“This isn’t something you should be saying so casually, Kagami-dono! It’s dangerous to leave it alone!”
Alice returned to the passage exclusive to the Casino Staff again and tried to turn the knob to the door of the break area. However, at that moment, she heard yelling from inside the break area, and just for a moment, Alice shrunk back.
She slowly opened the door and peeped inside, as if wary of something. Inside stood a restless Krul, Takako, and Rex. Kagami was also there, seeming troubled by something as he stood with his arms folded, and Menou, wearing a stern look, had tried to grab Kagami’s shirt collar.
“Please calm down, Menou-chan. I understand your eagerness, and while that may be true, she would have tried to let you know first if she had to run away or hide.”
The appeasing Takako, who spoke with a serious expression, seemed like a completely different person from the one Alice had seen when she left the break area.
“Everyone. D-did something happen?”
Although she had become slightly insecure when she thought that they were having a dispute, Alice entered the break area as soon as she saw that it wasn’t the case and asked that question timidly. The attention of everyone in the room gathered on her. As soon as he saw Alice, Menou approached her in the blink of an eye and took her hand, seeming relieved from the bottom of his heart.
“I couldn’t see you, and you worried me, Alice-sama! I’m glad you’re safe!”
“I said I was going to hand David-san his gloves didn’t I? You’re over exaggerating things.”
Seeing Menou’s nervous response, Takako shook her head saying, “yare, yare.”
“Come, Alice-sama! Let’s go to a land far away from here, together, just the two of us! Everything will surely be handled by Kagami-dono later on!”
“Eh…no way. I don’t want to be separated from Kagami-san’s side.”
After Alice replied to Menou with a blunt denial, he received damage to his soul and yelled out, “Guhah!” However, he immediately recovered and said, “That’s not something you should be saying so casually!”, as if he was at his wits’ end.
“Calm down, Menou-chan. Alice-chan still doesn’t know anything, remember?”
Takako pulled Menou away from Alice, as if suppressing him, and said that. Feeling tired, he then uttered, “Mu…that’s right. Sorry,” as he seemingly calmed down a bit.
“But Shishou, if what Menou says is true, then won’t it be bad for several reasons? At the very least, if Menou’s and Alice’s identities are discovered, surely, it won’t just be us who will be sorry.”
Rex said that as he faced Kagami with his arms folded, as though something was wrong. Towards this, Kagami just groaned, “Hmmm…” and didn’t say anything.
“That’s why, please tell me, too, if something happened! Did something happen while I was away?”
Alice, who had become anxious while trying to process the story after being left out, yelled that.
“I’ve heard Menou talk about David being a spy for the Kingdom, though.”
Kagami said that with a sigh.
“A spy…of the Kingdom? David-san is?”
As she listened to Kagami, Alice’s face distorted in disbelief.
“It was when he accepted Kagami’s kind offer, and tried to return after changing his clothes. David-dono was strangely cautious of his surroundings, even in the Tavern he was in charge of. I thought it was unnatural to head off somewhere that wasn’t the delivery point, so I followed him. And then…there was a spy wearing a Staff uniform as a disguise near the warehouse.”
Listening to Menou, Alice immediately recalled David and the conversation he had with the Staff member near the warehouse. Since it was something she had personally witnessed, the hope that Menou was mistaken, was crushed.
“Was that person…truly a spy? Was he truly in disguise?”
“There’s no doubt about it. I heard them speaking with my own ears. ‘Here, this is the information that should be relayed to the King. At the moment, Rex-sama and Krul-sama have not shown any suspicious movement,’ and then I definitely saw him handing over a document of some sort. Without a doubt…he ran away since he suspected that someone was listening in on him.”
After Menou utter that seriously, Alice, who usually didn’t know how bad these events were nor what kind of impact they would have, could somehow feel the gravity of the situation.
“It might not be impossible…if it’s David-san. I do admit that David was superior in completing work without waste in the past.”
Krul uttered that restlessly.
Takako and Kagami then understood the meaning of this instantly.
This excellent and talented person did have the obligation to observe Krul, but it was impossible to act useless when helping out with Kagami’s work. There wasn’t a need to virtually cling to them in order to observe them if his job was to ‘confirm whether or not they were working every day for the Demon King subjugation.’
In other words, there was a reason for these things.
“…observing Alice…huh?”
Kagami scratched his head, looking troubled, as he muttered that.
Kagami had always thought that David was reluctant to separate from Krul’s side. However, he was now questioning if that was true, and if his real goal was Alice.
The issue was the source of the information leak. Kagami had willfully believed he was Krul’s observer, but could it be that he had been wrong, and David had actually been observing Alice?
“Although the Kingdom’s side doesn’t know anything…they appear to be doubting us a bit.”
If that was really the case, then the Kingdom knew Alice’s origins, and there was a possibility of it being exposed. At the very least, the Kingdom doubted Alice.
What information did they receive that made them doubt her?