I Became A Squirrel Seeking For The Villain [EN]: Chapter 42

As soon as Jayden arrived in the capital, he went straight to Duke Medest’s mansion.

And he ran into Meriel at the front gate, who was about to head out.

“Meriel!”

“Oh, Uncle.”

Meriel greeted Jayden with a bright smile, though she seemed a little surprised.

“You came so quickly? I thought it would take you a few more days.”

“Well, I was so worried….”

“You don’t have to worry. It’s all been resolved. Didn’t you hear the news?”

Meriel patted Jayden’s hand reassuringly.

“I’ve officially broken off the engagement with Duke Johann Hাইলad, and now the Medest family doesn’t owe the Hাইলad family anything.”

“…So there’s really nothing to get involved with now?”

“Maybe? Well, they asked for an unconditional breakup first.”

Meriel tilted her head, noticing Jayden’s suspicious expression.

“It’s strange in many ways, but he’s not a terrible person, is he? If he didn’t want to get married, he could have just asked for money.”

“There’s no one terrible by your standards, so I can’t trust that assessment… Anyway, where are you going?”

“Oh, His Highness the Crown Prince has summoned me.”

Meriel blushed slightly and smiled shyly.

Meriel’s maid, who was following behind her, chimed in with a pleased expression. “Perhaps he’s going to ask you to be his partner at the victory banquet?”

Jayden, who had been quietly folding his arms, narrowed his eyes.

“Hmm, so that’s why he called you to the Imperial Palace?” He subtly implied that the Crown Prince should have asked her to be his partner in person.

Meriel smiled and retorted playfully. “Come on, Uncle. It’s only natural for a superior to summon a subordinate.”

“…Still, even the Crown Prince’s grandfather isn’t good enough for you.”

Jayden retorted sullenly.

“Your father would have been even worse.”

“Oh, really?”

“Of course. You sisters wouldn’t have been able to date at all. He kept challenging every guy who flirted with you to a duel.”

Meriel giggled at his expression, but Jayden raised his eyebrows seriously.

“Do I look like I’m joking?”

“Yes!”

“…You’re so cheerful about it.”

“And the reason His Highness the Crown Prince is calling me is… actually, we’ve been getting visitors at our mansion every day lately. His Highness the Crown Prince said that it’s not politically wise to be seen together so often.”

“Let’s ask something very important here.”

Jayden said with a serious face. “Is that ‘visitor’ Johann Hাইলad, as rumored?”

“Yes!”

Meriel answered cheerfully again.

“It seems like he’s joined hands with Yurika politically. According to Yurika, the social season will start in earnest after the war.”

“…So, he’s been going in and out of the Medest mansion just to see Yurika?”

“Maybe?”

Jayden trembled and showed Meriel the news articles about Johann Hাইলad that he had frantically gathered.

The scrapbook was quite thick, and most of it detailed Johann’s less-than-stellar behavior.

“Here, these words… are they all true?”

Meriel carefully read everything and nodded cheerfully. “Yes. There’s nothing wrong.”

“…Are you sure he’s just a political colleague with Yurika?”

“Come on, Uncle. What’s certain in this world?”

Meriel shrugged and answered.

“But he dresses up to an absurd degree when he comes. He dresses up every day and fawns over Yurika, which is fun to watch. He did all the jerk things himself, but he thinks something will change if he smiles with his eyes….”

“What? That dark-hearted guy is smiling with his eyes?”

Jayden quickly rolled up his sleeves and burst into Yurika’s room.

* * *

When Jayden burst in, the atmosphere in the room froze instantly. Jayden hadn’t expected Johann to be in my room at all.

“How dare you now….”

Johann was slowly muttering in a gruesome voice when I interrupted.

“Uncle?”

I said, getting up awkwardly.

“You’re already here?”

I was a little embarrassed by the sudden visit because I thought it would take him a few more days to arrive.

In the meantime, Johann was making the most gruesome expression in the world, but as soon as he heard the word ‘uncle,’ he immediately composed himself and continued.

“Hello. I’m Johann Hাইলad.”

Jayden cherished me and Meriel very much, but he was also a very capable person who led a prominent merchant group.

In other words, he was good at understanding the situation and quick to adapt.

“I’m Jayden Aberth, Duke. Please, make yourself comfortable.”

He cherished his niece too much, but he immediately realized that he couldn’t treat Johann, a war hero and Duke of Hাইলad, carelessly.

“No.”

Johann said politely, narrowing his eyes. “I’m not that much of a bastard, you know.”

“That, that is….”

“Of course, I’m causing some trouble here, so I have to be more polite than usual to get rid of the stigma of being a jerk, right?”

It was a very novel logic, as if subtracting 1 and adding 1 would do the trick.

Of course, Jayden was also quick to change his attitude, and he politely put something on the table with a thud.

“Oh, what’s this?”

I picked up the bundles of paper that Jayden had put down with interest.

It was a newsletter that was circulating among the merchants.

Usually, they were published to convey news from the central political world to the provinces. Most of them contained content about ‘Johann Hাইলad’s jerk짓’ [jerk-like behavior].

“Ahem, Uncle. This is a bit… there’s a misunderstanding.”

I rolled my eyes and chose my words carefully.

In fact, Johann had become ‘a man who speaks out of both sides of his mouth’ throughout the empire at the same time as he granted my request to ask for an improvement ceremony at the temple.

But I couldn’t bring myself to say that I was a divine beast, so I couldn’t say that I asked him to investigate the temple.

“Johann is a better person than he’s known to be….”

Of course, Renat was making a face that he didn’t agree with next to me, but he couldn’t interfere. Jayden opened his eyes wide and said.

“So, you mean this content isn’t all true?”

Coincidentally, the place Jayden pointed to had the phrase “[Duke Johann Hাইলad throws his stepmother and half-brother into the dungeon].”

“It’s true.”

Johann answered calmly. He didn’t show any particular reaction to the phrase “[It’s a hot topic that Duke Johann Hাইলad sent all the servants away without giving them a single recommendation letter]” below it.

“But there was a reason for that… there must have been!”

I couldn’t say that I saw it myself when I was a divine beast, so I was rummaging through the newsletters that Jayden brought to make another excuse.

“Oh, this is….”

One of the newsletter scraps full of content related to Johann Hাইলad was misplaced.

It seemed that an odd page had been cut out while cutting two sheets together.

“[About Prince Theodore’s engagement – I heard his fiancée is from the East?]”

Theodore was the second prince, an illegitimate child who was the half-brother of the Crown Prince, and later joined hands with Johann to check the Crown Prince, but then turned against each other and betrayed each other.

But that wasn’t the important thing.

‘In the original work, he doesn’t get engaged?’

“[The lucky protagonist is Libena Sevs, the daughter of Count Sevs, a new noble family from the East]”

Libena Sevs? Count Sevs?

“[Revealed to have met on Prince Theodore’s secret recuperation trip]”

It was an article that was cut out by mistake while scraping articles about Johann, so there was no further content. When I started rummaging more, Jayden said.

“Are you interested in Prince Theodore’s engagement? But it’s a little-known fact, so I think it was only published in that newsletter.”

Jayden was coming from the East. So, news from the East could have been briefly published.

There was one more thing to note here.

No one in the capital knew that Prince Theodore had gone on a recuperation trip.

I thought he had been staying in the capital for quite some time, but I had no idea when he had gone. Even though it was an imperial engagement, the capital was so quiet.

I wasn’t particularly active in social circles, but as someone who was collecting all kinds of information, I couldn’t help but feel suspicious about the news that I was hearing for the first time.

“Could this be a rumor?”

“Well… I know that it was discontinued immediately after publishing this gossip, so there were no additional reports.”

Something was definitely strange. If they had exclusively reported the prince’s engagement, it would have been a big issue, but it was even more suspicious that they had discontinued it right away.

It was very unsettling that such a large rumor had been buried without a sound, even if it was dismissed as a rumor.

‘Libena Sevs….’

Come to think of it, it was also strange that Prince Theodore, who had always opposed the Crown Prince and sided with the temple, did not oppose the holding of this imperial banquet.

‘If this is true, the main character of this victory banquet is….’

I was lost in thought for a moment, but soon I made up my mind.

“Johann.”

If there was such a variable, I had to take a risk no matter what, rather than playing it safe this time. Putting the scraped newsletter back on the table, I smiled at Johann.

“I know that the victory banquet can be a big turning point in your political standing….”

The moment Johann frowned slightly and was about to say something, I reached out my hand and said.

“But will you be my partner this time?”