Chapter 284: Are you free, darling?

"Don’t worry your pretty head about it, Your Highness," Eren drawled smoothly. "I already figured out how to wrap the old man."

Seraphina blinked, her pen pausing mid-stroke. "What did you say? You already—"

"Wait. Hold on a second."

Emma’s rough voice abruptly severed the banter.

The pink-haired Swordmaster had frozen, holding up one of the glossy photographs taken from the Rujgard entry logs dated five days prior. Her grey eyes narrowed.

"Why the hell is this name here?" Emma muttered with sharp military suspicion.

Aria raised an eyebrow, reaching across the table to pluck the print from Emma’s fingers. "What did you find, Emma? Another subsidiary of the Syndicate’s—"

Aria’s voice caught in her throat.

The elegant villainess went completely still. Her golden eyes widened in stunned, chilling realization, the color subtly draining from her cheeks as she stared down at the photograph.

The sudden drop in atmospheric pressure broke Norelia’s trance; the petite girl startled awake with a soft gasp, blinking her crimson eyes in groggy confusion as she pushed herself upright in the plush chair.

Eren lifted his head off the table, his playful smirk fading as his eyes flickered between the two women.

"What happened?" Eren asked. "Who was on the list?"

Emma didn’t look at Eren. She kept her hard, unblinking glare fixed squarely on Aria, her jaw clenching as she pointed a thumb at the print.

"Lady Aria," Emma asked, her voice dropping into a dangerously quiet register, "isn’t that the arrogant bastard you publicly dumped... the one who smashed Eren’s skull months ago?"

"Reinhardt?" Aria murmured. Her knuckles tightened slightly against the table edge.

Seraphina’s pen froze inches above her ledger. Her red eyes snapped up, an elegant brow arching with instant disdain. "Reinhardt? The heir of the Angulas Dukedom? Your former betrothed?"

"The very same decorative waste of breath," Aria replied, her aristocratic tone dripping with disgust.

Eren leaned across the table, his curiosity getting the better of his nap. He slid the photograph from Aria’s fingers, bringing it to his blue eyes. Scrawled right across the Rujgard southern gate transit log, sealed with the silver-wax cipher of House Angulas, was the signature of the continent’s most pathetic simp.

"Wow," Eren drawled, a crooked, delightfully vicious smirk curling his lips. "What in the seven hells was that gold-plated simp strolling through the continent’s premier murder capital? And right when I was staying there."

"When did the border gate log his entry?" Seraphina demanded, leaning forward. "And when was his departure recorded?"

Eren tapped the margin, cross-referencing the entries and exits. "He entered the gate the afternoon of the day I was busy fighting Branagh. And he vanished back the next morning. Probably caught one whiff of two lords getting butchered, took the fastest carriage out of the sovereign district."

Norelia let out a small yawn, rubbing the sleep from her eyes with the back of her sleeve. "Rujgard entry manifests require a stated purpose for high-ranking foreign nobility. It should be inscribed in the secondary declaration column beneath the crest."

Emma leaned over Eren’s shoulder, squinting at the micro-script. Her pink bangs brushed his temple. "It’s too small and blurred by the mana flare. Looks like a smudge."

Norelia grabbed the photograph from Eren lazily, squinting at the letters.

"Private audience," Norelia read aloud. "Destination: Western municipality. Business: Formal appointment with the Lord of Contracts."

"Contracts?" Aria repeated, her golden eyes narrowing. "What business could a high-noble dog like Reinhardt possibly have with a Rujgard underworld arbiter?"

"Could he be directly tethered to the Syndicate?" Emma asked, resting her elbows on the table.

"Not a chance," Eren scoffed with an unhinged chuckle. "Give the idiot some credit for consistency. Reinhardt doesn’t possess the mental capacity to run a syndicate."

Aria folded her arms beneath her chest. "As much as it wounds my pride to admit I once obsessed over that clown... darling is entirely correct. Reinhardt is thoroughly brainless. However, just because he lacks the intellect to lead doesn’t mean he isn’t being used. Someone pointed him toward Rujgard."

"Precisely," Norelia chimed in from her chair, curling her knees back to her chest. "How does the capital’s most coddled crybaby suddenly decide to take a trip to the bloodiest underworld haven on the continent? It requires orchestration. Someone planted an idea in that skull."

"And he’s been absent from the royal academy for two full weeks," Emma added grimly. "He filed an indefinite leave citing family health right after his public humiliation against Eren. It stinks to high heaven."

Seraphina tapped her slender chin, her expression hardening.

"We cannot afford to treat House Angulas as a mere joke," the princess warned. "Reinhardt may be a fool, but his father is the Emperor’s lapdog. Whenever my father proposes an absurd edict, the Angulas faction is the very first to agree. In twenty years, they climbed their way from an obscure countship straight into a high dukedom solely off the scraps my father threw from the throne."

Eren picked the photo back up, his blue eyes gleaming with amusement as memories flickered through his mind.

Back then, Reinhardt had treated Aria like a piece of furniture—taking her obsessive devotion entirely for granted while shamelessly sniffing around Alice like a pathetic, love-struck puppy. It was Eren who had casually detonated that little dynamic into dust during their public duel, laying Reinhardt’s hypocrisy bare before the entire academy and prompting Aria to shatter the betrothal.

The bruised heir had nursed a burning, psychotic vendetta ever since, desperate to defeat Eren and drag Aria back.

Seraphina frowned. Her fingers tapped a slow, measured cadence against the rim of the table.

"I can send a few operatives from my network to place a tail on him," Seraphina murmured, her crimson eyes tracking the ledger. "Though if he is cooped up inside the Angulas manor, intelligence will run thin. Their private estate is fortified, staffed exclusively by soldiers loyal to the Emperor’s inner circle. Piercing their perimeter without alerting the crown will prove difficult."

"Leave the simpering dog to rot in his kennel for the moment," Aria interjected smoothly, leaning back in her velvet chair with sublime aristocratic poise. Her golden eyes glittered with sudden mischief. "Tell me, darling... what exact time is our audience with the count tomorrow?"

"Ten sharp in the morning," Eren answered, resting his chin on his knuckles while eyeing her with an easy smirk. "Supposedly, the old codger requires three hours of meeting before we can conclude the results."

"Ten in the morning," Aria repeated, the words rolling off her tongue like sweet, intoxicating poison. A slow, breathtakingly wicked smile bloomed across her lips. "Which means... by early afternoon, my darling fiancé will be entirely free. Won’t you?"

Eren’s eyes narrowed, skeptical.

He knew that look far too well. Whenever Aria Reedings smiled like an archdemon who had just inherited the keys to an imperial vault.

"Why do I suddenly feel the urge to draft a last will?" Eren muttered, leaning back from the table while throwing an amused glance between Emma and Norelia. "Alright, my villainess. What kind of scheme is brewing inside that terrifyingly beautiful head of yours now?"