Chapter 39: Side Quests Part 2

My first few meetings with the representatives were all unmitigated disasters, until I realized that I had nothing to offer them because I didn’t know what they needed. To counter this, I had to spend a considerable amount of time befriending, torturing, and bribing their closest associates into revealing what they needed at the moment so I could offer it to them. For example, after drinking one of Sally’s vials, a student associated with the Duke of Root’s representative let it slip that the duke was dealing with a massive surge of monsters and was too embarrassed to ask for help.

He would have had no problem requesting aid if he were facing dragons or even goblins, but instead, he found himself at his wits’ end because of a bunch of blue-eyed rabbits. These are perhaps the weakest of all monsters, who pose absolutely no direct threat to humans, as they only eat vegetables. However, they are famously fast, making them rather difficult to catch, and they breed at a truly ridiculous rate, meaning that the problem was only getting worse as time passed.

At this rate, the duke had no choice but to request aid and be widely mocked as the man terrified of rabbits. This was, of course, stupid, but dukes never traded direct blows. Instead, they competed with their pride and dignity, never allowing themselves to show the tiniest bit of weakness. That didn’t make it any less stupid. Still, I couldn’t complain too much, as that was precisely what I needed to win over his representative.

During our meeting, I casually mentioned that my father was struggling to teach his soldiers how to fight on different types of terrain that were not found in his territory. This wasn’t entirely a lie, as my father had mentioned this problem before. However, my claim that he was looking to run training sessions outside his territory was entirely untrue. He would never have suggested that, but it allowed the duke’s representative to graciously offer up some of his own territory as a possible training space. Of course, the location he suggested was where the rabbits were causing the most damage, but he didn’t even mention them. We kept things annoyingly vague, but after a few minutes of back and forth, I had basically traded his support for my father’s aid. However, if anyone asked, it was the Duke of Roots who was doing my father a favor by allowing his soldiers to train on his land. I was sure that’d be a headache down the road, but it was worth the price, though that wasn’t the only promise I made.

The Duke of Petals and his entire family are famously eccentric, so I wasn’t entirely surprised to find out that Iris was his daughter. Thankfully, she wasn’t his representative. If she had been, she would have probably recognized me. Though if I’m being entirely honest, there is a greater than zero chance that Iris and I had actually met at a tea party, and neither of us remembered the other, but let’s not focus on that.

As for the meeting, it started with the representative spending five full minutes convincing Iris, her sister, that I actually was Liliana. This was more than a little awkward for all involved, as Iris spent that time repeatedly insulting Liliana without realizing that I was her. Oh, and just to clarify, I healed Brennan before coming here, so he had also already tried and failed to convince her. It was, quite frankly, exhausting, and even after multiple loops, I still couldn’t find a way to speed this up.

Thankfully, the actual representative was a bit easier to deal with, especially once I mentioned that one of the nobles under him had almost killed the man acting as my representative. While there is a considerable amount of leniency given to accidents that occur during a duel, his attack was still far beyond what was considered appropriate. Additionally, attempting to murder a duke’s representative was considered a high act of treason. It could result in the death penalty, though threats alone weren’t enough to win her support. Instead, she became antagonistic and basically declared war against my father, which shouldn’t have been possible as no two dukes had directly fought one another in centuries. However, after a few more loops and some digging, I realized that the solution was not to threaten her into supporting me, but rather to allow her sister to marry Brennan.

Yeah, I wasn’t particularly thrilled about Iris moving to my territory. Still, Brennan loved her for some reason, though his chances of marrying her were pretty low. The children of dukes who didn’t take over for their fathers almost always married within their territory to high-ranking nobles under their control, and while it wasn’t unprecedented to marry into another duke’s territory, such marriages were almost always to the duke himself. The only way Brennan could marry Iris was if her father approved. Additionally, while Brennan was highly respected by my father, that didn’t make him family. There was only so far he would go to help him get married. However, by leveraging my threat against the noble who attacked Brennan, I was able to pressure the duke and his representative into agreeing to this absurd request. Now, this was quite similar to my last threat. However, my investigation found that this representative cared deeply for Iris and had been unsuccessfully making moves in the background to allow her to marry Brennan. Realizing that I had done this for both their sake, she readily agreed to my demands and happily gave me her support.

Finally, there was my meeting with the Duke of Stalks’s representative, Heather, who gave off more villainess energy than I could ever hope to replicate. She was a terrifying woman, whose family was rumored to be richer and more powerful than even the royals, and she certainly looked that way. Her meeting room was filled with golden statues and works of art that even I could tell were laughably expensive. Heck, my father was a duke, and even I was worried about paying her back if I broke something.

“Liliana Florencia Thorn,” Heather said, emphasizing each letter of my name as if the words were somehow foreign to her, despite us having met several times over the years. “Whatever do you think you’re doing?”

Despite having faced death countless times, her words still sent a shiver down my spine, but I did my best not to show it, especially since she had invited me.

“Sipping tea,” I said casually, while taking a small sip.

“Don’t play games with me. You have spent the last six years locked in your room, and suddenly today, I hear that you’re dashing all over campus to help students under my protection. You want something, so spit it out already.”

“Surely you must know already,” I said with a raise of my eyebrow. “They say there is nothing that escapes the eyes of the Duke of Stalks.”

“Ah, Holly,” Heather replied as if discussing a vile insect. “I take it you have been made aware of the prince’s affair and his rather shoddy attempt to hide it.”

“Rather hard to hide a pregnancy,” I replied with a shrug.

“A pregnancy?” she responded with what sounded like genuine surprise, though it may have just been an excellent performance. “That certainly complicates things, but that still doesn’t tell me why you’re here. Oh. Could you possibly be looking for something just a bit toxic to solve your problems?”

Yes, this girl was offering to sell me poison to kill the prince and probably Holly as well. That was another reason why Heather and her family were so feared. In addition to running a very visible legal market, they also ran a hidden black market that could supposedly get you anything you wanted for the right price. Of course, everyone had heard the rumors, but only those with very deep pockets could actually make a request like this.

However, I knew Heather wouldn’t sell me anything that was actually deadly. In a previous loop, I’d paid, thinking it would help me win her over, but all she gave me was sugar water. She was looking down on me, and while that was understandable given my past, I needed to turn the tables if I was going to get anywhere with her, so I signaled to Sally behind me. I had brought her along for this exact moment, as on my cue, she began pulling out colorful vials and placing them on the table. I had no idea what was in them. Still, each vial made Heather grow increasingly pale, which told me that these were truly terrifying poisons.

“Don’t be silly, Heather,” I said, while grabbing the vial that had drawn the strongest reaction from her, and fiddling with it while I spoke. “If I wanted the prince, or even the entire royal family, dead, they’d be dead. I doubt even advanced-class healing magic could treat a robust mixture of some of these toxins, but then, I’d need to deal with that pesky little curse. Too much of a headache. Instead, I want to humiliate the prince and then go on to live a rather full life.”

“That’s impossible,” Heather responded with a light chuckle, having regained some of her composure. “Even if I support you, the prince will just kill us both.”

“Well, it won’t just be us. I spent the morning healing every patient in the infirmary to earn their support as well.”

“I highly doubt that will...Wait. Every patient?”

Suddenly, she looked nervous.

“Everything from the most life-threatening of wounds, endured over a lady’s honor to the smallest of cuts, suffered to win back one’s beloved,” I explained, while highly emphasizing the latter half of my sentence, causing Heather to switch from nervous to panicking. It had taken a ridiculous amount of effort (and a lot of threats), but I had found her weakness.

Her ex-boyfriend was one of my patients. Yep, it was the paper cut idiot who’d tried to win over his ex with a “super awesome” knife flip. This was his ex, and despite what all common sense should dictate, she was actually madly in love with the cheating idiot. Oh, and as it turns out, all of his ridiculous plans to win her back had actually been insanely effective. This girl, who is perhaps the most feared student in the academy, hid in a freaking bush so she could watch him run laps around campus, and she was so concerned about his papercut that she’d been holding back tears all day. Honestly, their relationship was so absurd that I’d even asked Logos about them, just to check if this was part of my story or not. Well, as it turns out, this wasn’t my fault. They were actually a real couple, and this was their true backstory. However, even he had seemed confused about exactly what they saw in one another.

Still, her obsessive love meant that she would support me, since my loss could mean the death of all my supporters, including her ex. She had no choice but to support me or kill me, and my stunt with the poison made the latter a dangerous gamble. However, before she formally agreed, she did lay out some not-so-vague and incredibly graphic threats about what she’d do to me and my family if I lost. Yeah, this girl’s love is terrifying, but her support was the last piece I needed.