When Aldis asks her a question, Marida returns the words with a smiling smile.

'Do you want to know?　Do you want to know about me?

　From the outside looking in, it is the smile of a young girl.
　To some people, it might make them stretch their noses.

　But Marida's demeanor was flippant to no end, and her antics irritated Aldis.
　Aldis's expression became even more severe.

'Oops. I wish you didn't look so scared. As I said before, I'm not Aldis-kun's enemy. In fact, I'd rather be on your side.

　Marida hurriedly tried to put it that way.

'If you want to hear about me, that means you want to buy a product called information from me, right?　But, you know, I'm a merchant... Merchants can't give away their goods for free, can they?

Are you asking me to give you ...... information fees?

Wouldn't you rather we barter for money than for equals?

Exchange?

Yeah. Information for information. I will give you the information you want, Aldis. And you, Aldis, will provide the information you want me to give you. An exchange of equities.

　Ardis silently responds to the suggestion.

　As long as she doesn't know if the woman in front of her is an enemy or a friend, she doesn't want to carelessly provide information about herself.
　The twins, Nere, and Ardis' own past.
　There are many things I don't want others to know or talk about.

　I don't know how much this woman knows and what she thinks. I'm not going to take the deal lightly.

'No,'

　You can pretend to accept a deal and lie about it, but it will be the same for them.
　You can't trust each other, so the preconditions for a deal don't hold up.

'It's sad that you can't trust me!

　Marida must have known that.
　She puts her arms in front of her eyes and imitates crying deliberately.

'Well, then,'

　But the next moment, he smiles again and opens his mouth.

''There's something I want instead, how about you bring it to me and I'll tell you everything you want to know, Aldis-kun?

　Is that the real deal, Aldis guessed.

　It was true that she didn't feel comfortable providing information about Aldis herself, or rather, she would avoid it as much as possible.
　But on the other hand, how could Marida know those words? And why did she speak as if she knew that Aldis and Kirill would meet? There were many things I wanted to ask.

'Depends on what that 'want' is,'

　So Aldis takes a step forward.

'So be it!　Then come here!

　Marida snapped her fingers as if the deal was done, sat up from the sofa and turned her feet toward the entrance.

'Hey, I didn't say I'd take it yet,'

I know. Anyway, the sooner you get it looked at, the sooner you can follow me.

　With that, Marida quickly left the room.

''Tsk.''

　I don't like people who don't listen to me, and while clicking my tongue, Aldis quickly followed suit.

　I'm not going to be able to get to the bottom of the building.
　It's a good idea to be able to have a good idea of what you're looking for.

　One of them is the servant who was also in the parlor earlier. He was a middle-aged man with white hair on his head and wrinkles beginning to appear on his face.
　The other was a young man dressed in exotic clothing. He was a bit petite in stature and his skin was a healthy, wheat-colored color.

'Here you go!　Are you ready for this?

Yes, Miss. Everything is in order.

　The servant man quickly responds to Marida's confirmation.

　Following their gaze, they see what appears to be a magic circle drawn on the floor. Scattered on top of it are several ores, flowers, tusks of something, and parchment with words that look like curses.
　And in the middle of it all was the example sword that Aldis and Kirill had found in the Caucasus Forest.

''What's this?''

　Ardis spoke up with a question, and Marida turned and responded.

'So you're suggesting we let that sword mature for a while, this is it.

What do you mean?

You know what I'm talking about.

　It's not just a matter of time before you get to the point where you're going to be able to get your hands on it.

It's a good idea to have a few more preparations in order to put down the sword. It's a good idea to buy some time until then.

Quell?　Stalling?

Well, proof is better than argument. I'm going to put a simple seal on that sword now, but I'm missing one ingredient for that...

　When I said that, Marida held out both hands to Ardis and continued.

It's a good idea to have the sucker of the "different holy", if you have it, to give it to me.　I'll give you a piece of gold.

Nah. ......!

　Unexpectedly, Aldis, as expected, was crestfallen by those words.

　Only he, Kirill and the inhabitants of that village should have known that Aldis had the Unorthodox Sucker.

　Originally, the foreign holy suckers were discarded by most mercenaries without looking at them, they were trash, so to speak.
　I don't know if anyone would find a person who collected and carried such a thing, even if they searched all over King's Landing.

　But the woman in front of me turns to Ardis and offers to give it to him.
　'If you have it,' she says a hypothetical expression, but no matter how you think about it, it's a way of saying that she's convinced that Ardis has a different kind of holy sucker.

'Yes?　You have one, right?

　Tilting her head slightly, Marida asks again.

...... What makes you think I have that?

'It's a secret, you know. If you want to know, go get what I want.

Isn't that what you want, the unholy sucker?

Hmm?　No, it's not. That's why I said I'd buy the suckers for gold, right?

　Marida says, shaking her head lightly.

Are you sure you want to use just one ............?

One is enough.

　There are a total of twenty-four suckers collected with the intention of taking them to the spellcaster in the royal capital.
　It's not that the number of suckers collected was strictly specified in the first place, nor was it an official request.
　Even if I sold one of them, there were still twenty-three left to collect.

　It's a good thing that you're able to get a little bit of a hesitation, but it's not going to be a problem for you, so you handed over one of the suckers to Marida.

"Now you're ready.

　As the servant takes the sucker and places it on top of the magic circle, Marida calls out to the smaller man.

''Well then, nice to meet you.

Yes, sir.

　The small man replied briefly and then stood in front of the magic circle and began to chant something.
　It was a statement that Aldis was not familiar with.

　It was not even a magical chant, it was similar to the prayers to the goddesses chanted by the monks of the church.
　But similar, but different, it felt like. Because unlike the prayers to the goddess, I didn't feel uncomfortable listening to them.
　Eventually, as soon as the chanting ended, the entire magic circle began to glow faintly.
　The light stretched out like a string and covered the sword from all directions.

''Success.''

　When the small man said this, the sword was almost sewn into the middle of the magic circle by a string of light.

''This should be fine for about seven days. But after that, you'll have to go to .......''

I know. I'll take care of the rest, so don't worry. I'm sorry to keep you waiting so long.

No, please don't worry about that. In fact, I don't think I could ever repay your kindness with this.

Don't worry about it. Thanks for your help today.

'Yes, I'm afraid that's all for today. I'll come back to say hello.

　The small man had a brief conversation with Marida and then left the room.
　Aldis had only assumed that he was from the Litte Trading Company, but it seemed that he was an outsider.

''Well, Aldis-kun,''

What?

'This will keep that sword quiet for about seven days, but we haven't been able to get to the root of the problem.

Of course you do.

The 'thing' I mentioned earlier is what you need to put down the sword. The reason why I want to ask Ardis-kun to get it for me is because I want to ask him to get it.

　'So that's what you're going to talk about,' Ardis murmured inwardly.

'Well?　What's that 'thing' you want?

Hair.

What?

　Aldis replied in a sultry voice at the unexpected words that came out of Marida's mouth.

'What I want is a tuft of hair,' she said. The color of the hair is Alice Blue. Moreover, it belongs to a woman with high magic power. If the eyes are the color of heavenly color, there is nothing to complain about.

　Aldis's eyes take on a warning color.

　The color of the hair on her head, Alice Blue. A woman with high magical power. The color of her eyes is heavenly.
　The reason is that all of these conditions seemed to pinpoint the person called Nere.

　How much do they know about Nere, do they have information about the twins, and who is this woman Marida in the first place?
　Aldis's unanswerable thoughts run through her mind.

　When the question she had mentioned many times before was about to become a voice, Marida said first.

'Why? You'll need to bring me the price first if you want to know. I'll give you seven days.