Published: August 15, 2025
It was nearly dawn when we finally found the runaway Marquis Dario Alfonso.
To our surprise, he was in the wine cellar in the basement.
We had searched the entire house all night without any luck and were about to give up when Wolfgang suddenly said, “By the way, where did those wine barrels come from?” Suspecting a hidden door, we searched the wall near the kitchen and finally discovered it.
Descending the stairs behind the door, we found a small room used for storing food and drink. Perhaps sensing our approach, a flustered Dario was curled up inside an empty wine barrel. There he was, a middle-aged man squeezed tightly into a narrow, cramped space in a strange posture.
Both Lord Cyrus and I were utterly exasperated by this hiding spot. While we were drained, Wolfgang took over and spoke politely to him.
“Excuse me… I hope we’re not disturbing you, Lord Dario. We have urgent business and would appreciate it if you could show yourself.”
“…I-I can’t get out.”
We grabbed the marquis’s clothes like pulling on a stubborn potato and yanked him out.
His clothes stretched, and his hair took on a weird shape, but barely managing a gentleman’s smile, the marquis tried to keep his composure.
“Well, pardon me! I just wanted to fully immerse myself in the feeling of being a grape, so I ended up sticking my head in this barrel.”
“Don’t tell unfunny jokes,” Lord Cyrus snapped, refusing to entertain it this time. His voice was low and threatening.
“Ella has disappeared. The men chased after her immediately, but there was nothing we could do in the Night Forest. We’ll wait for daylight and resume the search.”
“Ella?”
The marquis looked puzzled.
“Huh… that’s surprising. Usually, she just cries quietly and gets through things, never bolts out like this.”
“On the contrary, she even hurled insults before leaving. Told Marie to die, among other things.”
The marquis laughed heartily.
“You must be joking.”
“Not joking. It’s no laughing matter.”
“That must be a misunderstanding. She wouldn’t say such things.”
Apparently, the marquis wasn’t trying to cover anything up—he was serious. Seeing Lord Cyrus at a loss for words, I stepped forward and suggested, “We have to go look for her.”
The Night Forest is dangerous. Summer nights in Dilz can be chilly, and wild beasts roam. A lightly dressed woman alone couldn’t survive there for long.
Of course, I don’t like Ella and have plenty of issues with her, but I couldn’t ignore the danger to her life.
“Thomas went to call the search party, but it will take three days for them to return. In the meantime, we should search during the daylight hours ourselves. Marquis, do you have any idea where Ella might have gone?”
I pleaded desperately, but for some reason, the marquis just grinned foolishly and waved his hands breezily.
“It’s fine. Ella has been to this villa many times and knows how to get through the forest.”
“Even if she gets out onto the highway, it’s not a walkable distance to town.”
“There’s a regular stagecoach that passes by. She probably has some money for the fare, and if not, she can put it on the marquis family’s tab.”
“That’s… even if that’s true…”
“Well, if things get hopeless, she’ll come back. Chasing after someone who left on their own and getting lost yourself would be pointless. I’m not about to become the ‘shepherd whose sheep shorn his own hair.’”
He chuckled to himself, amused by his own joke.
The “shepherd whose sheep shorn his own hair” is a proverb about a shepherd who went to shear sheep but returned with his own hair eaten by the flock. It’s a cautionary tale about how trying too hard to help others can backfire disastrously—a principle repeatedly warned about in rescue efforts.
If we got lost looking for Ella, it would be a disaster—he was right. And we weren’t even on Ella’s side. But still—I thought the marquis would at least be desperate to look for her.
“…I think Ella ran off because she wanted you to find her…”