Meanwhile.
“The rendezvous location is the Staff Storage Room? Where is that?”
Roaaar—!
Knox’s question was swallowed whole by the crowd’s roar.
“And now — the ruler of the northern reaches, the very Giant Orc that Duke Krost himself is said to have faced!”
“Eek! That thing is hideous!”
“It must be over three meters tall… how did Duke Calypse ever fight that monster?!”
Graaugh.
Enraged by the shackles binding it, the orc thrashed. The walls of the circus shook like the earth itself had cracked.
“Move it — excuse me — coming through!”
The crowd, electrified by the orc’s appearance, began shoving in every direction.
There were no rules here.
No lines. No order. And eyes too full of Creature-fever to spare a single thought for a small child.
“Ack!”
Without warning, a large man carved straight between Knox and me.
I was dropped — like a discarded toy — directly into the stampede.
“Eeek!”
I activated my patented hamster-rolling technique, tucking and tumbling between the forest of legs until I made it to the edge of the crowd.
“…Idiots.”
I staggered free of the audience section on shaking legs and paused to breathe.
Right. I’d gotten through the orc-obsessed mob. So far, so good.
But rejoining Knox from here is going to be nearly impossible.
I stared into the dark, tangled sea of people in the audience.
Ideally, I’d find Lucas together with Knox. But given the current situation, going after Lucas first seemed like the smarter call.
All right. Let’s go find him.
I began systematically scanning my surroundings.
Lucas would be hidden somewhere beyond my reach on my own — the staff’s most prized possession, tucked away in the deepest, darkest storage they had—
“Hey there, little one.”
Just as I was slipping toward what looked like a storage door, a pair of loudly patterned dress trousers stepped into my path.
An Ahili Circus employee.
“This isn’t a place for children to wander into. Did you get lost?”
Black and deep purple stripes. And above them, a smile that matched — unsettling, crooked, crawling up toward me from above.
“I didn’t get lost. I came with my mom and dad.”
I craned my neck as high as it would go.
He made no move to crouch down to my level the way people at House Krost would. No bending of the knees. No warmth.
The Ahili Circus sorted everything into two categories.
Customers.
Or merchandise.
“Oh? And what do your mom and dad do for work?”
So — was I a customer, or merchandise?
Well. That all depended on what I said next.
“Business! They run a big trading company! We’re very rich!”
I stretched my arms wide and rose on my tiptoes, demonstrating the largest “big” I could physically manage.
“What?”
“What did she say?”
A nearby employee drifted closer.
The man speaking to me leaned toward him and muttered:
“Looks like she got separated. Says her parents are wealthy.”
“…Looking at those clothes, you can believe it.”
“But she says they’re commoners.”
“Commoners?”
At that word, the eyes of the second employee sharpened.
I seized the moment.
“Yes! Common-born, but incredibly rich!”
The two employees exchanged a long, meaningful glance. Their mouths curved upward in matching smiles.
“…What do you think?”
“What do you think? Parents who lose a child in a place like this — that’s their own fault.”
“Fair enough.”
“If the parents are wealthy, they might spend thousands of gold looking for the kid.”
“…That’s money in our pocket.”
Their interest in me clicked on like a switch. They crouched down to my level, suddenly very friendly.
“Hey there, little one.”
I looked back at them with the widest, most guileless eyes I could manage.
“Yes?”
“Why don’t you come and rest somewhere comfortable while we find your parents for you? Want to follow us, sweetheart?”
“Sure!”
And just like that, I let myself be led by two strangers directly into the storage room.
Trailing after them, I kept up the act — wide-eyed, delighted.
“Wow, what’s that?”
I pointed a chubby finger at a white fox locked in an iron cage.
It was native to the northern territories — not an especially rare animal.
“That one’s… not as valuable as you.”
Not as valuable.
Treating lives as goods. My hand clenched silently at my side — but finding Lucas required me to swallow this, so I did.
Then —
“Screeeeee!”
The employee ahead of us pushed open a door deeper inside, and from within came a shriek sharp enough to split an eardrum.
“Cover your ears if it’s too loud, sweetheart.”
They warned me without a second thought and walked on, threading between rows of iron cages.
“Bark! Bark, bark!”
A guard dog, hackles up. Small deer huddling into corners the moment the employees appeared.
“Ugh, shut up!”
One employee, immune to the noise by now, kicked the nearest cage in irritation. The hedgehogs inside screamed and toppled over.
These people.
They hadn’t only captured Creatures.
To keep their prize merchandise alive, they’d swept up whatever animals could serve as fodder — a wholesale dragnet of innocent creatures.
If I hadn’t come here specifically for Lucas…
The thought of what this place would become — what it already was — made me close my eyes for a moment.
Once this is resolved, I’ll make sure every one of these animals is released.
Looking at those creatures locked behind iron bars stirred something old and long-buried inside me.
Born a spy. Forced to suffer without ever being told the reason.
These animals were the same — dragged here without understanding why. Just to be consumed.
“All right now, little one. This is where our little sweetheart needs to take a little nap.”
Ghk —
A dull, heavy blow landed at the back of my neck.
I let out a short, wordless cry and crumpled to the floor.
________________________________________
How long had I been unconscious?
I was drifting in that slow, deep current between sleep and waking when the cold reached me, and my brow creased.
“…Cold…”
Instinctively, I curled myself tighter. The floor beneath me was hard and ice-cold.
Why was it so cold? Sleeping on a floor this frigid was something that had ended the day I was taken in by the Duke—
In that hazy, half-dreaming state, a voice reached me.
“Well, well. You went to the estate and brought back something rather interesting, didn’t you.”
A voice I didn’t recognize.
“Don’t dispose of it. This one might be quite entertaining later.”
I tried to pull myself away from the unfamiliar scene, but my body refused to obey my mind.
Where was I? Who was saying that?
Could it be — had Calypse died, exactly as the original story predicted?
The way my parents had died in my previous life — suddenly, in an accident?
If so — what would happen to me?
Did I have to go back to House Foss?
No. I couldn’t.
I’d rather die.
Hot tears gathered at the corners of my eyes.
…I should never have met Calypse in the first place.
If I was only going to end up alone again like this, I would have been better off never knowing what it felt like to be loved.
Like being dropped into the middle of a dark and endless ocean.
Then —
In the middle of that cold and loneliness, something settled over my body.
“……?”
Far too thin to keep out the chill — but warm. And then I felt the warmth of a pair of hands, and they began to pat my back. Slowly. Steadily.
I opened my eyes.
“……?”
The sun was right in front of me.
Gold-colored eyes, the irises deepening into red toward their centers.
The boy who met my gaze —
“Geez. Scared me.”
— withdrew his hand from my back and shifted away.
He clearly hadn’t expected me to wake so abruptly. His expression had cracked slightly open, caught off guard.
The boy looked around my age — or perhaps a little older.
This boy — could he be—?
In the original story, Lucas would have been around eight years old at this point.
I pushed myself upright and studied him.
He was curled into a corner, and he looked less like a person and more like a frightened animal. Hair matted and tangled from what must have been months — years — without care. Power-restraint cuffs locked around both wrists.
Worn, ragged clothes. A gaze so wary it was almost feral.
There was nothing about him that could be called aristocratic.
But the moment I saw the mysterious eyes blazing through his tangled hair, I knew.
This was Lucas Krost.
Right. I came here to rescue Lucas.
The reality of it snapped back into focus. I scrubbed my damp eyes with the back of my hand.
Then I shuffled forward on my knees toward him.
“Don’t worry, Young Lord Lucas.”
“What? How do you know my name?”
“There’s no time to explain. Just a moment.”
Leaving his startled look behind me, I retrieved the small hairpin I’d prepared and worked it into the keyhole of the power-restraint cuffs.
A click. A soft thunk. The restraints fell open.
“…Oh. It worked.”
I’d never done this for real before.
I supposed there was some truth to the saying that even the worst experiences leave you with something useful — five years of miserable spy training had just paid off.
Hah.
“You’re safe now. I came to rescue you.”
I held out my small hand to him.
Slap.
My hand was knocked aside.
“There’s nothing that would make me take your hand, so go ahead and get lost.”
“…What?”
I looked up in shock, and met a gaze cold enough to freeze the air between us.
“First they send adults, and when I won’t trust them, they stoop to sending a little kid like you. You’re here to swindle me, aren’t you? I know it.”
“Th-that’s not—”
“You’re a spy from House Foss! Did you think I was stupid?! I know!”
His open hostility rang off the stone walls.
“…That’s…”
“Is it not true?”
“……”
I couldn’t deny it. Because it was true — I was a spy from House Foss. That part was technically accurate.
“Good evening, Fake Young Lady.”
Knox’s greeting from when we first met surfaced in my mind without invitation.
“A ‘former’ spy who is five years old is a different matter, I suppose.”
Words spoken without any malice — and yet they came back to me now, one after another, like a chain pulling something heavy to the surface.
He was right.
Regardless of Calypse adopting me, the truth was that I was still a spy of House Foss.
Spies remain spies until they die.
No name. No identity of their own.
The villains of every fairy tale.
“……”
I had gone quiet, lost in thought, and Lucas took that as his cue to stand up.
“Fine, whatever. Thanks for getting the cuffs off — I’ll give you that. You people were half-decent for once. Or maybe you just sent a stupid one this time.”
Tap. Tap-tap.
He flung the power-restraint cuffs aside.
“I won’t kill you. So go on. Get out.”
He stepped past me with a light, careless stride.
“Born with a face like that and you look too simple to do anything useful to my family anyway.”
Even then, I couldn’t speak.
A spy.
So that was all the kindness I’d extended amounted to.
“…I’m not a spy. Sit back down.”
I grabbed his retreating ankle.
“What?”
That attitude. I refuse to let it go.
“If you’re going to call me a spy, I’m locking those cuffs back on, so sit back down!”
“Ow!”
I hauled backward with everything I had — every last ounce of formula-fed baby strength — and Lucas went down with a startled crash.
________________________________________
