“But now, whether you die in this unknown village corner or seize this chance is up to your choice.”

Short and to the point.

Hertian presented the options.

It wasn’t so much a choice as it was an order.

Of course, he had to choose the latter.

For some reason, Melson felt strange that the words didn’t come out readily.

“If you don’t choose either, you’ll die anyway.”

At the continued statement, Melson couldn’t hide his bewilderment.

“Even if you try to escape, you’ll die.”

“O-of course, I will help Your Excellency.”

He had said the words, but wasn’t the plan to run away if caught? Melson thought to himself.

At that moment, Hertian reached out to Melson.

“Now that it’s done, I need to get out of this pit.”

Melson hesitated, but since there was no other way out of the deeply dug hole, he reluctantly took Hertian’s hand.

They pulled him out of the hole, and just as Melson was about to release his hand and sigh, Hertian stabbed a dagger into it. Blood spurted out from the wrinkled back of his hand.

“Agh!”

Hertian, stained with blood, dropped a droplet onto his ring, revealing a satisfied smile.

“I wanted to try this too.”

Melson was horrified.

Seeing someone laugh while looking at his own blood, the author must be quite insane.

“It’s a location-tracking spell.”

He manipulated the ring to display a map.

Above it, a map pointing to this location appeared. Melson blinked, looking back and forth between his hand and Hertian’s map.

“What are you doing now…!”

“Why? If you’re not going to escape, it doesn’t matter if I track your whereabouts, right?”

“…”

While chewing his lips, Melson, with bloodied hands, looked at Hertian’s face.

“Now that I’ve linked your blood with my magic ring, I can know anytime where you are and what you’re doing.”

“What?”

“Why? If you’re not going to die, there’s no way to dismantle this magic. So, let’s not entertain useless thoughts. From now on, report to me immediately if that big shot comes. Write down everything you’ve seen and heard at the Marquisate and send it to me. Otherwise, the next thing you’ll see is the cross-section of your wrist.”

Melson trembled with pain and fear, experiencing it for the first time in his life. The location tracker was just the beginning. The Duke seemed to be speaking the truth, so Melson had no choice but to acquiesce.

“Yes, I will do as you say.”

Hertian, satisfied with the absence of mischief, added the dagger back to its sheath.

Melson secretly sighed in relief.

“Was the person who paid you a woman?”
However, this time, she couldn’t manage her expression and coughed, inhaling sharply. Hertian’s eyes narrowed.

“Right.”

“H-how did you know? It’s absolutely, absolutely not true that I know your identity.”

Melson, thinking that he had concealed the truth, stammered, waving his bleeding hand as he explained.

“I was trying to organize everything and tell you. I never intended to hide…”

“With your tiny brain, how did you manage to deceive people and carry out scams?”

Hertian looked down on Melson in disdain.

“Go back and run your shop. Report immediately if that person approaches.”

His jacket had a location-tracking enchantment attached. It was connected to his own ring.

“A swindler deceived so easily.”

The injury to his hand was the price for preventing the marriage between him and Annette. It was nothing more and nothing less. Hertian, about to release Melson, remembered the purpose of coming here and said,

“Before you go back to the store, find a book for me.”

“First, let me apply some medicine to the wound…”

“Is the opposite hand decorative?”

Hertian chuckled.

“Then make it the same.”

Melson felt like he was looking at a devil.

Although he had entered the carriage, my heart didn’t calm down.

I came out of the carriage again and headed to the market.

Melson’s store.

Among the various items filling the place, the conspicuous ones were not just violet shells. Some items that weren’t supposed to appear at this time were also seen.

They were items discovered at different times, but in this store, they monopolized them all.

“All these items earned from my money.”

Especially, there were many items that the protagonists could use in the story.

I went into the store and looked for any ledger or notes Melson might have written. As expected, under the money chest, I found a worn-out notebook. It was a ledger with detailed records of large sums changing hands and where the transactions took place.

“The person who instructed Melson to do business must be that guy.”

Violet, the person manipulating Melson from behind, could only be her.

She was recognized as a prophet by the empress. If she really knew how to predict, it would be possible to monopolize such items in advance.

‘Violet didn’t suddenly change. I didn’t interfere with the original, either.’

Doubts turned into convictions.

The change in Violet’s feelings toward Serdis.

Employing someone like Melson by scraping together funds.

All the information indicated that Violet was not the original protagonist. Violet, the innocent and pitiful heroine in the novel, was not the woman I knew.

“More than anything else, it seems she aimed for Lian.”

If she aimed for Lian, then Lian might know about Violet. He was the only person who knew that I had possessed someone.

‘I should go back to the marquisate after parting ways with Hertian.’

Thinking like that, I left the store.

“Are you the possessor?”

At a strange question that came from afar, I turned my head.