Ch.175Chapter 175. Plating (4)

I came out of the audience chamber and recalled the last conversation we had.

“The regular meeting will be held soon. I will adopt your agenda then, so I would appreciate it if you could present your opinion.”

“Is it really necessary to take that approach?”

“Don’t you think we need to quell unnecessary rumors about me secretly listening to your opinions behind closed doors? Even here, I have no choice but to rely on you.”

Serpina said that and then smiled at me, saying: Show me your ability, Swen.

‘I’m not sure if it’s something that could be called an ability.’

I understood Serpina’s position.

Unilaterally favoring the opinions of close associates like Yurie was only possible because they were the Aeshus army, and doing the same here would cause all sorts of troublesome situations.

Many generals would seriously push for a southern advance at this upcoming regular meeting. Did I need to persuade them?

‘I’ll need to gild my abilities convincingly.’

Since I was on the verge of having most of my abilities exposed to Serpina, I needed to package them naturally.

Not only her, but Ginor had also figured out something, so I needed to understand what basis they could use to deduce my abilities.

So the place I should head to—

*

Guided by a maid, I arrived at a rather massive building that appeared to be about three stories tall, located in the town of Einhart Castle.

“This is the place.”

“Thank you.”

The maid, neatly dressed in a white apron, bowed politely at my thanks and asked:

“When would you like me to return to escort you back?”

“As for returning, since we know the location, we can make our way back ourselves.”

“Is that so? If you say so…”

The maid gracefully bowed to us.

“A-ah, um… g-goodbye…!”

With that awkward farewell from Reika beside me, we parted ways with the maid who had escorted us here.

This place was a library.

The day after my private audience with Serpina, I had planned to come here to look into something personally, and Reika, who seemed to have nothing particular to do, had tagged along.

Since Irene had gone out for training, I thought she might be lonely by herself, so I brought her along without any particular objection.

“Wow… it’s huge, isn’t it?”

“Indeed it is.”

The Great Library of Einhart.

A three-story building packed with all kinds of ancient books, the resting place of the continent’s greatest wisdom.

I learned of its existence from the dialogue of territory residents before I possessed this body.

When you clicked on the tiny territory residents walking around on screen, they would show random encounter dialogue like “Farming ultimately depends on the heavens” or “I hope this chaotic era ends soon and peace arrives.”

Having played this game for 10,000 hours, I had already memorized all the few lines the territory residents had.

And one of them was definitely—

‘I heard there’s a great library in Einhart Castle where books containing all kinds of information are gathered.’

Since it was just dialogue from a territory resident, the library didn’t have any particular effect in the game, but it was definitely “established lore.”

So it was natural to predict that in this world where the game had become reality, the library would exist.

Therefore, after asking a maid who handled various household matters—

‘I was able to arrive at this place.’

I said to Reika, who was overwhelmed by the size of the building:

“Shall we go in?”

“Huh? Oh, y-yes…!”

As we entered the building with Reika, an elderly man wearing a stylish monocle greeted us at the counter.

“What brings you here?”

“I’d like to browse through some books.”

“To use the Einhart Great Library, you must belong to Serpina’s forces, but…”

“My name is Swen.”

“Please wait a moment.”

The man checked a document filled with writing from a drawer for quite some time, then after looking at me a few times, he said:

“Mr. Swen. Welcome. But, the person beside you…”

“Ah, I’m—”

“May I ask, are territory residents not allowed to enter?”

“That is correct.”

To the man who answered quite firmly, I replied with a nonchalant expression:

“Even if they’re family?”

“?!”

“Did you say family, sir?”

“Yes. She is my wife. She’s accompanying me today.”

“Sw—!”

I took Reika’s hand as she tried to say something, giving her a silent signal.

Just go along with it.

Whether she understood or was simply embarrassed, she blushed and lowered her head without saying anything.

“Do I need to leave my wife outside?”

“Hmm…”

The old man thought for a moment, then nodded and said:

“Very well. Please come in. I apologize, madam.”

“Ah, y-yes…!”

And so, without much difficulty, I was able to enter the Great Library with Reika.

*

“The books you’re looking for are this way.”

“Thank you.”

After thanking the librarian who guided us, I finally offered a casual apology to Reika, who hadn’t said a word until then.

“I’m sorry if I offended you, Reika. But I couldn’t just go in alone when you came with me.”

“Huh? Oh, n-no…! It’s… I wasn’t offended. And, um…”

Reika mumbled, her voice almost inaudible.

She had been speaking confidently in a loud voice to me and Irene for the past few days, having apparently adjusted to us, but now she seemed to have reverted to the “timid mode” from when we first met.

“It’s, um… n-not exactly… wrong.”

“Pardon?”

“I mean! Um… we.”

Reika’s face turned redder than a radish.

“We’re… discussing… marriage after all…”

“…You’re serious about that, right?”

“Huh? Oh… yes, yes! I-I am thinking about it!”

“How serious are you that your voice is cracking at the end?”

“Ah, th-that’s… uh, uuu.”

I smiled as I watched her bow her head in embarrassment.

By now, even her mumbling and fumbling seemed quite adorable.

“Please think about that issue carefully. I’ll follow your decision.”

“Ah… yes, okay.”

If she decides to marry me… I should talk to Irene first.

It would be fine if she didn’t want to marry either. Reika might want to remain free and not be tied down to one man… At the very least, I wanted to respect her choice, regardless of her abilities.

Anyway, it wasn’t something that needed to be decided right now.

‘Let’s see.’

In any case.

The book I was looking for was supposed to be here.

After pulling out a few and checking them, they indeed seemed to be what I was looking for.

‘…’The Sage with the Mind’s Eye.”

The sole reason I came to this great library, and the information I absolutely needed to know in order to gild my abilities.

It was about the “Mind’s Eye.”

When Ginor roughly deduced my ability.

And when Serpina nearly figured out my ability with 99% accuracy.

If there was a commonality between the two, it was that they both mentioned the term “Mind’s Eye” when looking at me.

Ginor interpreted it as the ability to see the future, while Serpina interpreted it as my ability to make judgments, but regardless, since the word “Mind’s Eye” came from both of their mouths, it wasn’t difficult to infer that this word had a deep connection to how they were able to similarly deduce my ability.

But since I didn’t know detailed information about the term, I needed to go somewhere to confirm it—

And that choice was this Great Library of Einhart.

After pulling out several books and extracting only the important parts, I was able to formulate a reasonable proposition:

[Several hundred years ago, among those who served Kaltus von Einhart, the third emperor of the Einhart Empire, there was a man known as ‘The Sage with the Mind’s Eye.’ He was excellent in military tactics and astute in politics, rising to the position of national strategist and earning the respect of many for his numerous achievements.]

The books certainly contained various information about ‘The Sage with the Mind’s Eye.’

However, it only described him as an ‘extremely talented national strategist,’ without providing any clues that could help deduce something about me.

At that moment.

“Mr. Swen, are you looking for something…?”

Reika approached me as I was concentrating on the book.

“Ah, well.”

I readily shared the story about the Mind’s Eye.

Then, she tilted her head slightly and—

“Are you perhaps looking for the legend of ‘The Sage with the Mind’s Eye’?”

“…Huh? Reika, you know about it?”

“I once read all the books at home… I remember seeing it there.”

…Ah.

Come to think of it, Reika’s surname, which I often forgot, was Reika Nighthart.

As the adopted daughter of Ginor Nighthart, who served the Empire, it wouldn’t be strange for her to know about this!

This historical anecdote was related to the imperial royal family, and anyone connected to the Empire would have heard of it at least once, which was the basis for my deduction that the two people who mentioned “Mind’s Eye” to me were figures related to the former Empire.

In fact, Ginor was originally someone who worked for the Empire, and Serpina was, needless to say, from the imperial lineage.

“Could I hear about it?”

“Well, to put it simply—”

Thanks to Reika’s gentle and kind explanation, I was able to learn in detail about ‘The Sage with the Mind’s Eye.’

To summarize:

[Because all the advice he had given had proven to be invariably correct, he was recognized by the Emperor for his ability and given the title ‘Mind’s Eye.’]

‘This is it.’

Now I finally understood why Ginor and Serpina had mentioned the Mind’s Eye when looking at me.

Unlike me, the man in this book seemed to have many talents besides just making statements that were always correct, but in any case, the reason he was given the impressive title of ‘Mind’s Eye’ was because all his words, in retrospect, turned out to be true.

If they had this information in their minds, they could naturally claim that I, who seemed to “always be correct,” possessed the ability of the Mind’s Eye.

“However, since there’s no physical evidence that such an outstanding figure actually existed, the common opinion among current historians is that he’s more of a legendary, mythical figure.”

“Is that so?”

Reika nodded at my words.

“Yes. Considering that only the title ‘The Sage with the Mind’s Eye’ remains, and that a man who was supposedly very active as the empire’s national strategist doesn’t even have his name passed down… I also think he might just be a fictional character created for some kind of imperial founding myth. Besides, the idea that everything he said was correct isn’t very realistic…”

“I see…”

I nodded in agreement and thought.

Perhaps the reason the two of them could attribute such a mythical story to me was because magicians, who were also considered merely mythical beings, had begun to emerge.

If magicians existed, there was no reason why the Sage with the Mind’s Eye couldn’t exist as well—and in fact, as they had deduced, I did possess something similar to that “Mind’s Eye” ability.

Whether Intelligence 100 was the Mind’s Eye or not, I couldn’t say.

Was Serpina deducing this from the meteor I had called down, and Ginor from his adopted daughter?

‘…Good.’

The reason I went so far as to investigate this was because there’s a big difference between responding without knowing anything and responding with knowledge.

Serpina was right. I could only know what the results would be. I couldn’t know the process or the logic behind those results.

In such a situation, whether I could tell a plausible story when questioned further would make a huge difference.

If I faced similar questioning next time, I would need to use this keyword to find a way out.

By giving my ability a plausible gilding, I would gain freedom of choice.

If that happened, I could gain Serpina’s almost definite trust—

And later, I could return to Lunarian’s forces without much difficulty.

…But.

‘Does that mean… I have to lie to Serpina?’

My heart became complicated again because of Serpina’s image flickering before my eyes, but I shook my head lightly.

It wasn’t an issue to worry about now. …At least not yet.

“Well.”

This was as far as I could go.

The next thing I needed to pay attention to was… Reika.

“Is there any book you’d like to read?”

“Huh? Oh… well.”

“Aren’t you interested in books? Considering you read everything at home when you were at the mansion, you seem to enjoy reading.”

“No, I… I do like it, but I came here for your business, so…”

“I’ve finished what I needed to do. And since you’ve come out for an outing after a long time, it would be nice to enjoy yourself, wouldn’t it? It seems you can’t come here alone. I can just read any book beside you.”

“…Then… shall I?”

Reika looked up at me shyly as she asked.

Indeed, it seemed she was interested in the books.

Judging by how her tension was strangely high when explaining things to me, she seemed quite excited.

Certainly, this space was a place that could captivate the mind and soul of anyone who loved books.

“Sure.”

And so, I spent time with Reika at the Great Library.

What surprised me was that she picked up a chivalric romance for ladies—a regular fantasy romance—when I was certain she would look at books related to magicians or folklore.

Spending a leisurely afternoon reading books with Reika was… quite a nice experience.

* * *

A few days later.

The morning of the regular meeting day finally dawned.