Chapter 133

Once his mouth opened, Hans poured out all the disappointment, sadness, self-loathing, anxiety, undying hope, and despair over hope trampled daily that he had accumulated toward Jane.

It was quite literally a spilling out, rather than a properly structured story.

“I’ll just have to remember as much as I can and piece the fragments together.”

“Indeed. I didn’t expect we could obtain information this easily, so that’s fortunate.”

“It was fortunate that we didn’t need to resort to torture or threats.”

As Becky smiled brightly while skillfully peeling a hot potato—obtained from who knows where—and making such brutal remarks, Lione was about to melt back into the shadows, unable to find an appropriate response, when he paused.

Because he had made direct eye contact with a man who was staring at him.

While people who accidentally make eye contact would instinctively look away, this man instead furrowed his brow and examined Lione more carefully.

Then, as if something had occurred to him, his eyes widened, and he strode toward the two of them.

“It’s you, isn’t it? The one from the Bartorio family whose reputation was so great that people would fall in love just by meeting your gaze, but who suddenly disappeared one day… mmph, mmmmph?”

Before his boisterous words could finish, Becky, who had stepped in front of Lione, immediately stuffed a hot potato into Max’s mouth and said:

“There’s no such person.”

“Mmph? Mmbbbbph, mmph?”

As Max struggled to spit out the potato burning his mouth, Becky firmly covered his mouth with her hand and declared:

“I said there’s no such person. Understand? This person here is from Bolshevik.”

At that moment, an indescribable expression spread across Lione’s face as he stood a step behind Becky.

“Right? Say it yourself… what’s with that expression?”

Becky, brushing off her hands after removing them from Max’s mouth, who had lost the will to resist with his palate completely scorched, was about to turn around and glare at Lione but paused.

Lione reflexively touched his cheek and replied:

“No. I just didn’t expect you to say such a thing…”

“What thing?”

“That, that I’m from Bolshevik.”

Becky frowned deeply and tugged at his sleeve.

“Why are you acting as if you heard something strange when it’s obvious? Are you from some other family besides Bolshevik?”

Lione nodded with a smile that was hard to tell whether he was laughing or crying.

“Yes. I am from Bolshevik.”

His voice seemed somewhat subdued, but getting the answer she wanted, Becky triumphantly raised her chin toward Max.

Max, who was gently probing his scorched palate with his tongue, pressed both hands to his chest in surrender.

“Ah, I understand. I get it. If I misunderstood twice, my insides would be completely burned too.”

Having retreated from Becky and secured a safe distance, Max asked:

“So what brings servants from the Bolshevik estate to this neighborhood? Surely the lady didn’t send you to investigate me.”

“A mere merchant like you?”

At Becky’s cold response, Max, who had been pointing to his chest with both hands and raising his eyes, drooped his shoulders dejectedly.

“Well, I didn’t think it would be that, but there’s no need for such contempt. So what were you really doing… ah.”

After glancing at Hans’s house while rambling, Max nodded as if understanding.

Seeing this, Becky and Lione exchanged glances and nodded as if by agreement.

He had mentioned Bolshevik and talked about investigations, and now he was pinpointing Hans’s house and nodding as if he understood why they were there.

Though he was clearly a merchant who had visited the lady several times, wasn’t this extremely suspicious?

“Grab him.”

“Yes.”

“Huh? No, wait—”

At Becky’s word, Lione moved immediately, and Max found himself being restrained and dragged away by Lione.

Riina narrowed her eyes at the strange trio before her.

She first tapped the back of Becky’s hand, who was fidgeting, clearly itching to spill her story, and also gave Lione a glance.

“Let him go first.”

“Yes.”

“And untie his mouth too.”

Max, who had been struggling in Lione’s grip with his mouth also gagged by a handkerchief that Becky had neatly tied, finally gained his freedom and exhaled with a whoosh.

“Whoo-hoo, my lady. Did you order them to capture m—”

As Max was dabbing at nonexistent tears, he encountered Riina’s cool blue gaze, like a high autumn sky, and meekly crumpled, picking up the handkerchief that had gagged him, at which point Riina finally shifted her gaze from him.

“Good work, both of you. Judging by your expressions, it seems you were successful.”

She nodded toward Becky and Lione with a gentle gaze that was worlds apart from the one she had directed at Max.

Becky smiled broadly and exclaimed:

“Yes! He had such a loose tongue that if he fell into water, only his mouth would float!”

It was a scathing assessment that would have made Hans weep if he had heard it, but Lione also strongly agreed and added:

“He told us things we didn’t even ask about, to the point where I’m skeptical if everything he said was the truth, but the information we gathered exceeded our expectations.”

“Exceeded your expectations?”

As Riina tilted her head, recalling the grim-looking hulk she had encountered at the auction house, Becky promptly began relaying what Hans had babbled.

“Though they’re not related by blood, that hulk considered the shadow as his dear family.”

Lione picked up where Becky left off.

“But it seems the shadow doesn’t feel the same way, at least not for quite some time. It’s not entirely clear, but he said she’s been treating him poorly and pushing him away since entering Bolshevik.”

Family… Even before the regression, Riina had never heard that Jane had family, so surely Jane didn’t consider that hulk as family.

Well, since Jane believes herself to be the real Bolshevik…

“Still, it seems the shadow shared quite a lot with him, as he even knew about the Third Prince and the shadow’s meetings. He wept about how the shadow relied heavily on the Third Prince, trusting a man she barely knew too much…”

“Wept?”

“Yes. He seemed to be suffering greatly from the shadow treating him as if he didn’t exist. He’s living almost completely soaked in alcohol.”

“Thanks to that, he spilled information freely without us having to do anything.”

Even as she said this, Becky frowned, and shadows fell across Lione’s face as well.

They were recalling Hans’s ramblings, which had been more painful to listen to than the most terrible drunken laments.

“Ah! And the one who made the mechanical device was that hulk! He said the shadow told him she needed a device for such a purpose, so he designed it, made it with difficulty, and gave it to her.”

“So it was made because Jane wanted it from the beginning?”

“Yes. He also knew what the mechanical device would be used for.”

Though he didn’t add the rest, Riina already knew exactly where “where” was.

She opened her mouth to speak but let out a short sigh and waved her hand.

“What is it, Max?”

This was because Max had raised one hand high and was frantically waving it as if he had something to say.

“About that mechanical device. I have the exact same one, don’t I? So I kept taking apart the one I have and examining it in various ways, but there’s no function beyond secretly injecting something. The important point here is that ‘secretly’ is truly so secret that no one except perhaps the Second Prince would notice.”

Max, who had been listening with a blank expression, seemed excited when content he knew about came up and poured out words, but Riina mercilessly said:

“I already know that much.”

Instantly deflated, Max clutched the handkerchief again and shrank back, while Riina tapped the desk with her fingertips and fell into thought.

So she did use that mechanical device to put poison in the teacup at that time.

It probably wasn’t a poison that would take effect gradually.

If it had been, her body should have shown signs before she was driven to choose to drink poison and die by her own hand in her life before the regression.

Otherwise…

“Is there a poison that gradually accumulates in the body and then suddenly kills a person at some point?”

“There is.”

“There is.”

Lione and Max answered simultaneously, but since Max willingly stepped back, Lione spoke first.

“From what I know, there is a poison that causes heart attacks. It’s said to be a poison that can kill people as if by accident. However, this poison is completely banned on the continent, and those who know the formula are monitored, so it rarely makes its way out.”

“That makes sense. The moment the poison emerges, the manufacturer would be revealed.”

As Becky continued from Lione’s words, Max, who had been watching the two with lukewarm eyes, parted his lips.

“The poison I know is different, but you won’t get the answer you want, my lady.”

“The answer I want?”