Please Repay Me with Marriage! - Chapter 4

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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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Please repay me with marriage!
Chapter 4
“I never expected Uncle to go see an Alchemist. What on earth does he want a potion for?”
“I’m not sure of the details. He only said he plans to bring a man to the banquet at the Marquis Residence in two weeks.”
Kiri went on to give her the man’s name and background. Irene turned the name over a few times before a faint sense of déjà vu crept in.
“I feel like I’ve seen that name somewhere recently…”
“The list Lady Selen passed along. Viscount Kalio’s list of suitors.”
“Ah, right. Now I remember.”
Last spring, a man bearing that name had graduated from the Military Academy under Viscount Kalio’s sponsorship. Of all the men on that list, he was supposedly the best-looking one.
Recalling Selen’s snide remark, Irene let out a dry laugh.
“I’m announcing my future husband there, and he thinks he can show up with a man who’s unmarried and a total stranger to me?”
Something smells. A foul stench that makes my stomach turn.
I couldn’t tell exactly what he was planning, but it was certain to be a cheap trick, the sort only back-alley thugs would dream up.
I wonder if he even realizes he’s lower than those who sneer at him for being beneath them.
“I’d almost prefer he had the nerve to poison my cup. Then at least I could catch him red-handed and bring charges.”
That way, I’d have evidence to file a complaint with.
“My Lady.”
Kiri’s brows knitted tightly, as though she couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Irene waved her hand in mock alarm and told her not to look at her like that, because it was frightening.
“I know, I know. I won’t do anything dangerous. Honestly, you’re just as overprotective as my brother.”
“That would only count as overprotection if my Lady stopped behaving like a moth flying into a flame…”
Her speech was formal, yet the content carried a familiarity that didn’t quite fit a master and servant.
Irene had crossed paths with them in the past, and in the present she had personally rescued the two siblings from the arena, and she held them in deep affection.
That was why Irene so enjoyed how comfortably the two of them behaved around her.
“So you’re saying I have to come in person to hear the details?”
“Yes.”
“Honestly, I’m swamped, so why does everyone keep summoning me like this?”
I really spoiled him too much.
Irene pictured Selen’s smug face and furrowed her lovely brow.
“This is my chance to knock that man’s bad habits out of him for good. Kiri, help me.”
With Kiri’s help, Irene changed clothes inside the moving carriage and pulled her bonnet low over her face.
She had repeated this routine dozens of times by now, so she could do it with her eyes closed.
“Well? My face isn’t visible, is it?”
“No, my Lady.”
“Then wait here. I’ll be back before you know it.”
Sending away every last one of her knights and heading into the back alley all alone.
Kiri drew a breath as though she had a great deal to say, but all that came out of her mouth was a single “Take care.”
“While I’m gone, go ahead and take care of some of those documents!”
Kiri watched Irene go off so carefree, wearing a face that looked worried sick, but in truth there was no need for it.
Irene was a VIP under the protection of Selen, the head of the Information Guild “Dalgeurimja,” which had a firm grip on the back alleys.
The guild that had once ruled the capital’s back alleys was not Dalgeurimja but the assassination guild “Silent Swamp.” That was, precisely, until two years ago.
They wielded enormous influence in the back alleys, and people who were cut down for no reason while passing by couldn’t retaliate or even lodge a complaint once they saw the tattoo of two overlapping S’s on the back of the attacker’s hand.
The ones who finally toppled Silent Swamp, which had engaged in such outrageous tyranny, were none other than the Information Guild “Dalgeurimja.”
Their beginnings were modest. People who had suffered big and small losses from Silent Swamp’s outrages began to band together, declaring they could no longer live like this.
Did they really want to drift into the back alleys? They had nowhere else to go, so they had pooled at the lowest place there was.
They had nowhere left to flee. So they had to transform the place where they lived into somewhere people could actually live.
But before they could try anything, Dalgeurimja’s very existence was thrown into jeopardy by someone’s betrayal. And then, a hand reached out to help them.
‘I’ll provide you a hideout. I’ll handle the pursuers, so hide there for now.’
They were already cornered, so there was no room for suspicion. That was how Dalgeurimja’s head and its executives barely escaped the crisis and survived.
Only after they had escaped with their lives did they begin to question the motives of the one who had extended a hand. Who on earth was helping us, and for what purpose?
‘I know what you’re trying to do. I’ll help you do it.’
‘…And what’s your price?’
‘You’re building an information guild in the back alleys, aren’t you? Just make me your customer for life. Of course, the price will be free.’
Honestly, the head and executives of Dalgeurimja thought she was a madwoman.
But once their existence had been exposed, time was not on their side. They had to succeed in their rebellion before the innocent residents of the back alleys were all killed off.
So they took her hand, and as it turned out, it was a very wise choice.
Two years have passed. Dalgeurimja has completely driven out the remnants of Silent Swamp and become the masters of the capital’s back alleys and black market.
“Welcome! It’s good to see you again, Lady Lini! Welcome! Was your trip comfortable?”
“No, not at all. I told you I’m busy. Your delivery service here is terrible. Do I really have to come all the way over here to pick things up myself?”
“Please direct that complaint to our master…”
The girl who had come out to greet her, practically bursting with excitement, visibly deflated.
Irene had grown close enough to the girl that she no longer fell for that expression, yet she still played along and pretended to be fooled.
This girl named Julie was cute enough to remind her of her two younger siblings.
“So, where’s the master?”
“He’s waiting downstairs. I’ll show you the way!”
Julie snatched the cookie Irene offered her and grabbed her hand, practically bursting with excitement.
Guided by Julie’s skipping steps, Irene passed through the inner room, where a secret door led down to the basement stairs.
“The master’s been waiting for Lady Lini’s visit with his neck stretched out. Hurry on in!”
“When exactly is that neck of his going to stretch out far enough to snap?”
He’s always claiming he’s waiting with his neck stretched out every time I visit, yet I’ve never once seen it actually stretched.
‘He does nothing but play his little pranks.’
It would be the same today, she thought as she descended. Even so, Irene was left speechless by the sight that unfolded before her.
-Ta-da, tara-!
This was undeniably the headquarters of the Information Guild, yet what greeted her was the splendor of a grand banquet hall.
“Oh, good heavens…”
“The one and only VIP of the Dalgeurimja, Lady Lini, has arrived!”
The doorman standing by the entrance must have picked up the habit somewhere, because he even blew a fanfare on a trumpet.
Members of the guild, dressed up in elaborate gowns and tailcoats, clapped their hands in unison as they looked at her.
“Kyaa, it’s Lady Lini!”
“We love you, Lady Lini!”
“Theatrical words of welcome poured out, staged and accompanied by whistling.”
‘Why is the embarrassment always on my side!’
Irene hesitated, looking as though she might flee, and stepped back one pace.
Perhaps she had noticed the movement: a woman with short green hair, dressed sharply in a tailcoat, who had been standing at the center of the hall, came over to her, grinned slyly, and held out her hand.
“May I have your hand, my lady?”
“How many times do I have to tell you not to pull this kind of nonsense?”
Tangled like an ant’s nest through the back alleys, an abandoned house stood there as a disguise, and the headquarters of the Information Guild began right beneath it, underground.
Selen, the guild master, opened the headquarters’ entrance to anyone belonging to the Dalgeurimja, and once or twice a month she dressed up the underground lobby in grand style.
When she had seen the large and small flowerpots arranged to resemble a jungle, she had thought nothing could surprise her down here anymore. Truthfully, she hadn’t imagined a banquet hall at all.
“I’m already run ragged being dragged from one place to another… Why do I have to put up with this wretched spectacle here too…?”
At Irene’s clenched-teeth question, Selen grinned smugly and tilted her chin toward the surroundings, as if to say, look for yourself.
“I keep saying it, but I’m not doing this for my own sake. Just look how much everyone loves this sort of thing.”
Irene was well aware that the people of the back alleys, whose freedom had been suppressed under the tyranny of the Silent Swamp, were enjoying their days.
She had no intention of mocking them for awkwardly imitating high society, but honestly, why did they always insist on dragging her into the back alleys’ festivities?
“Selen. I keep telling you, but I am…”
“Busy, are you? Oh, I know. You’ve got plenty you want to ask me, don’t you?”
With one eye winking, she tugged at Irene’s hand, which she had taken by force, and led her toward the center of the hall.
When Selen bowed gracefully, the orchestra stopped its performance and began playing a new waltz.
“My lady! Please accept the master’s invitation to dance!”
“The master’s been counting the days for this one night alone!”
Well, of course she’d been counting the days. She’s the type who lives for the fun of teasing me.
In the end, Irene, pretending to give in to the crowd’s cheers, spread her skirt and bent her knees.
Selen grasped her hand with a beaming smile, and Irene was so irritated by her that she wanted to stomp hard on her booted foot, but Selen seemed to know exactly what she intended and slipped her foot away neatly, so even that failed.
“So, my lady, what news are you most curious about?”
“What is the medicine my uncle commissioned?”
Did she think she’d humored her enough by now? Or perhaps she had sensed the edge creeping into Irene’s voice herself.
Selen spun Irene around once, then pulled her waist close in a tight embrace and whispered straight into her ear.
“What he ordered from the alchemist was a Love Potion.”
“A Love Potion?”
“It’s a potion made by burning a single strand of someone’s hair. The moment you drink it, our lady will fall in love with that person.”
Whoever my lady is in love with right now, that is.
At Selen’s whisper, a shiver crept across Irene’s skin.
“That’s absurd… Can a potion really force someone’s feelings that far?”
“That’s pretty much what alchemists make. You know that much, don’t you, my lady?”
To be honest, she hadn’t realized they could make something like that.
In the past, the potion she had obtained through an alchemist was a permanent contraceptive. With just a single dose, it had rendered her infertile.
Thanks to it, she had been spared from bearing the child of her wretched former husband.
Later on… it was a bitter pill that she could no longer bear the child of the man she loved, too.

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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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