"What's wrong?"
"In a mont."
It ant he couldn't talk about it in front of Henry Beyman.
"This is the list of items His Highness has sent. Paolun silk, sable fur, ostrich feathers, Heritage Company tea set, and Bibley Company ladies' watch."
He really had sent quite a lot. There were two large boxes of Paolun silk, and the other items except the watch also ca in considerably sized boxes. The automatons creakily set down the boxes. Henry Beyman personally delivered the watch box.
And the last automaton placed a large bouquet on top of the boxes.
"All sorts of things..."
"Did I mishear, Miss Hunter?"
"I think you heard correctly."
Henry Beyman doubted his ears, but what he heard didn't change. He stopped putting on airs and quickly gave an explanation along with an invitation before returning.
"So what are we going to do with all those gifts?"
"Put them in inventory, I suppose. There's still plenty of room."
It seed unlikely they'd ever take them out again. Cider got Esperanza's permission and instructed that the flowers be placed in a vase in the reception room. Esperanza was about to put the remaining gifts in her inventory when she changed her mind.
The tea set went to Mrs. Lux, the silk to Annie and Madeline, the ostrich feathers to cook Mrs. Casher. She distributed all the remaining gifts to the employees.
"Now only this is left."
Esperanza said, waving the envelope and invitation in her hand.
"Did he really give money?"
"Unless the Duke has gone mad, how could that be?"
"Actually, I like money. It's convenient to spend too."
When she said it would have been better if he'd given the other gifts as money too, Cider chuckled quietly and shook his head.
The bouquet the Duke had given contained daisies, gardenias, and yellow roses. The vivid yellow brightened the reception room considerably. However, the two people sitting across from each other paid no attention to the flowers in the vase. Both their gazes were entirely focused on the bills on the table.
Cider, who had brought Esperanza to a nearby reception room saying he seed to have figured sothing out, silently spread the bills on the table without a word.
"What are you doing?"
"Look at this."
Cider, having emptied one envelope completely, took out the bills from the envelope Esperanza was holding. Then he placed them on top of the bill in the middle of the table. Next, upper left, upper right, lower right, then middle again. Esperanza, who had been watching wondering what he was doing, exclaid in surprise.
"The serial numbers are exactly the sa."
Bills with identical serial numbers. The possible explanation one could think of.
"Are they counterfeit? Because of counterfeit issues, he wants
to..."
Having said it out loud, it didn't seem very convincing. Then why? What intention did the Duke have in sending envelopes full of bills with the sa serial numbers?
Unable to grasp it, Cider threw her a hint.
"Esperanza. Doesn't one seem a bit more worn?"
Now that he ntioned it, it did. Esperanza picked up the two identical bills to look at them. Bills issued in 1837, that is this year, but one was faded as if it were easily 10 years old.
10 years... It felt like soone had hit her head.
"This right now, don't tell ."
Cider smiled and nodded.
"The Duke knows. That you ca from the future."
Esperanza slowly worked backward from the conclusion.
The Duke knew. The bills were proof of that. Bills with identical serial numbers, one looking easily over 10 years old since printing and the other showing signs of being printed this year. If one of them wasn't counterfeit, for two real bills to exist simultaneously, a future bill would have to co to the past.
He would have known that Esperanza had used bills from what he received from Luke Havenly, making it possible to deduce that Esperanza ca from the future.
But conversely, they were just bills. Could one deduce that far with just this ager evidence? Esperanza asked the smartest person she knew.
"Cider. If you saw these two, would you have made the hypothesis that there's a ti traveler?"
"Probably?"
He didn't seem surprised at all. He swept the remaining bills to one side and placed the two identical bills side by side in the empty space.
"Now, if you have identical bills like this, there are usually two thoughts you can have. One, there was a mistake in the minting process. Even so, there's no way they'd make the sa mistake 30 tis."
Cider, watching Esperanza nod enthusiastically with satisfaction, raised another finger.
"Two, one of them is counterfeit. The Duke could have called the best counterfeit appraiser at any ti, so assuming there's no counterfeit so sophisticated that the Duke's appraiser couldn't find it with current technology."
So how does that assumption co about? Esperanza would have naturally thought that counterfeiting technology had advanced. Cider smiled as if reading that thought.
"He would have tried both assumptions. I think the Duke either has evidence sufficient to accept the supernatural phenonon of ti travel—I don't like this expression much, but 'supernatural'—or else."
It was a aningful silence. Esperanza grabbed Cider's arm and shook it.
"Or else what?"
"He would have heard about you in the dungeon and made deductions. You did act rather suspiciously there, didn't you?"
"Ah, yes..."
There was nothing to say about this. While everyone else was encountering the disaster for the first ti, she alone had skillfully broken through it with her body, so it was reasonable for the Duke receiving the report to adopt the 'supernatural' hypothesis.
"And personally, if the Duke knows about the existence of dungeons, I think he would have easily accepted ti travel too."
Though it was so familiar to Esperanza that its absence would rather be strange, to the current people of Osdern, dungeons weren't even natural disasters. They were unheard of, unseen, closer to divine punishnt or ons of destruction.
"Ah, that's right. That's how it works. So the Duke figured it out."
Thinking that way, it made sense. It beca clear. Esperanza, having pushed the bills on the table into her inventory, kept nodding.
Anyway, she had gained 120,000 terot for free, so she could use this to give Cider so gift. Thinking this way, being blackmailed by the Duke hadn't had bad results in the end. Her mood improved a little.
When her eyes t Cider's, he added subtly with a voice tinged with laughter.
"It was our secret between just the two of us, but soone else found out."
Ah.
Esperanza slowly closed and opened her eyes.
She wasn't sure if it was an unnecessary thought, but the phrase "our secret between just the two of us" seed unsuited to this clear early afternoon of early sumr. That rather intimate, strange nuance. She was probably attributing excessive aning to just a few words.
Cooling her sowhat heated face with the back of her hand, she changed the subject.
"...Anyway, the conclusion is that we have to accept the Duke's invitation. There's no point in us worrying about it among ourselves."
Fortunately, Cider didn't seem to notice Esperanza's awkward attitude. That was fortunate. If he had known, it would have been very embarrassing.
??????°??☆????°??????
Edmund Frederick Arthur Albert did not commit the error of being late to the second invitation either. Though the lateness to the first invitation hadn't been his intention either. Since there had been a mistake that wasn't a mistake, he was more thorough.
"Avondale, Miss Hunter. Welco. Since this isn't the first visit for either of you, I'll skip the palace tour. I've prepared refreshnts in the reception room."
Following the Duke, Esperanza tapped Cider's forearm.
"This isn't your first ti here?"
"If you count visiting when I was seven as having been here."
The Duke simply didn't want to bother with playing tour guide for the two of them. That was understandable. Esperanza also wanted to skip all the trivial courtesies and power gas, beat up the Duke, and make him confess all the information he had.
"Mrs. Kirkfield, leave the reception room door half a span open and clear the floor."
Mrs. Kirkfield curtsied and left. The Duke personally brewed black tea and served it to his guests.
"Regarding the previous incident, I express deep regret once again."
"...Since you compensated, it's fine."
Esperanza answered with a tone that had shed a layer of courtesy. As if it was unexpected, the Duke who had been bringing his teacup to his lips hesitated. However, as if nothing had happened, the Duke who drank a sip of tea with even his arm angle seeming asured answered.
"I hope it was to your liking. It's been a long ti since I prepared gifts for a young lady, so I was worried."
Cider read from those words the implication that there would be no more threats using Esperanza's identity, but he couldn't tell if Esperanza had done the sa. Her purple eyes were only transparent like glass beads. Esperanza was generally intelligent, but not experienced enough to guess the true intentions of twisted words and counter them.
A few more exchanges followed, but they were all superficial talk. When the tea in the cups was nearly empty, the Duke asked.
"Avondale, you were the school chess champion. Is your skill still the sa?"
"It would be proper to show modesty, but it's still the sa."
"Nine Holder is full of diocre players who think they're chess players. It's tedious work."
Cider said, putting down his teacup.
"As you say, but I've never been bored. There's no ti to be bored."
The Duke laughed low like a predator.
"Miss Hunter. Do you know how to play chess?"
"I only know the rules."
"If you know the rules, you can play."
"I really only know the rules."
After a mont of understanding the aning, the Duke nodded. So she ant she couldn't play. It was unladylike. Cider added to that.
"Before the Mabelwood incident you're well aware of, Alastair Renfrew once played chess with Esperanza. Poor Count Sterling brought his own pieces to positions where they'd die."
Why are you telling that story? Even when Esperanza glared at him, Cider only smiled broadly. When she wondered why, the Duke was covering his pale face with his teacup.
The Mabelwood incident? Or Alastair Renfrew? She couldn't tell which had touched his nerves. Maybe both.
"Co to think of it, the assassins Your Highness sent broke Lord Sterling's leg."
"...It couldn't be helped."
The Duke muttered like making an excuse, then eventually sighed.
"Is Count Sterling alright?"
"Just because he has fully recovered doesn't erase Your Highness's sin. Of course, it wasn't sothing Your Highness did directly, but don't those who committed it directly lack even the qualification to take responsibility?"
"Miss Hunter. I humbly acknowledge the wrongness of the ans. I shouldn't have hard the innocent Lord Sterling. But he should have stayed there."
They could tell it was ti for the main topic to begin. Why had a dungeon appeared at Mabelwood? What did the Duke know, and how much? What was his purpose? The story began like this.
"There is soone in the royal castle who seeks to harm Her Majesty the Queen's safety for private gain."
It was sohow a first line that seed to have been heard often in court intrigue stories.
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