There was almost nothing in common between Ariadne and Vincenzo Del Gato, the merchant conducting the auction now, but at the moment, the two had the same thought in their minds.

‘Count Cesare, you crazy man!’

‘Such a stoneheaded guy!’

The merchant from Porto hardened his face and desperately shouted at Cesare.

“Why would you have such a ridiculous thought!”

“Well, how would I know? The young lady who made the statement might know.”

He casually looked at his wellgroomed fingernails while speaking.

“Something like a forgery?”

The hall suddenly turned into chaos as if a bomb had just exploded.

“Forgery? Did I hear you correctly?”

“Is a fake?”

“Is it real?”

All eyes in the hall were focused on Cesare and Ariadne, who was sitting right next to him. Ariadne wanted to lie down with a wet towel on her head.

Whether it was a 14year engagement or a commonlaw marriage, Cesare had been like this throughout their lives. He would occasionally cause unimaginable accidents and dump the responsibility on Ariadne.

Back then, she was tied by the name of a fiancee, so she silently cleaned up after Cesare, but why she had to clean up after him even now, she could not understand.

“I don’t know anything about it.”

Ariadne tried to step back, shaking her head from side to side. Just as she was about to make the excuse that a young girl who had not even had a debutante ball would know nothing, Cesare told a blatant lie.

“Your Highness just mentioned earlier. A forgery.”

“I didn’t say that!”

Ariadne desperately protested to Cesare with her mouth. She wanted to correct him quickly and say she had nothing to do with it, but her message was a bit late as she was pouring out swear words.

“Then, young lady! If you have spoken, you should be responsible!”

The merchant from the Republic of Porto, panting heavily, seemed to jump down from the stage to grab Ariadne’s collar.

Ariadne quickly calculated in her head whether she could go home if she burst into tears here and shouted, ‘Why are you adults doing this, I hate both the tall man next to me and the merchant in front of me! I’m still young and don’t know anything!’

It seemed possible.

That’s when she saw Prince Alfonso, who was sitting in the front row, looking at her with a surprised expression.

‘…If I just leave this mess here, will Alfonso take over the problematic statue?’

Regrettably, the last bidder was not Count Marcello, but Prince Alfonso.

‘It was 2000 ducats (about 2 billion won).’

It was a lot of money, but it wasn’t a huge sum for the prince. He wouldn’t starve or sit on the street because he didn’t have that money, and the prince’s palace wouldn’t go bankrupt.

Hold a few modest events that require a large budget, postpone palace repairs for a few years. In the end, the king or queen will bring in the budget from somewhere and fill it up.

But then, because of this, Prince Alfonso would lose his reputation.

Naturally, his throne, which he didn’t know where it had gone wrong, would go one step closer to this crazy man standing next to Ariadne. She didn’t want that to happen.

No, even if he didn’t become a king, she didn’t want to see Alfonso becoming a laughing stock and feeling upset. Ariadne decided to clean up after Cesare one more time for Alfonso’s sake.

“Huh.”

She took a deep sigh, straightened her clothes, and stood up straight. Ariadne, who had finished dressing up, stared at the merchant and shouted loudly.

“Vincenzo Del Gato of Porto. You’re known as a strong merchant in the art auction, right?”

Her loud, goodbass voice filled the hall and attracted the audience’s attention. Ariadne climbed onto a wooden footstool that was lying on the floor so that everyone in the hall could see her well.

It was about the height of one step. She had grown a little over half a Piedi (about 25 centimeters), so it was just right for her to look down on the people in the flat hall.

“Do you think this statue really corresponds to the ‘Victoria Nike’ mentioned by Herodotus in his ‘Hellenia Travels’?”

“Of course, that’s why I brought it, you naive young lady!”

The merchant seemed to forget all courtesy in his excitement. Ariadne ignored this and continued her conversation.

“Herodotus lamented in his ‘Hellenia Travels’ that ‘Her delicate wings were already damaged due to a single destruction by the Moorish army that swept through the temple during the Ceresphon War and restored……’. Is that correct?”

The ‘Hellenia Travels’ was a common textbook for boys studying Greek. There were also some noble men who memorized the corresponding passage.

“Yes, there’s such a passage.”

“Isn’t there a passage written about its restoration?”

The Porto merchant raised his voice in a fit.

“What does it matter if it’s restored! Statues are originally broken and then put back together! If it was broken long ago and restored during the Hellenic period, the value of the artwork is not at all diluted!”