Chapter 246: Cover identities

"These are your requested documents," said Nicolas, the fingers on his right hand curled elegantly as he slid a folder over and a set of keys over. "Lord and Lady Primus. Since you've purchased Dandelion House, I'm happy to waive the cost for this little service — think of it as complimentary."

Claud chuckled and leaned back, trying his hardest to portray what an upstanding noble looked like. "A pleasure doing business with you."

"We are very satisfied with this service of yours," Lily added. "Especially since we didn't need to get down to the onerous business of refurbishing it. We do not intend to have servants here, after all. It would go against our point of establishing a nice home in this charming Monsville."

"Indeed," said Nicolas. "Many nobles purchase homes but seek not the trouble of furnishing it. Of course, my charges are slightly higher as a result, but you are paying for convenience and privacy."

"Indeed, indeed." The three of them stood up.

Nicolas paused. "Right. A word of caution. Those two identities are real identities. The obligations that come with it are very real too. Therefore, do try to keep a low profile."

Claud had absolutely no idea what kind of obligations Nicolas was referring too, but he simply nodded in reply. Making a mental note to ask Lily about it later, the two of them shook hands with the realtor of many means and left the inn, luggage in tow.

The noon sun was blazing down on them, but Claud wasn't affected by it. The same went for Lily, but she still took out a parasol and unfolded it. Squeezing together under the portable shelter, the two made their way to the house they had checked out earlier.

Dandelion House was a small, walled estate, which couldn't be compared to Moon Mansion in terms of scale. However, only two people were going to live inside to begin with, and neither of them were superficial fellows who looked for opulence first.

Small houses and low-profile were terms that went hand in hand together.

"A living room, two bedrooms, a kitchen…and a cellar." Claud folded his arms. "What's the point of having two bedrooms, though?"

"Maybe it's a guestroom?"

"Then that room will almost certainly never be used at all," Claud replied. "Ah well. It's a good house anyway. Nice and out of the way, yet connected to plumbing systems. I can't believe Monsville actually has something like plumbing too. Kinda impressive."

"What were you comparing against?" Lily asked.

"The smaller towns around Licencia," Claud replied, leading the way in. The house had been left as-is during their viewing, and after popping their stuff down in the bedroom — Lily wanted to use the one whose windows faced the back garden, rather than the front — Claud went over to the kitchen.

The icebox — crates with Freezing Talismans pasted on them — rattled as Claud placed little cubical moulds filled with water inside. Unlike Schwarz's super-strong icebox, the one here would probably take a few hours to create some ice cubes, but late was, as always, better than nothing.

Heading over the sofa Lily was sitting at, he sat down next to her and leaned his head on her shoulders.

"Claud?" Lily looked at him. "You have this contemplative air around you."

She set aside her book. "Something wrong?"

"Just feeling some accomplishment," Claud replied. "My first home was won from Schwarz, who lost it in an utterly embarrassing manner. I never really bought one."

"Huh." Lily rubbed her nose. "That's…true for me too, now that I think about it. This is my first house too. Now I feel all puffed up and everything! This is my home!"

"Right? You understand where I'm coming from, right?" Claud chuckled. "It's really funny, no matter how you slice it. Our first home is outside our hometown, outside the sovereignty we've lived in all our lives. We're inhabiting it as semi-nobles, knights of the Emperor, and we don't even have a single person to invite here for a party due to our very specific cover story."

"It's all screwed-up, but I like it!" Lily made a languid sigh. "Still, this means I can't really experiment with my explosives. It'd be sad if I blew the roof off or something."

"You sound rather… experienced." Claud eyed her.

Lily looked away. "Things tend to go badly when you're starting out. Accidents happen. That's just how it is."

Claud raised an eyebrow at her statement, which was full of absolute unrepentance, and decided not to push it.

More importantly, Lily's unabashed face was, as always, really adorable, and Claud gave in to his urge of squishing her right cheek. It didn't help that Lily turned her face to present her left cheek a few seconds later, and the two of them lost themselves in what was pretty much flirting for the next few minutes.

After a while, Lily batted his hands away, in a manner that reminded Claud of a kitten playing with a ball of yarn. "So, what's our next plan?"

"We wait for the ice cubes to be done and then enjoy a cold drink," Claud replied.

"That sounds lovely." Lily paused. "Wait, no, that's not what I was asking."

"Yeah, I know." Claud played with her long hair. "Celestia, right? Let me handle the information gathering on that place. It sounds romantic, but we're talking about floating sky ruins here. There's got to be something dangerous there."

"Yeah, I know. We have to be really careful," said Lily. "That said, I want to come along when you do your information gathering. Yes, it's dangerous. Yes, they'll be suspicious. But I really do want to do more, okay?"

Claud opened his mouth, but the objections he had been about to raise were already acknowledged by Lily. His mouth opened and closed over and over again, but once he took in her blazing eyes, Claud's intuition ended any attempt to dissuade her whatsoever.

"Alright," Claud said. "But the same rules apply. Number one, listen to me. Number two—"

"Run when I tell you to run," Lily completed, a smile on her face. "I know."

"Of course you would," Claud replied, before letting out a small sigh. "Rather, I would have been worried if you didn't."

"I'm your ace student and lover. It would be a problem if I didn't remember your rules, right?" Lily smiled. "We're each other's knights. I must, of course, know everything about you!"

Claud tweaked her nose for a few seconds, and then he abruptly remembered something. "Speaking of knights, what kinds of obligations was Sir Nicolas talking about? They sound like a pain."

"Well, nobles are empowered by the Emperor to enforce law and order if they're capable of doing so. So, for instance, if a riot is going on, all nobles present are supposed to help their affected peer quell it," said Lily. "If you don't help, you become a pariah of sorts, and the Emperor might even censure you."

"So if many people know that we're knights, and something bad happens, we'll have to help or be punished?" Claud asked.

"That's about it, yes." Lily brushed a stray lock of hair over her shoulder, and Claud lost himself for a few moments. "Claud? Something wrong?"

"N-no, nothing." Making a mental note to get Lily to play with her hair more, Claud cleared his throat and said, "You just look good, playing with your hair like that. Got distracted by it."

"Y-you…you're honest, at least." Lily placed her hands on her lap, to Claud's disappointment, and then said, "But that's why we should try to make it such that few people know about this status of ours. It would be a problem if we came under scrutiny from the Shadows or something."

"Shadow? Are you referring to Shadows of Grandis?"

"Are there any other Shadows, to begin with?" Lily asked.

"Maybe? I don't think there's a law that forbids names like 'Shadows of Istrel' or something along those lines, right?" Claud folded his arms. "I bet every noble's busy copying the Emperor somehow."

"Copying does seem to be in vogue among our circles," Lily noted.

Claud found the way she said it rather ironic, but he still wanted his skinship privileges, so he held it in and rubbed her head instead.

"Why are you patting me?" Lily asked.

"You looked adorable," Claud replied. "Anyway, what's the deal with the Shadows of Grandis?"

"Well, they're supposed to make sure that the nobles don't do anything nasty or whatever," Lily replied. "But maybe, at some point in time, their purpose changed. Or else…"

She didn't complete her sentence, but Claud knew what she was getting at.

"Maybe they were bribed," Claud replied. "I'm quite sure Istrel bribed or subverted the Shadows sent to the Umbra Sovereignty too, since they decided to spend their efforts hunting down the princess rather than Tot or whatever."

"I wonder if our Dia is alright, though," said Lily. "Now that the Moon Lords' paranoia specialist is gone, security's bound to relax, right?"

"It should hold steady until around a year," Claud replied. "I introduced enough of a rotation that people shouldn't fall or lapse into bad habits for that long."

"On what metric did you use to base that on?"

"My intuition?"

"I don't want to sound like I'm insulting you, but generally, people don't use intuition for things like this…"