“……”

“……”

A few people remained in the place where most had left with Riena for the greenhouse. Among them were Ael and Ino.

‘I wondered why they called me here, and it’s really…’

Ino expressed his irritation by tugging at various parts of the uncomfortable Denertum formal attire.

‘No wonder Sister Nisha didn’t want to come.’

Last night, Nisha had called him and said:

Ino cried that he didn’t want to go, but Nisha was adamant.

At the mention of Kalon’s order, Ino could only trudge out with slumped shoulders like a rain-soaked puppy.

‘But can I really find someone here?’

Whatever was going on among the socialite women, strange conversations were exchanged, and the tea party soon ended.

Riena stood up, saying she would introduce the newly arrived flowers in the greenhouse to the women who seemed friendly with her.

Riena said she would split the introduction into two groups as it would be difficult for too many to enter at once, but it was obvious that those left behind were the ones who didn’t appeal to Riena.

‘And that includes me.’

Called because they were needed, only to be neglected like this. Thinking she was an unpleasant woman, Ino turned his head.

That’s when he saw Ael looking at the table a little distance away.

‘That woman too……’

As Ino was thinking sympathetically, he noticed what was placed in front of Ael. And a moment later.

“Just a moment!”

Ino stood up abruptly in surprise. Then he immediately approached Ael.

“Excuse me, but may I take a look at this?”

Startled by the sudden approach of a man she had never spoken to before, speaking in a stern voice, Ael flinched and stepped back a little.

‘Why is he suddenly acting like this?’

Anyway, since there shouldn’t be any problem with looking at it, Ael nodded with difficulty.

Ino snatched the paper placed in front of Ael like a hawk catching its prey.

When he looked at Ael, she was in the middle of solving a quiz that had been placed on the table.

The quiz-solving trend, which Ash Company had deliberately popularized recently, was becoming a hot topic among the nobles as well.

Of course, unlike the commoners, they weren’t interested in it for money, but to show off their intelligence.

Even nobles aren’t without competitiveness. Rather, aren’t they the ones most eager to boast about their superiority?

Before long, it became natural at tea parties to have the newly released quiz of the week placed as a small entertainment for people to try and guess the answers.

In fact, if a tea party host didn’t prepare quiz-solving, they would be considered out of touch with the trends.

So Riena had also prepared quiz-solving sheets next to the tea party table.

Of course, thinking that she couldn’t use the same low-quality paper printed for commoners, she ordered her skilled servants to transcribe the quizzes onto high-quality paper.

Thinking that this week’s quizzes alone would be insufficient, she had all the previous ones transcribed as well, preparing a variety of quiz-solving sheets.

Ael, who had been sitting quietly passing time in loneliness, thought she might as well do something and brought a few sheets.

Ino, seeing this, thought she had brought unnecessarily many.

‘How difficult can those be.’

While the first few might be easy to solve, the difficulty increases rapidly as you go on. That’s why the number of correct answers received each week wasn’t that high. Even those were mostly wrong answers.

‘So bringing that many……’

She’ll probably just scribble on the front part and be done.

He was thinking this while watching indifferently.

But contrary to Ino’s thoughts, Ael picked up the pen and started writing answers without stopping.

Although she seemed to pause to think briefly at times, she wrote answers almost non-stop until the end.

‘What? Did she just write random answers?’

Most of the quizzes being distributed in Denertum now, except for a few, were all created and distributed by Ash Company.

Ino, having participated in their creation, knew well how difficult each quiz was.

‘There shouldn’t be any that can be solved that easily?’

Ino became increasingly curious. Did this person really get the correct answers?

Then, when Ael took out a new quiz and started solving it, Ino’s eyes widened. Even from a distance, he could tell from the first question that it was this week’s quiz.

That’s because he had included ancient language questions that had been haunting his dreams lately due to Kalon’s pressure.

He thought the first question wouldn’t be easy, but Ael moved her hand immediately as if solving a simple math problem like ‘1 plus 1 equals 2’ and moved on to the next question.

From that moment on, all of Ino’s attention was focused on Ael.

‘Oh, my goodness. God, are my eyes seeing this correctly?’

If this person was really solving the ancient language questions, and if she had the ability to solve all the other quizzes too……

Ino’s legs couldn’t stay still as he sat. He wanted to pick up Ael right away, run to Ash Company, and shout, “I’ve brought her!”

‘No, stay calm. She might just be writing random answers.’

He tried to calm himself with this thought, but Ino’s heart was already beating wildly.

If this person was really the talent he had been looking for……

‘I can finally sleep peacefully!’

He remembered Kalon glaring at him, asking why he hadn’t found a talented person yet when he had been ordered to do so long ago, and Nisha looking at him with contempt beside Kalon.

Thinking that he could finally escape their cold gazes, he felt like crying.

Ino exerted all his patience waiting for Ael’s hand to stop. And the moment Ael’s hand finally stopped, he stood up and shouted.

Ino quickly checked the quiz solutions. What Ael had solved were definitely the quizzes that had been distributed through newspapers, magazines, and even posted on walls.

The answers to these had not been revealed yet.

‘We included a few modified versions of the codes decrypted at headquarters, so there are few people who know the answers.’

There were only about five people who knew the answers perfectly, including Kalon, Nisha, and Ino himself.

Moreover, since it included ancient language questions, even those five wouldn’t have known if the answers were correct or not without the interpretation from headquarters.

Ino compared the answers Ael had written with the answers he remembered. As his gaze moved downward, his hands trembled more and more.

Good heavens.

The moment he saw the last answer, Ino ended up covering his mouth with his hand.

‘They’re all correct!’

Am I seeing things? Did this person, no, this individual really write all the correct answers?

Ino trembled with joy as he alternately looked at the paper filled with perfectly correct answers and Ael’s face.

Ael retreated a bit further at his gaze, which was like that of a fanatic who had just encountered a deity. This brought him back to his senses.

It’s too early to rejoice. Before reporting to Kalon and Nisha, he needs to verify. Then he remembered that Kalon had put next week’s questions in his bag.

He hurriedly opened his bag and took out the quiz set to be distributed next week.

“Th-this! Could you possibly solve this?”

“What? Oh, I could solve it quickly, but… why this……”

“Please, I beg you. Please solve it as if you’re saving a person’s life.”

To beg so desperately for someone to solve a quiz that everyone enjoys as entertainment.

‘He said he’s from Ash Company.’

Ael recalled the faces of Kyle and Nisha whom she had met. They were both good people. To the point where she wanted to meet them again.

‘This person must be working with them.’

With a gaze mixed with envy and admiration, Ael looked at Ino and then accepted the new quiz he handed over.

She didn’t know what was going on, but there was no reason not to comply when he was begging so desperately.

It wasn’t a particularly difficult task either. And… somehow, she felt that if she helped him, she might be able to maintain a connection with the Ash Company people whom she thought she would never meet again.

Ael picked up the pen.

The new quiz didn’t seem that difficult either.