Olentia’s eyes sank coldly.

She had taken a servant’s carriage, but worried that the sharp-eyed Sokol might have followed her, she got off a bit far from the lawyer’s office. She intended to walk slowly with Bobby.

However, Shine Street happened to be in the midst of a festival, and people poured out of an alley. They cawed like crows and pushed their bodies forward recklessly.

Olentia frowned as she looked at them.

“Hey kids! Let’s go drink! Today is a drinking day!”

“The day the deer god blessed us!”

‘What on earth are they talking about?’

A moment later, Olentia was trapped by people, unable to move, and somehow separated from Bobby.

“Eek! Miss!”

“Bobby!”

It was the first time she had been left alone in a crowded place. Olentia craned her neck, trying to find Bobby.

That’s when it happened.

“Ah!”

A small, scrawny boy quickly snatched the bag she was holding and escaped from the crowd. The bag contained a considerable down payment for hiring the lawyer.

“Just a moment! Let me out please.”

Everyone was so strong, they wouldn’t budge.

After a long struggle, Olentia finally squeezed out of the crowd and looked around for where the boy had run off to.

“I think he went this way. Or maybe not?”

Turning into an alley, she came upon a place with a famous weapons shop.

At that moment, ding dong!

As the bell rang, a man with an enormous build came out of the weapons shop.

A face as white as if painted with gypsum.

No, not a white face, but the man was wearing a white Bauta mask covering his entire face. His black hair was neat, and his shoulders were broad.

Olentia was startled and pointed at the man, shouting.

“Th-the man from my dream?”

A large man wearing a plain white Bauta mask.

Surely the man from her dream. The other party to the contract marriage.

Olentia felt her throat go dry as her chest heaved. Perhaps because of hearing the bell, it felt even more like fate.

However, the man who was pointed at paid no attention to Olentia staring at him and went on his way. There was no reaction, to the point of embarrassment.

Olentia’s finger felt particularly empty.

Looking at the shoulders as wide as the sea, the tall stature, and the appropriately slim waist, the husband from her dream came to mind even more vividly.

Without realizing it, Olentia grabbed the hem of his clothes.

“Ju-just a moment!”

It was the first time she had ever grabbed a man’s clothes first. At social parties, men always lined up in front of her.

The man’s expression was unreadable due to the mask. He just looked down at her, exuding a cold and intimidating aura.

“…What is it?”

The man’s voice was exactly like the low, husky voice she had heard in her dream.

Olentia felt the chills intensify as she trembled, still holding onto his clothes.

“So… haven’t we met somewhere before?”

In the end, she resorted to what sounded like an old pickup line. But Olentia spoke with all sincerity.

She thought that the dream she had yesterday was no ordinary dream. She still vividly remembered it, even though she usually forgot dreams within half a day, and was even replaying it in her mind. It was truly strange.

“I don’t believe we have. I’m not sure what this is about.”

His answer was full of perplexity.

‘I suppose I’d react the same way.’

But Olentia disliked feeling unsettled. The dream kept bothering her.

“I have a face that’s hard to forget once seen. Are you sure we haven’t met? There’s something on my mind.”

Olentia was quite confident in her appearance. So she uttered somewhat childish words, but the man chuckled as he fastened the cuff buttons on his wrist. Only then did the man seem to show interest in Olentia.

“Unfortunately, I think I’ll forget by tomorrow.”

“Wh-what did you say?”

“I also tend to forget everything unless it’s important.”

‘He’s clearly mocking what I said.’

Olentia’s face turned red with anger bubbling up inside her, her fists clenched tight. Although she had stopped a passerby and wasted their time, it was the first time she had met such a rude man.

Olentia looked the man in the black uniform up and down. Judging by the quality of his clothes, he seemed to be from a rather well-off family. But was he attending a masquerade ball so early in the morning? If so, she should have known.

If she got closer, surely there would be the smell of alcohol…

She sniffed a bit to check, but instead of alcohol, the man smelled of bitter wood. It was a unique perfume scent that suited him quite well.

Feeling inexplicably upset, Olentia turned her head away sharply.

“I’m so sorry for my rudeness! I’ll be going now.”

He was just wearing a mask after all, not the sweet and pretty man from her dream. Olentia looked around, trying to find Bobby as she left the alley. She had already given up on finding the bag with the down payment.

“Hmm. I suppose she would have gone to Karunda Law Office?”

She calculated that if Bobby had any sense, she would have gone there since that was their destination. But the problem was that Olentia didn’t know any of the streets in Shine Street.

Olentia wandered aimlessly around Shine Street with a dejected expression.

“Where on earth is the office?”

She desperately wanted to ask passersby for directions, but having never done such a thing before, it wasn’t easy. It also hurt her pride.

Finally, after walking until her legs ached, Olentia spotted the boy who had snatched her bag. The boy was walking confidently through Shine Street as if it were his own living room, accompanied by men in shiny satin suits.

“You, you!”

Olentia immediately called out to the boy, but the respectable-looking men beside him suddenly turned their heads to look at her as a group. Their gaze was quite persistent and lewd. It was as if predators had found suitable prey and were prowling around.

Olentia suddenly felt goosebumps and hugged her shoulders with both hands.

“No. You keep it. Keep it.”

She sensed something strange, but she had no intention of recklessly demanding money back. As she turned around to carefully move away, a man with snake-like eyes grabbed Olentia’s shoulder with one hand.

“Miss? Didn’t you have something to say to us?”

Olentia was very afraid, but she held back and opened her mouth.

“No?”

The man then revealed his yellow teeth in a smile. He spat on the ground and spoke again.

“It seemed like you had something to say. Didn’t you all hear it?”

The men around him chuckled as a group.

Unlike the man with the Bauta mask from earlier, this man reeked of cheap perfume. He had doused himself in tuberose, aldehyde, and neroli, but it was a truly mismatched combination. If she stayed with him any longer, she felt like she might get sick.

“We were just looking for a good actor to perform in our troupe, you know? For example…”

At that moment, the man stroked Olentia’s soft hair as he spoke.

“A role like a prostitute whispering seductively to her pimp. And you seem perfect for it!”

Olentia froze, unable to do anything.

‘You don’t know how scary the outside world is, Olentia.’

She suddenly remembered Sokol, who always refused when she said she wanted to go out, saying it was too dangerous.

‘Are you just going to stand here frozen and be insulted? Do something! Olentia!’

Finally coming to her senses, Olentia rolled her eyes, surveying her surroundings. In a situation without Bobby or her knight escort, escape was the top priority.

Olentia kicked the man standing close to her in his vital area.

Thwack!

“Get lost! You crazy bastard!”

‘You think I can’t swear?’

As Olentia started running like mad, the men behind her began chasing after her as a group, spewing curses.

“How dare you!”

“Stop right there!”

Fortunately, she was wearing a Garibaldi shirt with good mobility and a skirt that came above her ankles.

Olentia ran to save her life, not caring whether the people on the street were fanning themselves with surprised expressions. She also randomly knocked over items on display stands to prevent them from getting close. It was the first time she had run so irresponsibly and undignifiedly.

“I’m sorry! I’m really sorry!”

As Olentia apologized to the stand owner,

“You, if we catch you, we won’t let you off easy. We’ll throw you into the wolf den that very day!”

The voice of the man whose vital area had been kicked growled nearby.

It was truly a dire situation. It seemed she would be caught soon.

Just as Olentia’s breath was rising to her chin,

“A wolf den for a lady? I think a rabbit hutch would suit her much better than wolves.”

A man with a body as solid as a mountain appeared in front of her.

A white face.

No! It was the man wearing the white Bauta mask.

The one she had briefly felt was fate in front of the weapons shop.

He stood with his arms crossed, looking at the group in satin suits. Even though he was just looking, there was a strangely intense aura about him. She had an odd feeling that no one could defeat this masked man.

“Y-you!”

“Th-th-that!”

“I-I-I! I! So!”

The group facing the man suddenly seemed to have forgotten how to speak. Their attitude was strange. They all shrank like they had been hit by a cold wind and started dry heaving. Their faces were covered in cold sweat, and their whole bodies trembled like aspen leaves. Even seeing a monster wouldn’t cause such a reaction.

‘Why on earth are they acting like this?’

The man clicked his tongue, then escorted Olentia to a carriage.