“That backside… could that possibly be Knox?”
The murmuring of the knights below drifted up to him, but he paid them no mind.
Twenty-four years. A single, unwavering path.
As a devotee of Creatures, and as Duke Calypse Krost’s trusted aide, Knox had never once bent his convictions under the weight of other people’s stares.
And so, having scaled the wall with grim determination, he peered cautiously through the window of Aisha’s bedroom.
He pulled out a second monocle and fitted it over his remaining eye for a clearer view.
When the small child’s back came into focus inside the room, his eyes went wide.
________________________________________
“What in the world do you think you’re doing?!”
“H-hiyeek!”
Caught.
He’d caught her already — and the whole thing had barely begun.
________________________________________
One hour earlier.
The moment I returned to my room, I launched into the operation in earnest.
Now that I had taken up residence in Aisha’s body, I needed to derail the original story if I had any hope of preventing her future death.
But in the end, things had gone according to plan — I had become Calypse’s daughter.
True, he had accepted me even knowing I was a spy. But I couldn’t afford to relax.
I had to earn his trust, no matter what.
For that, I need people on my side.
The problem was that there was no one willing to help.
Calypse didn’t expect anything of me. Knox, on the other hand, was actively suspicious.
“Then there’s only one way.”
I chose the simplest-looking dress from among several hanging in the wardrobe and spread it flat on the floor. Then I began drawing on it with crayons — just like a spy from House Foss composing a field report.
“If I act this suspiciously, there’s no way he won’t be curious.”
Head Maid Mai had told me Knox was in his private study. But would I believe that?
Not a chance.
With Calypse away, Knox would be even more determined to keep tabs on me. So claiming he was in his study was obviously a lie. He was watching, waiting for me to be alone. Waiting to catch me doing something suspicious, out in the open, red-handed—
“What in the world do you think you’re doing?!”
And there it was.
Sure enough, the moment I started drawing, a fierce shout erupted from the direction of the window.
This is where it starts.
“H-hiyeek!”
Best actress in the Foss household theatrical competition — and the award goes to me.
Flap, flap.
I looked up with the most perfectly alarmed expression I could muster, having been caught in the middle of conspicuously hiding the dress —
“Good evening, Fake Young Lady.”
Knox stood framed in the window, two monocles glinting over his eyes, his smile unsettlingly dark.
No, seriously, how could anyone look that frightening?
But regardless —
Ha. You took the bait.
________________________________________
“…Did you climb up the wall?”
I asked in a timid, frightened voice — and without so much as a pause, Knox pocketed his monocles and stepped through the window with perfect composure.
“I was conducting surveillance. I needed to understand how someone as seemingly ordinary as a fake young lady could have won His Grace’s favor.”
“So you entered my room without permission? And through the window?”
“Yes.”
His monocle caught the light as he kept his thoughts carefully behind his eyes.
“While His Grace is away, it falls to me to act in the role of the Fake Young Lady’s father.”
“……”
“Tedious as that is, of course.”
He looked down at me with an expression of complete indifference.
“But seeing as it’s come to this — I’d like to understand what, precisely, caused His Grace to adopt you.”
“……”
He had been caught spying on me through my own window, and he stood there as though nothing of the sort had happened. He was almost brazen about it.
“And now you’ve gone and done something rather charming, haven’t you. What exactly were you writing on that dress?”
What do you think? Suspicious information for you to investigate, obviously.
“The dress — ?”
I shrugged my shoulders, all innocence, and covertly nudged the dress further behind me with my heel.
That was all it took. His sharp, glinting monocle snapped toward the movement instantly.
“What were you drawing?!”
“Nothing?”
“You’re hiding that dress with that much suspicion, and you expect me to believe it was nothing?”
“Five-year-olds are allowed privacy, you know.”
“A former spy who is five years old is a different matter entirely. Reveal the contents of that dress at once.”
“Ugh!”
He lunged, dipping his upper body and reaching past me in a single swift motion.
I made a show of trying to stop him, but his arms were far, far longer than my small frame could counter.
“Ha… what exactly did they teach you in spy training?”
Knox showed no mercy just because I was five.
In the end, he claimed the dress with a look of triumphant satisfaction.
What did they teach me? Exactly this — a masterful performance of letting it get away from me.
Knox spread the back panel of the dress open wide —
“…The Ahili Circus. Midnight. Staff Storage Room.”
His voice, reading aloud from the fake report, had gone stone cold.
Because to any trained eye, this was unmistakably a spy’s rendezvous message.
“…What are you intending to do by going here?”
The air around us compressed like a weight dropping.
“Were you planning to brag — to whoever is meeting you — that you successfully deceived Duke Krost and made yourself his daughter?”
“……”
He’s… more frightening than I expected.
“I’m quite curious to see what you’re up to, Fake Young Lady. I’ll be joining you.”
“Wha — ?!”
I froze. Knox let out a short, humorless laugh and flung the dress onto the bed. Then, like someone picking up a wayward kitten, he grabbed me by the scruff of the neck and hoisted me into the air.
Before I had even a moment to process what was happening, I found myself bundled into a carriage.
________________________________________
“You may step out.”
He said that, and then immediately grabbed the back of my neck himself.
From the moment Knox had read the fake report, he had stopped treating me with the deference a young lady of House Krost would be due — just as Calypse had instructed.
Everything was going according to plan.
Knox seemed to be thoroughly convinced that I was in contact with House Foss.
It’s a bit terrifying, honestly… but at least we’ve made it this far.
Following his watch, we stepped inside the circus, and the cold air clung to us like the inside of a freezer.
A sharp spotlight blazed down on the ringmaster as he stepped onto the stage.
“Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to the greatest Creature show on earth — the Ahili Circus!”
“Yeaaah!”
“Wooooo!”
The ringmaster’s voice boomed across the tent, and the crowd, wild with excitement, surged to its feet all around us.
“…Creatures? They’ve all gathered to watch Creatures?”
Knox, clearly not having anticipated this, flinched in surprise and murmured under his breath.
Indeed.
This was a circus that trafficked in illegally obtained Creatures.
But for someone like Knox, walking in for the first time, there was an obvious question to ask.
Creatures were dangerous. They didn’t respond to language, and their ferocity made them nearly impossible to hunt, let alone contain. So how on earth was a Creature show even possible?
The answer was the Ice Affinity.
The second son of House Krost.
Lucas — the boy I had come here to save — was locked inside this very building, his power being bled from him.
________________________________________
That same hour. Beyond the edge of the world.
“We’ve cleared out the Winter Wolf pack that was prowling near the ice wall.”
“And the orcs?”
Calypse’s black hair whipped through the raging blizzard.
Against the white world, the red of fresh blood stood out sharply.
It ran down his palm and dripped from his fingers — but Calypse treated it as a matter of course, wiping it clean and wrapping the wound loosely with a bandage.
Bleeding during a Creature suppression mission was an occupational inevitability.
“We’ve confirmed roughly ten orcs patrolling the boundary line.”
“Our strength?”
“Three are unfit for combat. The rest are ready.”
“Then tonight at dawn, we—”
Calypse stopped mid-sentence.
A tiny, flour-dusted face had surfaced in his mind without warning.
Aisha.
The small child waiting for him back at the estate.
She’d manage perfectly well without him, of course. She was a resilient little thing.
Still — there was a nagging unease about having left Aisha in Knox’s care.
He’s probably lecturing the poor innocent girl about something even as we speak.
Calypse considered briefly, then changed course.
“We end this as fast as possible. Get them ready — now.”
“Yes, sir.”
He sealed the bandage and tipped back a flask of liquor.
In temperatures that laughed at thirty degrees below zero, strong alcohol was as necessary as armor.
His crimson eyes — hot as lava — were already fixed on the distant north, where the orcs waited.
If we finish quickly enough, I could be back tonight.
Someone was waiting for him.
Back home, someone would be there to hold him.
“……”
That quiet warmth — something he hadn’t felt in a long time — tugged at the corner of his mouth, just barely lifting it.
It was at that precise moment —
“Your Grace. An urgent message from Knox.”
The image of a small, white-faced child dissolved as a knight held out a sealed letter.
An urgent message? That can’t be right.
The only threat to House Krost was the Creatures. And with him personally leading the suppression here, nothing dangerous should be—
“……”
But.
[I have discovered Aisha composing what appears to be a covert report. I am currently in the process of following her to the rendezvous location specified in the report. P.S. — What did I tell you?]
“Your Grace? The suppression team is ready—”
“We’re going back.”
“Pardon?”
“Make a portal. Now. There’s somewhere I need to be.”
Calypse crumpled the letter in one fist, feeling the blood go cold in his veins.
________________________________________
