but if she had been irritating on top of it, he might have refused to see her a second time.

Gillian stroked his beard several times with a trembling hand, then nodded in silence.

“Very well. Let’s do that.”

“Yes.”

It worked.

Having succeeded in getting what she wanted without crossing any lines, Elia curved the corner of her mouth in a faint smile.

About a year had passed since she was locked in the closed ward.

An old man was admitted, a madman with an obsessive fixation on a chessboard.

Elia befriended him and learned chess from him.

She had privately given him the nickname ‘Chess Grandpa,’ and while he normally stared into empty space and muttered nonsense, he showed a frightening level of focus whenever he played chess.

As for Elia, she had always loved mathematics and enjoyed following logical structures. She preferred nonfiction over novels, and rules over disorder.

So chess, the first time she encountered it, could not have been more to her taste.

Sitting across from Chess Grandpa and focusing on the board made the time pass faster, at least.

But Chess Grandpa did not survive that winter.

The chessboard was confiscated, but Elia smuggled out a full set of chess pieces, and with those she played for a long, long time…… continuing even after she was put in solitary confinement.

There was no way she could lose.

No one else could possibly have poured as much of themselves into chess as she had.

“Remarkable talent. I had no idea you had a gift for chess.”

“Does that surprise you?”

“Yes. It does.”

Zayed slipped his arm around her waist and murmured that.

Elia shrugged and whispered very quietly into his ear.

“So, about that. Everything Grandfather gives me is mine, right? I earned it.”

At the very precise accounting, Zayed laughed and nodded.

***

“I really have gotten a wife beyond my deserving. To think I’d live to see Grandfather struggle.”

“Quiet, you boy. Don’t break my concentration.”

“I’m on my wife’s side, so I intend to keep distracting you.”

Gillian came to find them every day for three days after that.

He would sit down for about five games at a time, and he did not win a single one. It was as though Elia had cast some kind of spell.

“Checkmate.”

“No, when! I was so sure I had it this time!”

Five chests of gold in a single day.

Zayed laughed faintly and applauded.

After this many games, most people would grow muddled and slip up at least once, but Elia did not.

She sat curled on the cushion without moving, making her moves, and no matter what conversation reached her from around the room, she did not react.

It was a level of focus that was almost unsettling.

It was then.

“My lord. I have brought what you requested.”

“Good, bring it here.”

The door opened and Gillian’s personal attendant appeared.

Zayed exchanged a nod of greeting with him, but having received no advance notice, he was quite curious about what had been brought.

There was a distinctly sweet smell drifting through the air.

Catching the sweet scent, Elia too looked with interest at the box in the attendant’s hands.

“I hear you have a fondness for good things to eat.”

“Yes, Grandfather.”

“So I brought these. Sweets made by the finest chef in the imperial palace. Apparently quite famous. The Empress is said to be absolutely devoted to them.”

Gillian spoke as though it were nothing, this ‘power and connection’ that allowed him to issue ‘a command disguised as a request’ to the very chef responsible for the Empress’s meals.

He had given the order to his attendant after losing five games in a row the day before, and the attendant had passed the instruction to the imperial kitchen’s head chef through a private channel that same night.

The head chef had worked through the night without sleep, and the finished sweets were loaded into a carriage at dawn.

Those freshly made desserts had now arrived in Aquanta, at the far end of the south, at this very hour.

In truth, it was not a thing that should have been possible.

Even Zayed could not have done this.

He did not yet have the connections or the authority to issue such an outrageous command.

“Well? What do you think?”

The first box was opened, and a sweet sugar scent drifted out alongside the sharp fragrance of lemon.

The sugar, shaped beautifully into little shells, was a translucent yellow that looked impossibly sweet just to look at.

“They look delicious, Grandfather.”

“Ahem. They had better taste good. Go on, try one.”

“Won’t you have some, Grandfather?”

“At my age, sweets, tch. I don’t eat them. Have plenty, my dear.”

So this was a gift prepared entirely for Elia.

The meaning behind those words caught Zayed slightly off guard.

‘She impressed him that much. Grandfather isn’t someone who goes to this kind of trouble.’

Thinking that, Zayed naturally picked up one of the lemon sugar shells and placed it between Elia’s lips.

Crunch!

The sound of sugar crumbling between Elia’s soft lips was quite endearing. The way she chewed it with small movements was endearing too.

Zayed watched the white sugar on her red lips and swallowed.

It was only sugar, and yet his mind kept drifting somewhere it had no business going.

Ordinary daily life was becoming somewhat difficult.

“It’s delicious.”

“Do you like it?”

“Yes, thank you.”

“There’s plenty more. Try the others too.”

Elia wasn’t particularly performing cheerfulness right now.

From her perspective, lying to Gillian didn’t seem likely to produce any good results at all.

She had simply understood it from the very first moment they met.

Gillian Idmazel was not someone who could be fooled.

So Elia had formed a strategy.

Provoke him the way she had with Zayed, but show genuine ability. She didn’t need to be charming, but she did need to be respectful.