However, since Gibeon had a blessing from the spirit of light, Kotaro couldn’t inflict any major damage to him—just enough to knock him over.
“Come now, Kotaro. You have to give it a little more power or it won’t work on him. Light gave him too much of a blessing, after all.”
“Indeed, I’ll keep that in mind for next time.”
Neither Rin nor Kotaro were being subtle about their hostility, practically clicking their tongues after each of their remarks. They both hated Gibeon because their first encounter with him had put Ruri in a dangerous situation, and despite quite some time passing since then, neither of the spirits had forgiven him just yet.
“You’re terrible!” whined Gibeon on the floor.
However, it was immediately drowned out by Euclase’s ferocious roar. “Hey, Gibeon! Quit slacking off or I’m taking it from your pay!”
“You saw that, didn’t you?! I was attacked!”
“No doubt because you tried to make a pass at Ruri. You ought to be thankful His Majesty isn’t here. He would make sure your head and body went their separate ways, no questions asked,” Euclase said, also in the camp of being cold toward Gibeon.
“You’re all terrible...” Gibeon said, sniffling. But one look at his dry eyes confirmed it was nothing but crocodile tears.
Ruri ignored him and approached Euclase. Their desk was stacked with towers of papers and documents as other officials in the room busily assisted with the work.
“Is now a good time, Euclase-san?”
“Yes, I was just thinking of taking a break,” Euclase replied, shooting a look at the others in the room, who all stood up at once and bowed before exiting.
Ruri felt bad that she had made Euclase go the extra mile for her sake. However, as if to dispel any feelings of guilt Ruri may have had, Euclase arrogantly barked an order at Gibeon.
“Gibeon, go brew some tea. Use those top-grade tea leaves I had you buy when I asked you to run errands the other day. And don’t steep them too long.”
“Overbearing much?” Gibeon grumbled, but he went off to prepare the tea as he was told. It was hard to believe that he had once been the prince of a whole nation.
Not that his status as a prince meant much of anything now that his homeland had been destroyed, but if it had still been around, he wouldn’t have been serving people—he would’ve had people serving him.
Euclase stood from their chair and moved to the sofa. Ruri sat on the other side, across from the table in the middle. Kotaro plopped down next to her, and Rin perched on Ruri’s shoulder. Euclase rotated their arm to shake off the stiffness, looking a bit tired.
“Seems you’ve had a tough day,” Ruri commented.
“Well, we’re dealing with the fallout of that nasty Imperial Nation business. They’re in turmoil because their top brass still haven’t been ironed out. If they were an unrelated nation, it wouldn’t be an issue, but since they’re an allied nation and we do a lot of business with them, it’s a complete mess.”
“You’re doing good work.”
“You better believe I am. So...what did you need?”
“Yes, you see, I was helping Lydia sort through pocket spaces earlier, and—” Ruri started.
Euclase grimaced. “You didn’t get into more trouble, did you?”
“No, not quite. I found a room that was chock-full of treasure, but it was all engraved with what seemed to be a crest, so I figured that you might have knowledge of it.”
“A crest, eh? I’ll have to see to be sure.”
“Here it is.” Ruri handed Euclase the brooch she had brought from the pocket space. It had a large gem in the center with silver around the edges, and the crest was engraved on the back.
“Quite a quality gemstone. A fine item with impeccable craftsmanship,” Euclase noted.
“I agree. There were a lot of other pieces of clothing and jewelry left there, so I believe the pocket space belonged to someone very high-class...”
“Yes, no random upstart could obtain something like this,” said Euclase. The item was good enough to gain their seal of approval.
“Do you know this crest, then?” asked Ruri.
“Not even I know everything. But I have seen it somewhere before. Now, where was it again?” Euclase mused with a contemplative groan.
Just then, Gibeon came back with the tea. “Okay! Sorry for the wait. Here’s the tea, personally brewed by yours truly. I made sure to put a lot of love for you in it, Ruri!”
That little comment made it so much harder for Ruri to drink. Kotaro wasted no time in putting his snout up against the teacup placed in front of her. After some diligent sniffing, Kotaro walked away, satisfied.
“Yes, well, there doesn’t seem to be anything dangerous in it.”
“Seems to be okay to drink,” added Rin.
Gibeon whined yet again at the duo’s remarks. “You’re terrible. I would never poison Ruri. I’m Ruri’s lover, after all!”
“I don’t trust you,” stated Kotaro.
“You can say that again,” Rin chimed in.
They both glared at Gibeon warily. Ruri couldn’t hide her strained smile from the two overprotective spirits. As they continued their back-and-forth, Euclase searched their memories while looking at the crest engraved on the brooch.
Gibeon took a look at the brooch in Euclase’s hand, and his eyes widened. Extremely panicked, he blurted out, “Huh?! Wait a second. Where did you get that?!”
Ruri looked over at him. “I got it from a private source, and I’m having Euclase-san inspect it.”
She didn’t mention Lydia. Her ability to enter other people’s pocket spaces should be kept as secret as possible. However, there was a case, due to unforeseen circumstances, of her entering one of the Imperial Princess’s pocket spaces and leaving with a key piece of evidence out of necessity. This had inevitably led to Ruri telling Arman and a handful of people that she could interact with other people’s spaces.
She’d gotten off the hook because it was something that she’d had to do, but she’d been warned by Euclase to keep the circle of those in the know to a minimum. As a result, she had to hide the facts from Gibeon.
“Do you know where this brooch comes from, Gibeon? There’s a crest on the back,” Ruri said.
“Lemme see that for a sec,” Gibeon begged her.
Euclase looked at Ruri to check if it was all right, and Ruri nodded to indicate that it was no problem. Gibeon took the brooch carefully, as though handling a fragile item, and slowly ran his fingers over the crest. His face contorted, on the verge of tears, as if trying to hold something back.
“Gibeon?” Ruri prompted him.
“Are there...any more items like this?” he asked.
After a slight hesitation, Ruri answered truthfully. “Yeah. There was a lot of stuff—dresses, jewelry, you name it.”
As soon as she finished her sentence, Gibeon had dropped to the floor where he stood and pleaded with Ruri on his hands and knees. “I beg of you, if you have anything else similar, please give it to me.” His tone was more serious than anything she had heard from him before, and his desperation was palpable. Puzzled, she turned her gaze to Euclase, but they seemed to be just as perplexed by the strange outburst.
That was when something hit Euclase, and they exclaimed, “Oh! I remember now. That crest—I saw it while running a background check on you, Gibeon. If memory serves, this is the crest of your homeland’s queen.”
Ruri, unable to hide her surprise at Euclase’s words, replied, “Huh? Is that true?”
“Yes. That is right, isn’t it, Gibeon?” Euclase asked.
Gibeon simply nodded with his head still bowed low.