Chapter 63 – Escalation

Letty’s POV:

The next day, I woke up with Aria’s hands tightly wrapped around my waist, making it hard to move. My face was pressed against her chest, and I could feel the steady rhythm of her heartbeat. Just as I was about to break free, I recalled our conversation from last night.

I am no longer her maid.

Still having some mixed feelings about it, I decided to keep resting for a while longer until she naturally wakes up.

Since I don’t have any maid duties to take care of, I wonder how I would spend my newfound free time. Maybe I should take up a hobby apart from reading – drawing, perhaps. I’ve always felt fascinated by looking at various art pieces around the mansion, and the idea of creating something of my own was enticing.

As I lay there, my mind wandered through possibilities. I could explore dancing too. If I were to attend a ball with Aria, we could dance together and surely attract all eyes.

Aria stirred slightly. I looked up as she slowly opened her eyes.

“Good morning”, I said.

“Good morning”, she replied, giving me a sleepy smile.

“I don’t want to get up; let’s spend the whole day like this”, she said, once again tightening her grip against my waist.

“It sounds good, but you’ve got a lot of work pending. Especially since Teacher and Sir Richard are returning soon”, I said.

“Argh, that’s so boring. I don’t wanna spend hours reading through and signing documents. Let’s go to the company instead; at least that would be entertaining”, she said.

“Sigh, I’ve already prepared all the document summaries and placed them in order. Stop complaining and finish the back log before your parents arrive. You know Teacher would be mad if she found you slacking. C’mon, let’s freshen up, have breakfast, and start working”, I said.

The spy should have spilled all the beans by now; let’s see what Sir Knight’s report says.

I was waiting for her to loosen her grip and get up, but she didn’t. Instead, she pressed my face deeper against her chest.

“Aria, stop acting spoiled and let go of me”

“Yeah, yeah, just give me a moment”, she muttered, but her hands stayed firm.

Seeing no way out, I gave in to her stubbornness and accepted my fate until she was satisfied.

As she finally loosened her grip, a wicked idea came to mind. I moved my face up to her neck and began to suck gently on her collarbone, just above the curve. Aria shivered, her hands tightening on my waist again.

“Who taught you to give a hickey?” she asked, her voice a mix of surprise and astonishment.

From Miss Bel’s book.

But I didn’t reply and continued. Leaving a faint red mark that would deepen over time. “Hehe. Don’t cover it. Since that guy Ethan is going to visit us, he won’t be able to question our relationship again”.

With her eyes filled with affection and a hint of mischief, she said, “Is that the only reason? Hehe, I like your boldness”.

She leaned down and captured my lips in a slow, lingering kiss.

Her kiss was intense, and I could feel her passion in every movement of her lips. When we finally pulled apart, I noticed my lips felt a little puffy, something that might have been deliberate.

“I see you’ve left your mark on me, too,” I teased, touching my swollen lips.

Aria laughed softly, brushing her thumb gently over my lower lip. “Good. Now everyone will know you’re mine, too”.

***

After breakfast, I asked Sir Knight for a detailed report regarding the spy’s activities. This is what I uncovered:

The spy joined our company early on, when Aria’s dad was in charge. Then later, he made contact with the third prince’s people and got greedy. He stayed in our company and reported any sensitive news that he got his hands on.

Upon further questioning, we found that his leaks were pretty minor and at best helped Rose Emporium steal a few of our marketing strategies. And since our target customers are distinct, it mustn’t have caused any significant damage.

If that was all, we would have considered letting him go free. But that wasn’t all. He was tasked with collecting as much information about Aria and me as possible. It’s not hard to guess their intentions.

Aria, being the brains behind our company, carries her notes in her storage ring at all times. Notes- that, if leaked, could nullify all our efforts and advantage over our competitors. And as for me, their curiosity is natural, as they suspect me to be a secret weapon of House Ernius. Not to mention my sudden popularity burst after the speech incident.

We need to be more careful.

Relying on shadow guards could be enough to defend against any physical threats, but we need to be careful against such invisible threats as well.

After reporting it to Aria, I asked Sir Knight to follow the usual procedure for his arrest.

“Haah, so now I have to watch my steps, even inside my own company? Being a noble is so stressful… Sorry, Letty, that was insensitive of me. I should be the last person to complain about hardships in front of you”, Aria sighed while going through some documents.

“Don’t be. I understand what you mean. I’ll try my best to make sure such incidents do not occur in the future”.

“Thanks Letty… This incident also highlighted one big drawback of Mana-Comm. That is, anyone could listen to your conversations if they knew where and how to tap them. I had hinted at this problem in my published papers, but it seems that it wasn’t enough. Being the major Mana-Comm providers, maybe we should hire a group of researchers and have them work on this problem. If the public finds out about this, they might lose trust in our company”, she said.

Yeah, that makes sense. I feel uncomfortable knowing that someone could potentially listen to my conversations. “Alright, I’ll contact the Royal Academy to let them know that we want to hire some Scholar graduates. They would happily let us conduct interviews”, I suggested.

“Alright, do that later. Now go take some rest until I quickly finish up all the paperwork. We’ll head to the lab after lunch”, she said.

I nodded and left Aria’s room. As I was walking towards our room, I couldn’t help but feel uneasy about the whole spy situation. To ensure our safety, we had to come up with the required security measures as soon as possible. To start with, we should ensure that the background checks are reliable and then find a way to monitor any unusual activities among employees while also respecting their privacy.

Later, I met Aria in the dining hall, and after a quick meal, we headed to the lab together. Aria purposefully picked up some mundane tasks to kill some time before that guy, Ethan, arrived.

…

Aria’s POV:

I told Letty about there being multiple volumes of the book, and how I’ve only read the first one.

“Are you sure you want to reveal your weakness this easily, Aria?” Letty asked.

“I know, especially since he was such a jerk at first. But then he also shared his secrets willingly, so I’m not sure anymore”, I said.

“Don’t trust strangers so easily. Just wait for a little while and observe his behavior. I’ll also ask little Weis to use his skill just to be safe. After that, if you feel like you can trust him, only then let him know of your lack of knowledge”, she said.

Yeah, I shouldn’t be so trusting of strangers.

“You do have a point. Alright, I’ll do as you say”, I replied.

A few hours later,

“Letty, pack these prototypes along with the parchments and send them to Carolina. And be careful of the indices…”, I said as I pointed towards the table full of prototypes ready to be enchanted.

Knock Knock

“Never mind, do that later”, I said, as Ethan arrived earlier than expected.

“My Lady, someone named Ethan is here to meet you, should we let him in?” a maid asked from outside.

“Yeah, let him in”, I replied.

“Good evening, Lady Aria, Lady Letica. I hope you are having a pleasant day”. He bowed with proper etiquette as he entered the room.

“Good evening, Mr. Ethan. Please have a seat”, I asked, gesturing for him to take a seat.

As he settled in, I asked someone to bring us some snacks.

“There is so much to talk about. It’s such a relief that we can finally talk about it freely here”, he said.

I picked up the tea cup and said, “It is. Since it’s your book to begin with, why don’t you start with your experiences so far?”

As I didn’t know about the other parts of the books, he has a significant advantage in terms of knowledge.

Hmm, to trust him or not…

“I’ve been practicing swordplay since childhood, and I’ve managed to save my childhood friend Lena thanks to your generosity”, he said, looking at Letty.

“What generosity?” I asked.

Letty moved close to me, seemingly recalling some incident: “Er, I’m sorry, I forgot to tell you about this. He found your old storage ring, and since you already had a replacement”, she whispered in my ear, “from the Shop. As we need to keep its existence a secret”, she said “I let him keep it since all the valuables were used up anyway”, she finished.

“You found my storage ring? What are the odds!? Haha!” I exclaimed.

“You didn’t know about that? Thank you so much. Because of you, I was able to save Lena’s life. It means a lot to me. I’ll repay you however you want”, he said, getting up from his seat and bowing again.

“Oh, it’s nothing worth mentioning. All I did was clumsily drop my ring somewhere, it’s good that it was able to save your friend”, I said while trying to hide my shyness due to his constant bowing.

He likes to bow a lot, doesn’t he?

“So was Lena one of the girls I met at the inn yesterday?” I asked.

“Oh no, Lena is a bit shy, so she didn’t come along with us yesterday. The ones you met were Nira and Vel. They get worked up sometimes, I hope you weren’t offended by their actions yesterday, I made sure to scold them”, he said.

“Jeez, how many women are there in your party?” I joked.

“Four: Nira, Vel, Lena, and Sara”, he said as a matter of fact. “And Olivia sometimes joins as well, she’s off on her own for now”.

“Woah, talk about a harem”.

“It’s not like that. We are all just friends! I wrote this book, so I’m not just acting like a blockhead. We’ve already established a no-relationship rule before forming the party”, he said.

I rolled my eyes, “suree”.

“Anyway, as I was saying, after saving my childhood friend, we formed a party and met other friends along the way. I actually knew about them from the book, so all I had to do was be at the right place at the right time. We managed to dodge nearly all the setbacks that occurred in the novel, and I’m hoping it stays the same”, he said.

“Well, plot-wise, my party is going to start heading towards the capital. We were planning to be part of the Sea-Dragon subjugation party and make a name for ourselves. So that we can obtain the king’s favor to somehow interact with the emperor and save the prince and princess when the time comes. Come to think of it, they are your cousins, do you have any plans or have you already acted upon them?” he asked.

What is he talking about? Do I have cousins who need to be saved in the future? Well, my mom was a princess too before she married my dad. So I shouldn’t be surprised to have a lot of cousins, actually. And there must be some plotline in the later books that has something to do with my cousin.

Now the question is, should I still pretend to know about the book or not? Considering he was such a jerk before yesterday, I can’t tell if he’s a friend or a foe. But at the same time, my cousins’ lives might be at stake, even if I don’t know them yet.

Let’s try to get some more information first. Picking up my signal, Letty asked, “What’s this about your cousins, Aria? You never told me about it”, she asked.

“Sigh, no, I haven’t done anything yet. It’s a little complicated, Ethan, why don’t you explain it to her? And don’t worry, she knows my mom’s background”, I said, keeping my calm.

“Oh okay. During the time Lady Martha used to be the princess of the Bregonia Empire before fleeing her home to marry Sir Richard, Lady Aria’s uncle, the Crown Prince of the Empire also married and had two kids: Prince Eldrin Bregonia and Princess Elowen Bregonia.”

He continued,

“Right now, everyone is safe. But with Lady Aria’s grandfather’s- the current Emperor's health in decline, he’ll unfortunately pass away in the coming year due to old age. And that would mark the beginning of misfortunes for the Empire that led to the storyline in the second volume of the book”.

“In the book, the Prince and the Princess were discovered to have a very rare and deadly disease that manifested on the day of the emperor’s funeral. It’s called Eclipsium Vein”.

“Anyway, to cut the story short, most of the unfortunate storylines in the second volume of book can be resolved if the Prince and the Princess stay healthy. I’ve been trying to gain some merits in order to meet the emperor and help them, but now that I know Lady Aria is a good person, I can rely on her to save her cousins. It’s a huge relief”

Wow, I’ve never really thought about my maternal family since Mom refused that one time. I feel a little stupid now that I didn’t even search for the names of my family members.

The grandpa I didn’t even meet yet is going to die of old age… Won’t Mom be really sad if she didn’t even get to meet him before then?

Dad told me once that she has been on bad terms with Grandpa ever since their marriage, but he’s still her father. I should at least think of a way to make them talk.

And about my cousins, I’ll have to look into this disease, ‘Eclipsium vein’.

The way he said it, there must be a way to avoid or cure it. And since I have enough time, I can try to find it. If I succeed, then it’s good, but if I don’t, I’ll tell him the truth about not having read the other volumes and ask him for help.

“Yeah, it is, I’ll handle it. Anyway, you are also heading towards the capital, right? My mom is going to participate in the subjugation as well. Since you are going to be there as well, make sure that no monster is able to touch her”, I said.

“Hahaha, nice joke. You’d need at least a dozen Sea-Dragons to even touch her. Well, since Lady Letica isn’t in my party and Lady Aria is safe, she won’t be after my throat this time, and I’ll have an easier time compared to the book’s Ethan”, he said.

Again, with my mom’s strength… I should signal Letty to dig deeper.

“I know, but she’s still my mom. Of course I’ll be worried”, I bluffed.

“What’s this about my teacher? Is she super powerful too? Aria, c’mon, you should have told me if she is that great, why don’t you ever tell me such things?” she playfully punched my arm and said, “Mr. Ethan, please tell me more about my teacher, is she strong?”

Nice, good job, Letty.

“Haha, I can understand. It must be a little embarrassing for her to praise her mother in front of her girlfriend. I’ll tell you-”

Knock knock

“Lady Aria, Madam and Sir are scheduled to arrive home soon, you and Lady Letica are required to welcome them by the Swindfort city gate”.

Sigh, the timing…