Rather Than Be Taken, I Will Take - Chapter 60

“Does my lord not like it? Then what should I call you? Miss? Lady?”

It seemed like an answer given after serious consideration, but somehow I had a feeling that I shouldn’t let him call me that way.

“Sit down and let’s talk.”

Jieselgrante decided to have a calm conversation and sat on the sofa.

Then the young man tried to sit next to her.

“No. Sit over there.”

Jieselgrante immediately offered the seat across from her.

Fortunately, the young man sat on the opposite sofa as she told him to without complaint.

The young man looked at Jieselgrante with an expression asking if this was okay. She nodded and observed his appearance.

As she felt yesterday, she couldn’t sense any of the submissiveness or humility typical of slaves from the young man.

Moreover, his posture was strangely upright.

This meant there was a high possibility he had received etiquette education from a young age.

In his choice of words and manner of speech, there was a subtle air of nobility.

From his imperial accent and appearance, it was clearly evident that he was from Solzakai.

Jieselgrante speculated that the young man could be a noble from Solzakai.

Soon she decided she should treat him more carefully and changed her manner of speech.

“My name is Jieselgrante.”

“…As a slave, I cannot carelessly call my master’s name.”

“It seems you don’t want to tell me your name.”

“……”

“Alright. We’re done with titles. Can you tell me how you ended up being captured?”

The moment she asked that question, a shadow fell over the young man’s face, which had been relaxed until then.

“Do I have to?”

“It must be an uncomfortable memory to recall… but please. For the sake of the people of Solzakai who might be captured as slaves and become playthings of the nobles here in the future.”

The young man’s face contorted.

He seemed to be recalling painful memories. But soon he continued speaking with difficulty.

“I… probably fall into a somewhat special category.”

After that, Jieselgrante continued to ask the young man various questions.

How he came to be here, and what process he went through.

He never answered questions immediately, but Jieselgrante persistently attempted to converse with the young man.

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“Would you please wait here for a moment?”

The maid of Duke Amaterasu’s household asked Cabelased for understanding and walked towards the door.

The maid soon knocked on the door and said,

“Young lady, a guest has come to visit you.”

“Who is it?”

Jieselgrante’s voice was heard from beyond the door.

“It’s Duke Cardia, my lady.”

“……”

Perhaps because it was such an unexpected visitor, there was no response from inside the reception room beyond the door for a while.

When the maid was glancing at Cabelased with a troubled expression, the door opened.

Jieselgrante, who took a step into the hallway, tilted her head and stared at Cabelased.

An expression of great surprise was clearly visible on her face.

Well, she probably never expected that he would come to visit her first.

“You… came to see me?”

Cabelased nodded with an expressionless face and said,

“I’d like to have a conversation. Could you spare me a moment?”

From his perspective, it was the most gentlemanly way to make a proposal, but Jieselgrante didn’t answer immediately and hesitated.

Come to think of it, it was truly a laughable situation.

It had always been her who asked him to spare time first. Then he would think for a while before giving an answer.

But now the situation was completely reversed. It seemed he wasn’t the only one feeling awkward about the reversed situation.

“Then let’s go to the reception room.”

As she moved to change locations, one of Cabelased’s eyebrows raised slightly.

“My lady.”

“Yes.”

“I believe the place you just came out of is the reception room for guests.”

“……”

Jieselgrante made a troubled expression at Cabelased’s perfectly rational suggestion to have a conversation right in front of them without going far.

Having visited the Duke Amaterasu’s residence more than once or twice, he had a fairly thorough understanding of the inside of this spacious mansion.

And Jieselgrante must have known this fact as well.

“What’s wrong?”

As Cabelased asked, Jieselgrante was about to say something when her lips parted.

“…Master?”

Following a husky baritone, a young, handsome man with tanned skin walked out of the reception room.

“…!”

Jieselgrante’s eyes widened like a startled rabbit.

On the other hand, Cabelased’s handsome brow furrowed slightly.

“Did I… hear that correctly just now?”

Cabelased asked to confirm.

‘Master, he said.’

At that, Jieselgrante’s white, pale cheeks turned bright red.

“Well, that is…”

Her flustered and panicking appearance was very unfamiliar, but a bit cute.

‘Wait a minute…’

Cabelased questioned his own thought about Jieselgrante.

‘That Duke Amaterasu’s daughter… cute?’

Cabelased’s brow furrowed in real-time.

Watching this, Jieselgrante soon opened her mouth.

“There’s a good reason for this. Of course! It’s a situation that’s easy to misunderstand, but…”

Although she clearly looked very troubled, Cabelased didn’t stop and pressed her further.

“Misunderstand? Ah, yes. I suppose I could listen to your excuses about what I’m misunderstanding.”

“……”

“But your hospitality is quite lacking. How long do you intend to keep me standing here?”

“If you’re not going to send him away, shall I show the guest inside, Master?”

The tanned young man called Jieselgrante ‘Master’ again, and her cheeks, which had been returning to their original color, flushed red once more.

[This is the timeline separator]

The three people who entered the reception room were busy examining each other.

First, Jieselgrante started racking her brains about how to explain about that slave young man.

It seemed that if she told Cabelased about the slave trade taking place, she could get help in punishing Baron Cypress.

If she could expose the slave trade and cut out the rotten parts, it would be very good for Jieselgrante.

If it could be disguised as Cabelased’s achievement, her existence could be thoroughly concealed.

If that happened, it would help in removing one of the Empress’s forces.

But before that, an explanation of how she came to know about Baron Cypress’s business had to precede.

It would be impossible without mentioning her connection to Count Frederick.

‘Is there any clever way to induce Cabelased to ban Baron Cypress’s slave trade without mentioning Count Frederick…’

While Jieselgrante was absorbed in such thoughts, Cabelased also had many thoughts.

‘Master? How ridiculous.’

Recalling the slave young man who had called Jieselgrante that just now, three distinct wrinkles appeared on Cabelased’s brow.

Cabelased’s straightforward gaze turned towards the slave young man.

Despite his rather sharp gaze, the slave young man sat closely next to Jieselgrante, unconcerned.

Cabelased glanced around briefly.

The sofas in the reception room were very large and spacious.

Enough for at least 12 people to sit comfortably. Which means there was absolutely no need for that person to sit so close to Jieselgrante as if it were natural.

“……”

Meanwhile, the slave young man, or rather Lawrence, was speculating about the relationship between his owner who had bought him and the man sitting across from her.

‘Judging by what he’s wearing, he’s at least a duke, maybe even higher in status.’

His owner Jieselgrante also seemed to be a high-ranking noble, so perhaps they were each other’s fiancés.

‘Hmm…’

Lawrence’s brow also furrowed deeply.

The fiancée had bought a slave. And a young, handsome slave with a good body at that.

Usually, slave trading was said to be more popular among older noble ladies whose relationships with their husbands had cooled, rather than young ladies.

So he had thought he would be presented to an elderly noble lady.

But unexpectedly, the one who met him was a young lady around Lawrence’s age or slightly younger.

Lawrence wasn’t foolish enough to judge a person solely by appearance.

He concluded that although she had an innocent appearance, her sadistic nature hidden inside was certainly not delicate.

But Lawrence’s young owner didn’t even brush her fingertips against him.

No, rather, she even seemed to avoid him.

This damaged the pride of Lawrence, who prided himself as one of the most handsome men even in the Kingdom of Solzakai.

So he approached her with some assertiveness, but it seemed to have backfired.

‘She’s not going to send me back to where I was before, is she?’

Lawrence glanced at his owner beside him with slightly anxious eyes.

Her attitude of seemingly having no interest in him at all remained unchanged.

With his side profile feeling hot, Lawrence glanced at the man in front of him.

‘…It doesn’t seem like he’s her fiancé.’

He had briefly suspected that the man across from him was her fiancé because of the burning gaze directed at him, but thinking about it again, that didn’t seem to be the case.

What woman would want her fiancé to find out that she had bought a young slave before marriage?

Unless she was trying to create a perfect reason for breaking off the engagement.

“I think it’s better to make things clear.”

The first to break the silence pervading the reception room was Jieselgrante.

Somehow, the situation of seeming to make excuses to Cabelased was inwardly unpleasant, but she couldn’t just sit idle either.

Before Cabelased misunderstood her as having a hobby of bringing young men into her bedroom.

“The reason I brought this man here is because I couldn’t just pass by knowing there would be inhumane treatment.”

“Didn’t you know from the beginning that slave trading was taking place there?”

Jieselgrante’s eyes widened slightly at Cabelased’s sharp question.

“…When you say ‘there’, you mean?”

“Baron Cypress’s villa.”

“…!”

Jieselgrante was silently shocked.

‘How does he know?’

Anyone could easily guess there was a suspicious relationship from seeing the young man call her ‘Master’.

But that alone shouldn’t be enough to reach the conclusion of slave trading and Baron Cypress.