Chapter 137: Clara and Her Disguise
"Sir, this way. I have already arranged everything according to your request."
Once Lucien entered the portal on the mountain with Velmara, he appeared inside a luxurious room at the top of a small tower. Out of its window, he could see the entire chamber clearly.
He could see how the mountain’s heart had been carved into a vast circular hall, with rows upon rows of balconied-style rooms running along the walls in perfect tiers.
While at the center stood a wide stone platform, raised slightly above the floor, like a stage meant for all to see. Torches and crystal lamps lined the edges, casting steady light across the entire chamber.
Lucien could see that from every angle, this whole venue was meant for gatherings, where the stage would be the focus, and the countless chambers around it gave each guest their own private view.
It was clearly an auction venue. Of course, there were still small markets and other buildings around the corner, but the majority was meant to hold a large-scale auction.
’Sera really chose a perfect place for the meetings.’
Lucien couldn’t help but fathom the architecture of this world for a while before looking at the tall girl in a maid uniform who was looking directly at his face without a care.
Although she seemed polite, he could feel her being quite defensive, or rather, a little...hostile...?
"You are?"
Lucien was perplexed and asked, while Velmara totally ignored their situation and continued to look outside.
After entering this place, he seemed quite alert, scanning every direction with his acute sense.
In fact, he wanted to hide in the shadows and protect him, but Lucien didn’t allow him to do that.
He said there was no point in hiding in such a small place. It might even be counterproductive.
"Sir, I am Clara, a close aide of Eldest Princess Sera."
The maid smiled lightly and said her name. Only, when Lucien heard what it was, he was completely surprised.
"Clara?"
Lucien couldn’t help but look at the maid up and down after hearing her name.
But no matter how much he looked, he couldn’t see anything extra besides her ordinary body covered by the usual maid outfit.
Even her face was rather ordinary, not to mention her strength, which from his sense was clearly at the Apprentice realm.
She didn’t look anything like a close aide mentioned by Sera before.
The same one who kept a few things from the loot, causing Sera’s name to appear in the Debtors list.
"Yes, Sir Lucien. I am Clara, the same one Miss Sera mentioned to you before. It is nice to meet you."
Seeing the surprise on Lucien’s face, Clara giggled lightly before emphasizing her status.
However, Lucien could feel the thick animosity in her eyes and voice. She was the perfect embodiment of someone with knives hidden behind a smile.
"Haha...so, it is Miss Clara. It is nice to meet you, too. I didn’t expect we would meet like this."
Lucien could already guess why such animosity was being displayed.
It was probably because of what he had said to Sera about the loot earlier. This girl must have been scolded severely by Sera to harbor such hatred toward him.
But seeing that she was still here to run the errand, she seemed trustworthy enough.
So Lucien didn’t mind her look and let out a light laugh to ease the atmosphere. Then, he looked Clara up and down before speaking.
"I have to say, Miss Clara, your disguise is really good. If not for you introducing yourself, I may not have recognized you at all."
Lucien wasn’t exaggerating.
He still couldn’t sense Clara’s true realm, let alone her real appearance.
Although he had an Assassin class at his disposal, his disguise ability was too weak. So he was quite intrigued to see someone with such a skill.
In fact, not only he but even Velmara was looking at her right now, as even he couldn’t sense Clara’s true realm.
One could easily see how formidable her abilities were.
"Sir Lucien, jest. It is nothing but a small trick. My abilities are nowhere near yours, who can even know if someone hid part of the looted wealth from what was retrieved..."
"To be honest, I am really impressed."
Clara smiled and didn’t care about Lucien’s praise. Instead, she directly pointed at the event that caused her so much trouble today.
Only she knew how much she had to do to ensure Sera wouldn’t lose her trust.
Honestly, after she retrieved the looted wealth of the Goldveil family as ordered, she put aside some of it for Sera, since she felt that that much was her compensation for retrieving it.
She had done such things before, as she knew Sera had no idea about finance and such.
She didn’t even need to tell the princess and was used to handling everything behind the scenes for her.
But this time, she never thought that her usual style of doing things would backfire so badly.
More importantly, this guy Lucien clearly had so much say in front of the princess.
Just because of him, Sera almost fired her on the spot.
Only after she apologized repeatedly and even agreed to take on this task did Sera finally forgive her.
How could she possibly look at Lucien in a good light now?
She still couldn’t understand how Lucien knew about her embezzlement.
After all, he never knew how much wealth was retrieved by them, did he?
"Haha....it seems Miss Clara is unsatisfied with me."
Lucien saw her keep dragging the topic back and laughed awkwardly, feeling speechless.
"I just gave Sera a hint so she could check if anything was wrong. If I offended you, I apologize."
He said, as he was the one asking for help right now. He didn’t want to strain their relationship just because of it, especially since she seemed to have a decent connection with Sera.
"No need to apologize, Sir Lucien. I already took care of that."
Seeing him try to smooth things over, Clara waved her hand without a care with a glint in her eyes, before accidentally letting her words slip.
"Cough... I mean, I am just a lowly maid... and don’t deserve an apology from someone so distinguished."
Realizing her mistake, she hurriedly corrected herself with a cough, but Lucien already picked up her slip.
’What did she mean?’
Only, he was a little confused.
From the glint and mischief in her eyes, he was sure that she must have done something nefarious that was somehow disadvantageous to him.
He just didn’t know what it was, until...
’Wait a minute....system, show me the list of debtors.’