episode_0012

“Did the Senate summon other elders last night?”

“Yes.”

I interrupted Alfred’s daily morning report because there was something unusual about it.

Our family elders aren’t diligent enough to work at night… Something feels unnatural.

“What happened?”

“Two elders responded to the urgent call of Elder Greymore Feldaron.”

… … There are ten elders of the Calderon family?

“The three of you had a meeting? The other seven were absent. ”

“I have expressed my intention to not attend the meeting due to unforeseen circumstances.”

What’s the situation?

Last night, I witnessed several elders leaving the family home.

Thanks to the advancement of magical engineering, the streets of the Empire are now lit with light bulbs, allowing you to walk around at night, but the shops are different.

If they want to do business at night, they have to spend their own money to install light bulbs inside their store and pay for their maintenance.

So if a store is open at night, there must be a reason for it.

Just looking at the sight of the elders returning to their homes in the early morning, slightly drunk, you can tell that they had nothing to do.

‘Greymore is being openly bullied.’

At this point, I think it would be weird not to know.

It’s not my concern.

“After the meeting, Elder Greymore is said to have headed to Arcalin.”

“If it’s alkaline… … .”

“I think it might be related to the sword succession ceremony.”

There are three branches of the Calderon family.

They are Feldaron, Belmore, and Arcalin respectively.

In the past, the Calderon family had many hot-blooded young men.

Young and ambitious, they wanted to prove themselves.

However, only one person can become the head of the family.

So, those who failed to become the head of a household each went their own way.

The area outside the family fence was a dangerous and magical place, but the rewards were equally great.

They each lived according to their own ambitions, and the Calderon family respected them.

Instead of creating knightly orders within their own family, the Calderon family allowed each of them to establish their own collateral branches.

Those who survived the Great War and were granted lands and titles founded the House of Feldaron.

Those who entered the Imperial Knights at the age of 18 and received territory upon retirement established the Bellog family.

He who guarded the family’s secrets and old territory received some territory from the Calderon family and established the Arcalin family.

When the Arcalin family separated as a collateral branch, the territory they received contained the tomb of the Calderon family.

A token of the Calderon family’s consideration and trust for Arcalin, who silently protected the family.

Buried in that tomb were the bodies of successive heads of families, including the collateral and main families.

As such, it is a very meaningful place within the family.

Since the past, most of the big events within the family have been held there.

The same goes for the sword succession ceremony. It is held in the so-called ‘Road of Trials’, a secret passage hidden next to the tomb.

Therefore, the fact that Greymore, who rarely ventured outside the family home, was heading to Arkaline meant that he was planning something during the sword succession ceremony.

Is there something the long Calderon is trying to do before returning to his family?

“Okay, I understand.”

I don’t know what their plan is, but there’s no need to worry about it.

If the succession ceremony is brought forward, it will be good for me too.

The Guardian you encounter through the succession ceremony.

If you destroy the golem that has protected the family since ancient times, you can obtain the hidden item inside the guardian.

A legendary item of which there are only 10 copies [ Guardian’s Oath Ring ].

The effect of this ring creates an unbreakable protective shield.

The effect is similar to that of weightless armor, but the total amount of protection is not high.

Since it is an indestructible shield, no damage will be taken unless you attack more than the shield’s amount at once.

There is a unique characteristic engraved on this shield.

While the shield lasts, it has the anti-magic property that nullifies all mental attacks.

If you come into formal conflict with the Belmagor Church, the evil god Belmagor will launch a mental attack, so this is an item you absolutely must obtain.

The sooner I get it, the better it is for me.

The sword I use doesn’t require mana.

Instead, there is a ridiculous cooldown of 30 days.

Therefore, even if I seal the use of mana within my body on the day of the Sword Succession Ceremony, there is no problem.

Considering the cooldown, I’d like to ask you to do it quickly.

‘Let’s wait first.’

It looks like they’re in a hurry because they look that way.

—

There are light bulbs embedded in the wide space between the windows, emitting light.

A family that brightly lit up the interior of their mansion to show off their wealth.

The Aeldarin family, a political family and one of the five great families of the empire.

There, too, the door to the most luxurious room opened.

“Oh, Cain’s here?”

Merhen Eildarin.

She greeted the man in front of her brightly.

Dark black hair and calm, downcast eyes.

He’s a blunt man with a cold aura, but his handsome face makes up for all his shortcomings, so there were many girls who tried to bring him down during his academy days.

His presence in the academy was so great that there were nobles who first entered social circles just to talk to him.

However, most people gave up on him because of his personality of cutting off all relationships and not even stepping into social circles.

For a noble, building up his own power is of utmost importance, but that arrogant man doesn’t care about such things.

“What’s going on? How’s the investigation going?”

“It’s going smoothly so far. It seems like they’ve tried hard to hide their traces, but evidence tends to remain more easily than you think.”

“How long do you think it will take?”

“Um… …Strictly speaking, a month from now? Maybe even sooner. There aren’t any big names like I thought.”

“… … Then that’s it. Why did you call me?”

“Nothing special… …I just want to ask you something.”

Merhen continued speaking after a short pause.

“Beth the corpse eater and Louis the poison drinker. Did you kill them?”

—

At Merhen’s words, I felt my head go cold.

Did I kill those guys? … Of course I did.

Wasn’t I the one who sent her to the cabin in the forest of corpses in the first place?

There is no room for doubt.

I paused for a moment to consider whether it might be to my advantage to hide my power.

The conclusion is, of course, not to hide it.

It is advantageous to create merit even if you do not have merit, so I will never make a judgment that diminishes my merit.

I wondered if I had missed something, but there really wasn’t.

“Of course it is me. Why are you asking that?”

“… … You. Do you know what the eight evil beings are?”

“I know. Isn’t that a bug that eats away at the empire?”

“That’s true, but one more thing.”

Merhen raised her thumb and made a gesture of slitting her own throat.

“Even though they’re trash, they’re pretty strong guys, so they were having a hard time. High-ranking people with heavy butts don’t do this kind of thing very often.”

“Is that so.”

“No, to be honest… …Eight great villains are beyond the Academy’s reach, and we’d have to move at the family head or knight commander level, but there are three dead bodies.”

“Three, including one demon worshiper.”

“So, you killed all three of the eight evildoers, including the two evil god worshippers?”

“Then is there anyone else?”

“… … He killed me in one go. Without any time to resist.”

“That’s how it turned out.”

“Kane, if what you say is true.”

Merhen swallowed with a nervous expression.

“You… are scarier than I thought… … . Excuse me, but could you step away from me a little?”

“… … .”

Merhen cringed, wrapping her hands around her neck.

I was a little annoyed because I had seen that reaction somewhere before.

“Did you call me to talk about such trivial things?”

“… … Sigh. I can’t even take jokes.”

Merhen spread her hands as if it was a joke.

I could see the tips of his fingers trembling slightly.

“Actually, I have one more thing to say.”

Merhen handed over a wanted poster that she had kept separately.

“Do you know who this person is?”

[ 8th Great Villain: Burning Purple Witch Rin ]

‘What is this?’

I carefully examined the wanted poster that Merhen handed me.

The eight villains in the game were selected based on the severity of their crimes, and the imperial family offered a bounty on the eight most evil characters.

Usually, a simple description is attached, but no matter how much I look at the wanted poster, I can’t see anything like that.

The name there is also strange.

‘Rin… is a name I’m hearing for the first time.’

Because the eight villains keep interfering here and there throughout the middle and even the latter half of the game, these guys are the ones you must hunt before the ending.

So there’s no way I wouldn’t know the eight evildoers.

But what was written under the name was different.

I certainly know the evil deeds committed by the person on the wanted poster.

The person written in this content is Libra.

He was referring to the purple-haired witch who was still waiting for me at the entrance to the Eildarin House.

This is definitely the first time I’ve experienced this.

The good news is that it hasn’t reached the level of a first impression yet.

If something were to come out that would reveal Libra’s appearance, things could go badly.

“… … What is this.”

“This is a proposal that the royal vassals have urgently brought up. They say there is a witch who burns people whole.”

“There’s nothing wrong with the impression I got.”

“I guess they’ll announce it first and add more later.”

“That’s strange.”

“You see it too?”

Merhen answered as if she had been waiting.

“I don’t know if he was trying to turn my attention this way or if he was trying to frame me for something, but he suddenly acted so conspicuously. Thanks to that, I was able to catch his tail faster.”

“That’s a good thing.”

“That’s true, but… I have a question.”

“… What is this now?”

“Actually, I found this in the forest of corpses you sent me.”

“What is this?”

“Purple flames. It burned down the entire cabin.”

Merhen showed me a photo she had taken with her camera and some notes she had written separately.

It’s a small camera with few colors, but it’s considered the latest item here.

There were purple flames that were clearly visible even with that camera.

“Kane. Who is this guy?”

“… … .”

Instead of answering, I just looked at Merhen.

Sometimes it’s better not to say anything.

Merhen sighed softly as if she understood, seeing me not saying anything.

“Don’t worry about this part. It won’t go in a weird direction.”

“I trust you.”

“Oh, and what about the bounty for killing the two eight villains?”

“I’ll make sure to accept it when all the work is done.”

“… … What’s my share?”

“? What did you do?”

“Hey you deadly bastard! How much trouble am I in right now!”

“Don’t yell, it’ll hurt your ears. Isn’t that what you wanted?”

“Oh really… …Okay, that’s okay.”

– I guess it’s worth buying you a meal.

Merhen grumbled slightly, but I ignored her.

“Then, bye. Call me next time when the investigation is over.”

“Goodbye. Oh, you’re having a succession ceremony soon, right?”

“That’s right.”

“I hope you finish well. I thought you would be the first one among us to go, but it’s amazing to see you actually ahead of us.”

“You will soon become a resident too, right?”

“In times like this, I just say thank you and leave. And please come visit me when I become the owner.”

“Yeah. Okay.”

I nodded and got up from my seat.

Then Merhen also followed me out of the room.

“You don’t have to see them off.”

“Okay. I appreciate you coming with those heavy steps. I’ll go to the entrance.”

I don’t really need it.

There was no need to stop me from seeing her off, so I left the Eildarin family mansion with Merhen.

“… I’m so late. I almost froze to death.”

“… … Cain. Who is that guy?”

Oh right. I brought Libra.