「 You should never trust her. Everything that comes out of her mouth is a lie, and every expression she makes are pretenses. I’m not sure if that face is the real Viper’s either, so if you have a chance, grab her skin and rip it off.」

It was on the way to the Grand Duke’s palace, with the kidnapped Viper by his side.

In the fancy carriage, Rexid pondered over and over again on Owen’s request.

“What’s your real name?”

Rexid asked while sitting arrogantly with his arms folded, looking down at Viper.

Before he knew it, Viper, who had regained her calm expression, tilted her head.

“Real name?”

“Yes. Your real name, not James, who had been buying large quantities of fake jewels from the islands and going back and forth selling it, not Elizabeth, who taught aristocrats nutrition, pretending to be a tutor from the kingdom and swindled dozens of people once every month, and not Johnny, a recent continent merchant who sold cheap minerals.”

“Woah… you’ve been very interested in me.”

“Very much so. I’m guessing there must be dozens of other small-scale scams that haven’t been discovered yet.”

“That’s unexpected. It seems like the Grand Duke is not such person who is just ignorant and strong… as he’s rumoured to be.”

Rexid paused at Viper’s expression, who seemed to be genuinely surprised.

The prospect of Viper’s escape, the idea of casting poison on her food, and the investigation of the alleged crimes of the Viper were all the skills of Owen, a competent butler.

All Rexid did was ordered around the quick butler well, but he wasn’t offended when he heard from a genius scammer that he was ‘not ignorant as she thought’. He didn’t bother to correct her.

“So what’s your real name?”

“There’s nothing like that…”

“What?”

“I don’t have a name. There was no one to name me.”

Viper said with a bitter smile. Rexid’s eyes narrowed as he watched her.

“I’m telling you, If I didn’t want to reveal my identity, I would have just given some name. I really don’t have a name.”

“Did you… not have parents?”

“Umm… I’m sure there’s someone who gave birth to me because I don’t think I fell from the sky. I don’t remember, but…”

“I see.”

That’s right. If you had lived in a normal family, would you have thought of becoming a swindler?

It was a bit unfortunate, thought Rexid.

“I just lived with an appropriate pseudonym back then. The reason they couldn’t easily catch me is because I am an imperial citizen, but I don’t have a registered identity.”

“Is that so?”

“Yeah. In the future, I will have to help your grace, so if you have a name you like, please give it to me.”

“You want to help me?”

“If I didn’t plan to do that, why would I ride to the Grand Duke’s palace in your carriage?”

“Well, I don’t know what’s in that little head. Even at this moment, you’re thinking about how to escape out right now, aren’t you?”

Viper, who was rolling her eyes at Lexid’s words, shrugged her shoulders.

“I’ve changed my mind. In fact, when I heard your rumors, I thought your grace wasn’t a figure that I could trust and serve as my lord for life.”

“But why did you change your mind?”

“I didn’t know you were a meticulous person who could go as far to even poison my meal.”

“Ah.”

Rexid got a little awkward. Of course, if that same situation comes, he was planning to invoke the magic, but he wasn’t very proud of the fact on what he did earlier by secretly tying her feet and feeding her poison.

But Viper spoke as if it didn’t matter to her.

“Sometimes such bold determination is necessary. But what kind of poison was it? Siphan? Perylton?”

It was Owen who saved the poison and thought of feeding it to the Viper.

At the unanswerable question, Rexid shrugged his shoulders pretending not to know, but the viper persistently asked again.

“It’s a colorless, odorless poison that I don’t know and taken, but it has a bit of a scent. So I thought it was Perylton, but the symptoms were a little different.”

“Why are you asking me that? Am I a fool? Do you think I would explain to you in words what poison it was?”

“Hmm… that’s right.”

When Viper agreed and nodded her head, Rexid secretly glanced at her.

Viper, who had undergone the action of his magic, seemed to suspect that the poison she ate was unusual.

He could have told her the truth, but Rexid didn’t want him to.

Even though she was a criminal who didn’t need someone to keep her human rights, he brought her here in order to get help….

Also, he felt sorry he couldn’t tell her that he had tied her feet with magic.

“Anyway, your Grace will give me a name. Anything’s fine.”

The thought-provoking Viper soon smiled and said.

In the narrow wagon, Rexid paused as he faced an innocent smiling face.

Unfortunately, the identity of the Viper was unexpected.

A young and small woman. She had a pretty face too.

It’s a shame that she’s been scamming around with that smart brain, but without such a talent, she would have gone through all the tearful struggles.

Unfortunately, it’s a little difficult for a beautiful commoner woman to live as human being within this empire.

「I don’t have a name. There was no one to name me.」

Rexid began to sympathize with her with his thoughts, even though he had no idea what kind of life Viper had been living.

He can’t even imagine that he was tricked even at this moment when his heart grew fragile thinking how she had lived so far.

“Let’s think about the name a little bit more. By the way….”

Rexid’s hand slowly rose over the face facing him.

A hand big enough to cover her small faces gently gripped the Viper’s cheek slightly.

“It was unexpected for me. I didn’t know the genius swindler was such a beauty.”

With a strange smile, the hands that rubbed her soft cheeks got energetic.

“Y-Y-Your Grace…”

Viper’s cheeks turned red as if she were embarrassed.

While smirking at the fresh response, Rexid gently pressed down the Viper’s cheek with his thumb.

“This is, the face…”

Viper’s small hand held the back of Rexid’s hand on her cheek.

Before long, her face, which had been embarrassed, instantly became relaxed.

Viper smiled and said,

“You don’t have to tear my face. This is my face.”

Oops.

T/N: Lmaoo this is really funny.

Rexid, who was just trying to check, withdrew with an embarrassed look.

“It’s good to be suspicious and vigilant as if breathing. It’s the most basic virtue for surviving the large game.”

She was confused whether he was being sarcastic or serious.

While Rexid had been coughing for a while, he then sniffed at the sudden incoming smell of urine.

“But what’s this smell?”

E/N: This is funnier. Took him so long to realize and he even touched her cheek. loool

When he blocked his nose and glanced at Viper, she looked embarrassed.

Viper was still dressed in a light blue prison uniform. There was dirt on the clothes.

It was natural. Since the way out, chosen by the viper was a ditch through which feces and urine passed.

Rexid frowned when Viper awkwardly smiled.

* * *

“From here to here, bring everything in the right size.”

“Uh, Your Grace. I just need a pair to change.”

A dressing room in the downtown area.

Rexid, who couldn’t stand the smell, just stopped the carriage.

All the high-quality dresses that were usually delivered to the aristocrats were brilliant and splendid.

Viper was embarrassed, striking her hand and refusing, but Rexid was stubborn.

“How do you live on one outfit? If it gets dirty, will you wash it and wear it again?”

“Isn’t that how it is?”

“What?”

“Changing these expensive clothes once every time. Even one dress is already too much. Of course, when it gets dirty, you wash it up, and wear it again.”

Rexid was speechless by the poisonous Viper who answered as if it were natural.

“No, so the money you made from fraud…”

Rexid, who glanced at the owner of the dressing room far away, stood next to the Viper and asked quietly, pretending to choose clothes with her.

“….what did you do? What did you use it for that you can’t even buy clothes?”

“Ah…”

Viper, who was fiddling with her clothes, murmured silently with a bitter look.

“There were orphans I’d been caring ever since I was dumped in the back alley. They are all sick, so the price of the medicine is quite high. I haven’t earned that much for luxury yet…”

“What?”

Upon learning of the Viper’s situation, Rexid was embarrassed.

Without a name, abandoned in a black alley, an orphan, Viper.

It would be hard to take care of herself on her own, but she was forced to become a swindler due to taking care of orphans who were in the same situation as her.

Viper had no choice because she could not afford to take care of them all by making money the ordinary way.

She had no choice but to do that.

She wasn’t foolish enough to get executed, but it’d be a pity if she was really executed.

Rexid tried to hide his sympathy.

“As long as you’re my person, there’s nothing you have to hesitate about. If you want to wear anything, just say it. Aren’t you old enough to like these things?”

“That’s true…but nobody had the very thought of getting angry fearlessly at my situation. Are you really buying all these for me?”

With her eyes full of excitement, Viper looked at the summer dresses in the style that were very popular in the estate.

Feeling pity for that reaction, Rexid nodded gladly.

“Of course.”

“Can I take this?”

“Of course, I’ll get you whatever you want from now on, so you don’t have to say no. Pick a dress you’re going to wear right now.”

“Well, then…”

Standing in front of a mannequin in a light pink short-sleeved dress, Viper looked back at Rexid with a shy face.

“…can I try this on?”

“Madam.”

When Rexid beckoned, Madame Tessley, the owner of the boutique, who was secretly glancing at the Viper in a shabby prison uniform with an unpleasant face, barged in.

“Yes, Your Grace.”

“She’ll wear that and go, so dress her.”

“Yes.”

Madame Tessley arranged the dress from the mannequin, handed it to Viper, and distanced herself, feigning ignorance.

“That’s the private room. You can change over there.”

It was someone brought by the lord, Grand Duke Hessen himself, so she had to deal with her properly, but it was natural that she was reluctant to have a woman with unclear identity in a smelly prison uniform.

Especially since she was Madame Tesley, the owner of a famous boutique that only deals with dignified nobles.

As if she had recognized Madame Tessley’s expression, Viper hesitated and spoke cautiously.

“I’m sorry, but I’ve never worn such a fancy dress before. If you don’t mind, can you help me put it on?”

While Madame Tessley hated it, Rexid was moved by Viper’s pitiful expression.

“What’s so difficult about that? Help her.”

“Ah, yes…”

Finally, Madame Tessley took reluctant steps heading toward the private room with Viper.

While waiting, Rexid recalled the Viper who seemed to be quite different from her bold appearance that she had in their first meeting.

She kept cowering and carefully picked up her words.

A young woman who had a depressing history with no parents to name her and had never worn nice clothes.

The face that was filled with excitement when she received this little dress as a gift, and the pitiful face she had when she looked at Madame Tessley…

Rexid’s weak mind had been stimulated several times already.

‘There’s no harm in being nice. She will give her loyalty to me as well….’

Thinking so, Rexid waited for Viper’s arrival.

Ten minutes, fifteen minutes, twenty minutes.

‘Does it usually take this long for women to wear a dress?’

He couldn’t have known it since he had never been close to a woman.

‘Well, the outfit does look complicated.’

When he thought of them as if they were useless thoughts, the tip of Rexid’s lips, trembled slightly.

‘No matter how complicated it is, it’s just clothes so why twenty minutes?’

It was not long before his foolish head began to start working that he remembered the words of a competent butler who he had forgotten for a while.

「You should never trust her.」

「Everything that comes out of her mouth is a lie….」

「And every expression she makes up are pretenses… 」

“Darn it.”

Rexid ran out hastening his pace as he, then, open the door of the private fitting room.

Sure enough…

What greeted him was an open window of the private fitting room.

Then, tied up in a pink lace with a knife under the chin so that she could not open her mouth, was Madame Tesseley.

‘Damn, you were fooled yet again…’