From Dorothea’s perspective, it would have been more convenient if Adelaide and Sophia had stayed quiet.

Getting involved in the power struggle between the Lion Duke’s bloodline and the Kingdom of Heaven, and having a conversation with the lord of Justitia, which would bring no benefit to the current situation.

Both carried considerable risk and could potentially involve Dorothea as well.

In that sense, she could have restrained them, telling them not to do unnecessary things and to stay put… but Dorothea didn’t do that.

“What can I do if they want to do it?”

That was the kind of group Dorothea’s party was.

The main goal of the party was collecting the eight sacred treasures, but strictly speaking, only Dorothea absolutely had to accomplish this.

The Tin Knight was bound by contract to accompany Dorothea, Adelaide had come along to grasp at even a small lifeline lest she become Giselle’s decorative piece for maintaining power if she stayed in the domain, and in Sophia’s case, while she didn’t express particular dissatisfaction, it was Dorothea’s circumstances that had her traveling together in the first place.

Since they weren’t a party bound by a single purpose from the start, the logic of “don’t do that because it’s a loss for the party as a whole” didn’t apply.

Unlike before, when most of the party was close to being baggage, now her companions were providing considerable help to Dorothea’s goals, so it would be unfair not to treat them accordingly.

After all, witches valued contracts.

After finishing calculations that the Tin Knight would have summarized as “You’ve just grown fond of them and gone soft” if he had been listening, Dorothea went out to the streets.

As she had no hobby of carrying around human heads, the necromancer’s head was hidden in the room’s barrier.

The first place she visited was a consumables shop for adventurers.

The catalysts collected from the Garden had fulfilled their role in the battle with the Witch of the West, and now only the staff remained.

Proper catalysts needed to be collected from the forest and then processed one by one, but they could be somewhat substituted with flints or emergency medicines used by adventurers. This included emergency rations like dried fruits and jerky.

The shop owner, watching her choose items, said, “Eating only those things isn’t good for your body. You’re already so skinny. You should eat proper food sometimes.”

“…Is it okay for a shop owner to call their products ‘those things’?”

To Dorothea’s incredulous response, the plump-looking female shop owner laughed heartily and said, “Well, our shop sells proper things too, so it’s not a problem. How about these?”

Saying this, the owner pointed to a grocery store sharing the same roof.

Seeing that the face of the clerk sitting at the counter resembled the female shop owner, they seemed to be parent and child or siblings with a large age gap.

Looking at the meat and sausages hanging on hooks, Dorothea inwardly shook her head.

While those types might taste good, they weren’t very suitable for carrying around during travel due to being difficult to store.

“I don’t need…”

…Oh, come to think of it, what happens to ingredients stored in the Gloves of Haider?

Thinking normally, they should spoil just like outside, but originally even the same ingredients could last long or, conversely, change instantly depending on the storage environment.

Thinking it might make for a pretty good experiment, Dorothea changed her words mid-sentence, “Then give me a little bit.”

“Good choice! Here, here, how about these?”

Letting the energetic owner’s recommendations slide, Dorothea received a bundle of products and stored the bundle inside the gloves in a blind spot away from people’s gazes.

As a bonus, she used magic to make her presence hazy to prevent anyone from thinking it strange.

After repeating the same process two or three times, all the shopping was finished in less than 30 minutes.

Dorothea shuddered slightly.

This seems to be the most convenient thing in everyday life.

It was a comfort on a different level from the Key of Opium, which was clearly powerful in function but awkward to actually use.

It was regrettable that she would have to return it to the kingdom someday.

Now that she had obtained all sorts of consumables and daily necessities, only one errand remained.

The western part of Justitia, a bustling area with many particularly large and splendid buildings.

Seeing a sign with a winged golden monkey drawn on it, Dorothea let out a wry smile.

Pushing open the door that opened smoothly without the slightest creak, she saw luxurious marble floors and glass display cases.

Apart from the products inside the display cases, the store interior itself was so luxurious it could be treated as a work of art.

From a somewhat twisted perspective, it felt like money had been slathered on everything.

Inside the store.

A young man dressed more like he was about to attend a ball than a shop owner or clerk rose to his feet.

He smiled politely and asked, “Welcome to the Alchemists’ Association. What brings you here?”

***

Maris von Lennart’s temporary mansion.

In one of the many reception rooms inside, Adelaide thought.

Right, come to think of it, I was a noble.

It wasn’t that she had developed a problem with her memory and forgotten her status.

It was just that she had rarely received treatment befitting her status recently, so her awareness of being “the one to be served” had become extremely faint.

“Lady Maris is currently receiving another guest. She asked for you to wait in this room for a while, so please let us know if you need anything.”

The servants managing the mansion were all neat in their appearance, and their actions exuded dignity.

They exuded the unique aura of professionals who had served under a specific family for at least several years, not hastily hired amateurs.

They were extremely polite to Adelaide and did their best to ensure she didn’t feel even the slightest discomfort.

Even the guard soldiers protecting the mansion and the knights managing them were the same.

Adelaide felt a strange sensation.

When traveling with the Tin Knight’s party, she had done everything herself from lighting fires to fetching water, hunting, and butchering, but here it seemed like people would have a fit if she even made a gesture of fetching water herself.

Of course, it wasn’t that Adelaide felt uncomfortable with life in the Tin Knight’s party or considered it unfair treatment.

She was just recalling how she used to live in the past.

Adelaide leaned back against the sofa.

Her two-handed sword, which always floated at a certain distance behind her back, was now entrusted to the mansion’s servants.

She recalled how during the previous meeting, when she had conversed with Maris while fully armed, the guard knights and servants had watched her every move in an extremely tense state.

She had been taught that it wasn’t good to carelessly disarm in foreign lands, but it seemed like she should show this much sincerity to people she would be working with.

Above all, even if she let go of her sword, as long as she had the Belt of Amaryllis, Adelaide wouldn’t be easily neutralized.

While it might not have the same power as when Kalidahs used it, even the current Adelaide could tear apart a wooden table with her bare hands. The human body wasn’t much different.

I wonder when Maris will come. I don’t mind waiting, but if I’m late returning with news, Miss Witch will glare at me.

There was the option of asking the servants, but somehow it felt like rushing things, so she wasn’t very inclined to do so.

“Lady Maris. Please reconsider. If we withdraw from this land like this, it will be throwing the honor of our Lion Duke’s bloodline into the mud.”

“If we don’t withdraw, we’ll fall into an even deeper and dirtier quagmire. If we don’t withdraw in the first place, how will you handle the fund drain? We can’t even accept new disciples, and existing disciples are running away.”

At the suddenly resounding voices, Adelaide unconsciously turned her gaze.

The sound wasn’t coming from inside the room.

The next room?

“If we can protect our honor by spending money, we should protect it. If it were just my personal matter, that would be one thing, but this concerns the prestige of our bloodline!”

“Isn’t it because we can’t protect it even by spending that I’ve come this far? Even if we kill all those who pick fights with us, new ones pop up like cockroaches.”

“That’s because there wasn’t enough blood! If we crush them more miserably and cruelly, how could those riffraff miscreants overcome that fear?”

“If we kill and kill until that notoriety spreads widely across the continent, or at least within the federation, it might indeed turn out as the head instructor said. But the funds required until then would be so enormous that our losses so far would look like dust in comparison. To begin with, building up such notoriety isn’t helpful to our bloodline.”

Adelaide tilted her head.

It seemed that Maris and a guest were conversing in the next room, but their voices were strangely clear.

If it had been this clear from the beginning, that would be one thing, but it was clearly unnatural for it to suddenly become like this after not hearing anything until now.

Adelaide looked around. The servants must be hearing this conversation too, but there was no reaction from them.

So, in other words.

Did Maris do this on purpose?

“Haa, fine. I’ll admit that withdrawing is unavoidable. But if so, at least allow us to track down those who started this trouble in the first place.”

“I’ve already told you several times that’s impossible. The opponents were novices on their first continental expedition when they caused this incident, not a huge merchant group that stable travels across the entire continent. Unless they stupidly come to this continent again, it’s impossible for us to track them. Are you saying we should establish a base across the continent just for one revenge plot?”

“This isn’t a matter of easy or difficult! If I give up like this, who will appease the spirits of the dead disciples!”

“Judging what is ‘easy’ or ‘difficult’ is my role as the auditor. Anyway, there will be no change in the plan, so please understand that.”

“Huh…”

The guest tried to persuade Maris somehow even after that, but Maris was immovable.

The other party seemed to finally give up, uttering words mixed with a sigh, “I understand. I’ll follow your will. But, is the force sufficient? According to the lady’s plan, our allies must be skilled enough to accurately cut down the targets while neither cutting down the guards nor getting caught by them and escaping. While cutting down the targets is one thing, there won’t be many skilled enough to control their strength against the guards.”

“Well, I’m trying to find people, but I can’t give a definite answer yet as I haven’t heard back. Well, if there’s no one, we’ll manage somehow, but it would make for a more spectacular revenge if we had even one more person.”

Adelaide gave a wry smile.

She seemed to vaguely understand Maris’s intention in creating this situation.

There was a door between the two reception rooms.

It was structured so that one could move between both sides without going through the corridor.

In front of that doorknob, Adelaide turned her gaze to a servant.

They didn’t stop Adelaide.

Adelaide opened the door.

“Maris. Here’s one helper.”

***

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