“……What?”

Edward turned to look at him with bewildered eyes.

He had declared that he would unleash the secret weapon he had cherished for years for the best opportunity, yet he was disappointed?

“I was expecting the Count’s original creation.”

My original creation?

Edward clenched his fist.

‘Do you think I haven’t thought about it?’

Is there an artist whose dream isn’t to present their own work at the Founding Festival?

However, even after racking his brains at his desk for three whole days, no clear musical ideas came to mind.

It seemed impossible to complete the score within the deadline.

There was no choice. For someone with such a delicate artistic soul as himself, having a fixed deadline was poison.

“I apologize, Count.”

Leonard slightly grasped his hat and bowed his head.

“If you’re going to present at the Founding Festival, I’ll have to withdraw my sponsorship.”

“Wh-What did you say?”

“I agreed to sponsor you, Count, not to sponsor a ghost that has already returned to dust.”

“…No, listen here.”

“Please repay the funds I lent you within the due date.”

“Wait a moment!”

Edward hurriedly grabbed Leonard.

He had already squandered all the money invested by that man, and now he was telling him to pay it back? It was nonsense.

“So I just need to submit my personal work?”

Leonard smirked.

“Of course, it should be of excellent quality. But with your talent, Count, I’m not worried about that aspect.”

“……”

Edward remained silent for a moment.

He hadn’t yet looked for that unreleased score Ariana had mentioned.

If there really was Eduardo’s final, never-before-released work in that secret safe…

A glint flashed in Edward’s eyes.

“Please wait a moment.”

Edward’s footsteps hastily climbed the stairs.

He flung open the door to his study and immediately found the safe.

The interior was just as Edward remembered. But according to Ariana, there should be another space beyond that.

‘Grandfather, that old man always favored that wench Ariana.’

It was worth checking out since it was a slip from Ariana.

Thump!

He punched the inside of the safe, but it only hurt his hand.

As he was thinking about getting tools, a shadow fell across the doorway.

“What are you doing, Master?”

Startled, Edward turned around and widened his eyes.

Butler Wilhelm was quietly watching Edward hitting the safe.

His aged eyes didn’t seem particularly surprised.

The moment he recognized this, Edward realized.

“…You, you knew the secret of this safe.”

Wilhelm remained silent. At this sight, Edward’s fist trembled.

Right. Come to think of it, the butler was that old man’s longtime friend.

Edward got up and strode over to Wilhelm.

Slap!

The old butler’s cheek turned sideways.

“How dare you keep secrets from me, the head of the family. Tell me. What’s the way to open it?”

“…It only contains Eduardo’s personal keepsakes. There’s nothing of value.”

Wilhelm showed a rare sign of hesitation.

Seeing this, Edward became certain. Certain that something was really hidden inside. Probably something that would be very valuable to him.

“Open it, or die. Choose one of the two. If you think you don’t have many days left to live and don’t care about your life, you’d better think again.”

A vicious light flashed in Edward’s eyes.

“I’ll expel you from the Lopez family and then kill you. No one will take care of the corpse of an old man abandoned by the family he served his whole life. Don’t you agree?”

“……”

Wilhelm closed his eyes once as if resigned, then opened them and spoke quietly.

“…I’ll open it.”

You should have done that from the start.

Edward smiled crookedly and jerked his chin towards the safe.

Wilhelm approached and pressed the embossed patterns inside the safe in a regular rhythm, and with a small sound, the safe wall began to open.

“Move aside!”

Edward pushed Wilhelm away and peered inside with greedy eyes.

All that was inside were a few sheets of paper.

With staff lines and notes densely drawn on them.

Edward’s chest heaved rapidly.

‘It really exists!’

This was the final work of the musical master. Perhaps even more valuable than his masterpiece, Fantasy Butterfly…!

Edward hastily snatched the score and examined it.

A moment later, his eyes slowly widened.

“…Huh.”

This is it.

A flame named certainty blazed in Edward’s chest.

“This is… this is it.”

A fresh yet intense development. Yet without losing musical dignity.

It seems that old man’s reputation wasn’t entirely unfounded.

Edward exhaled deeply as he quickly scanned the notes on the staff.

* * *

Dante lit a cigarette as he gazed at the faintly breaking dawn.

Thick smoke flowed out from between his teeth.

His stomach felt as stuffed with that smoke as it was stifling. Of course, he knew well the cause of this unresolved sensation.

“…Then.”

He recalled the small, quivering lips.

Lips that would soften pliantly when pressed, yielding to the force applied.

By now, he knew quite well how those lips would breathe out heated breaths when he delved into them.

Those lips slowly whispered before his eyes.

“Then teach me. …How it feels.”

“Ha.”

Dante exhaled roughly and stubbed out the half-smoked cigarette.

Despite saying such things, Ariana looked up at him with clear eyes.

As if she really just wanted to learn about an unknown realm to gain inspiration.

As if there was nothing else, her gaze even challenging.

What a destructive thirst for knowledge.

Dante clicked his tongue lowly and rubbed his forehead.

Recalling those eyes that looked up at him without blinking, his stomach churned quietly once again.

He irritably got up and flung open the window.

The more he thought about it, the more astounded he felt.

Of course, yes. It was true that he had provoked and teased her first.

But that woman shouldn’t have responded in that way.

So fearlessly.

If she had known what he was thinking while looking at the white nape of her neck exposed when she tied up her hair to play…

If she had known that sometimes he was so absorbed in imagining pushing that swaying body onto the piano that he didn’t even notice when the piece ended…

She wouldn’t have dared to fight back like that.

‘What exactly does she mean by “teach me”?’

Dante mocked himself. A teacher rushing in more impatiently than the student. Isn’t that excessively unseemly?

‘This won’t do.’

Not yet.

It wasn’t time yet.

“Master. It’s Rio.”

“…Come in.”

Rio entered the room and respectfully reported.

“I’m returning from carrying out the request Lady Ariana entrusted.”

Ariana. At that name, Dante’s fingertips momentarily stiffened.

Feeling his mouth go dry for no reason, he reached for another cigarette. Rio, who had naturally glanced at the ashtray, widened his eyes in surprise.

“Goodness, you seemed to be smoking less lately, but why again…!”

“Shut up. Just finish your report.”

As Dante waved his hand impatiently, Rio stood at attention and continued his report.

“Yes. As Lady Ariana predicted, when I threatened the Count that I would withdraw sponsorship if he didn’t submit an original composition, he quickly changed his tune. He said he would present his own original work at the Founding Festival instead of .”

Recalling Edward from that time, Rio added.

“With a very confident look on his face.”

‘Sir Leonard’, no. Rio had been faithfully carrying out the requests Ariana entrusted to the information guild Yor lately.

Of course, Ariana didn’t know that the one running around to fulfill her requests was actually the Duke of Heigenberg’s direct aide.

Sometimes he felt uneasy about deceiving Ariana, but…

‘Well, it’s true that there’s no information guild as capable as Yor.’

“By the way, Lady Ariana is truly amazing. It’s no exaggeration to say she’s predicting all of Edward Lopez’s actions.”

In fact, Rio didn’t have much to do for this request.

He just approached Edward pretending to be a sponsor and recited the script Ariana had prepared.

Then Edward would react and act exactly as Ariana had predicted, as if by magic.

The accuracy was astonishing, but what was most impressive was the boldness with which she set up the plan and executed it without hesitation.

“She seems to have a remarkable talent for strategy and tactics. Just saying, but if she were to go to war, she could achieve great results as a tactician-”

“Stop talking nonsense and finish your report. Is that all you have to say?”

“Ah, there’s one more thing to report.”

Rio’s expression became more serious.

“This morning, Sir Roderick captured a fleeing Dawn member…”

The small ball that the love affair between Lucas Fedegrin and Elena Lopez had set in motion had snowballed into something massive.

While investigating Lucas, an ‘anonymous tip’ exposed the debt relationship between the Duchess and Procken Jewelers, and during that investigation, the collusion between the Dawn and the jewelers was revealed to the public.

With their biggest source of funding exposed, the Dawn began to scatter, and the Emperor entrusted the pursuit of them to Duke Heigenberg.

Most were caught, but some were particularly tenacious. The one captured at dawn today was one of them.

“He said something strange.”

Rio furrowed his brow as he continued his report.

“He said he wasn’t in the Parze Forest that day, that he didn’t do any assassination work. So he shouted that the Duchess had no reason to hold a grudge against him.”

…Parze Forest?

Dante’s brow furrowed.

That was the forest located upstream of the Essen River where Dante had rescued a dying girl ten years ago.

‘And that day was also…’

The day Eduardo Lopez and Cecilia Lopez – Ariana’s maternal grandfather and mother – died in a carriage accident.