Chapter 117 – The North (1)

Alice was buried in papers today as well. The bustle of her office, which she vaguely heard from her rumors, made her people more tired and angry than she thought. Looking in the mirror, her face showed signs of fatigue, and next to her in her office, Lorena was working out in a thin top.

“Aren’t you tired?”

Lorena, who was doing her sit-ups, turned her head at her Alice’s question. Wiping the sweat from her forehead, she glanced at Alice and smiled.

“Huh? Why are you tired There is no farming, and all I do is exercise and follow you around.”

There was no malice in Lorena’s words, but Alice felt strange. She said, looking out the window at the busy citizens.

“I hope you are comfortable. Are you satisfied with your work?”

“Huh! I like it very much. It’s fun to wear a suit and follow you around, and it’s amazing to meet high-ranking people. Alice, are you not good?”

“Huh.”

Alice said she was not satisfied with what she had been through when she came here. She thought she did her law firm and what she does now was very different. She believed that she could save the unfortunate, as she did in the village of Foires. She believed she was on the verge of a world where dramatic twists and turns, where goodwill and the law triumphed.

But that wasn’t the case in Ithaca. Like others, words like love and justice were old conventions. Alice’s cases could be summarized as corruption.

She said that the corruption she had committed was legally correct, and assisted her in collecting data, or negotiated to bribe the witness. The word “Justice” Has long since disappeared in a pile of complicated paperwork.

“It’s different from what I expected, so I’m a little confused.”

It wasn’t that I didn’t know the reality. However, the reality, more tiring than her imagination, continued to confuse her. Alice asked Lorena.

“Lorena. What will you do if your life as a knight isn’t as fulfilling as you think? You can’t do what you imagined, and you only have to do what you don’t like. But if you don’t do that, you won’t be able to continue your knightly life, and your family will be in danger.”

At Alice’s question, Lorena smiled wryly. She stopped her movement and rose from her seat. The pad she had laid out for her workout was soaked with sweat.

“…That is a difficult question. Still, wouldn’t there be something I could do in the middle of it somehow? While dreaming of a knight’s life, the value I hoped for… So, I think there will definitely be moments where you can show off.”

“Are you struggling for that moment? Aren’t you rationalizing it a bit?”

Lorena shrugged her shoulders.

“I don’t know. But I’ve been running all this time because I wanted to. I believe there must be a way to solve it my way.”

“What is that.”

“Was it weird?”

Alice chuckled again at Lorena’s glance at her. What would your father do at a time like this? Evan, a good devil, must have solved this difficulty nicely too. Alice said involuntarily.

“I want to see Dad.”

To Alice’s self-talk, Lorena added with a nod of her head.

“…Me too.”

“…My dad, your dad?”

“Two, both.”

Lorena blushed.

Alice shook her head at Lorena’s words and looked under her window. In the midst of people coming and going, I saw a customer walking towards the office. Alice shook her hand and said.

“Hey, a guest is coming. You quickly wash up and change into a suit.”

“Customer? You said there were no guests today. Ah Okay.”

Lorena gathered her suit with her embarrassed face and hurried her steps toward her shower. Alice looked in her mirror and checked her own attire once more. A neat office suit and clear eyes. Her red hair made her face look sharper through the intense color.

“Would you like to laugh?”

This was the thought she always had whenever she talked to high-ranking people. She said that words like socialism, politics, and hospitality were still more difficult for her than legal documents.

The doorbell hung at the entrance on the first floor rang. Alice tidied up the papers on the desk with a stiff and tense face. She told her through her coffin in the first floor reception room.

“Miss Alice. A guest has arrived.”

“Yes.”

Alice piled her thick papers up to the height of an encyclopedia, then she pressed them down with a table clock to secure them.

“Excuse me.”

A man with a thick belly and a beard like a lion’s mane opened the door with a solemn voice. The size that could have beaten a bear and the cute bowler hat aroused unrealistic feelings in Alice. The man had a cigar in his mouth and jeweled rings on his thick fingers.

Since she made a strong impression of covetousness, Alice expected that this guest would ask for a commission on a very messy and trivial matter in her writing. While she was here to work, she did most of the cases she took on.

So Alice faced the man with an unexpected face. Her face showed only the fatigue from her accumulated work. The man puffed out his thick cigar like a goldfish.

“Flancia Alice. She is the daughter of the Florentine family. Nice to meet you.”

Alice shook her shoulders at the mention of her family name. Alice benefited from her name as a member of the Plancia family, but she knew very well that Alice herself would have to break away from the family’s influence someday. It was burdensome for her to meet her family-linked acquaintances in this way.

The man looked around the room. His big eyes looked like a robber looking for money. She knew Alice shouldn’t be prejudiced by her appearance, but she was too stereotypical of him.

Her Alice’s tension peaked when the man’s eyes turned to the shower. The man who listened to the faint sound of water asked Alice.

“Article. Jack’s daughter is your bodyguard, right?”

Alice was momentarily shaken by those words, but she pretended not to be anything and corrected her expression. She replied with a smile on her face, trying to look as laid-back as possible.

“I don’t know who. My bodyguard isn’t like that. Just… He’s just a kid I was lucky enough to know in the countryside.”

“I guess so.”

The sound of water stopped. The man slumped into the hospitality chair and closed his eyes. Alice felt even more uncomfortable because he hadn’t said anything. It was because most of the people who came to this place used to show a high-handed attitude by pushing forward their business.

“Oh.”

The shower door opened, and Lorena, dressed as a bodyguard, looked at her guest with a puzzled expression. The guest carefully opened his closed eyes. Lorena stood at attention, very nervous. The guest said towards her Lorena.

“Lorena.”

Lorena responded reflexively to the call.

“Yes… Oh.”

“Ah…”

Alice sighed heavily, and Lorena covered her mouth with her startled look on her face. However, contrary to the surprised reaction of the two, the guest looked at Alice with a calm attitude, as if confirming the obvious fact.

“Flancia Alice. She is the daughter of the Plancia family, but her mother, Isabel, was abandoned by her family, and her father, Carlson, was a devil worshiper. She got some support from the Plancia family, but… I think they do it because they want to get out of its shadow, don’t they?”

Alice hardened her face. Her own history, which she poured out of his mouth, was both accurate and unpleasant. Said the man.

“Otherwise, at this point in time when the Plancia family is preparing for her second marriage with the Hero family, they won’t even try to make that knight Jack’s daughter their bodyguard. Isn’t it?”

“What is your business?”

Alice did not want to seek psychological counseling from a man she did not know. Lorena was restless and had a confused look on her face. Said the man.

“Tell me a complicated political story. Hero Wolf and his family’s extravagance has reached its peak, and the capital’s finances have long since collapsed. Instead of using funds from other cities or borrowing donations from temples, the Magic Tower is pouring money into bizarre research under the direction of wizard Mobius.”

It was a terrible fact. After Wolf took power in the country, everyone knew he was splurging on money. Alice nodded her head, and the man continued to follow her.

“There were witnesses who accused members of the Hero family of siphoning off the city finances of this Ithaca and spending it on luxury and pleasure.”

It was a story that Alice had also heard at first glance. The story that Ithaca’s funds are leaking somewhere, but none of Ithaca’s nobles want to investigate, and don’t let them know how the money is flowing.

The man proudly brought out the story that he had been hiding inside because it was a story that could not be investigated in the Alice Sun. Both Lorena and Alice focused their eyes on the man’s story.

“He picked the wrong person to accuse. The aristocrat he accused was, after all, the aristocrat who was lining up the people of the Hero family. An assassin from the Thieves Guild was dispatched to kill the Witness who made fun of him unnecessarily, but luckily the Witness survived.”

Said the man.

“Because the witness who noticed that things were going wrong ran away to the North.”

Alice waited for the man’s next words. It was because he hadn’t come to tell him the sad story of some witness. The man fiddled with his oversized ring. He boasted the smooth luster of a jewel as large as a snake’s eye.

Said the man, placing his ring on the desk.

“The problem is that the witness fled with all the evidence he had. In order to publicize the corruption taking place in Ithaca, we need the evidence.”

Alice held her breath. It was because the work was bigger than I thought. Alice knew what kind of request this man would entrust to them. She asked.

“Why did you come to us? There are many more trustworthy people out there. You. I’ve seen it a few times at the socialite ballroom. Why would someone in that position entrust us with the work?”

The man pulled the cigar out of his mouth. He took a portable ashtray out of his pocket and pressed it down, he said.

“Because there is no one I can trust.”

“… What if I am a scumbag who wants to make money by leaning on the Plancia family? What if I am a human being who has no interest in such justice?”

Lorena was unnerved by her Alice’s aggressive posture. As she stamped her feet in her bodyguard outfit, her hard soles and shoes engaged, creating her jittery rhythm. The man closed his eyes while stroking his rich chin.

“It was in the old days. People used to talk about love or justice. People these days are so inhuman. Even though they say that with their mouths, they are not honest.”

The man rubbed his overflowing cheeks.

“Is protecting Lorena really a coincidence? I believe no. And, I believe in you that much.”

Alice lowered her head. She had no choice but to go north. Because everything she wanted to realize was on the way.