I asked Clemens when the twins would arrive, but Clemens said he didn’t know.

“They should have been home already.”

According to Clemens, the twins’ semester should have already ended.

But there was no news, so when he contacted the dormitory, he got the answer that the twins had already packed up and left.

Bart and Chrissy went to Rosen to look for the twins whose communication had been cut off.

‘Surely nothing bad has happened?’

Though they were villains, they were still young children. Hearing that news of the twins had suddenly stopped, I couldn’t help but feel uneasy.

“Clemens, are you very worried about the twins?”

“Yes, I’m worried.”

Clemens let out a deep sigh.

“I wonder where they are causing trouble again instead of coming home. The knights will have to find them as soon as possible.”

‘…So you weren’t worried about the twins.’

As expected, villains don’t worry. Having this realization on my own, I focused again on grasping the fountain pen with one hand.

“It’s not something for the little one to worry about. Now, try copying this again.”

“Ah, okay.”

Clemens pointed to a letter again. I looked at the letter Clemens pointed to and put strength into my hand again.

Although I wrote the letter carefully, the character written on the paper was only crooked.

‘If only my fingers were a little longer, I could write well!’

Originally, I could read letters. So of course I should be able to write them too.

No, that’s what I had naturally thought until now.

That is, until I realized that I couldn’t hold a fountain pen with one hand.

‘I need to grow much more to be able to hold a fountain pen.’

I was shocked by this fact, but I still practiced to be able to continue writing.

Because I need to know how to write to send letters to the kingdom.

Then Sophia caught me doing this.

Sophia was excited and said she would teach me the letters, but she couldn’t.

That news was also passed on to Philen, then to the Duke, and suddenly at some point Clemens became in charge of my letter education.

“But isn’t Clemens busy?”

“Yes, but this time slot just happened to be free.”

It would have been better if Sophia had taught me. According to Clemens, Sophia said she didn’t have time because something urgent came up.

At first, I was very nervous when I heard the news that Clemens was coming to teach me letters.

However, Clemens was a much kinder and more fun teacher than I thought.

Instead of just boringly making me read letters or copy them, he also gave me word quizzes that included specific words.

Thanks to this, even though I already knew the letters, the class wasn’t that boring.

“Now, little one. Look. Duck, Orange, what other words start with the same letter?”

“Octopus?”

“And what else?”

“Um, Oyster!”

“…Right, well done.”

It was strange that he kept giving quizzes only with the letter ‘O’, though.

In a week, I was able to write letters roughly.

Actually, since I could already read, it wasn’t a surprising result.

But Sophia and Delma seemed very surprised.

On the other hand, I recalled that Clemens was very proud without any particular reaction.

‘I thought he would be like that from the first time I saw him.’

I was worried that this might raise suspicion that I wasn’t just an ordinary child, but it was better than pretending to be a child who didn’t know letters forever.

As I walked down the corridor, I looked again at the 11th letter I had written myself.

“Hello, Young Master. I am Diane Crustel. I’ve heard a lot about you from the Duke, so I’m sending my greetings. I hope we can meet someday and become friends.”

Being able to write letters and writing them well were two different things. I had written the letter diligently, but the result was not satisfactory.

‘…I don’t like it.’

I saw the crooked handwriting. I let out a sigh, but there was nothing I could do about it.

Writing legibly enough for others to read was the limit of my fingers.

This morning too, I had thrown away 10 letters with the same content because I wasn’t satisfied with the writing I had been doing all morning.

Then I decided to be satisfied with this much because my fingers felt like they were going to cramp.

‘I want to send the letter as soon as possible anyway.’

Philen said that Kami had rested enough, so it would be okay to send a letter.

Ah, Kami was the new name of the carrier pigeon that Philen had given. He said he named it that because it had all black feathers.

‘Where is Philen?’

I needed to meet Philen to send Kami, but when I asked other servants about his whereabouts, they said he was in the largest room on the first floor of the annex.

My steps were light at the thought that today’s tasks would be over once I sent the letter.

As soon as I opened the door to the largest room on the first floor of the annex, I stopped in my tracks.

The gazes of the people sitting around the table all turned to me at once.

At the murmuring of the people, the Duke sitting at the head of the large table raised his head.

As our eyes met, the Duke’s brow furrowed slightly.

“What is it?”

At the question of why I had come, I quickly rolled my eyes around. But no matter how much I looked, Philen, whom the servants had said was here, was nowhere to be seen.

‘They said he was here!’

I had just burst open the door of this place trusting only what the servants had said.

At that moment, the Duke beckoned me slightly.

‘He probably means don’t disturb and leave, right?’

I took a step back slightly. Then the Duke’s expression showed even more displeasure.

At that moment, I hurriedly walked forward without realizing it. Only then did the wrinkles disappear from his deeply furrowed brow.

As I approached close enough to reach the Duke’s hand, the Duke picked me up abruptly.

‘I’m used to this now.’

It was no longer strange for the Duke to pick me up like a package.

But it wasn’t so in these people’s eyes.

“Ugh!”

“Huh!”

“Th-This person is…”

The people whose eyes were already round opened their eyes even wider.

Even at the general recruitment, I was sitting on the Duke’s lap in front of the vassals. Somehow this scene felt familiar.

‘A scene similar to the last general recruitment day…’

The only difference from the vassals’ general recruitment day was that back then, all the vassals had a sharp and static atmosphere?

Of course, unlike the vassals at the recruitment day, the people now were a little less stiff and their expressions of surprise at seeing me were more diverse.

“Your Excellency, is this the young lady you were looking for?”

“That’s right, you remember well.”

“May I greet the young lady for a moment?”

“Go ahead.”

Sitting on the Duke’s lap, I couldn’t see his expression. But judging from his tone of response, he didn’t seem to be in a particularly bad mood.

“Young lady, hello! I’ve heard a lot about you. I am Dos Ress Sotora!”

“Young lady, please accept my greetings too! I am Hidal Doia.”

“I am Theophila Bazkura!”

From their greetings, I felt one question.

‘Why don’t they mention their titles?’

The vassals always introduced themselves by attaching their titles after their family names.

My curiosity must have been fully evident on my face. The man sitting next to me spoke up.

“If you have any questions, you may ask.”

“Why don’t you mention your titles?”

The man smiled gently.

“Most of us are commoners. We each hold a merchant position in the guild only because His Grace the Duke has given us the qualification.”

‘I see.’

It wasn’t uncommon for commoners to work for a noble family.

Most of the employees in mansions were often commoners, and it wasn’t difficult to see commoner-born among knights.

From the moment they are appointed as knights, they are given the title of baron, which is the lowest rank among the noble ranks.

Moreover, even among nobles, many families didn’t mind much if a knight was of commoner origin when hiring them.

However, when forming a guild operated by the family, when choosing business partners to work with, people’s status cannot be ignored.

The pride of those born as nobles was tremendous.

There were even rumors that if you weren’t a noble, they wouldn’t even sit at the same table.

It was natural for them to choose commoners among their subordinates who served them, but other than that position, no noble would want to work with commoners.

The discrimination they showed towards commoners was natural, and there was nothing to feel guilty about.

However, the Duke was different. He evaluated people solely based on their abilities.

Just as he carefully selected and chose children for adoption based on their abilities, it was the same when selecting workers.

In other words, even if those gathered here were of commoner origin, they couldn’t be easily dismissed as they were likely to be big shots.

‘They’re people whose abilities have been recognized by the Duke.’

Perhaps they might even be more capable than the vassals who were born in noble families from birth.

‘The problem is that he doesn’t discriminate based on character either, just as he doesn’t discriminate based on titles.’

Because he selected people solely based on ability, the Duke didn’t care how heinous crimes they had committed in the past when recruiting people.

Perhaps that’s one of the reasons why assassins could easily infiltrate the Duke’s residence.

If he had been more careful in selecting people, such incidents might have been less frequent.

At that moment, the door suddenly burst open and an elderly man with a plump build rushed in, panting.

“Oh my, I’m sorry I’m late!”

‘Oh, that person!’

Staring at the familiar face, I called out happily.

“It’s the Count!”

As our eyes met, the corners of his mouth rose almost to his cheekbones.

“Young lady! It’s been so long!”

“Yes, hello Count.”

“I’m so glad to see you even now. It was worth coming to the meeting even if late today!”

Even now? Wondering what he meant, I stared at him blankly, and the Count continued.

“You don’t know how many times this old man has come to the Duke’s residence to see you, young lady. Each time, I was turned away with excuses like you were sleeping, eating, or playing, without ever getting to see you.”

‘Huh, really?’

This was the first time I had heard of this. There was no way Sophia or Delma, or even Yan, hadn’t heard the news that the Count had come to see me.

After pondering for a moment, I easily deduced the answer.

There was only one person who could block all the news coming to me while staying at the Duke’s residence.

‘The Duke must have blocked it.’

I glanced up at the Duke, and the Duke was also staring down at me.

“What.”

The Duke asked boldly. He didn’t seem to feel any guilt at all for sending away guests who had come to see me on his own accord.

“Why did you do that?”

“Do what.”

“You just made excuses to the Count, didn’t you?”

“I didn’t make excuses, I told the truth.”

At those words, I frowned.

‘So you’re saying I did nothing but eat, sleep, and play every day?’

I was about to refute, but suddenly closed my mouth.

Come to think of it, I hadn’t really done anything else at the Duke’s residence besides those three things.

As I closed my mouth tightly, the Duke looked triumphant.

“I didn’t lie, did I?”

…He’s right, but why does he seem so annoying?