CH 13

The head office of the Elgrandark Dukedom.

Two sofas were set up opposite each other. On one side sat the Duke of Elgrandark, Dismaya. On the other side was the orphan, Ilvalino.

Dismaya had a notebook and fountain pen on the table beside him. He watched Ilvalino, smiling.

His smile looks just like Cain’s.

“Hello. I am Dismaya Elgrandark. I am the head of the Elgrandark Dukedom, as well as Cain and Diana’s father. Can I ask you your name?”

Ilvalino’s eyes widened when he heard Dismaya speak properly, yet politely and graciously to an orphan. 

A duke was considered the highest-ranking noble in the royal court. Ilvalino had expected a more haughty way of speaking that spoke down to him. He had prepared himself for that, but he was met with something different.

“My name is Ilvalino. I have no family name, and I live in the orphanage attached to the temple on the west side,” he said, and bowed his head deeply.

“Raise your head, please,” said Dismaya.

Ilvalino did as requested, and looked up. Dismaya was still smiling as he quietly kept looking at Ilvalino.

“I heard you were injured quite badly when Cain picked you up at the back gate. I wonder – Why were you fallen over and injured at such an early hour in the morning?”

This was a question that Ilvalino expected to be asked.

For some reason, Cain had decided from the moment they had met that Ilvalino was returning from an assassination attempt, and so he never asked Ilvalino this question. Most normal people would start with this question, though. No one in their right mind would just assume that a six-year-old child was working as an assassin.

“I was on my way back from an assignment to deliver a letter. I was under request to deliver it before daybreak. Since it was still nighttime, I couldn’t enter through the foyer, so I delivered the letter by hand through the second-floor window. It was dark, so I lost my footing, and I then fell from the roof,” said Ilvalino. 

He had this excuse prepared. It was better than admitting to being an assassin, but this story still painted him as an extremely suspicious character. It seemed like a hard story to sell, but he couldn’t really think of anything else.

“A delivery in the middle of the night, then?” asked Dismaya.

“Please forgive me for not wanting to mention who the letter was from, and who I delivered it to. It was a secret message, which is why I had to deliver it through a window, directly to the recipient, and before sunrise.”

Taking the romantic view of this story, one might imagine that it was a love letter from one lover to another, and they both had to keep their courtship secret from their rival families. On the other hand, it could be interpreted as a case of nobles or merchants sending information during some sort of trade war, and Ilvalino was carrying top-secret intelligence. 

“I see. It sounds like a rather dangerous job. Are you often engaged in things like that?”

“Not always, no. If there is no assignment to be carried out, I’m not called upon. However, since I am paid in cash, I can use the money to supplement the meals we have at the orphanage, which are otherwise made up of vegetables from our garden and donations from people in the city.”

“Hmm,” said Dismaya, “Ilvalino – I have heard that you can read. Can all the children at the orphanage read?”

“No. There is no one at the orphanage who will teach us, so… The other children at the orphanage can’t read… However, the other day, Cain-sama left a book for learning letters at the orphanage, so all the orphans may be able to read, soon. Difficult phrases might be impossible to learn from a book like that, though.”

“I see…”

Dismaya played with his fountain pen, spinning it around his fingertips. He had a notebook at the ready, in his other hand, but it didn’t seem like he had written anything down.

“Do you like Cain?” he asked.

“…I am grateful to him. I’m grateful that he nursed me back to health when I was injured, and also that he was kind and polite to my brothers and sisters at the orphanage.”[Read this novel and other amazing translated novels from the original source at the “Novel Multiverse dot com” website @ novelmultiverse.com]

“I see,” said Dismaya, continuing to spin the pen in his fingertips.

Ilvalino was distracted by this and kept glancing over at the pen.

Snap!

Dismaya suddenly snapped shut the notebook with one hand. Upon hearing it, Ilvalino lost awareness of his surroundings for just a moment.

Without thinking, Ilvalino swung his head to the side to avoid it. He heard something flying through the air, right by his ear.

He heard a sharp, cracking noise behind him. The fountain pen, which should have been in Dismaya’s right hand, was gone.

“I’m sorry. My hand slipped, there. I’m glad it didn’t hit you.”

That’s a lie, Ilvalino thought, His hand didn’t slip. He threw that pen at me.

Ilvalino had dodged it, without thinking. He was busy looking at the notebook snapping shut, but the pen flew at him from his peripheral, and so he dodged it. 

If Dismaya had thrown the pen on purpose, he must have done it to see Ilvalino’s reaction. 

Ilvalino thought that he had probably made it clear that he was not a normal boy.

“If you would, could you please go pick that up for me?” asked Dismaya.

“…Of course,” said Ilvalino. He got up from the sofa and walked around it. Behind the sofa was a bookshelf, and there was ink splattered on one of the shelves.

Ilvalino picked up the pen, which had fallen behind the couch, and saw that the tip had been crushed. 

This must-have hit the bookshelf and then fell to the floor. It looks like it was thrown pretty hard.

If Ilvalino hadn’t been able to dodge it, the pen tip could have pierced him, and it probably would have made quite a wound. Ilvalino felt a chill run through him.

He wondered how much information this man had gathered about him in the several days leading up to this interview. He couldn’t help but get goosebumps on the back of his neck.

“The tip of the pen has been crushed,” said Ilvalino.

“Ah, really. Well, I’m glad the stem is all right. Pen tips are disposable parts, after all. Oh well.”

He gave the pen back to Dismaya, and then once again sat down on the sofa. 

“I doubt you’ll be asked to do work like deliver a letter before sunrise, ever again,” muttered Dismaya, looking upon the crushed pen tip as if it were a trivial matter.

“What?” asked Ilvalino. He had heard Dismaya, but for a moment, he didn’t understand what it meant.

“From now on, you will be a good friend to Cain. You will be a good confidant to him, and you will be a good chamberlain. I ask you to support him, solidly. That is your job from now on,” said Dismaya.

Does this mean I’m hired?

Ilvalino stayed silent and perplexed as he wondered why Dismaya didn’t think suspiciously of him after he had dodged a lethal weapon hurtling at him from his periphery. 

“You will be paid a proper salary that is appropriate to your position. This is the duchy mansion, after all. There will be no stinginess. Therefore, you will not need to work any other jobs,” said Dismaya.

Ilvalino let out a small but audible gasp.

Since Dismaya had returned from his land inspections, he had had a few days until the interview. It was not a matter of how much he had found out about Ilvalino in that time. Dismaya had found out everything. This man had brought Ilvalino’s mysterious character out of the darkness altogether.

Ilvalino thought that Cain didn’t gather any information on him, but rather, figure out some things about him through vague methods like intuition and insight. That was how Cain had guessed that he was an assassin. He didn’t have any evidence, and by not showing any clear reactions to what Cain said, or even agreeing to his claims, Ilvalino had kept up at least some level of secrecy around himself.

This man was different. 

He knew about Ilvalino, so he threw the fountain pen at him in a lethal manner. This was the last bit of proof he needed to make sure he had gotten the right information about him. 

He knew all about the things Ilvalino had done thus far, and who had taught him how to do them. Knowing all of that, he had decided to make him Cain’s chamberlain.

“Thank you very much for your offer. I accept,” said Ilvalino, bowing deeply. He was filled with fear, gratitude, and all kinds of other emotions, all at once.