“Martin! There you are.” I waved at him with a delighted smile. Martin turned from the two mercenaries he had been talking to. He looked pleased to see me, but his face stiffened the moment he spotted Bianca following me.

“Martin...” Bianca’s expression had stiffened too. She lowered her head, and an awkward silence settled between them.

“I didn’t expect to see you again so soon.” I walked up to Martin as though I hadn’t noticed the tension. The two mercenaries beside him stared at me in bewilderment. Of course they would look like that when some little kid suddenly came up acting as if he knew them.

The male mercenary asked Martin, “Who’s that?”

“Someone from House Gresia.”

“Oh, the one you said you traveled with.”

At Martin’s answer, both mercenaries frowned. They didn’t seem happy to meet me. Too bad. I was delighted to see them.

I sat down across the table from Martin and beamed. “I’m so glad I ran into you. I’m really glad I got out of that stuffy castle.”

I couldn’t say I had come to inspect the route beforehand, so I went with something a child might predictably say. Bianca and Hugo turned to look at me. Huh? Why did I get the feeling they thought I was pathetic? Had they mistaken my work for an excuse to come out and play? I could understand Bianca thinking that when she’d only met me today, but Hugo ought to know better!

I sighed inwardly. Everyone believed me even when I acted this childish. Once again, I realized how powerful a weapon my young age could be. Naturally, Martin and the two mercenaries believed me too.

“Since we’ve run into each other, can we stay a while? It’ll be lunchtime soon. Let’s eat together before we go.”

Hugo nodded, though he looked a little troubled. Our outing only involved walking around the safe city where the castle stood. Inspecting the route hadn’t been part of the original plan, and I had just made it sound like an excuse anyway. Of course he would allow it.

When it became clear I had no intention of leaving, Martin gave a small sigh. It would have been hard for him to turn down my request. The two mercenaries immediately rose from their seats.

“We’ll talk again later.”

“Yes, we should.” Martin nodded.

Huh? They were leaving?

“You’re both mercenaries, right? Couldn’t you eat with us? I’ve never met real mercenaries before. I’ll buy you lunch if you tell me some stories.” I looked at them with an eager smile and innocent eyes.

“Sorry, little young master. We’re not the sort of people who can sit and talk with our betters,” said the woman, wagging a finger.

“We have work to do, so we’d better go.” The man bowed politely, and the two left the inn.

Damn, that hadn’t worked. I’d wanted more information. For now, I would have to be satisfied with finding them.

“Wow. Turning me down just like that? You two must be impressive mercenaries.”

At my mild jab, Martin defended them. “They really are busy. Benjamin leads a fairly large mercenary company, and Noah is its deputy commander. They have a lot to do.”

So I finally had their names. They were probably aliases, but even knowing what they called themselves here would help.

Martin, Sir Hugo, Bianca, and I ate lunch in the inn’s dining room. It was an awkward meal: a knight, a maid, a child, and a man who looked like a mercenary. I kept the conversation going without a trace of embarrassment, but Hugo and Bianca ate in silence, while Martin gave only halfhearted answers. No one came near us. Then again, a knight was hardly a welcome sight in a dining room packed with mercenaries. The uncomfortable meal ended, and after saying goodbye to Martin, we left the inn.

It hadn’t been long, but questions slipped into the small talk had yielded a little more information. ‘The Red Bear Mercenary Company, was it?’ I knew the company the two mercenaries belonged to, where they stayed, and something of their relationship with Martin. It wasn’t much, but it was enough. There were a few more things I wanted to know, though they would never answer me. Besides, someone else could find out for me.

After leaving the inn, we looked around the rest of the route, from the noisy shopping district to the top of the outer wall, where we could see the whole city. As expected, nowhere looked dangerous, and we returned to the castle in good time. We parted after passing through the inner walls. Hugo seemed to be going to report our return, and Bianca said she was going to see Adria. Bianca hadn’t been beside her when I first saw Adria, so I’d thought the two had no connection yet. Apparently I was wrong.

I didn’t go straight to my room either. I found Juan and asked him to investigate the Red Bear Mercenary Company. I didn’t like asking a soldier from our domain to investigate a mercenary company in the marquis’s territory, but I had no real alternative. Fortunately, Juan agreed to help me again. For a moment, I thought I caught the kindly smile of an adult watching a child play detective—the sort I’d seen in my previous life. I did my best to ignore it.

When I finished and returned to my room, one of Adria’s maids was waiting with an invitation card in her hand.

“An invitation to a tea party?”

“Yes. Lady Adria hopes you’ll join her and Lord Simon for tea. There’s something she’d like to ask you about tomorrow’s outing.”

When I tilted my head, the maid explained why I’d been invited. But even after hearing her explanation, I didn’t understand. Adria had never invited me before, and tomorrow I was simply going out with Simon. There was no reason to invite me to tea.

‘Am I there to make up the numbers? I’ll probably spend the whole time watching Simon’s mood...’

Still, refusing would be impolite. Sunset was a long way off, and there was plenty of time for tea before dinner. I washed up quickly and followed the maid. As I’d expected, Adria’s sitting room was clean and tastefully simple. Simon frowned when he saw me enter. I knew this would happen. Lunch had been hard enough to stomach; the tea promised to leave an equally bitter taste.

“Welcome,” Adria said warmly. Contrary to what I’d thought, I—not Simon—was the guest of honor at this tea party.

“Bianca told me a little while ago. You met my brother Martin today?” As soon as I sat down, she revealed the real reason she’d invited me. “You traveled here with him too, didn’t you? I had no idea. Lord Simon didn’t tell me.”

She shot Simon a look, and he quietly turned his head away. Of course Simon, an aristocrat through and through, would never bring up another noble family’s illegitimate son. In any case, she had invited me because she wanted to hear about her half brother.

But her demure manner kept bothering me. Her personality couldn’t have changed in a year, which meant she was putting on an act. It seemed I would have to be the one to raise it.

“You don’t have to speak so formally to me. I’m much younger than you.”

Adria stopped mid-sentence. She glanced at Simon, then looked around. All the maids had left the sitting room, so there was no one else to hear us. Her face began to twitch, and Simon sighed. At last, she gave up the act.

“Pfft! I really can talk to you normally? Trying to hold back was killing me.”

I’d told her she could drop the formalities, not the whole act. Granted, that was what I’d meant, but I hadn’t expected her to take it quite so literally. It was a good thing I knew what she was really like. Otherwise, I would have been shocked.

Oh, right. I should look shocked.

“Did I surprise you? This is what I’m really like. Lord Simon was pretty surprised when he found out too.”

I glanced at Simon. His eyes were closed, and his face was gloomy. Evidently, she had already let her true self slip during the few days they’d known each other. Then again, if she was telling me this so quickly, she could hardly have kept it up for days around him.

“You have no idea how the adults hounded me to keep acting like a proper young lady. They said the engagement would be called off if Lord Simon found out. And then I’d supposedly be shut in my room for a whole year, doing nothing but flower arranging and etiquette lessons day and night!” She grinned at Simon. “But they were wrong about everything. Lord Simon was surprised when he realized I’d been pretending, but he didn’t mind at all. He’s a good person.”

Simon smiled back at her, though gloom still hung over his face.

Unfortunately, Adria had the wrong idea about Simon. It wasn’t because he was a good person that he had accepted her true nature. His face was full of anguish. He looked unable to understand why he’d fallen for a girl with this personality—or rather, how the girl he’d fallen for could have this personality.

Besides, the way Adria had called him “a good person” sounded painfully familiar. A good person. A nice guy. In my previous life, single men heard that sort of thing from women they knew all the time. I’d heard it a few times mysel— No, this was no time to think about that.

I offered silent comfort to Simon as he gazed at Adria dejectedly. ‘That’s first love for you, brother.’

Once the brief commotion passed, the mood in the sitting room grew much more relaxed. I wiped the surprise from my face and told Adria what had happened, from meeting Martin to our conversations and sparring matches. She listened with delight. She was surprised by how we’d met, tried to remember what he’d said, and lit up when I mentioned our sparring.

Huh. Maybe I should have left that part out.

At any rate, she looked like someone hearing news of a brother she’d been separated from long ago. In my previous life, she had refused to believe Martin was behind what happened. Judging by her expression now, they must have been very close as children.

“You and Martin must have been close.”

“Yeah. He didn’t get along with the other siblings, but he and I were really close. I worried about him a lot after he left home and I stopped hearing from him.”

Okay. At last, it was time to ask what I’d been wanting to know.

“Why did Martin leave the castle? It seems he’s awakened too...”

“Alex!” Simon called my name sharply, warning me not to ask questions that were none of my business. The first time he’d ever called me by name, and it was only to scold me. What a wonderful brother he was, as always.

“Oh, am I not supposed to ask? Since I’m an illegitimate son too, I was curious how it happened.” I made myself look as pitiful as possible. I had to make the most of that tactic while I could. In a few years, it might do more harm than good.

Adria hesitated. She looked at Simon, then at me. One of us had come here for their engagement. The other was his younger brother—and an illegitimate son, just like her own brother. She glanced around the room once more, then began speaking quietly.

“Martin left home partly because his inherited ability was stronger than other people’s, but in the end, it was because of his younger sister.”

The marquis’s family secrets began to spill from her lips.