I’ll Become a Villainess That Will Go Down in History

ul-san asks, smiling refreshingly at me.

In a way, it almost looks too refreshing to the point of it being suspicious….
It definitely hadn’t seemed like that before.

“Have you met Liz-san?”

“Ah, yes.
I have,” Paul-san tells me, his wide eyes peeking at me over the rim of his glasses.

“And what sort of first impression did you have of her?”

“She… seemed like a nice, lovely girl,” Paul-san says, slightly puzzled.

…..Ah, I understand his confusion.
It feels like I’m interrogating him all of a sudden.

“Ali, Paul came to give us some information,” Henry-Oniisama says quickly as if he’s trying to stop me from asking any more odd questions.

“Information?”

“Yeah,” he confirms, nodding.

So as a side job, he’s….
an informant? Or maybe running the shop is actually the side job? Or perhaps a front?

“So Gilles, you get information about the academy from Henry-Oniisama, you hear about what’s happening in the town from Paul-san, and for the impoverished village, you go there yourself to gather intel.
You have quite the intelligence network,” I remark approvingly.

The corners of Gilles’s lips turn up proudly.

….What a remarkable child.
He’s already gone far beyond me.
He’s simply amazing.
Though, well, I’m not planning on praising him aloud of course.

“Impoverished village?” Paul-san asks, his eyes going wide and his shoulders stiffening.

…..Oh, right.
Since everyone around me already knows I’ve been visiting the impoverished village regularly, I started acting as if it was common knowledge.

Speaking of which, I wonder if Paul-san knows that Gilles is originally from there….?

“Paul-san, the Josiah I obtained from you a couple of years ago was actually for Gilles who was deathly sick at the time.”

“Eh?”

Instead of Paul-san, it’s Gilles who’s surprised.

Ah, that’s right.
There’s no reason that Gilles would have known that the medicinal herbs I used to save him came from Paul-san’s shop.

Somehow, it feels a bit like a practical joke that I’ve been planning for years just came to satisfying fruition.

“It would seem that we’ve been connected for much longer than we thought,” Paul-san says, giving us another of his healing smiles.

Although both he and Liz-san are considered the soothing type, I find I like Paul-san’s smile much better than hers.

“I never would have thought that a young lady from one of the five great noble houses would have experience visiting the impoverished village.
I have to say that I’m surprised.”

“Yes, I hear that a lot.
I’ve already gotten used to everyone being shocked by it actually,” I tell Paul-san with a bit of a wry smile tugging at my lips.

“So… Gilles must be a child from that village,” Paul-san notes quietly as he gazes intently at Gilles.