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A month had passed.
A letter arrived from the Holy Empire. The letter was from Rohanna Celles, Kristina's childhood friend from the monastery.
The letter didn't say much. She said she was having a quiet and peaceful life after she had spent months wandering around Samar.
After skimming down the letter, Eugene grabbed Akasha.
“I guess she hasn't forgotten how to use it,” Eugene said.
The letters were scribbled in such a way that they actually formed a magic formula.
Any given group of wizards tended to know at least one or two encoding spells, which also applied to the Red Tower. Lovellian had taught Eugene about the Red Tower's enciphering magic, and Eugene had taught Kristina in turn. Even in the Red Tower, the only people who could use this enciphering magic were Lovellians' right-hand people, including Hera.
Kristina didn't distrust Rohanna Celles; however, there was always that 'if.' She had also mentioned how her letters might be monitored. That was why Eugene had taught her the enciphering magic.
At first glance, it looked simple. It was actually simple, for that matter. However, the magic formula was weaved with various traps everywhere. However, the traps were simply meant to record that someone tried to snoop, and did not show any visible changes whatsoever. That was why only the letter's recipient could see the trap and find out that it had been triggered.
Following the decoding formula, Eugene infused the mana and deciphered the code. The words in the letter were immediately replaced by completely different ones.
Kristina was not able to interrogate the pope and the cardinal herself. Taking the bulls by the horn to see their reaction was too risky. If they were the ones behind the ambush, of course, they would be alert against Kristina returning alive. Therefore, she was keeping an eye on them.
‘Yeah. If she presses them hard about the ambush, the pope and the cardinal will pull their ranks and take action.’
The very Saint of the Holy Empire had been attacked by the demonfolk of Helmuth. Although the ambush had ended in failure, that would not prevent the relationship between the Holy Empire and Helmuth from deteriorating.
It was inevitable.
‘The Demon King of Incarceration is officially a pacifist,’ Eugene pondered.
No one could deny that.
There was an organization called the Anti-Demon Alliance. It was an international organization made by a group of small countries in the north, led by the Holy Empire. For a long time, it had been deploying armies near Helmuth’s border, staging an armed protest. Although it didn’t launch direct attacks on the frontier towns, it blocked trade routes and held regular military exercises near the gates of Helmuth castles.
Even though the Demon King of Incarceration had the power to wipe them out, the king was overlooking the organization’s activities. Naturally, the demonfolk could not directly collide with the organization, even though they made complaints.
The demonfolk tried to kill the Holy Empire’s saint. Helmuth couldn’t hush this kind of thing up by blaming everything on the demonfolk who attacked Kristina. If this got publicized, it was surely going to become the spark to start the war.
…However, it was too soon for a war.
‘Right now, she can only say she will look further into it,’ Eugene thought, putting Kristina’s letter aside.
He had actually received one more letter. This other letter wasn’t from the Holy Empire; it was from Aroth, written by Lovellian. The letter contained information about Raizakia and Barang.
The Dragon Demon Castle was the Black Dragon Raizakia’s residence. The castle was unique even in Helmuth in that it resided in the sky, not on the ground. The flying castle, dozens of times bigger than the famous floating station of Aroth, was overflying Raizakia’s land.
Raizakia loathed humans. Helmuth welcomed humans, but there wasn’t a single human living on Raizakia’s estate. Only demonfolk, demonic beasts, and demi-humans lived on the dragon’s land. Population meant military strength, so although the land itself was vast, the troops of Raizakia were overwhelmingly weak compared to the other dukes’. Moreover, humans naturalized to Helmuth generally weren’t strong enough to be used as soldiers, but they regularly paid taxes. That money was used to increase the demonfolk’s power. Yet, the human-hater Raizakia refused to even receive that tax money.
Indeed, among the numerous demonfolk, dragons were special, and Raizakia was the most arrogant dragon of all.
‘Hmm.’
Scanning the long letter, Eugene frowned.
‘It’s not Raizakia.’ he reached a conclusion.
There was a race that made up an especially great portion of the population in Raizakia’s estate, a fair bit higher compared to any other land of Helmuth: dwarves.
Dragons usually went nuts over jewels and handiworks. Since they considered themselves the greatest of races, they believed that it was only right to own things that suited their elegance. That was why dragons had been ruling over dwarves for a long time, and it was the same for Raizakia. Even before he had fallen, many dwarves had worked for him. Then, he had flown to Helmuth with all his dwarves without either liberating or massacring them when he had fallen. Three hundred years had passed since then, and the descendants of those dwarves were still not free from Raizakia.
There was a big mine on Raizakia’s estate. The dwarves weren’t able to leave the mine; they worked in the mine for their entire lives. Everything they mined, hammered, and crafted went into Raizakia’s treasure house.
‘…The products made by the dwarves are being siphoned off.’
Dwarf products were not officially exported. However, through dozens of brokers, such products were actually released in secret.
Dragons never sold their stuff. Then, was somebody siphoning off goods after pulling the wool over Raizakia? No, that was impossible. In Raizakia’s estate, there were several high-ranking demonfolk who served the dragon. Although Eugene didn’t know the exact clauses of their contracts, he was certain that it wasn’t possible to plot against Raizakia.
‘Dwarves would also never do that.’
The current problem alone was enough to doubt it was Raizakia, and he had some circumstantial pieces of evidence as well.
Over the last 200 years, Raizakia hadn’t made any new contracts with other demonfolk.
There were only three dukes in Helmuth. Among them, Noir Giabella, the Queen of the Night Demons, already had powerful armies, so she didn’t need to make new contracts. As for Gavid Lindman’s title, the Incarceration’s Blade, that was more like an honorary title. He had been the Demon King of Incarceration’s right-hand man for 300 years. Instead of making his own contracts, Lindman commanded the other demonfolk who had contracts with the king.
Raizakia had overwhelmingly few subordinates compared to the other dukes. The black wizards weren’t the only ones who signed contracts with the demonfolk due to a desire for power; demonfolk also made contracts with higher-ranking demonfolk, wishing for the same thing.
In other words, there were definitely a lot of demonfolk who wanted to work with Raizakia. Soon after the war had come to an end 300 years ago, Raizakia had indeed made new contracts with some demonfolk, after a thorough screening process. However, he had never done that since.
‘…And who the hell is this? Count Karlad?’
The guy was a newly rising noble of Helmuth. The man had practically zero presence 300 years ago; instead, he had gained power in the age of peace. Now, he was a young ambitious noble who was hoping to join the central forces of Helmuth. Count Karlad’s estate was right next to the Dragon Demon Castle. That wasn’t much of an issue, but the letter said that he had started to slowly infiltrate the border of the castle this year.
‘I’m certain. The Raizakia in the Dragon Demon Castle isn’t the actual Raizakia. It doesn’t seem like a clone either…’
Maybe the imposter was his hatchling.
‘If the hatchling is hundreds of years old… then it all makes sense.’
Dragons were born powerful, but that wasn't why they were unchallenged. Their overwhelmingly long lifespans contributed to their strength. The older the dragons were, the stronger they became.
‘Raizakia himself made contracts with the demonfolk and commanded the dwarves. His hatchling cannot take over the contract,’ Eugene thought.
If Raizakia had died, then the contracts would have been over. The demonfolk and the dwarves, who were on the other end of the contract, would have revolted. The Dragon Demon Castle was intact, however, unstable though it was.
‘The contracts remain…So they must be staying loyal to their master’s child, but they are reaching their limits.’
The next paragraph of the letter talked about Barang. As the man himself had told Eugene, he was indeed Jagon’s sworn brother. However, there had definitely been no trace of the brotherly love that usually came after the ‘sworn brothers’ part.
In the past, Jagon had sunk his fangs deep into Oberon’s neck and killed him. After that, he had also killed all the elders, who were Oberon’s right-hand men, to trigger a change in leadership. Right now, relatively young beastfolk, from the same generation as Jagon, played the key roles.
However, Jagon had never shared a close bond with anyone, not even the beastfolk in his generation. He simply used supreme power to rule over them. The only beastfolk who could stand beside Jagon were the strong ones, the ones who had survived the ‘change.’ Barang, who was said to be Jagon’s sworn brother, was certainly not one of them.
‘…Yeah, he was really weak for someone who bragged that much.’ Eugene reminisced.
Eugene had heard from Balzac that the beastfolk under Jagon’s command worked as mercenaries to become stronger.
According to Lovellian’s letter, Barang had also been an independent mercenary. He was quite famous in the mercenary industry in Helmuth, having attended dozens of territorial disputes and such. The letter didn’t mention whose request had made Barang leave Helmuth, though. At the end of the letter, Lovellian mentioned that he would look into it as best as he could, but Eugene didn’t get his hopes up. He too had been a mercenary in his past life.
The quests given to the low-class mercenaries were not trustworthy in the slightest. Any involved party could betray the other party at any time. It wasn’t even strange if the content of the request got leaked.
The same didn’t apply to higher-class mercenaries, however. In the beginning, a mercenary’s priority was money, obviously, but as time passed, mercenaries would start to feel a sense of honor with respect to their trade. In turn, honor attracted trust. Besides, the amount of payment was no longer the main drive of the high-class mercenaries; what mattered was to get entertaining requests, a trusting relationship with the guild, and so forth.
‘Mercenary guilds are everywhere on the continent, but Helmuth’s mercenary guild is special.’
It was bound to be special. Helmuth’s mercenary guild gave out very difficult assignments to its mercenaries. They could get assignments like bodyguarding or defeating enemy forces from any other mercenary guild on the continent, but Helmuth’s quests were on another level. On top of that, Helmuth’s belligerent demonfolk always waged territorial war with each other, making Helmuth a heaven for the mercenaries.
‘So, of course, the content of the request would never get leaked. It doesn’t seem like the attacker got the request through the guild, either.’
Assassinating a Lionheart and a Saint was not the kind of request that a mercenary guild would arrange.
After piling up the letters, Eugene burned them, then stood up.
“Are you going today too?” Mer asked as she sat on a comfy sofa, licking a candy.
A famous patissier had put great effort into making this candy for Mer. He was one of the chefs recently hired by the Lionheart’s main house. It was candy, but it also resembled ice cream. When Mer licked the candy, she could taste a mouthful of sugar, but its size didn’t get any smaller. It looked really soft, but when she tried to chew it, she found that it was crunchy. Mer had definitely taken a liking to it, judging from how she was holding it every time Eugene looked at her.
“Lady Ancilla is so overzealous,” he muttered.
“She is beautiful and kind.”
“She never gave me such candy when I was little. And neither did she hire dozens of cooks for me. ”
“No way… Sir Eugene, are you being jealous of me? I am smaller and cuter than you.”
“I was small and cute seven years ago.”
“But you weren’t kind like me, or on good terms with Lady Ancilla. I heard several stories about your childhood from Lady Ancilla, Sir Eugene. You were truly something even from that age!” Mer grinned and hopped down from the sofa. “You beat down Lady Ancilla’s son on the first encounter, and also bullied him whenever you could even after they adopted you, right?”
“…Uh… Lady Ancilla exaggerated because it involved her son. I didn’t beat him down, I hit him once. It was a fair and honorable fight. And bullying? I was the one who got bullied! Do you know how much the twins bothered me?”
“I’m not going to trust your word, Sir Eugene. You never give me candy, cookies, and cakes.”
“This is so unfair. Did you already forget how many dessert shops I took you to in Aroth?
“Lady Ancilla took me to more dessert shops than you.”
“Yeah, if you like Lady Ancilla that much, then ask Lady Ancilla to become your mother. Change your name to Mer Lionheart. No, change it to Mer Caines and become her daughter.”
“Don’t sulk, Sir Eugene. Aren’t you also benefiting from my cuteness?” Mer chuckled and followed Eugene.
He couldn’t deny that. The chefs hired by Ancilla were all talented, increasing the quality of Eugene’s meals significantly.
“Mer!”
As they were heading to the annex, they heard a loud voice. The voice was enough to attract the attention of all servants who were cleaning the first floor.
“Where are you going? Do you have to go? If you don’t have any plans today, how about we go sightseeing in the city?”
It was Gerhard, approaching with a big smile. Eugene frowned.
“You guys went there yesterday.”
“There isn’t a law that prohibits a second visit, is it?”
“Weren’t you planning to get swordsmanship training from Laman?”
“…We postponed it. Laman also liked it when I said I wanted to postpone it.”
Indeed, Laman was nowhere to be seen. It was obvious where he had gone.
‘Attending the training of the main house’s knights,’ Eugene thought.
It was good for Laman to train himself. Eugene didn’t consider Laman as his right-hand man, in spite of the latter’s hopes and expectations. Still, Eugene thought it was good to have someone loyal to him personally, not the Lionhearts.
‘I have Signard, but he lives in the forest.’
However, Laman spent his entire day in the annex. If someone attacked the main house, they would go for the annex first, where there were fewer people. When that happened, Laman would be able to easily protect Gerhard and Nina until the knights of the main house arrived.
Without playing any political games, he had become the Emir’s bodyguard, so he was objectively skilled. He wasn’t White Lion Knight Captain material, but he would be welcomed in any estate with his skill. More importantly, he wasn’t in the least bit satisfied with his level, so he constantly communicated and trained together with the knights of the Lionheart estate.
“Mer is coming with me today.” Eugene denied his father’s request.
“…Mer would prefer to tour good restaurants in the city rather than participate in your training.”
“Don’t you want to keep your current body? You worked hard to lose that weight.”
“I can lose it quickly if I take medicine.”
“Father! I told you not to eat that medicine,” Eugene shouted.
“…Viscount Stellord gave me that himself. How could I refuse his goodwill?”
“Viscount Stellord wouldn’t want his gift to be used as diet supplements. He gave it to you so you can diligently exercise and become stronger.”
“Hmm… You are right… But I don’t want to become a muscleman like Viscount Stellord…”
“So don’t rely on drugs and just exercise instead. Also, swing a sword a couple of times too. If you keep postponing things like this, I will train you myself.”
Hearing Eugene’s threatening words, Gerhard’s face was clouded with despair. He fully knew how strict and ruthless his son was during training. There would be no father and son in that training, only the trainer and the trainee.
“I also agree with the necessity of training. Sir Gerhard asked me to keep it a secret from you, Sir Eugene, but he recently ordered larger ceremonial clothes,” Nina unhesitatingly spoke from behind Gerhard. He quickly turned his head and cleared his throat.
“I heard it from Narissa, the kitchen assistant. Sir Gerhard quietly orders late-night snacks every night.”
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“…”
“One of the main jobs for Lavera is to clean up those dishes. It seems you thought that ordering the apprentice servants will make things unnoticeable, Sir Gerhard. However, your overeating is always reported to me.”
“…I treated them so nicely… And this is how they betray me!”
“Everyone is concerned for your health, Sir Gerhard.”
After hearing Nina, Eugene heaved a sigh and shook his head.
“Father, come with me and run ten — no, twenty laps at least.”
“My knees won’t be able to take those laps!”
“Human knees aren’t made of glass, but your increasing weight will shatter your knees like glass. Okay, say no more. Come with me right now. Come to think of it, we haven’t run together since I was eight years old, right?”
“I have a reason why I don’t run…” Gerhard also remembered the moment vividly. He was proud of his little son, who strived to train himself, so he once ran in the field with Eugene.
They weren’t having a match, but Gerhard felt like a total loser at the time. Eugene was an eight-year-old kid, obviously much smaller than him, but he couldn’t catch up with Eugene even running at full speed. Even forgetting about his pride as an adult, his pride as a father was irreparably damaged by the fact that he could not outrun his own son.
“If you run, I will run with you, Sir Gerhard,” Mer said with the candy stick in her mouth. She was already done with the candy.
“My lady, it will ruin your teeth arrangement.” Nina quietly approached and took away the candy stick in Mer’s mouth.
Ever since his wife had died, Gerhard had promised himself to not marry again, but he sometimes wished for the daughter he never had.
The memory of running together with his son was filled with misery, so he had been reluctant. However, for some reason, he felt like he could make good memories if he ran with Mer. After some pondering, Gerhard nodded.
That was how they started running, and that was also how reality ruined Gerhard’s expectations for beautiful memories.
Eugene didn’t hurry; he merely fell into step with Gerhard. Mer also diligently ran beside him.
The problem was Gerhard’s endurance. Thanks to Viscount Stellord, he had built up quite the stamina, but running in this cold weather made Gerhard tired very quickly.
As a familiar, Mer didn’t get tired. As for Eugene, let alone twenty laps, even two hundred were not enough to make him sweat a little.
After finishing his tenth lap, Gerhard collapsed, unable to run any longer. Eugene had been slowly following him, then he stopped beside Gerhard for a moment.
“Let’s increase the distance by one lap a day,” Eugene said.
Instead of answering, Gerhard lay down on the ground and just waved his hand around. Eugene forced Gerhard to stand up and wiped the dirt off of his clothes. He then called Mer.
“Let’s go.”
“Okay,” She answered as if she waited for this moment, then she approached Eugene. Lifting his cloak to let Mer enter, he took a couple of deep breaths as he stood still.
“Lightning Flash.”
“Master Eugene is using Lightning Flash!”
The servants in the annex talked in whispers. Eugene could see some elves, who had a keen sense of hearing, covering their ears. He tried his best to stay calm, but he was able to feel the strong desire to kill the White Tower Master, Melkith El-Hayah, rising from the bottom of his heart.
Lightning Flash — the name that only existed inside Eugene’s head had reached Melkith by accident. On that evening, Melkith had babbled away at the main house’s party.
—The Lionheart family has a really bright future. Did you know about Eugene’s new skill, Lady Ancilla? He named it Lightning Flash, and the skill is so cool and brilliant, just like its name. Who could have known that a human could turn into lightning and fly away in a flash?
…Eugene was very uncomfortable with everyone looking at him. Still, he thought it would be more embarrassing to stop now.
Pzz.
When he used the White Flame Formula, his mana now had the lightning attribute. It had only been a week since he had shown it to Melkith, and he still wasn’t able to control the technique properly, but unlike before, when he was unable to hit the brakes, he was no longer crashing into trees.
He put one foot forward and prepared to spring forth. However, before he had the chance to dash, he had to quickly come to a halt.
“What?”
From the forest, his destination, some people were approaching him.
“When did you arrive here?”
Carmen Lionheart and Ciel Lionheart.
The two women, who by all accounts should have been in the Black Lion Castle, were coming his way.