The lid of the box engraved with the silver scales was quite heavy. Wondering what on earth might be inside, Dolan slowly lifted it.

Inside the box were several pouches of various sizes. Each pouch was made of velvet with its mouth drawn tight and tied with a cord, and on each pouch the silver scales were embroidered in silver thread. The material alone was so fine that selling just the pouches would fetch a tidy sum.

“…My Lady. Are you sure this is really a gift the count sent to me?”

They didn’t look like things a commoner like him ought to have, no matter how he looked at them, so Dolan asked with a slightly daunted expression.

“Of course! Judging by how each pouch is a different size, it looks like each one has something different inside. Rather than open them here, let’s go to your house and unpack them. Oh right—may I watch from the side? I’m dying of curiosity.”

Estella thought it would be proper to give Dolan a quiet moment to open them, but her curiosity lightly stomped down her rational judgment.

Dolan had a mountain of work piled up, but when he saw Estella’s eyes sparkling like Jad’s before a birthday present, he could only nod.

“Can we come too?”

“Please say we can come.”

The Squirrel Mercenary Band, curious as well, pestered her like children.

Estella and the Squirrel Mercenary Band all swarmed over to Dolan’s house like kids going to play at a friend’s place.

“You, home at this hour… Are you sick? See, I told you not to overwork yourself!”

Meira, who would never see Dolan come home while the sun was up, fretted over him in a fuss when he suddenly opened the door in broad daylight—then belatedly noticed Estella and the Squirrel Mercenary Band.

“Oh my! My Lady!”

Meira bent at the waist with proper courtesy, her face plainly alight with delight.

Meira promptly set out refreshments in the parlor. When they’d lived outside the castle, laying out a guest’s tea service had been unthinkable. But now she could carefully set out pretty teacups, a pretty pot, and even a homemade sweet cake without it burdening the household. Since she believed it was all thanks to Lady Estella, Meira put her utmost skill into preparing the spread.

“Alright, now really open it. I’m so curious I might faint.”

At Estella’s urging, Dolan, heart aflutter, took out the first pouch from the box. It was heavy, and as he pulled it out, it rattled—money, by the sound of it.

With a face that said, What is happening, he met his wife’s eyes, then carefully loosened the mouth of the pouch.

“Goodness! This is…”

In the quiet, Meira’s exclamation burst out. Inside the pouch were silver coins of Count Britton’s house made of pure silver. They could actually be used to make purchases in the Britannia region, but being made of silver, they could also be exchanged for cash at any jeweler.

By rough count, there were more than two hundred in the pouch.

“…My Lady, this feels far too excessive for a gift. Is it truly alright for me to accept this?”

“If it’s too much to accept, you can give it to—mpf!”

When Bruno suddenly butted in on Dolan’s worried question, Lily smacked his thick lips shut with her palm.

“Learn when to stick your nose in and when not to!”

At Lily’s scolding, Bruno quickly bit his lips together. Estella, having tied the pouch tightly and neatly, hurriedly passed it to Meira, then set the next pouch on the table.

“If they were going to give you something, they could’ve given gold coins—silver coins, really. But the Britton family’s silver coins are prized even in the Empire, so they’re worth as much as gold. You can use them later when you send Jad to the academy or when you marry him off. Hurry and open the next one.”

Estella’s interest had already moved on to the next pouch. Dolan was already overwhelmed to the point of death by the pouch full of silver coins, but at Estella’s urging he quickly untied the cord. This time, what came out of the pouch was a long, narrow box.

Estella’s eyes sparkled, urging him to open it at once. A moment later, with a soft clatter, a single sheet of parchment rolled like a scroll emerged from the opened box. It bore the Britton family’s seal.

Thinking it was a letter, Dolan read the document carefully—then his eyes suddenly flew wide.

“What? What is it?”

“It’s… a deed, My Lady.”

“What?”

Estella took the document Dolan handed over and read it in detail, then looked at him with a grave face and asked,

“Count Britton has given you a small villa by the Bran River as a gift. You could go rest there from time to time—or sell it in an emergency. Not that you’ll ever have an emergency. You’re not planning to leave Wintfall and go live in Britannia, are you?”

Losing Dolan to someone else would be a crisis for Wintfall, plain and simple. At Estella’s uneasy question, Dolan hastily shook his head.

“As if I would. I’ll lay my bones to rest in Wintfall, My Lady.”

“Really? Then that’s a relief. I want you by my side forever.”

Seeing the substantial presents Count Britton had given Dolan, Estella resolved to treat him even better—so that he wouldn’t be swayed by anyone’s coaxing and could, as he’d said, lay his bones to rest in Wintfall—by way of gifts just as very good.

“Hurry, open the next one. There are still five bundles left.”

Face flushed with embarrassment, Dolan opened the bundles one by one. The next bundle held a jewelry box with a necklace and earring set for Dolan’s wife inside. The following bundle had five skeins of silver thread, one of Britannia’s specialties; another bundle held a music box that played when wound; yet another bundle contained fine wine boxed within.

The Squirrels reacted most fervently when the wine appeared.

“How much is all this worth?”

“Wow! Dolan’s rich now! I’d better stay on his good side!”

Now only the pouch tucked at the very back of the box remained. Already at a loss over the gifts that had come out, Dolan was almost afraid to open another.

But Estella, for her part, found the count’s gifts to the man who had bestowed new legs… lacking. She had expected the box to be stuffed with gold bars at least.

Under everyone’s watch, Dolan took out the final box from the pouch. Even the gifts so far had left him so humbled and astonished that his hands were trembling. The box from the last pouch was heavier and more solid than anything he’d taken out yet, and the box itself looked very old.

“An antique?”

While Estella cocked her head, puzzled, Dolan carefully lifted the lid. Inside was a very old hammer. And in the box lay a handwritten letter from the count.

— To Dolan, the great weaponsmith of Wintfall.

Thanks to you, I have gained new legs and can once again enjoy the life I had long only dreamed of. In my heart I would invite you to Britannia and keep you by my side, but to do so would be to rob the marquisate of its treasure, and so I dare not fulfill that wish. Instead I send a treasure bearing the Bran River’s gift, with my true heart within it; please accept it gladly.

Dolan, feeling dazed, lifted the hammer from the box. At a glance, it looked like a hammer that couldn’t even be used in a forge. The handle was overly ornate, and the head was so rusted that it seemed as if the head might snap clean off with a single strike on a tougher iron.

Even so, thinking it was precious, Dolan was about to put the hammer back into the box when—

“Is that amethyst set into the handle?”

Bruno, eyeing the hammer with curiosity, pointed to the gem set right in the center of the handle and asked. Dolan quickly turned his grip so the handle could be seen clearly.

“No, if it’s amethyst it should be more purple—this is closer to navy. And the color is too uniform.”

Lily, who had at least a rat-dropping’s worth of interest in gemstones compared to the other Squirrels, examined the handle closely. But the one who identified the stone in the handle was Haru.

“It’s Noctarum.”

The air in the room changed in an instant at Haru’s offhand words, tossed out in his indifferent tone from a step behind where he’d been staring quietly.

“What?”

“Noctarum? Why would that be there?”

The moment the word “Noctarum” left Haru’s lips, the men’s eyes in the house all flew wide. Dolan even unconsciously tightened his grip on the hammer.

“Dolan, let me see it for a moment.”

At Estella’s words, Dolan, reluctant, handed over the hammer he’d been holding. Estella took it and examined the Noctarum set into the handle closely.

“So this… is Noctarum?”

“Yes. I’m certain. At a glance it looks a deep navy like the dark sea, but if you look closely you’ll see minute silver specks glinting faintly. As if someone had cut out a piece of the night sky.”

Haru’s explanation flowed without a hitch. Estella brought her eye close to the gem in the handle and studied it. Just as Haru had said, minute silver specks glinted faintly. It was certainly Noctarum.

“How do you know so much about Noctarum?”

Since Haru wasn’t normally someone with much interest in magic stones or weapons, Estella asked with a puzzled look.

“Because… it hung from the necklace they placed around the groom’s neck every time there was a wedding in our village.”

Haru answered with a face that, somehow, had turned a little red.

“You mean they hung something that precious on every man who got married?”

Haru smirked and shook his head at Bruno’s question.

“It was the village’s only treasure. We lent it to the groom for three days.”

“Kh-kh-kh-kh, those elves were downright fiery!”

When Bruno snickered, the others grinned too as they looked at the hammer in Estella’s hands. Ciel, for his part, couldn’t take his eyes off it either, as if he were quietly coveting it.

Meanwhile, Meira couldn’t understand why everyone kept tittering as they looked at the hammer her husband was holding. Her husband, too, seemed to want it more than any gift he’d ever received.

Meira quietly asked Estella,

“My Lady, what in the world is that, that everyone’s acting like this?”

“Ah, this? Everyone’s mistaken Noctarum for an aphrodisiac.”

At the blunt word from Estella’s mouth, the others’ expressions visibly stiffened. Ciel, ears reddening, couldn’t even look at Estella and turned his head elsewhere. Finding it somehow cute, Estella’s lips twitched up without reason.

“S-so, it isn’t?”

When Bruno asked with a shocked face, Estella handed the hammer back to Dolan and said,

“Of course it has some effect. Carrying it steadies your heartbeat and gives you the endurance to last a long time. It’s especially effective at night. But Noctarum’s true power lies elsewhere.”

Just as Estella explained, Noctarum had the nickname “Demon King of the Night” because people said carrying it stoked a man’s vigor all night long. But Noctarum was simply a magic stone that boosted the body’s vitality, and it just so happened to be especially effective at night.

“What’s its true power?”

Lily asked, face full of curiosity.

Chapter 190

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