Despite Prince Alfonso’s order, Cesare did not immediately let go of Ariadne’s wrist. Nevertheless, Alfonso was not flustered or agitated, and he walked up to Cesare without raising his voice at all, speaking in a calm tone.

“It seems you didn’t hear my words. Let go of that hand, Count di Como.”

Alfonso, who was four years younger than Cesare, was still clearly a boy to anyone who saw him. The fluff on his cheeks, his soft skin, and his youthful voice couldn’t hide his age. However, the dignity in his bearing made his young age irrelevant.

Cesare was tall for his slender build, standing at 4 piedi and 3 dito (about 183 centimeters). However, Prince Alfonso, who was still growing and half a span shorter than him, had straight, broad shoulders and a solid build, so he did not yield at all standing next to Cesare, who was much taller than him.

In that confrontation, the prince spoke warmly once more.

“And it seems the count has also forgotten to show respect to royalty.”

This was not something that could be ignored. If a commoner failed to show respect to royalty, they would be punished for the crime of insulting the royal family. Cesare had not received recognition from Leo III. He was not officially royalty.

Cesare gritted his teeth and, still holding Ariadne’s wrist, bowed his head to Alfonso in the way one does to royalty.

Alfonso glanced at Ariadne’s wrist, which Cesare was holding, then looked straight at Cesare and spoke once more. The prince’s voice was very calm, without inflection like a drop of water sliding across marble.

“Count di Como. Not that greeting. We are meeting for the first time today.”

In the Etruscan kingdom, when formally presenting oneself to royalty, both men and women knelt on one knee on the floor and bowed their heads for the initial greeting.

If they met for the second time on the same day, or if the royalty made an exception due to old age or mobility issues, or if they were very close, men could substitute the bow to royalty and women could substitute a curtsy holding the hem of their dress.

Prince Alfonso was pointing this out. Alfonso usually let the formality of greeting royalty slide in most cases, but this time he made no concessions.

Cesare gritted his teeth, let go of Ariadne’s wrist, took a step back, then knelt on one knee to the floor and deeply bowed his head to Alfonso.

Each movement was slow and full of resentment. He was gritting his teeth so much that the muscles in his jaw looked like they would burst. Ariadne thought Cesare would be so angry tonight that he wouldn’t be able to sleep.

‘Kneeling is the thing Cesare hates most in the world.’

And out of all the kneeling, what Cesare hated the most was kneeling to Alfonso, his half-brother.

There was a time when Ariadne thought that about 30% of the reason Cesare decided to usurp the throne was because if he became king, he wouldn’t have to kneel to anyone except the Pope.

Alfonso didn’t even accept Cesare’s greeting right away. He left Cesare kneeling on the floor and greeted Ariadne, who had been freed from Cesare’s grip and was rubbing her wrist.

“Good afternoon, Lady di Mare.”

“I greet Prince Alfonso, the small sun of the kingdom.”

Just as she was about to kneel to greet him, Prince Alfonso grabbed her arm and stopped her.

“Lady di Mare, we already met this morning.”

He meant that only Cesare had to kneel, and Ariadne didn’t necessarily have to.

Ariadne tried her hardest to hold back the small laughter that threatened to burst out. Fortunately, she succeeded in restraining herself from making a sound, so only Prince Alfonso saw her smiling expression, and Cesare, who had his head bowed, heard nothing.

Prince Alfonso smiled brightly and pulled Ariadne towards him.

“Lady di Mare, come this way. The Count and Countess of Cibo are waiting.”

Ariadne nodded and moved behind Alfonso’s back.

Cesare was still kneeling. Alfonso only accepted Cesare’s greeting after Ariadne had moved a safe distance away from him, as if he had forgotten.

“Ah, Count di Como. It was nice to meet you. You may go now.”

Ariadne, standing behind Prince Alfonso, added a word to Cesare, whose face was flushed with anger.

“Oh, and you’ll be paying for the repairs to the Cibo family’s floor!”

Cesare barely restrained himself from kicking a stone, despite being in front of Prince Alfonso.

That little runt!

Ariadne and Alfonso walked towards the Cibo family’s main residence, chatting.

“That was amazing, Ariadne. Did you already know it was a forgery?”

She did know… but it was hard to explain. She couldn’t say she had seen it in the future of her past life.

“I only suspected it. The work was too clean. I’m so glad it worked out in the end.”

“If you had given me a hint beforehand, I wouldn’t have bought it.”

“I didn’t know you would buy it!”

Prince Alfonso smiled sheepishly. He seemed to turn into an idiot whenever he was in front of this girl.

“That’s true.”

But after a moment, he had another thought. Were they not close enough for her to share even uncertain stories with him?

So the prince asked again.

“But why did you expose it if you weren’t sure?”

Alfonso had words he wanted to hear, although he wasn’t consciously aware of it. So he persistently asked for her answer.

“Ah, that’s…”

Ariadne hesitated for a moment. Saying it was because his half-brother did something trashy would have been an appropriate description of what happened, but there was a more honest answer emotionally.

“Because it seemed like you would buy it.”

Prince Alfonso’s face flushed red. It was the answer he had unknowingly yearned for. ‘You’re special’. The words he wanted to hear came from her lips. Alfonso wanted to ask her one more question.

But before the atmosphere could turn strange, Ariadne cheerfully burst into her usual laughter and hit Alfonso’s shoulder. The boy had to close his lips in disappointment.

“You saved 2,000 ducats (about 2 billion won) thanks to me, right? You have to pay me back?”

Thanks to her frankness, Alfonso was forcibly pulled out of his own thoughts. He laughed with her as well.

“Is that how it works? This is a really large amount? How should I repay this favor, my lady?”

“Immediate payment of 2,000 gold ducats?”

“There was a bandit here!”

Alfonso took a big step back and raised both hands and feet, pretending to be startled.

“The Porto merchant at least brought a fake statue, but the lady wants to eat it raw!”

Looking at Prince Alfonso’s face, Ariadne laughed brightly once more.

“Grant me a wish later!”

“A wish? What will you wish for?”

In response to the prince’s question, Ariadne shrugged casually.

“I don’t know either.”

“Alright, got it.”

Prince Alfonso readily accepted the promise to fulfill a debt whose contents had not even been determined. If the court officials had seen it, they would have shouted in unison, “Please be cautious, Your Highness, you must not do that”.

But right now, he wanted to give Ariadne anything. Any excuse to be entangled with her was good. If Ariadne asked for the kingdom, he could pretend to negotiate and see her for three more weeks.

“Sigh, I think I should go in now.”

For the first time between them, it was Prince Alfonso who announced the end of today’s meeting. Alfonso had to hurry back to the palace to match the schedule for the evening dinner gathering at the royal palace.

Reluctant to leave, he glanced at Ariadne a few times, then mimicked writing with his hand.

“Write to me!”

“Huh?”

“No, I’ll write to you! Write back!”

Ariadne nodded without thinking. The prince reconfirmed.

“You have to write back!”

Even though Ariadne kept nodding like a broken wind-up doll, Prince Alfonso didn’t seem reassured and only got on the carriage after receiving confirmation two or three times.

As the gilded carriage noisily left the front gate of the Cibo residence, the curtain behind the carriage was pulled back and Prince Alfonso’s face appeared, looking out the window.

Ariadne smiled and waved for a long time until the carriage was no longer visible.

After the news spread throughout San Carlo that Ariadne had exposed the Porto merchant’s scam at the Cibo residence, she was worried that she would be dragged to Cardinal di Mare again and forced to reveal the source of her ‘foresight’.

She searched the house, found all the books on antiques, archeology, and the history of ancient Hellenia, then stacked them high in her newly created study and read them.

She only breathed a sigh of relief and found leisure after thoroughly organizing which chapters and verses the relevant contents appeared in, so that she could immediately memorize and answer when someone asked her ‘how did you know that fact?’.

The one who impersonated ‘Vincenzio del Gatto’, a merchant from the Republic of Porto, turned out to be an illegitimate son of a Rastheran noble who was a sculptor.

They were gambling buddies, but after getting into a fight with the real Vincenzio del Gatto over gambling funds and accidentally committing murder, they decided to borrow Vincenzio del Gatto’s name to settle the gambling debts they incurred since they had already killed someone, and to rob his art warehouse and pull off a big scam before disappearing.

‘Cesare must have ended up like a dog chasing a chicken.’

Ariadne was inwardly delighted to hear this story. Cesare probably thought there would be conflicts with merchant organizations, rights disputes, and internal issues in the Republic of Porto, so he started this to gain favor in his father’s eyes.

But after digging into everything, it turned out to be an individual’s deviant behavior, which wasn’t even worth the cost of the Cibo family’s floor.

The sky was high and the weather was clear. It was a beautiful early autumn, with the heat leaving early. Then one day, Cardinal di Mare summoned both Ariadne and Lucrezia to his reception room.

– Knock knock.

Ariadne knocked on the door of Cardinal di Mare’s reception room and carefully entered. Lucrezia was already sitting inside.

“Father, did you call for your unfilial child?”

“Yes. Sit down.”

She had always diligently called him ‘Your Eminence’ in front of others, except when she wanted to annoy him, but her heart had somewhat softened after his promise to hold a debutante ball for her, so she ended up calling him father.

Lucrezia seemed to dislike that form of address, or perhaps she had already heard something from Cardinal di Mare, as her expression was full of discontent.

“I’ve already talked to your mother. Since you’re of age now, I assume you’ll have various personal expenses.”

‘I bought a safe and bought artworks.’

She was talking back in her mind, but outwardly Ariadne just bowed her head even more.

“I apologize, Father.”

“No, no, it’s only natural for a grown daughter to have reasonable personal expenses. So, I was thinking it might be good for you to directly receive an allowance and manage your personal expenses. We should hold a debutante ball soon, right?”

Ariadne’s expression brightened.

“I can only express my gratitude for Father’s grace.”

“You haven’t been able to enjoy life until now, so you should catch up even if it’s late. I’ll give you the entire budget for the debutante ball as well.”

Cardinal di Mare glanced sideways at Lucrezia.

“It seems your mother hasn’t been feeling well lately, so she won’t be able to help much with the ball preparations.”

Lucrezia was as healthy as a partridge.

However, Cardinal di Mare rationally predicted that if he entrusted the preparations for his second daughter’s ball, which Lucrezia disliked, to Lucrezia, about half of the total budget would briefly stay in Lucrezia’s back pocket before all flowing to Lucrezia’s tiresome relatives.

The disgrace of the di Mare family’s shabby ball prepared with a punctured budget would fall on him, the head of the family.

Lucrezia didn’t want to say with her own mouth that she had her back pocket cut and lost some of the family’s economic power.

So she decided to go along with Cardinal di Mare’s excuse and pretend to be sick, and Ariadne also had no intention of bringing up the factual truth and ruining the meal when the two of them had already reached an agreement.

So they exchanged a word or two of well-wishes, sincerely worrying about the very healthy Lucrezia’s health.

“I’ll give you 150 ducats (about 150 million won) for now. Prepare with this, and if it’s not enough, come and ask for more anytime.”

He didn’t trust his wife, but he also didn’t trust his little fifteen-year-old daughter. Cardinal di Mare thought the appropriate budget for a debutante ball was about 300 ducats, and 500 ducats at most if they ended up spending the maximum. He intended to give a tight amount first and check the progress.

“I understand, Father.”

But Ariadne was a pro among pros who had managed the Etruscan royal palace’s finances for nine years.