How About a Refill? ~The Elegant Tea Party of the Grand Witches~ - Chapter 30

The Feline Family

“I’m sorry! Lord Caparoni!”

“Hey, what’s wrong, Di… Lord Zlatanov?”

Leonardo was shocked when Dino suddenly kneeled down before him. He quickly grabbed his arm and brought him to his feet.

“Miss Caparoni… the abduction of your sister… you must have understood right.”

“!”

Leonardo grabbed Dino’s collar and questioned him, “What do you know!?”

“The second prince made a mistake. As his aide, I apologise…!”

Hearing about the second prince, it was Emilio who reacted this time.

“So Ivan was involved with this!? Lord Zlatanov!”

“… yes. Prince Ivan was involved with the kidnapping of Miss Caparoni. I came here to give you this information.”

“To inform us? While you were the one involved in the kidnapping? Do you think we can believe this!?”

How can he come to inform them of their own kidnapping. Feeling outraged, Leonardo tightened his grip on Dino’s collar as he glared at him with long-slit amethyst eyes.

“The one who orchestrated the kidnapping is indeed prince Ivan, but the actual kidnappers are from another party. It’s a new religion group that has recently been gaining a lot of power. It looks like they have some dealings with prince Ivan behind closed doors. It was my mistake for not noticing and letting this happen! I sincerely apologise!”

Dino fell to the floor once again and kneeled before Leonardo.

“So why are you telling us only now?”

Dino straightened sheepishly at Leonardo’s question.

“Actually…_____”

“With that said, I do not intend to dispute with the Caparoni household even if I’m from the second prince’s faction. That’s why I apologise wholeheartedly for this situation, and also offer my support in finding the young lady.”

Dino explained the whole conversation he had had with Ivan and went to fall to his knees again when he was stopped by Leonardo.

“I’ve got it. I’ve got it so don’t just casually prostate yourself on the floor. You’re an Earl’s son after all.”

Leonardo grasped Dino’s arm and tried to get him to get up but Dino resisted so they ended up arguing over it. Valeria, who was watching from the terrace came marching over determinedly to the three tall men and looked up at them.

“Did you three idiots finish talking?”

Her smiling face was as if a dollmaker had spent their whole life to fashion it into that of a beautiful doll. But she gave off a terrifying aura that could repel even large beasts.

No, it was precisely because she had the power to subjugate wild beasts that she had been living peacefully in the Forest of abyss which had a mixture of both wild beasts and demons that found their way in from the demonic realm.

The three men, all of whom were in their twenties, stood no chance against her.

“Ye-yes.”

“Good. Yo, newcomer.”

Dino looked around nervously then slowly pointed to himself in question. Emilio and Leonardo nodded in confirmation.

“Yup. I’m talking to you. Tell us everything you know about the new religion group you just mentioned.”

“A-as you wish…”

Valeria beckoned (dragged would be more appropriate) Dino over to the round table on the terrace and immediately urged him to start talking.

“First, there’s someone who met Prince Ivan directly.”

“Who is it?”

“A man with silver hair and gold eyes. He introduced himself as ‘Gil’.”

“I see. What else?”

“Did Ivan come up with the plan for the abduction?”

“No, it looks like everything was arranged by that Gil guy. He found a way to give rare tea leaves to Miss Caparoni’s friend, and had her arrange a tea party with close friends. And it looks like he made sure the carriage would pass through the road in the forest.”

“I see. I guess the rest would be what Lia saw in the memories.”

‘Silver hair and gold eyes… It’s not a common appearance. I feel like I have met someone with those features in the past.’

Valeria put her finger on her chin and pondered over the characteristic of ‘Gil’.

‘If I think back on the driver’s memories, didn’t he see something during the first teleportation? Apart from the red robes he saw a flower… no, a lot of flowers…’

“I saw a lot of flowers when I peeked into the driver’s memories.”

“Flowers? Was it like a field of flowers?”

‘A field…? No, it was different. They were planted in a calculated way like a… garden?’

Valeria pondered for a bit at Beatrice’s question but then shook her head.

“No, it wasn’t. It was like a neatly maintained garden… Wait! Silver hair and gold eyes… a mansion with a flower garden… Isn’t it the Feline residence?”

Everyone knitted their brows at the name that Valeria spoke of. The Feline Marquesate was once, next to the Caparonis, a prosperous house, but had since fallen into ruin.

“Feline huh… It’s been a while since that family lost their social standing. But it’s true they sometimes had members with features similar to the Holy Dragon. Silver hair and… gold eyes!”

“Aaah, they used to worship the Holy Dragon, right. The head of their family from 800 years never didn’t recognise till the end that we had taken and drank the blood of the Holy Dragon.”

Dino, who was trying to remember who Feline was, suddenly recalled that he had seen the name in the records of nobility he had browsed yesterday when he was searching for Miriam.

“Um, I looked through the aristocrats’ almanac yesterday and I saw the ruined Feline family there too. Their name is still in the records. It looks like they’re just scraping by. They’re not a Marquesate anymore. I think they were now a Viscountcy?”

“Yeah, 3 to 4 generations ago someone from their family made a blunder and their rank fell. Do you remember what it was, Emilio?”

“It was the ‘Movement to Exterminate the Grand Witches’. They emphasised that their God of Salvation was the descendants of the Holy Dragon and that the Grand Witches who consumed the dragon’s blood were evil… wait? The God of Salvation?”

“I’ll look at the records again to see if the Feline family has someone named ‘Gil’”

They sent Dino off to the library then returned to the round table once again.

“Do you think the Feline family is connected to the True Salvation religion?”

“Hmm it is possible?”

“Speaking of the Feline house with the flower garden, it was about a 100 years ago, but they built it on the outskirts of the capital for a sick young lady. Apparently the lady could see the flowers from every room in the mansion.”

“The ‘movement to Exterminate the Grand Witches’ began after the young lady died at an early age and said it was because the witches had consumed the blood of the Holy Dragon. They claimed it’s because we hurt the Holy Dragon so it cursed the descendants of the dragon. An outrageous accusation.”

As they finished speaking, Dino returned with a copy of the aristocracy records in one hand.

“I found it! It was this guy, right?”

He spread open the copy in front of them.

“‘Gilbert Dala de Feline’. In short, ‘Gil’…!”