“It must’ve been hard on you, Climb. Now then…”

Renner drank the rest of the black tea that had grown lukewarm and stood from her seat. She made her way to the hand bell. It was a magic item that when shaken, the one in the next room that it was linked to would shake as well. She thought of the face of the maid who was on standby in the next room. Luckily enough, it was that girl’s turn today, thinking so, Renner wore a cold smile.

“Shoot, which face was good here?”

Renner stood in front of the mirror and stretched her face up and down while holding her cheeks with both hands. Even if a human like her did something like that, her face would hardly change. What she was doing was something like affirmation.

Renner removed her hands and smiled.

“No. This is for when I make my rounds as the princess…”

This time, Renner tried a sneer and then another smile. One after another and finally, she wore an innocent smile.

“I think this one will be best.”

Having determined that she was finished preparing, Renner rang the bell. Immediately after, a maid knocked on the door and entered the room.

“I have a request. Could you prepare me some hot water?”

“Understood, Renner-sama.”

Renner smiled at the maid who was bowing her head.

“Did something happen? You seem to be in a good mood. You look as if something pleasant has happened to you.”

Renner happily smiled again as she confirmed that the prey took the bait.

“Yeah! It’s really incredible! Climb did something amazing!”

She spoke like a young girl; perfectly fitting for the foolish princess who coughs up valuable information.

“Congratulations, your Grace.”

Although the maid skillfully hid the hostility she had towards Climb, she ended up revealing the feelings that she could not hide. That reaction caused a stir in Renner’s heart.

—I’ll kill her.

—I’ll kill this maid too.

—I’ll kill anyone who looks down on my Climb.

But Renner’s expression showed no signs that she knew the truth. For the current Renner was an innocent princess; the type who was oblivious to the malice of others and who forgives her maid’s rudeness, that kind of naïve— foolish princess.

“It’s amazing! Really amazing! Climb defeated some really really bad people and freed all of the people who had been captured. Now they should be… um, he said that he left them somewhere in the guard station. Now we can punish the nobles who helped those bad people!”

“I see. That is really amazing. As expected, Renner-sama’s Climb-san is splendid. But could I hear about that incredible thing he did with more detail?”

Stupid girl, Renner spread her poison to the fool who was not even suspicious.

She controls everything in the palm of her hand, all in order to obtain the object of her desire.

Lower Fire Month (9th Month), Day 3, 22:10

There was a suspicious looking group that looked as if they were melting into the darkness.

All of them each wore different equipment and their atmosphere was completely different from that of soldiers. If one had to mention who they smelled the closest to, perhaps it would be adventurers.

The one at the front was a man with a rough physique. Next was a lean man along with a woman wearing light silk. A person in a robe followed them from behind and lastly, there was a person wearing full plate armor.

In the direction that the group was staring in, there was a door that was opened wide. The inside was covered in darkness and there was no longer the presence of other people. Even when looking around the surroundings, there did not seem to be any people.

This was a strange. All of the goods that were in the brothel had already been seized and transported to one of the stations for soldiers. However, it was out of the question that they would not leave sentries behind just because there was nothing there. If one were to actually look towards the entrance that was empty of people, they would see a bright bonfire and realize that they were keeping vigil at night. But the reason that no one could be seen was because those people used their authority to temporarily remove the sentries.

The boulder-like man standing at the front— Zero, sent a terrifying gaze to the captured brothel and spoke in a low voice, as if he found it despicable.

“What a farce. I’ll have to apologize to Cocco Doll. I lent him Succulent, a member of Six Arms and they still fell this easily. And it was even on the same day… truly, what a farce.”

Zero sent a sharp glare over his shoulder at the snickering that came from behind him. The woman who was wearing the light silk knew Zero’s personality well and quickly changed the topic.

“Ah, right right. So boss, what should we do? Do we kill Succulent who got caught? He’s at a station so it’ll be hard to use force. Then we’d have to borrow an assassin from a different division… what do we do?”

“No, we won’t do that. He’s still useful. I will request the Count to have him released immediately. …This will become an unexpected expense. Find out the Count’s tastes.”

The thin, frivolous-looking man asked a question.

“And Cocco Doll?”

“He will likely use his own connections. If he asks, then we will use our connections as an apology. Also, what happened to the client list? There wasn’t any information about it falling into the hands of a patrol officer.”

“There has been no news on that front. To be more precise, I haven’t heard of any further details on the matter.”

The voice coming from the robe was dark. It was like an empty echo flowing out of a hole in a graveyard that sent shivers down the spine.

“That is something that I am very eager to get my hands on. It can be used to make all kinds of threats.”

“Don’t say something so stupid. If we kept that with us, it would only make us look more suspicious. Others may think that we had planned for all of this to happen. If we find the list, we will hide it in a safe location and hand it over later to Cocco Doll with an apology. Besides, it’s probably written in code that can’t be cracked by normal methods so it’s useless to us regardless.”

At Zero’s words, the lean man shrugged his shoulders as he spoke.

“Anyways, I’ll go in later and try to find out what happened to the list. If they have it, it’s probably in a secret safe or something. …With that said, this is pretty amazing. How was this hole made? The weapon… was it magic?”