“Maybe it’s a curse that makes your personality worse.”

“Are you serious?”

“No, I was just pointing it out. That person’s bad personality.”

Ibi laughed lightly in response to Dies’s question.

Her face looked very satisfied, like a cat sitting in a sunny spot.

After parting with the Count, Ibi and Dies returned to the house where they were staying.

It was a space gladly prepared by the villagers for the saintess candidate who saved their village and came back to visit.

Ibi sprawled out on the sofa of that cozy house and chattered.

“Come to think of it, the Count easily understood my curse too. Curses aren’t that common, normally people would be more suspicious.”

Ibi recalled how the Count had taken her seriously and not dismissed it as nonsense when she revealed her curse to him.

Then her eyes sparkled as she added.

“A curse on Sion Laurel, why would a lion have a bell around its neck?”

Today Ibi learned some very important things through Dies’s assistant, Yubia.

But what monopolized Ibi’s attention was not her own matters, but Sion Laurel’s curse.

“It’s strange, isn’t it? Someone like him should have been able to solve it long ago even if cursed. Would it be too much of a stretch to say he might be deliberately neglecting it?”

“What reason would there be to neglect a curse that can be lifted?”

“For example, if it’s an agreed-upon curse.”

An agreed-upon curse. Oddly unfitting expressions keep appearing today.

But it wasn’t a completely nonsensical expression, so Dies easily grasped Ibi’s thought.

“Like an Amanasser surveillance mission?”

Ibi nodded with a smile at Dies’s words.

Though still circumstantial, Ibi felt several things falling into place perfectly.

The emptiness passed down through generations of the Laurel counts.

The curse Sion Laurel is bearing.

And the living disaster Amanasser.

“It was a leash. To keep Count Laurel from escaping the border.”

“It’s too early to conclude.”

“Of course, but if even the Manyanya Tower has an underground, could Laurel Grand Duke’s castle be flawless?”

Despite Dies’s cautious restraint, Ibi did not erase her conviction. It was because she had seen and experienced it herself.

The reason Manyanya Tower always shines gloriously is because it hides a secret underground.

In that gloomy area, all sorts of dirty work is done to support the tower, so the tower that rises above the surface is always white and brilliant.

Ibi thought that the Laurel Grand Duke’s family would not be free from such deception either.

“Besides, thinking this way makes the Count’s coldness towards Tienda understandable too.”

The reason why the Count doesn’t even glance at Tienda despite the Laurel Grand Duke’s devotion.

Ibi thought that it might be for the same reason she trembles before the tower master.

So Ibi could feel a very slight sense of kinship with the Count, whom she thought was the complete opposite of herself in every way.

“Up to here it fits together well, but I’m not sure how to interpret the Count’s current state. He’s cursed, but not in the insensitive state like past Laurel counts…”

Ibi muttered while tapping the table with her fingertips.

She kept asking Dies about curses, like whether traces remain even if a curse is lifted, if one can be cursed again after a curse is broken, and so on.

Ibi’s attitude in pondering about the Count was quite serious.

No, more than serious, she was almost absorbed. Like a cat that’s bitten into a kiwi vine.

The inherently clever Ibi usually enjoyed gathering various topics, piecing together fragments others overlooked, and reading between the lines.

Dies sometimes felt she was like an eccentric genius, but he never voiced such thoughts out loud.

He didn’t want to see Ibi throw a tantrum at being called eccentric, nor did he want to see her gloat at being called a genius.

Anyway, while Ibi often obsessed like this, she had a much more important topic right now than this.

Dies wondered if she might have forgotten about it and casually said:

“I find the Count’s curse interesting too, but the more urgent issue for us right now is Ibi’s own curse.”

“That’s right, that’s the most urgent thing.”

Fortunately, Ibi immediately agreed with Dies’s words.

Then she added with a perfectly clear face:

“So I’m going to make a friend. Someone capable who knows all about my cursed situation and can enter Tienda’s social circles.”

“You don’t mean the Count…”

Fortunately, Ibi wasn’t distracted by other things.

When Dies asked half in doubt, Ibi looked at him as if surprised he would even ask.

There were two reasons Ibi came back to this village in the first place.

One was to meet Yubia, the other was to join hands with the Count.

Ibi was as frugal as she was clever. So she didn’t want to just let go of the Count whom she had become entangled with for once.

Now that they had discovered each other’s weaknesses, it would be too wasteful to let the Count go like this.

Moreover, as Ibi learned through Yubia about the existence of the woman who cursed her, she realized she needed the Count even more.

To find that woman, she would have to re-enter Tienda’s social circles, but entering that world of hypocrisy and deception while bearing a curse seemed unreasonable no matter how she thought about it.

So she needed one reliable friend to help her by her side, and there was no one more ideal for that than the Count.

A young, handsome nobleman who already knows about Ibi’s curse, is entangled with Ibi as much as possible, and is even rumored to be obsessed with her.

If she could be with him, even the thorny path of Tienda would no longer be frightening.

Of course, his bad personality and obsession with the saintess position would need to be sorted out well beforehand.

Dies muttered in surprise at Ibi’s ambition to get her hands on the Count.

“That’s unexpected. I thought you disliked the Count.”

“It’s not unexpected, I do dislike him.”

Ibi answered cleanly this time too.

How could she possibly like him after all the heartache he caused?

Besides, even putting aside past grudges, Sion Laurel was a person who seemed deliberately made to have only the points Ibi disliked.

Arrogant attitude, unpleasant way of speaking, cold expression, and on top of that a personality so angular you couldn’t find a single round surface.

Thus, everything about the Count was exactly opposite to Ibi’s ideal type, and Ibi still quite disliked him now.

But fortunately, Ibi was someone who could set aside her likes and dislikes for a while if it was for a purpose.

“Regardless of whether I like him or not, I think we can become friends. They say opposites attract, don’t they?”

Ibi said calmly with a smile.

At that moment, her eyes were full of determination to seduce the Count, and Dies couldn’t help but shake his head seeing this ambitious young lady.

“Becoming friends and using someone seem even more different to me…”

Dies was a butler who completely trusted the young lady, but this time he couldn’t fully support her ambition.

Even from what he had seen, the Count’s nature was as fierce as the wild horses of the western mountains.

The wild horses of the western mountains have the pride or temper to jump off a cliff rather than let a human ride them.

And to Dies’s eyes, Sion Laurel was exactly that type of person.

He was someone who had all the qualifications to be arrogant, and he knew it himself.

Such a proud person never yields. They don’t know how to bend because they have never been bent even once.

So whether the Count liked this village, whether he was sincere about being a teacher, how much he cared for his students – none of these were very important issues.

No matter how fond the relationship, it would be far less important than his pride.

So Dies was skeptical of Ibi’s plan, but he didn’t voice this either.

He figured Ibi must know this too, and was just turning things over in her clever little head.

Just as Dies was newly curious about what was going on inside Ibi’s small and profound mind.

Bang bang bang!

Though it was already close to nighttime, the sound of someone knocking on the door came from outside.

“Something terrible has happened! It’s terrible!”

And what followed was Mrs. Marso’s urgent voice.

At that sound, Ibi’s eyes widened, and Dies immediately went out to the entrance to bring in the lady.

That small woman looked at Ibi with an almost tearful face and said:

“Ibi, oh what should we do about this…!”

“What’s wrong, what happened?”

“The Bayen soldiers took the teacher away!”

At Mrs. Marso’s desperate cry, Ibi’s face, which had been serious for a moment, became peaceful again.

“That is indeed a big problem.”

A very big problem for you investigation team members.

Ibi’s eyes clouded over, but Mrs. Marso didn’t seem to notice as she continued speaking incoherently.

From what she heard, it seemed the investigation team leader, with a very sour face, had ordered his soldiers to arrest the annoying glasses at the village square.

As Mrs. Marso was explaining without even pausing for breath and struggling covered in sweat, Dies handed her a handkerchief.

But instead of wiping her sweat, the lady buried her face in it. Then she burst into tears saying the teacher might be badly hurt or unable to return.

So Ibi couldn’t just remain lighthearted either, and ended up reassuring Mrs. Marso on behalf of the Count.

“Don’t worry too much, I’ll go find the teacher.”

.

.

.

The number of investigation team members who came to this village is about fifty.

That’s enough to stay in the village, but the investigation team leader insisted on setting up camp outside the village, pushing his soldiers.

It was because of his belief that his own tent was much higher quality than the commoners’ barn-like houses.

So Ibi found herself crossing a rye field in the middle of the night to find Glasses.

“It’s oddly quiet.”

Dies, who was walking in front, said.

The brightly lit investigation team camp was just beyond the rye field.

So there should normally be signs of people, or rather, they should be on guard hearing Ibi and Dies’s footsteps, but the investigation team’s tents were all as quiet as if asleep.

With a suspicious feeling, the two quickly made their way through the rye field. The investigation team’s camp they arrived at was quite splendid from the entrance.

With numerous soldiers sprawled out like stuffed dolls, that is.

Dies examined the condition of a fallen soldier and said in a voice mixed with a sigh:

“They’re unconscious. I don’t need to say whose doing this is.”

“I guess he was angry after all. For being called Glasses.”

Ibi also held back a laugh seeing the annihilated soldiers.

As expected, Ibi’s prediction was correct.

The big problem Mrs. Marso reported was a big problem for the investigation team members.

Ibi and Dies entered the camp, leaving the fallen soldiers behind. And the scene inside was no different from the entrance.

Soldiers were lying neatly inside and outside the tents, with no signs of fighting or resistance. It seemed they had all been subdued at once.

Ibi and Dies looked around at this ridiculous situation before separating to search for the Count.

And soon Ibi was able to encounter him.

In the largest tent, Sion Laurel using the investigation team leader as a footrest.