Well, it was just some hair they took anyway. From Noel’s perspective, it would be better to at least visually confirm it rather than just keeping it.

“……”

It was quite a quick result considering he growled that he wouldn’t do such an experiment before reluctantly plucking out a few strands.

In any case, being able to quickly prove the kinship was not a bad situation for them-.

‘…… Should I be happy about this?’

Looking at Noel, who had become haggard overnight, Diana felt conflicted about being completely delighted.

Unable to grasp the situation, Diana rubbed her forehead, which she had just slapped crisply, and rolled her eyes.

Noel, who was looking at Diana with a displeased face, opened his mouth.

“- Yes. I don’t know if it’s unfortunate or fortunate, but since the results came out like this, at least I can tell that you are related to Diana.”

“Then……!”

“However, that doesn’t mean you can become my sister.”

“……”

Diana closed her mouth, subduing the excited look that had risen for a moment at Noel’s cold line.

I didn’t expect it anyway.

‘No- actually, I kind of did.’

She wasn’t convinced that she could completely escape suspicion with a single golden light that appeared in the crystal ball.

No matter how much evidence she brought, how many people would easily believe the claim that a dead person had returned?

In the first place, if his ears were thin enough to be swayed by that level, it would have been impossible for him to inherit the position of Count.

‘But that’s that!’

The frustration was unavoidable.

Even if her head understood, her heart couldn’t accept it, so Diana felt dizzy.

Despite doing this much, the fact that not much had changed from the beginning was so desperate.

Even so, if this was the extent to which his attitude had become cautious due to the crystal ball, there was still a long way to go. Diana frowned unknowingly.

As if he felt the same frustration, Noel raised his hand to brush back his bangs and spoke.

“As I said before, this is just a quick experiment conducted in a hurry, not an accurate one. There is a possibility that the results are wrong, and above all, there are only two samples, so the reliability is low.”

“……”

“So, I’m saying, let me borrow the young master’s hair for a moment.”

“-?!”

What, what are you borrowing?

At Noel’s words, Diana was startled and turned her head.

“……”

“……”

Hiccup!

The child, who had stuffed his mouth full of eclairs and had not yet swallowed, hiccupped at the sudden gaze directed at him.

“Hic! Wh- what are you, hic! Looking at…… Ahem!”

Hurriedly swallowing the snack that had been puffing up his cheeks, the child, as expected, kept coughing as if he had inhaled it.

After groaning for a while, the child soon opened his mouth.

“My, my throat hurts……”

“……”

Of course your throat will get blocked if you eat like that.

There were many things Diana wanted to say, but given the situation, she held her tongue and handed the glass to the child.

It was milk.

The child quickly received the glass and gulped it down, leaving white traces around his mouth.

‘- He looks fine?’

Diana, who had been examining the black head of hair, tilted her head. Contrary to Noel’s declaration, it looked perfectly fine.

It was only after looking around again that Diana realized the meaning of “borrowing” that Noel had mentioned was not referring to the “head”.

Diana twisted her lips, unable to hide her displeasure.

‘…… Hair.’

A few strands of thin black hair Noel was holding – presumably belonging to the child – Diana inwardly exclaimed.

‘Tell me the subject, the subject! You startled me!’

I mean, if you say you’re going to take some hair with such a brutal face, even if I know it’s not true, I’ll still flinch.

Unaware of her inner thoughts, Noel only took out a small bottle of liquid from his subspace.

No, it seemed like he knew and was deliberately trying to get on her nerves.

Anyway, after confirming the liquid Noel took out from the subspace, Diana muttered softly.

“Extract……”

“The accuracy will be lower, but I can’t go back and extract the liquid for ten hours like this, so there’s no other way.”

“Th-then, instead of coming directly, send a letter asking them to send some of Adi’s hair-.”

“And the Duke will obediently send it if we do that?”

“……”

“Moreover, in a situation where we haven’t been able to confirm if there are spies in the mansion right now, such an action would be hardly safe.”

“……”

It was a valid point, so Diana fell silent.

Even if someone in the middle took one or two strands of the child’s hair, there wouldn’t be many places to use it.

Furthermore, even if there was a possibility of it being misused for black magic, Noel would be able to prevent or resolve it.

It would be best to meet in person from the beginning to avoid such problems if possible.

Unlike Diana, who was anxious even at the slightest possibility, Noel, who had the ability to fundamentally solve such problems, had no reason to worry or be mindful of it.

‘Then he said that out of concern for those behind the scenes.’

Even though she couldn’t be sure who was behind it, she had a sense based on the incidents so far.

The Imperial Family or the Temple.

The possibility of Noel knowing this far was slim, but given the circumstances, there was nothing good about standing out if the intention seemed to be to worsen the relationship between Mason and Ratliff.

‘But even so, I don’t know why they bothered to make a move that would be quickly exposed just by meeting and talking.’

It was then that Diana narrowed her eyes.

“Seeing you say this, it seems your head doesn’t work very well.”

Noel smirked, as if mocking, saying he wanted to see the face of whoever taught her.

Diana’s lips twitched once.

‘…… That’s you.’

Of course, when it came to etiquette and other common sense, most of it was taught by private tutors until she went to the academy. If not, it was through her mother or father.

However, when it came to magic, she had learned quite a bit from Noel as well.

Diana and Noel had a two-year age difference, which was not much, but this was purely due to his strange habit.

‘He couldn’t wait to brag about what he had learned.’

At that time, their parents left it alone, thinking it was still a form of review, and Diana, who had not yet learned magic, found it somewhat interesting and listened quietly.

[Are you stupid? Why can’t you do this?] [Why are you asking me that? Your explanation was terrible!] [What? No, it wasn’t…… Do you have a rock instead of a brain in your head? Look, look, let me check for you.] [Ah, no! Don’t! I told you not to! Mooom!]

“……”

A bad memory resurfaced.

Diana, frowning, shook her head from side to side in disgust.

At that time, Noel was really terrible at explaining.

‘So what’s “swoosh” and “pat”? I heard it more than 15 years ago, but I still don’t understand.’

If it could be done by feeling, what would become of those who save even their sleeping, washing, and eating time to do research?

The mages of the Magic Tower would chew on Noel three times a day instead of eating if they heard this.

…… They probably already do.

In short, even if Noel curses at Diana now, it’s like spitting on his own face.

Perhaps thinking about that, Noel spoke again.

“I only brought some of the extract. I’ll try again after returning to the mansion. This is just in case, so I’m doing it first.”

“……”

Saying that, Noel put the child’s hair into the small glass bottle containing the extract he had brought.

Originally, if one wanted to confirm blood relations with the light of a crystal ball, as mentioned earlier, the solution had to be extracted and dropped.

However, if one could tolerate lower accuracy, there was another method.

Mix the extracted solution with hair from someone else.

‘Even if the color of the extract differs from person to person, when mixed with hair from another person, the closer the blood relation, the more transparent it becomes.’

This method not only had lower accuracy but still required extracting the solution either way.

If doing it anyway, it was more common to spend a little more time extracting the other side as well and confirming it with a crystal ball.

If it was correct nine out of ten times when done with a crystal ball, this method succeeded about six or seven times.

‘As he said, he could have just returned to the mansion and done it, but seeing him do it here……”

It seemed he was quite desperate, even if it didn’t show outwardly.

Understanding his feelings to some extent, Diana quietly observed Noel’s actions.

And the resulting color of the extract-

“…… Huh?”

“……”

“……”

Of all things, it was black.

It was a failure.

[This is the timeline separator]

I swear to the heavens that I am innocent, so the results must be wrong.

However, it was natural for Diana to break out in a cold sweat under Noel’s increasingly sharp gaze.

This has a nearly 50/50 chance of success, so isn’t it more likely that he’s wrong, not me? Think about how it was golden when we checked with the crystal ball.

Pointing to the crystal ball on the table, Diana made a passionate appeal and, as a result, was able to be confident.

“See that? Since Noel’s is also black, it means the results are wrong, right?”

Noel’s spare extract of Diana and Noel’s extract.

Out of the three in total, including the one done first, two were pitch black and only one was transparent.

Noel, who had been staring intently at the results before his eyes, muttered while making a wry face.

“Honestly, I can’t believe the results no matter what. Putting everything else aside, I don’t even want to believe it’s really Diana’s body.”

“That’s-.”

“…… No matter how much I think about it, this is too unrealistic.”

“……”

Noel continued, frowning deeply.

“I’d rather believe the Duke went crazy and did something strange with Diana’s corpse. It’s been 4 years since the attending physician declared her death and she was buried in the ground-.”

“……”

“How can that body still be intact without preservation magic or black magic? No, in the first place, if it’s preservation magic, it’s impossible to move around like this. Even if a corpse is manipulated with black magic, there should be something felt, but that’s not the case either.”

“……”

“Crucially, neither can completely preserve the memories of the deceased.”

…… What the hell are you? Noel asked.

“……”

Like Noel, Diana, who knew nothing, could only remain silent at the question.