Please Leave The Sickly Villainess Alone

“Miss, to reject me like this when I’ve come to visit after so long.”

“You always come without warning. It would have been better if you’d given me a reply in advance.”

At my reproachful words, Jen pretended to cry. As he said, Jen, who had come to visit after a while, continued to act like this after seeing me preparing to go out.

I couldn’t tell anymore if I was his management target or his plaything.

I opened my jewelry box and returned the artifact I had been keeping to Jen.

“The amplifying artifact was very useful.”

“It’s nothing. If you need it again next time, I’ll steal it from the Tower Master without him knowing.”

“You… stole it?”

Suddenly, I remembered when he was searching for the artifact to give me in another dimension, muttering ‘Where did that old geezer hide it?’ while waving his hand in the air.

I wonder if the Tower Master regrets taking Jen as his top disciple by now.

But.

“Thank you, steal it for me again next time!”

For me, he’s such a reliable helper. The Tower Master would have a fit if he knew what we were doing.

“More importantly, you came at a good time. I was hoping you could use magic to dye my hair for a bit.”

“You’re trying to do something fun without me again!”

He says that, but then asks what color I’d like.

“Since your emerald eyes are pretty, should we dye your hair green too? Or maybe a safe brown?”

“Hmm… How about blue like your hair?”

“I see you’ve taken a liking to my hair.”

With a grinning face, Jen snapped his fingers, and my long silver hair started changing to a vibrant blue color from the ends.

Finally, when even the roots had changed to the same color as Jen’s hair, my reflection in the mirror had a completely different feel from usual.

Seeing Jen and me reflected in the mirror like this, we looked like siblings.

“Thank you! How long will it last?”

“For an ordinary mage it wouldn’t last more than an hour, but since it’s my magic, it should last half a day.”

Jen boasted proudly, but from what I had seen of him, it wasn’t just empty bragging.

He was one of only three top disciples of the Tower Master, and a mage of the 79th floor, just below the Tower Master in the Magic Tower.

“Oh right, I just remembered I had something to ask you.”

Just as I was about to ask about Senia’s strange mana that I had heard about at the Imperial Magic Department last time, there was a knock at the door.

After I gave permission, Garnett entered and said:

“Oh, sir Jen, you’re here again.”

To Garnett’s stiff greeting, Jen replied:

“Yes, I’m here again, but it seems the young miss is about to go out.”

Looking at Jen speaking as if his non-existent ears had drooped, Garnett let out a brief, soulless sigh of ‘Oh dear,’ before turning to me and saying:

“Miss, the carriage is ready downstairs. As you requested, we’ve hired a coachman through an agency.”

Nodding, I looked at the clock and saw that I needed to leave now to arrive at the appointed time.

“Jen, come visit again soon. I have some things to ask you.”

“To say that and then leave, that’s torture, miss.”

Well, even I would spend the night wide awake if someone made me very curious by saying they had something to ask and then told me they’d tell me next time.

“Consider it punishment for running away and leaving me alone last time.”

Thanks to that, I even gained the glorious title of ‘Black Plague Dragon’, so I really gave Jen punishment out of gratitude.

* * *

Officially, I was going to a dressmaker’s shop in town.

And of course, I couldn’t go without an escort knight.

“Miss, why are you wearing a cloak?”

Ion, sitting in the seat in front of me, asked.

I had announced that I was going to the busiest area, and though it was safe enough that Garnett and I could have gone alone, Ion had accompanied me instead of Garnett.

It was Dad’s condition for going out that I had to be accompanied by a knight.

I had tied my now blue hair into a single ponytail and was wearing a cloak over it.

“I didn’t wash my hair.”

“Come on, your silver hair would still shine even then, Miss!”

It’s not silver now, but blue.

I pulled the cloak deeper and spent time chatting idly with Ion.

“Actually, the Captain’s hobby is knitting. I saw him making clothes for Tharo the other day…”

“Really… He’ll love it. But tell him it might be better to make the clothes a bit bigger and change them to clothes for Terry or Ben.”

“He’s already made separate clothes for the children. He seemed to find the three of them running around together quite cute, so he was knitting them all with the same color yarn.”

“We’ll soon have the Three Musketeers in the Duchy. The children will surely be delighted.”

The carriage sped towards a secluded dressmaker’s shop in town.

Tielre 21st Avenue, at the very end of it.

“Miss, to have clothes made at such a cheap dressmaker’s…”

As Ion looked out the window with a confused expression, I opened a bottle of sleeping fragrance I had brought and let it fill the carriage.

Then I covered my nose and mouth with a handkerchief I had prepared.

Even though it was powerful, if the person here had been Hewt or Miller, the sleeping fragrance might not have worked.

I sighed in relief as I watched Ion, who fortunately fell asleep quickly.

The time given to me was originally one hour. However, since Ion was also a sturdy knight, its effect would be shorter.

I had to finish my business and return within that time.

When I held up one finger to the coachman, whom I had bribed in advance through Garnett, to signal one hour, he nodded slowly.

“Additional charges apply for every 10 minutes over.”

At those words, I felt rushed like a car owner worrying about parking fees.

Then I thought, surely the additional charges wouldn’t be much, but then again, it’s a Korean instinct to feel bad about losing even a small amount of money, so I quickened my pace again.

I checked the number on the dressmaker’s shop and confirmed that it matched the address written on the note I had received through the fruit seller.

‘This is it.’

The bell on the door jingled, and I stepped into the shabby dressmaker’s shop.

There really wasn’t a single customer inside.

All the clothes hanging up were far out of fashion, and they weren’t well-maintained.

It was obvious at a glance that the place being a dressmaker’s shop was just a front.

“Welcome, customer.”

Just then, a middle-aged gentleman greeted me from the side.

“Is there a design you’re looking for?”

To him, who asked skillfully with a kind smile, I showed a gold coin and said:

“Welcome… the guest who came seeking the truth.”

Wow, that was really cringeworthy just now. Did I say it properly without trembling?

At my words, the gentleman’s eyes changed. If until now he thought I was a customer who had come to the wrong shop, now he would think I was one of the enormous wealthy figures who could shake the Empire.

And the one gold coin was the advance payment to be made before entering Troisen.

The gentleman seemed surprised that a young girl with a small stature and youthful voice had come seeking Troisen.

But soon, like a professional, he accepted the gold coin I handed over, bowed his head deeply, and said:

“I am the guild master’s butler. I will guide you on the way to meet him.”

Like an intricately moving NPC in a game, the gentleman locked the entrance I had come through to prevent anyone else from entering, then walked ahead to a door deep inside the dressmaker’s shop.

I thought, there can’t be another new space in this small dressmaker’s shop, but sure enough, when the gentleman turned the key in the door and opened it, there was a narrow space of barely one pyeong* inside. (tl/n: Korean unit of area and floorspace, equal to 3.31 square meters)

Looking at the space that was just big enough for me and the butler to enter, I stared at the butler as if to say, ‘What is this?’

Then he smiled and pointed to the floor with his finger.

There was an intricately drawn magic circle on the floor.

It seemed to be used for spatial movement, like the magic circle I had seen in the Magic Tower.

When I carefully stepped onto it, white light softly filled the small space and the magic circle activated.

As I started to feel nauseous, the shabby dressmaker’s shop scenery that had been before my eyes disappeared.

And the place I arrived at was in the middle of a wide-open corridor.

A red carpet had replaced the magic circle under my feet, and a few steps ahead was a huge door.

The butler spoke from behind me.

“Thank you for visiting Troisen. I hope you find the answers you seek.”

When I whirled around, there was no butler or magic circle, as if there had been nothing there from the start.

There was only a deep shadowy corridor stretching endlessly.

There were no windows, so I couldn’t see the outside scenery, and because of that, I couldn’t gauge where this place was.

I first moved my steps to knock on the huge door.

Knock knock-

Then the door, which had looked massive, began to open simultaneously to the left and right.

The information broker seemed to be very serious about the concept.

-Welcome… the guest who came seeking the truth.

The words I had said to the butler earlier were the final password to meet the Troisen guild master.

To know this, one had to be either a founding member of this guild or a long-time client.

In the original story, Senia discovers this information from the diary of Linus, one of Troisen’s founding members and the late Duke Kablos’s half-brother.

As the heavy door finally opened wide with a sound, I carefully moved my steps inside.

Although it must have been midday outside, this room was dark without a single point of light and filled with a chill.

All I could see were floating blue lights.

I thought I might trip over something if I kept walking like this, and sure enough.

Thud, splat-

‘This terrible concept-obsessed person, really!’

I cursed Troisen out of embarrassment. No matter how secretive the Empire’s top organization is, why decorate the room like this?

I let out a small groan as I got up from where I had fallen.

“Ouch…”

“Are you alright?”

The husky male voice came from not far ahead.

Then lights suddenly brightened all around.

“I’m fine.”

I dusted off my knees and got up, checking what had made me trip.

A doll…?

An adorably cute rabbit doll had been directly hit by my foot and was pitifully crumpled.

Looking around the now bright surroundings, I saw the room was full of dolls.

And in the middle of it all, sitting at a desk that looked somewhat normal, was a young man with red hair.

“I’ve been waiting for you, client.”

As he uttered those words, the dolls scattered all around began to dance.

Ah, he really was terribly serious about the concept.

I thought, watching the bear dolls dancing while holding both my hands.