Following the teahouse manager, I headed toward a wall disguised as a bookshelf drawer.
The manager wordlessly pulled out a single book with a thud—and the bookshelf twisted sideways with a creak, swinging open.
Behind it lay an underground passage exhaling cold, damp air.
"Follow me."
He said curtly and descended first.
I followed a step behind.
A narrow, endlessly spiraling staircase.
Each footfall echoed, sending chills and moisture creeping up my legs.
It must have taken at least ten minutes.
The manager ahead kept glancing back repeatedly.
As if my silent trailing bothered him immensely.
Finally, the stairs ended.
At the very bottom, deep underground.
Between smooth stone walls polished by hundreds of passages stood a solitary, ornate door that clashed bizarrely with its surroundings.
As if this spot alone had been carved out of reality.
The manager halted before the door.
"I've guided you this far to Her Highness the Princess because of your audacity..."
His voice sank low.
"But don't even think of trying anything foolish inside. It'd be best not to entertain the notion from the start."
A cold gaze that seemed to promise eternal silence in death.
Less human than some beast dwelling underground.
I smiled faintly and nodded.
'The room's probably laced with spells anyway. Any suspicious move, and I'd be riddled like a beehive...'
Yet he hadn't mentioned it outright, so he still suspected me to the end.
But that very suspicion was what I needed.
It was the key to unlocking the first barrier in my plan.
If my memory served right, this was the most infamous secret organization in the Abellan Empire.
'Ashen Hand.'
On the surface, they were called a "band of righteous outlaws who fought evil with evil," rumored to rescue oppressed citizens across the empire.
But their true nature was entirely different.
A secret organization personally founded by the Abellan Empire's Second Princess, Evelyn, to purge the deepening corruption in the palace.
No one else knew—not even the emperor.
A shadow army controlled solely by the princess.
And now, I stood before its lair.
"Your Highness. I've brought the man you mentioned before."
The teahouse manager cautiously knocked three times on the door.
His voice was low, but each word rang crystal clear.
He'd likely already reported everything via private communication magic during our descent.
The method Ashen Hand used to exchange information in the original story, Vengeful Goddesses.
So I wasn't particularly surprised.
Click—
The door unlatched from within and slowly opened.
A quiet library-like room illuminated by tall blue candle flames came into view.
'...It creeped me out even reading about it in the original. Seeing it in person is worse.'
This room, where the Ashen Hand's leader and the princess resided, wasn't accessible to just any member.
Only two kinds could enter.
Subordinates personally acknowledged by Second Princess Evelyn, or those who piqued her extreme interest.
The story's three heroines fell into the latter category.
Ten years later, they would be the first outsiders to set foot here.
And now, I'd arrived far sooner.
As I stepped inside—
Whoosh.
Blue flames dormant in the air quietly bloomed one by one, lighting up in sequence as if paving a path.
At the end of that chain of flames... sat a hooded figure at a desk, scribbling on parchment.
Too distant to make out details, but roughly a bit larger than present-day Lucas?
By the settings, about a year older than me.
It was right then.
Thud—
A chair from behind nudged my leg with subtle force.
I naturally sat, and the chair glided smoothly forward like a ritual, stopping directly opposite the hooded figure.
And the quill tip halted over the parchment.
"Welcome."
The hooded figure looked up.
"I am Jin, leader of the Ashen Hand."
The blue flames faintly outlined the hood's underside.
"...Though using a false name before someone who already knows my identity would be rude, wouldn't it?"
A subtle smile.
Polite tone, yet an atmosphere sharp as a blade's edge.
She'd judged there was no need to hide.
She slowly lowered the hood, revealing sapphire eyes and sea-blue hair beneath.
Colors impossible without imperial blood.
She released the quill and wiggled her fingers toward the air.
Crackle—
In an instant, the surrounding blue candles shifted form.
The gentle flames that had lit the path now sharpened into icy spear tips, hovering inches from my face from all sides.
"For your information..."
Evelyn shrugged nonchalantly.
"Don't underestimate me just because I'm young. Last year, at age ten, I became a 5th-circle mage—one of the empire's top rising stars."
...Gulp.
She looked no older than an upper elementary grader by modern standards, yet this level of menace was unexpected.
In the original, she appeared in earnest only ten years later—stoic, few words, stern expression.
Now, she was just a bit more talkative and emotive.
But her prickly demeanor toward people was the same as ever, like jagged glass.
Evelyn's voice sharpened once more.
"So I'll ask: Who are you, and how do you know our organization's secret sleeping potion formula... and even my identity? Speak now. I'm not kind enough to go easy because you're young."
...Calling others young when she was a kid herself.
Or just a habit.
In the original, that speech pattern nearly derailed her alliance with the protagonist.
But having come this far, I had no intention of hiding anymore.
I nodded slowly and removed my hood.
That instant—
"Wha—what...?"
Evelyn's composed expression crumbled, bit by bit, ever so slowly.
"Y-You...?"
Her sapphire eyes quivered wide.
Like someone who'd uncovered an unbelievable truth.
To her, I offered the gentlest smile I could muster and bowed calmly.
"A pleasure to meet you, Your Highness."
In the deathly silent room, my voice rang even clearer.
"I am Lucas Argent, the youngest of the Argent Family."
Evelyn's lips trembled faintly, as if swallowing hard.
A brief silence.
Even the room's blue flames seemed to hold their breath, unmoving.
And—
Whoosh!
As Evelyn swung her arm, the ice shards quivered en masse and rose.
The spear tips that had merely aimed now swirled around my neck, baring clear killing intent.
"Lucas Argent..."
The princess's voice twisted low, so very low.
"An eastern proverb says, 'Enemies meet on a single log bridge.' This is that moment."
"Enemies? I'd like to hear why."
"Don't play dumb!"
Her voice boomed.
"Knowing my identity means you know who the Ashen Hand opposes! The black forces rotting the empire... and chief among them, the Argent Family, who corrupt the palace with illegal slave trafficking and drug deals! Your family!"
Her rage bled into every word.
...Yes, that's how the 'Ashen Hand' was born in the original.
Illegal slave hunts, drug trafficking, the shadows of corrupt nobles and a rotten palace.
Unable to endure it all, Evelyn founded the secret group at age six—the very year her mother was poisoned.
The teahouse manager who'd brought me was her usual guard knight.
And Ashen Hand's core members were mostly her late empress mother's closest aides.
To her, I—the spawn of the empire's worst dark family—was a thorn in the eye.
But that's why I'd descended here: to clear that misunderstanding.
"I'll erase you right here!"
As Evelyn's shards spun closer, I quietly spoke.
"You're struggling with the drug 'Lupong' circulating in the slums, aren't you?"
"...What?"
The magic faltered for a moment.
"How do you—"
"I know where you've been searching, but..."
I wagged a finger in the air like tapping it.
"It's not the slums. That's a dead end."
The ice shards emitted a faint tremor.
"The real culprit is on the slums' opposite side. The Versailles Barony."
"V-Versailles Barony...? Ridiculous!"
Evelyn's face stiffened instantly.
Like someone who'd heard a name too taboo to utter, killing intent and fear intermingling at once.
But the tremor lasted only a moment.
Soon her eyes sharpened cold as blades again.
"That's nonsense beyond belief."
Evelyn whipped her hand like lightning.
The ice shards quivered sharply in unison, retargeting my neck.
"Right here and—"
In that split second.
I moved before her.
Swipe.
"?! What... are you doing?"
As I reached into her hood, Evelyn instinctively crossed her arms to shield herself and recoiled.
As if expecting me to pull out an explosive.
But what I drew was a single small branch.
A toxic herb bearing one blue fruit at one end... and one red at the other.
The princess's expression hardened.
'Adam and Eve's Fruit.'
I plucked the red fruit and held it visibly for her—
Gulp.
And swallowed it in one go.
The ice shards trembled uneasily.
"You... just ate that?"
Evelyn's voice cracked.
I offered her the remaining blue fruit.
"I ate the red poison fruit. So... Your Highness keeps this blue antidote fruit."
"Lucas Argent. Do you know what that fruit is?"
"Of course."
I smiled calmly at her follow-up questions.
"Adam and Eve's Fruit. The heinous poison used to 'train' intelligent beasts."
My voice echoed in the quiet room.
"Eat the red fruit, and you die in a week. The antidote... is solely the blue one opposite."
The ice shards at her fingertips quivered faintly.
"Even animals learn it. Companions who eat only red die; those who eat blue live. So they desperately obey training to avoid death."
I met her gaze steadily, the fruit unchewed.
"And the reason I've now ingested this vile poison—used only for beasts—into a human body is simple."
Quietly, firmly.
"If no evidence of drug trafficking emerges from the Versailles family, toss that blue fruit away."
"...What?"
I stated flatly.
"But if I'm right, Your Highness must accept me into the Ashen Hand. That's the sole condition."
The ice shards now trembled in astonishment.