Innocence? Can That Be Eaten?

"So what's Fatalite gonna do now?" Noticing the pair's presence, Ciel tilted his head up to ask Jadiel.

"Kierra's out investigating. We'll wait until she comes back before we move. Until then, we'll sort everyone into their proper places." Jadiel naturally took the book from Ciel's hands, replacing it with another book. Ciel looked at it, it was a book titled, "Fairytales Across Continents."

Flipping it open, Ciel skimmed over various tales of small animals making friends, heroic tales of love overpowering evil, ugly crows becoming phoenixes, etc.

"These are… fairytales?" Ciel's eyebrows furrowed under his blindfold, doubting his mana senses. Were fairytales in this world so idealistic? Weren't they supposed to be legends and myths?

Jadiel nodded. "I don't care about your past or what you've learned before. However, you're still young. Your childlike innocence is important."

Ciel looked at him dubiously, "I exploded a few people with blood magic on our first mission and you're talking about childlike innocence?" 

Jadiel's even tone didn't change. "Erin is a blank sheet of paper, with the amount of time he's sticking to you, he'll be influenced badly."

"Oh ok." Ciel smiled lightly. But Ciel had no idea how not to influence Erin 'badly', so whether Erin was led astray or not was none of his business.

Besides… recalling Erin's crimson red eyes full of killing intent on their first meeting, Ciel smiled wordlessly. 

Erin might currently look and act harmless, but it wasn't certain whether this was a facade of his or not.

***

A week later, Kierra returned just in time to see the scene of Ciel throwing sharp, metallic cards comparable to daggers at Erin. Even though Erin was panting heavily while he dodged them desperately, his face was as expressionless as ever.

Later, both boys were scolded after Kierra reported this to Jadiel.

"Didn't I tell you two to quietly read fairytales like good children?" Jadiel rubbed his forehead. 

"Basic training is necessary for normal children, like this guy right here." Ciel quickly shifted the blame on Erin's head. 

Erin naively nodded in agreement. Lanae, who was watching from the sidelines and saw the whole process, sighed. Erin was too innocent, he was the type of kid who would get sold off somewhere and still help the perpetrator count their money. 

The door to the office opened. 

"Am I interrupting something?" A lazy voice sounded out. 

Dominic entered the room with another young boy. His bright flame-like hair was combed messily to the side while his iridescent eyes changed from bright blue to amber with the light. His clothing was of the royal palace, only hidden by a dark brown cape. The owner had clearly gotten lax at keeping the cape around his body, because the bright red-orange-yellow sunrise symbol of the royal family peeked through the wide gap of the robe.

Both Jadiel and Lanae quickly went down on one knee, making a standard position when greeting royalty. 

""We greet the rising sun and the young heir of the Norama duchy.""

'Oh? Young heir of the Norama duchy?' Ciel recognized the young boy next to the third harem member. Hmm, he just realized it now, but calling him the third harem member sounded too long. Ok, from now on, harem members are going to be called fish. They were all part of the protagonist's fish tank—her harem—anyway. 

Glancing at the other boy, Ciel recognized him as Cedric, the one who got Ciel lost in the alleyway. 

'So he was the Norama duchy's young heir?' 

Ciel vaguely recalled such a side character. 

'I remember this in the plot. He was the third fish's childhood friend and loyal aide. During the struggle for the throne, Cedric always stayed by the third fish's side. Then, when Cedric died early on in life, Dominic took a blow mentally and fell into the protagonist's fish tank because of their similarities.' 

To put it simply, Cedric was the only one who was there for Dominic when they were younger and Dominic got overly dependent on him. When he died, Dominic fell into depression because he 'had no one who cared about him'. Then he met the protagonist and used her as a substitute before realizing his feelings for the protagonist had evolved into love when he wasn't paying attention. 

Ciel really wondered how the author thought of taking a substitute scenario found in CEO romance novels and twisting it forcefully to fit into a medieval fantasy setting. 

Ciel looked at the Cedric before him, who apparently had also recognized him. His eyes widened, and he stared dumbly at Ciel.

The Cedric mentioned in the story was always akin to a ray of light—something like a savior to the third fish. His current impression was nothing like that. 

'I never thought Cedric would be like this. Isn't he a little dumb as a descendant of one of the four duke's households? Then again, the Norama family is one of the most peaceful families who rarely have internal conflicts—even their name seems to have come from the word combination 'no drama.''

Quickly finishing his thoughts, Ciel gave a polite smile to Cedric as he pushed Erin into the same position as Jadiel and Lanae while he himself also went down on a knee. 

"Apologies for our late reactions. We greet the rising sun and the young heir of the Norama duchy."

Dominic gave a bright smile, "No worries. Aren't we all partners here? I came to give good news."

Receiving the indication to rise, Jadiel sat back on his office chair, his undisciplined ruffian attitude the complete opposite of the respectful demeanor he had on a moment ago.

"Your highness personally came here to give news?" 

Contrary to what Ciel had expected, Dominic didn't seem to care about his attitude. 

"A few nobles behind the Fleur De Lis have been caught with solid evidence. Their trial is at noon tomorrow. There's more people but these are the most I can convict right now."

Jadiel nodded. As corrupted as they were, aristocrats were still in charge of various things in the empire. If any more of them got disposed of, the kingdom would be thrown into chaos just because of the sheer number of people trying to take their empty positions. 

That was another reason why Jadiel and his group hadn't been able to deal solid damage to the aristocrats yet.

"Are they going to get publicly executed or thrown into prison?"

Jadiel looked down, to his surprise, it wasn't Ciel who had just spoken. It was Erin.

Ciel gave Erin an inner thumbs up. Nice, he was corru—influenced quickly.

"They'll be publically judged at the plaza. Come visit if you want." Dominic smiled. "But that's not the only reason why I came here, I noticed Fatalite seemed a little bit empty. Should I send some men? I'm investing in this business after all, I should contribute more."

'To have a part in it later when it's successful, you mean.' Ciel thought as he looked at Jadiel. If there were shows like this to watch everyday, he wouldn't mind staying obediently at the base. 

"I don't mind more manpower, but are they trustworthy?"

"As trustworthy as myself." Dominic patted his chest, surreptitiously glancing at Cedric, as if trying to gauge his reaction. The smiling boy noticed nothing, and Ciel noted Dominic's noticeable droop at Cedric's lack of reaction.

'It's like he tried to show a new toy to Cedric, only to be ignored.' 

Not noticing the strange atmosphere in the room, Jadiel nodded. 

"I'll take your word for it. When are they coming?"

Dominic regained his senses, a sly smile creeping on his face.

"In fact, they're outside the door right now." 

At Dominic's words, several people stepped inside, the door closing shut behind them. There were ten of them, with ages ranging from sixteen to thirty.

'How hurried, it's not like Fatalite will run away.'

Ciel resisted the urge to laugh at their expressions. 

They looked stiff and unreconciled, like they were being sent to a battlefield, though that assumption wasn't wrong. 

"Well I'll leave you two to it. Let's go." Ciel pulled Erin's shirt. He had no interest in being a guide, he would rather go play with Erin, this self-proclaimed big brother of his. 

He looked at Jadiel, sending a message through his smile.

'Good luck managing these rebellious newcomers.'

Jadiel gritted out a smile, and Ciel felt a chill go down his spine. 

Jadiel's expression told Ciel that he wouldn't be the only one suffering.

"Wait. You can show his highness and his friend around while I take care of the newcomers. I'm sure his highness would love it. After all, he was the one who paid for this establishment, yet he's never had a chance to look around yet." Before Ciel could refuse, Jadiel added, "I'll let you have that position you want if you agree."

Ciel swallowed down his "you do it yourself" before plastering a sweet smile on his face, his small face instantly blooming like a flower, "As an honorable supervisor of Fatalite, I would be elated to guide your highness and your friend around. Please follow me."

Before Erin had returned with the rest, Ciel had brought up taking a supervisor position in Fatalite to Jadiel. His reasoning was that since he belonged to no specific department, he could supervise them, meaning, he would bounce around everywhere, helping whatever department who needed help. 

This way, he would be in on the interesting things from all departments and still maintain a certain degree of freedom because he wouldn't hold a core position. 

That also meant he could disappear whenever and no one would notice.

At that time, Jadiel had said that he would think about it—Ciel had estimated that he would only gain it when he was older. 

Knowing that it was because of the two nobles next to him, his smile became more pronounced. Ciel respectfully held the door open. 

"Well then, shall we?"

Looking at the sly smile on Dominic's face, and the pure sunshine like one on Cedric's that strangely matched Dominic's smile, Jadiel rubbed his forehead.

'That Cedric child looks pure, but as a follower of that sly child, he's definitely no good.'

He sighed, talking to himself.

"I should give up on their childhood innocence. There are no innocent children for them to learn from."

If Ciel had heard that, he would have breathed a sigh of relief. 

Asking him to have childhood innocence was harder than having him die before reviving again.