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I finished my breakfast and hurried to Logan.
In case Tia Bluea stopped by again today, I had to get things done quickly. Tia Bluea is a person who might appear at any time.
Logan, who doesn’t eat breakfast properly, was stuck in his lab today.
I knocked on the door, but nobody answered. Undaunted, I pounded on the door even harder this time.
“Of course, no response.”
Logan typically doesn’t mind meeting people, but when he is deeply immersed in his research, he pretends he’s gone.
Normally, I would have given up and left, but since I had my own business today, I wasn’t able to back down as easily.
I clenched my fist. I pounded even harder than before.
“Who is it…?”
After some time, Logan opened the door, likely realizing that I wouldn’t give up easily. With his alert eyes, he appeared exhausted, most likely from not getting enough sleep the night before.
He asked who it was out of respect, but he didn’t appear surprised to see me.
“By the way you knocked on the door, I assumed it was the miss.”
“How come you didn’t open it sooner?”
“You look tired, so I guess you didn’t get much sleep.”
I’m not sure if he ought to be saying that, but he didn’t adequately respond to my query. I rubbed my eyes quickly because it was true that I hadn’t gotten enough sleep because I was in Grand Duke Estin’s room every night these days.
Logan smirked at the sight of me. He can’t possibly be aware of what I do at night, can he?
Pushing past him, I entered the lab and discovered stacks of books and poisonous mushrooms on top of his desk.
Logan recently conducted research on the cursed beast. Next to him was a container of milk that appeared to be a breakfast alternative.
“Eating that in place of a meal is bad for your stamina.”
As I looked at Logan’s desk with a displeased expression, I frowned at the sight of the ends of the poisonous mushrooms being slowly nibbled away.
“You didn’t eat the poisonous mushroom, did you?”
“What?”
I shuddered at the thought of Logan eating them to see how his body would react.
When I turned around, I could see Logan behind me, scratching his head and staring at me in confusion. His face became solemn as he pondered something.
“…Please keep it a secret.”
“Are you crazy?”
“It’s what I must do to complete my research.”
“Has anything odd happened to your body?”
“Now that I think about it, something has recently started to grow at my fingertips.”
“At your fingertips?”
I asked seriously, grabbing Logan’s right hand and inspecting it. Since I witness how the Black lump turned into a cursed beast, I became concerned with Logan.
It’s absurd. It’s truly absurd. I should not have given Logan the poisonous mushroom.
I examined Logan’s hand slowly, but I didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary.
When I looked up at him with a puzzled expression, he just smiled.
“Look here.”
He showed his perfectly groomed fingernails.
“Don’t play around.”
I scowled as I released Logan’s hand.
“No, I didn’t eat it, but I ground it up into a powder and gave it to a plant.”
“What happened?”
Logan pulled out a pot that was buried in a stack of papers as he pondered my query.
The plant in the pot was developing oddly. It resembled the trees I saw in the forest in appearance.
“The more you give it, the bigger it grows.”
“Wow….”
“I’m still working on it, so I might come up with an antidote sooner or later. Lucas is also working hard to mass-produce Laminaicho.”
Overwhelmed by unexpected good news, I hugged Logan tightly and let out a cry of excitement. Logan awkwardly patted my back after a brief hesitation.
He obviously wasn’t used to this and was embarrassed.
“In any case, what brought you here?”
“Oh, that’s….”
Only then did I recall the reason for my visit to Logan.
Logan asked me what was going on as I was frozen in place and rendered speechless.
“I’d like to meet Baron Bruno.”
“Baron Bruno……?”
Logan gave me a sly look, like he was trying to figure out what I was up to.
“What’s going on?”
“Sofia Bruno was said to have disappeared.”
“What?”
Logan was taken aback by my words and muttered something to himself.
When I paid close attention, I realized he was wondering why he hadn’t heard from her. Why would Sofia Bruno need to get in touch with Logan?
Logan paused for a moment before giving me a stern look.
“You don’t need to meet Baron Bruno; I’ll take care of this.”
I was a little disappointed at how quickly his playful demeanor had vanished.
Then, after telling me to be patient and that everything would be taken care of, Logan grabbed my shoulder and pushed me firmly but gently out the door.
Even though Logan is supposed to be weak, I was helpless against the force of a grown man’s determination.
I did my best not to push back and spoke to Logan in a beseeching tone.
“There’s something on my mind, too.”
“Just hang in there. I’ll take care of it, and what’s bothering you will go away.”
“Oh, really!”
But no matter how desperately I pleaded, Logan was adamant.
How is he going to handle this when he was already busy with the research?  Before I knew it, Logan’s door was in view. I yelled aloud.
“This might have something to do with Tia Bluea!”
Logan stopped as he was about to push me out of the room.
“Tia Bluea? The girl who came with Duke Bluea?”
“Yes!”
I whirled around quickly and nodded at Logan.
Logan seemed interested in what I said and lowered his hand from my shoulder, which he had been holding, to push me out. He then looked down at me while rubbing his chin.
“Do you believe there is a link between Tia Bluea’s unexpected appearance and Sofia Bruno’s disappearance?”
“I’m beginning to believe there just might be.”
I didn’t expect Logan to believe me so quickly.
I was considering telling him that Tia is actually Jung Seulbi, but how should I do it?
Logan seemed to believe my story, in contrast to my fears.
“Do Sofia and Tia Bluea have anything in common?”
Something in common?
I gave it some careful thought. They appeared to be slightly different yet similar.
Sofia, who was enraged when Astina took her favorite dress, and Tia, who was equally greedy. And the fact that they both had a keen interest in Lausanne and the imperial family? Isn’t this true for everyone? Surely not? I agonized over it and then carefully said it.
“They both have great ambitions…?”
“You have ambition too, Miss.”
Logan’s expression became listless, and somehow he uttered a familiar line.
“Sofia was never that kind of girl.”
Logan muttered, appearing somewhat dejected.
It wasn’t surprising that he knew about Sofia because he served as Baron Bruno’s close aide, but it did strike her as odd that he spoke of her so intimately. No, is it that bad?
“She takes after her mother.”
“The baroness?”
“Well, she changed eventually, too.”
Logan still looked wistful. He sounded more wistful when he talked about the Baroness than when he talked about Sofia earlier. Could it be that Logan…?
“Oh, Baroness Bruno is my sister.”
“Really?”
I looked at Logan in surprise.
I’ve never seen the Baroness, so I can’t say if she resembles Logan in any way, but now that you mention it, he doesn’t resemble Sofia in any way.
“Sofia resembles her aunt a lot.”
“Oh, I see…….”
“You didn’t know?”
“Yes!”
“I assumed you were asking for a favor because you knew everything. The Grand Duke and Lucas are really tight-lipped.”
That’s why you had such a complex look when I asked you to meet Baron Bruno earlier.
That means Grand Duke Estin and Lucas already knew about it. Why did they hire this guy?
“So you want to meet Baron Bruno?”
“Yes.”
“Hmm, okay, I’ll send him a letter.”
At Logan’s affirmative response, I clasped my hands together and thanked him. Logan, however, waved his hand away.
“But I’m not sure if he’ll accept it, because he probably doesn’t like me very much either.”
“That’s okay, I just want to thank you for doing this.”
“Would you like me to accompany you?”
“Well……. It’s all right. I’ll talk to Lucas.”
“I think you’d better go with me.”
“Logan has work to do, doesn’t he?”
I pointed to Logan’s pile of documents and the poisonous mushrooms. He seemed to understand my intention to concentrate on making the antidote in the room and laughed.
Instead, he asked me to tell him the whole story if I ever met Baron Bruno. That’s the least I could do.
“This is only possible if Baron Bruno agrees to meet the Miss.”
However, contrary to Logan Riley’s concerns, Baron Bruno easily agreed to meet me.