12 O’Clock Marionette

Rewinding time—it happened right after I received the gate ring.

“Let’s talk about how to find Morion.”

Cruello spoke as he wrapped me in all sorts of warm comforts.

“Are we heading to the Duke’s estate right after the engagement?”

“You won’t find it even if you go there. It’s hidden with key magic.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s a concealment spell where five people hold separate keys. The door to the hidden space only opens when all the keys are gathered.”

…So in other words, to find Morion, we had to steal the keys from five Elders.

And in order to do that—

“We need a priest. Since it’s dark magic, it won’t be easy to detect.”

“‘Hunt down the Elders who hold the keys’… so that’s why you mentioned the engagement.”

The Elder Council wanted to replace me as soon as possible, and Cruello’s tragedies always required a stage.@@novelbin@@

What better occasion than the engagement day itself?

Judging by what happened to his previous fiancées, they would undoubtedly try to kill me.

But there was one issue.

“Wouldn’t they normally send underlings for something like this?”

“It’s a bit complicated. If an Elder’s subordinate fails once, they keep getting missions until they make up for it. But if they fail twice, the Elder in charge has to handle it personally.”

“And if they fail three times?”

“They lose their head.”

Oh.

…Wait a second.

I held out my fingers and started counting.

The adoption ceremony party, the Harvest Festival, and the shrine incident.

That’s three.