Siren checked Yuri’s face to see if Yuri was upset by what she said. Of course, Yuri thought nothing of it but Siren was restless when she saw Yuri’s expressionless face. Then she squeezed her eyes shut and snatched the thing in Yuri’s hand.

“I don’t… need it! But since you want to give me so much, I’ll make an exception and accept it this time!”

As always, Siren couldn’t be honest with herself.

“That aside, Odin hasn’t come, right?”

Yuri’s question reminded Siren of what she forgot.

“Oh, right! I was looking for him because I have something to ask! When is Crow coming?”

“I can’t contact him, so I don’t know.”

When she heard Yuri’s reply, Siren’s eyes widened slightly. For Odin not to contact Arachne… somehow, it didn’t seem like something you could take lightly.

Siren carefully asked Yuri:

“Should I send a bird out to look for him?”

At that, Yuri looked at Siren with new eyes.

“Oh, right. You also have that kind of ability.”

“Are you looking down on me right now?!”

“No, do me a favor.”

Siren’s short temper flared but at Yuri’s following words, her fierceness melted. The thought of Arachne asking her for a favor made her lips curve in excitement.

“Ehem, mmm! Since you ask like that, it can’t be helped. I’ll have to use some strength.”

And inwardly, she was elated.

‘I don’t have to fear looking into Arachne’s house now!’

Of course, her joy was only momentary because Yuri’s next words shut it down.

“That doesn’t mean you can look inside my house.”

“I-I wont! Do you think I’m that interested in you?”

Siren’s conscience was pricked once again. With her expectations foiled, she was slightly sulky and fiddled with her wings. From the looks of things, she would have to push back asking Yuri about Lakis Avalon in her house.

* * *

The next day.

–

A dazzling carriage stopped in front of the coffee house on Blue Ferret. People were shocked by the appearance of a luxurious carriage adorned with gold sequin-covered jewels.

Clack!

A while later, a well-dressed handsome man stepped down. He took a glance around then he frowned as if he didn’t like something.

‘Quite the shoddy neighborhood.’

Then finally, the man’s dark eyes fell on the coffeehouse building in front of him.

‘Hmm, so this is meeting place of Kalian Crawford and Genos Sheldon?’

The reason Damon left the Alchemist Tower and came to the street of the common people was because of the report he got recently.

It said that lately, Kalian Crawford stopped by this place at an abnormal degree. Of course, the person who provided the information said that Kalian didn’t seem to meet the man who looked like Genos Sheldon. They also added that in their opinion, Kalian might be involved in an undercover investigation.It was quite the sound reasoning.

But Damon’s gut told him that there was something very important about this coffeehouse. To find out what that was, Damon stepped into the building in front of him.

* * *

He stepped into the store of commoners for the first time in his life and as expected, it was filled with the smell of cheap tea.

Gilbert had been watching ever since Damon’s carriage pulled up in front of the store, so he immediately ran over to greet the customer.

“W-What would you like to order, sir?”

“Anything, bring the least pathetic option.”

It was a much more difficult order than the one from the high noble, Kalian Crawford.

Gilbert painfully smiled and replied.

“Do you mean…the most expensive menu?”

Damon looked at the owner of the coffeehouse with a bit of annoyance. Gilbert dried up under that gaze.

“Bring it. I’ll see how it is.”

Damon said, clicking his tongue under his breath. In his mind, the entire menu was the same. After that, he looked over the store’s interior. As expected, the inside was just as pathetic as the outside.

He thought Kalian Crawford and Genos Sheldon had quite the shoddy taste to pick a store like this of all places. There were other classy places to have a secret meeting. Either ways, he came here because he was suspicious, but this was disappointing.

The store didn’t seem to have anything special about it. It was just an ordinarily common and insignificant-looking place.

‘…there aren’t any bugs here, right?’

Damon’s gaze swept around. Soon he felt uncomfortable and knit his brows. Although the sanitation wasn’t too bad, the building itself looked too shabby compared to the mansion he lived in, so he felt unsettled.

Now that he had come himself, it didn’t make any sense. Why would Kalian Crawford keep coming to this place?

“Here’s the drink you ordered.”

Right then, a female clerk at the coffeehouse came up to his table with a tray. Damon turned his head, thinking about asking the owner of the coffeehouse directly about Kalian Crawford.

“Oi, call the owner of this store right n…”

And the next moment, the lady with dark hair and red eyes came into his sight. Damon’s eyes went wide open.

* * *

‘That’s Damon Salvatore, isn’t it?’

Once he stepped down from the carriage in front of the store, Yuri recognized his face.

‘What’s he doing in this neighborhood?’

She was puzzled but she figured he might have just come here to do something else. Even without this, Snow whom she assumed to be Genos Sheldon had been a regular patron of the store for a while and lately, Kalian Crawford had been coming frequently. So the rarity of the male characters in the novel had gone down.

Speaking of which, Anne-Marie and Kalian Crawford.

At first, they acted like they weren’t interested in each other but nowadays, they were meeting separately and seemed to be discussing something in secret.

Could they be working out something?

But Kalian Crawford was…no good. Anne-Marie was too precious. Was this meeting okay?

While Yuri frowned in contemplation, Damon Salvatore entered the coffeehouse.

“Hiik.”

She heard Gilbert suck in a breath.With the fact that he blatantly parked a carriage in front of the coffeehouse, Damon looked like a nobleman from every angle. So Gilbert looked somewhat uneasy as he glanced at the door to the store.

Unlike Yuri, Gilbert didn’t seem to have gotten used to dealing with nobles despite Kalian Crawford’s frequent visits.

Damon looked around the store with a frown on his face then found an empty seat. Seeing that, Gilbert quickly ran over to him.

“W-What would you like to order, sir?”

“Anything, bring the least pathetic option.”

When she heard what Damon said, Yuri almost burst into laughter.

Putting aside the fact that he was crossing his legs and acting high and mighty, didn’t he seems like one of those second-generation chaebols that throw money around in some melodrama? [1]

Come to think of it, Damon Salvatore was just as much of a gold spoon as Kalian Crawford.

“Ms. Yuri, the order…”

“The most expensive one, I got it.”

A while later, Gilbert came into the kitchen wiping his cold sweat. Since Yuri could hear their conversation from a distance, she was already preparing the menu for Damon Salvatore.

Just like Kalian, Damon Salvatore didn’t suit this place so she had no idea what they was playing at by coming inside.

“I’ll take it to him.”

“W-Will you be okay, Ms. Yuri? That customer doesn’t seem to have a good personality.”

“Well, you get nervous around nobles, Mr. Gilbert.”

Yuri looked at Gilbert who was soaked in sweat like it had rained, then she picked up the tray. In the end, she was just bringing him the drink he ordered.

Moreover, although it was true that Damon had a prickly personality, he wasn’t the type to pick on innocent people for no reason.

“Here’s the drink you ordered.”

So Yuri approached the table where Damon sat without much thought.

“Oi, call the owner of this store right n…”

But Damon who was looking around the store suddenly asked for Gilbert. And the moment he turned to meet her gaze, his black eyes dilated.

Bang!

Damon sprang to his feet and his knee banged against the table. The table shook and the liquid in the teacup also shook with it.

“Are you okay?”

Yuri courteously asked, looking at Damon who seemed very surprised by something.

“Should I call Mr. Gilbert? He’s the coffeehouse owner.”

“No…”

Damon muttered a reply, staring intently at Yuri. He looked very shocked by something.

‘What is this?’

As the recipient of such a burdensome gaze, Yuri frowned slightly.

Only then did Damon seem to come to his senses. He fixed his expression and sat down again.

“What happened?”

“Who knows.”

Gilbert hurriedly approached Yuri and asked in a whisper. But unsurprisingly, Yuri didn’t have an answer. After that, Damon’s strange behavior continued.

He sat quietly in his seat and stared at Yuri as she moved about the coffeehouse. His gaze was so intense, he might as well have bore a hole through Yuri.

Translator’s Corner:

[1] You can google what chaebol means but think rich, overbearing president haha.