However, just as Eleanor stepped out of the bedroom, she felt a strange gaze upon her.
Turning around, she saw a Temple Knight staring at her in shock.
The knight then looked uncertainly at the room number.
He stood frozen in place, as if struck by a massive revelation.
Not understanding what the Temple Knight was doing, Eleanor simply scratched her head, gave a slight bow, and left.
After she departed, Lewis finally snapped out of his shock.
He said incredulously, “Prince Anderson is into this kind of thing? But if I remember correctly… Eleanor is only sixteen, right?”
As a captain-level figure in the Temple Knights, Lewis had naturally seen Eleanor’s personal file.
Now he was utterly astounded.
“No way. This is an illegal act. Even if he’s a prince, I have to get to the bottom of it!”
With that, Lewis knocked on the door of Anderson’s bedroom, adopting the mindset of a martyr heading toward certain doom.
When Anderson opened the door, Lewis placed a hand on his shoulder and said in a grave tone,
“Your Highness, one cannot—or at least should not—lay a hand on an underage girl.”
“?”
Anderson silently typed a question mark.
***
On the other side, Ainola, having shed her disguise, returned home.
She set the packaged food on the table and said to the Contact,
“I have some supper here. Do you want any?”
“Supper?”
The Contact looked at Ainola suspiciously and asked,
“You don’t seem like someone who would eat supper.”
“There’s a reason for it. I didn’t buy this with my own money, of course.”
“Is that so? I thought you’d come into money. Don’t forget, you still owe me a thousand gold coins.”
“I remember, I remember, of course I do,” Ainola said with a chuckle.
“It’s just that I don’t have the money to pay it back. I’ll definitely pay next month.”
“You said the same thing last month.”
The Contact’s tone was a little exasperated.
Ainola had a big appetite, so her monthly food budget was never enough.
For the past five months, she had been borrowing money from the Contact, but every coin lent to her disappeared without a trace—never to return.
Not that the Contact really minded such a small amount.
Unlike Ainola, the Contact had the backing of an assassin organization, so naturally she could take on many high-paying jobs.
She didn’t lack this bit of money.
And honestly, Ainola was rather cute.
The Contact figured she might as well treat her like a pet at home.
“So, how is the investigation I asked you to do going?”
The Contact steered the conversation back to the original task.
Ainola thought for a moment, then said,
“I’ve made tremendous progress. I can now freely enter and leave the most core area of the Temple Knights.”
Hearing this, the Contact grew interested and continued,
“Can you get inside the Shrine?”
“No, but I can now freely enter and leave Anderson’s room.”
“…”
For some reason, seeing Ainola so full of confidence, the Contact didn’t know whether to laugh or criticize.
“What kind of progress is that? Progress in your love life? Or did you actually go and seduce Anderson?”
“How could I possibly!”
Ainola said righteously.
“Am I the kind of person who would seduce someone? Among all assassins, I stand firm and unyielding—I would never sell my integrity.”
Indeed, as Ainola said, many assassins would stoop to any means to achieve their goals, even selling their bodies if necessary.
But not Ainola.
Her character and dignity wouldn’t allow her to do such a thing…
Unless the money was good enough.
Then she might consider it.
At least a million, right?
Ainola couldn’t help but think of Anderson, wondering if he had a million.
No, as a prince of a kingdom, he could certainly come up with a million.
Maybe she could extort it from him later.
Just as Ainola was scheming how to swindle Anderson, the Contact interrupted her thoughts.
“You need to speed up. The Moon Shadow Society seems to have fixed their eyes on the Eye of Wite. They’re very likely to make another move.”
Snapping back to reality, Ainola scratched her head, looking a bit puzzled.
“So why do they want the Eye of Wite so badly? Isn’t it just a key?”
To Ainola’s question, the Contact thought for a moment before replying,
“The Eye of Wite is the key to the door of the Ancient Ruins. The technology and magic inside are terrifying things we’ve never seen before. The Moon Shadow Society must know its purpose, which is why they’re so desperate to get their hands on it.”
The Ancient Ruins—Ainola had heard legends about them since she was a child.
The gist was that the world’s technology had experienced a discontinuity.
A very, very long time ago, there was an extremely powerful civilization on this land.
These ruins were the remnants of that civilization.
No one knew what lay inside.
But some pieces of technology had already leaked into the world.
The Anti-Magic Field she had encountered not long ago was precisely one of those ancient, mysterious technologies.
Just that simple effect alone was enough to terrify every modern mage.
After all, once inside an Anti-Magic Field, no matter how powerful a mage, they were no better than a fish on a chopping board, waiting to be slaughtered.
Fortunately, the devices that deployed the Anti-Magic Field were all single-use, and so far, no one had cracked their operating logic.
Each use meant one fewer, so their value was extremely precious.
This showed just how seriously the Moon Shadow Society valued the Eye of Wite, even willing to spend a fortune to deploy an Anti-Magic Field device.
But then again, compared to an Anti-Magic Field device, if they could get the key and open the door to the ruins, what lay inside would be even more maddening.
“Contact, do you want the key to enter the ruins too? I heard it’s very dangerous inside.”
Faced with Ainola’s question, the Contact was silent for a moment, then nodded.
“Yes. I have a reason I must go to the ruins.”
The technology of the Ancient Ruins far surpassed the modern age.
That alone was enough motivation for the Contact to go in and explore.
As for what exactly the Contact was looking for, Ainola didn’t feel it was her place to ask.
Maybe it had something to do with the group of children the Contact had been caring for?
Ainola recalled that although the Contact was cold-hearted, she was incredibly gentle with children.
And Ainola knew that among those children, several were afflicted with an unknown plague.
With the current level of medicine, there was no way to cure them.
They could only watch helplessly as the children grew thinner and thinner, until they died.
That was why the Contact wanted to gamble on entering the ruins.
Even if she might find nothing, from what Ainola knew of her, if there was even the slightest chance, the Contact would spare no effort to try.