Silverthorn noticed the man waving at her had a carriage behind him. She started moving in his direction. The alley was quite dark, making it less noticeable, but wide enough to let carriages pass through them, unlike the Spicelane market.

 "So he's his assistant? He seems quite strong, not that I didn't expect his assistant to be… wait! He- "

 As soon as she stood before him, he bowed and introduced himself, "Greetings, my lady. I am Vion Stormcaller, son of Duke Varen."

"... Duke Varen's son! He wouldn't recognize me, right?" she thought as she stepped forward.

 She kept her face straight and replied, "Good morning. Shall we head to the palace now?"

"Sure, high lady," he said with a beaming smile.

 As Silverthorn was about to enter into the carriage, he his hand to her to help herself.

 "To think he'd treat me- an S-class mercenary- like a noblewoman, he surely hasn't changed one bit. The reason Varen sent his son or his assistant, to spy on me. Hah! He seems terribly frantic. Evelyn was right after all," she thought as Vion took his seat in front of her.

 Vion found the silence between them awkward and broke it by speaking, "So you're going to start the research today itself, right? I hope you will find the heir but at your ease. You need not overwork yourself."

 "I won't overwork myself. I know that compromising health is going to effect my work. However, thank you for your concern."

 “Oh, I’m glad to hear that. By the way, please let me know whenever you borrow a book. Father asked me to keep a record—losing even one book from the imperial palace isn’t something we can afford.”

"Okay. I understand."

Just as the undeveloped road made it difficult for the coachman to speed up the carriage, her curt replies made it equally hard for Vion to keep the conversation going.

"Do you possibly need to go somewhere else too for research today? We could go anywhere after you take the needed materials from the palace."

He's trying hard to keep the conversation going. It's gonna be a great opportunity for me to take out some intel. Though I feel a bit bad for using him.

 "Hmm. I don't think so, as I'll first have to go through the books to retrieve the information I need and then shall I move around to search for more."

Let's keep it natural.

"Oh! Okay then. Feel free to ask me when you need to. I'll be delighted to help."

Let's start now!

"Yeah, sure. By the way, why don't you hire someone else too for finding the heir? It would double up the speed."

"Oh, father also thought the same. So he has asked a noble for that task too."

What?! He isn't trying to hide it. I don't know if it was planned or if he is naive, but my main goal is to just dig in more.

"Huh? Who is that?"

"I don't think you've seen him but you must have heard of him, it's Duke Fenris Sunfire."

He's right, I haven't seen him. Even though I have seen many young ladies who are yet to make their debut in the high society, I haven't ever seen him or maybe I don't remember.

"Yeah, I haven’t seen him—he hasn’t shown up anywhere in the noble circles in recent years."

"Yes, he was terribly sick. Even I couldn't meet him then."

Woah! Even my own guild wasn't able to gather such information.

"Huh? Was it that serious? And also contagious?"

"I don't know as he doesn't seem to like talking about those times."

So that Duke wants to hide about his sickness... or is it Vion who wants to hide it I wonder.

"He's a good friend of yours I heard."

"Yes, but I can't force things of him when he doesn't want to open up about it, right?"

But I must keep on trying to get some more information out of him.

"Yeah, right. But I wonder if there could have been some other reasons?"

"Well, I have no idea about that. Though I wish I could just meet him and ask that. Oh, we've reached already. See!"