I’m Done With Unrequited Love - Chapter 39

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 39
The staff member pointed to themselves.
“I’m the owner. Do you need directions?”
By “directions,” they likely meant guidance to the gambling house.
I shook my head from where I stood beside Ernan.
“No, we don’t need directions. We came to meet the owner.”
At that, the staff member dropped the act and asked plainly.
“What do you want with them?”
Ernan answered.
“We need to collect something.”
“Collect something…….”
The staff member murmured the words as if savoring them, lost in thought.
After glancing between us, they asked us to wait a moment and disappeared through a door behind the counter.
When they returned shortly after, they guided us forward.
“This way, please.”
We followed without hesitation through the door they’d just emerged from.
‘Grim.’
The room we entered was dim and steeped in a hushed atmosphere.
The reek of strong spirits hung heavy in the air.
‘Not as cramped as I expected.’
I studied the space ahead.
A woman with purple-dyed short hair was sunk deep into a sofa at the center of the spacious room.
She was drinking from a glass repeatedly, each sip deliberate.
This woman seemed to be the owner of both this establishment and the gambling house above.
Clink.
The glass met the table, and a languid voice addressed us.
“So you’ve come to meet me.”
Her voice had a syrupy quality to it.
“You’d be Duke Ernan, and she’d be Fidellia Jonas, I take it. I pride myself on keeping abreast of information, so I make a point of memorizing the faces of prominent nobles.”
The woman smiled like a fox, eyes crinkling, and gestured to the seats across from her.
“Do sit. I’m terribly curious what brings you…….”
Ernan and I took our seats without hesitation.
I opened the conversation.
“I’ll cut straight to it.”
“Excellent! I’ve never cared much for the roundabout ways nobles dance around things. So, what is it?”
“We need Flora’s Bond Document. Could we borrow it for a time?”
…….
The purple-haired owner’s mouth snapped shut.
After a moment of silence, she spoke.
“……What would you need it for?”
“Duke Ernan is currently in trial, and we need the Bond Document to submit as evidence to the Court.”
…….
Silence.
Silence.
Sil……
“Absolutely not. What am I, asking for trouble!”
The owner shot to her feet, face contorted, raking her fingers through her hair again and again.
“I can’t do it. I shouldn’t do it. How am I supposed to keep this place running!”
“Perhaps if you just calm down for a moment…….”
“I can’t calm down!”
I understood her fear.
An illegal gambling house must avoid official scrutiny at all costs.
‘And here we are, asking her to hand over documents to be filed with a public institution like the Court.’
Ernan, who’d been watching the scene with his arms crossed, spoke quietly.
“The local police have hardly been neglecting people like you, have they? It would serve you far better to comply quietly.”
“But even so. If I hand over Flora’s Bond Document to the Court, there will be a record that this place exists, won’t there?”
The owner took a deep breath and sat back down.
“A record like that becomes evidence and justification. I’m not worried about the police. But what if the Court looks at that document and decides to bring charges, and then refers it to the Ministry of Justice for investigation? Ah, what a life!”
“Your fears are excessive. The police answer to the administration, as does the Ministry of Justice. If the police can’t touch a place like this in Silbee, the Ministry won’t fare any better.”
“I agree with the Duke. And though it’s awkward to say so……we are not ordinary nobles.”
I’ve always believed that if you’re born with something, you ought to use it to the fullest—whether it’s status, power, or wealth.
Status, power, wealth—any of them.
I do think the Class System in this world is unfairly rigged.
But once I found myself in a position to benefit from it, I gradually stopped caring about the injustice.
‘In fact, Ernan probably resents the Class System far more than I do.’
At least we live in an age without slavery—I suppose I should be grateful for that much.
In any case, I leaned on the prestige of my great noble house.
“Whether you blackmail your superiors or whatever else you do, I’ll ensure you avoid investigation entirely. How does that sound?”
“……Entirely?”
“Yes, entirely.”
……
The Owner seemed conflicted.
Of course, it was all a lie on my part.
‘I may leverage my background, but I’m not the sort to swing it around recklessly.’
Yet after a long stretch of deliberation, the Owner finally nodded.
“Understood.”
She was accepting, albeit reluctantly.
“I doubt a lady of such a great house would abandon us and flee.”
Abandon…what?
“Right then! Where’s the Manager? Go down and fetch Flora’s Debt Ledger for me so I can give it to these people.”
At that, the employee who had first shown us into this room bowed and left.
‘It seems the Manager handles the practical operations while the Owner merely holds the deed to the Gambling House.’
Everything proceeded smoothly after that.
Before long, the original Debt Ledger of Flora was in Ernan’s hands and mine.
‘It really is forty thousand pounds.’
With the ledger in hand, we had no further business at this Gambling House, so we rose at once.
But then Ernan suddenly posed a question to the Owner.
“Was there anyone who visited together with Flora?”
“Someone who came with her? Oh goodness, I stay cooped up in this room, so I haven’t seen her directly. The Manager probably did.”
The Owner called the Manager over again, who had been waiting by the door.
“Do you remember what the person who came with her looked like?”
The Manager replied.
“He was a handsome young man with silver hair.”
* * *
Once we left Silbee Avenue 7, Ernan and I took a carriage toward the nearby Commercial District.
“Ah, would it be all right if I stopped by the Post Office for a moment?”
“The Post Office?”
“While we’re out, I’d like to send word to my parents. Some cursed countess has forced us to stay in the Capital longer than expected.”
For this reason, our next destination was the Post Office in the Commercial District.
We disembarked where the carriage could not go and proceeded on foot to the Post Office.
“The weather is lovely today.”
And the crowds.
The Commercial District is always bustling with people—it’s the most vibrant quarter in the Capital, after all.
It’s the kind of place where newsboys in flat caps are especially visible, carrying their papers about.
A place with fountains and a clock tower.
We’d walked only a short distance down the broad avenue before the Post Office appeared.
Just a few more steps……
“Fidellia Jonas.”
Then Ernan called me to a stop.
I turned to look at him, though I’d been walking several paces ahead.
“Yes, Ernan Cleor?”
He asked abruptly.
“Do you have feelings for Diego Leonar?”
“……Who?”
Diego Leonar?
‘What on earth is he talking about?’
He stops me mid-walk only to ask if I have feelings for my former fiancé?
“Hardly.”
I replied with a note of bewilderment.
“I don’t know why you’d think such a thing or why you’d bothered to ask it aloud, but I dissolved my engagement with him long ago.”
“There could still be lingering affection, couldn’t there?”
“I didn’t agree to the engagement because I loved him, so there’s nothing to linger over. Why are you asking someone who understands these things?”
You don’t know what a political marriage is?
Ernan and I stood facing each other without a word.
It was beginning to feel like a standoff.
“Would you like to buy a flower?”
A small child approached and held out an adorable flower bouquet.
To Ernan.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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