Meanwhile, while Karina and Jeremiah were unable to wake up, time in reality continued to pass steadily. The imperial palace in the Imperial capital.
"Your Majesty, I have returned."
Marquis Millainer returned to the capital and entered the palace to have an audience with the Emperor.
"Yeah. How did things go?"
The Emperor was alone with the Marquis. He got straight to the point without beating around the bush with formalities or greetings.
"The story ended well. I thought that if I had known it would be this easy, I would have brought it up earlier."
"I see."
The Emperor looked at the Marquis with a slightly suspicious look.
"But I heard that you set a condition?"
The Marquis answered proudly as if there was no problem at all.
"He asked me to guarantee him the right to rule the North. He argued passionately that the current Grand Duke of Colesburg was not qualified to rule the North."
"Guarantee the sovereignty of the North?"
The Emperor sneered bitterly.
"I didn't know that the Princess was eyeing the position of the ruler of the North."
"A stupid woman with no ability is looking up at a tree she can't even climb."
The Marquis of Millainer laughed at the sight of Caroline standing tall and proud while being driven out of the North.
"Isn't it true that the more greedy something is, the easier it is to exploit it?"
With a wicked expression on his face, he began to tell the Emperor everything, from the details of the deal he had made with Caroline to the plan he had come up with.
"How is she?"
"Not bad."
The Emperor liked the Marquis's plan. The Marquis smiled with satisfaction at his answer.
"Then, should we first invite 'them' to the capital like the Princess said?"
"Yes, that's right. This time, I will get rid of that arrogant little brat from Colesberg and put the entire North in Your Majesty's hands."
The Marquis said confidently.
"Yeah. I'll look forward to it."
The Emperor also smiled leisurely and nodded.
***
A cloudy day with thick clouds and no sun. The Northern Knights arrived at the Magic Tower.
"We've finally arrived."
It took a whole week to get from the Empire to the Magic Tower. This was relatively quick because they only rested a minimum and rode horses every day. However, the Magic Tower's large entrance gate made of solid steel was firmly shut. The main gate, which Jeremiah had smashed when he arrived a while ago, was neatly restored to its original state as if nothing had happened.
"Is it true that His Highness the Grand Duke has already arrived?"
"Then! He left us behind and went without any care, day or night. He must have arrived three or four days ago."
"That's right."
At that moment, one of the knights let out a small sigh and said:
"I've been feeling this way lately, but it seems like His Highness doesn't care about anything when it comes to the Grand Duchess Duchess."
One of the knights next to him nodded in agreement.
"It was the same when the Grand Duchess was kidnapped by the monster, and, amazingly, His Highness the Grand Duke is stepping in himself."
As soon as Jeremiah heard the report that Karina had disappeared, he set out to find her himself. It was a far cry from his usual attitude of always being serious, unwavering, and silently assessing the situation and giving orders.
"Why did he suddenly change?"
"Well, I'm not sure, but actually, for a while before..."
"Stop!"
Ron interrupted their conversation.
"You two! Do you still have any energy left, judging by the amount of useless chit-chat you're doing?"
"No!"
"Sorry!"
The two knights, who had been given a warning with a stinging glare, bowed their heads with their military discipline at the ready.
"But is His Highness still here?"
Another knight who was inspecting the tower raised a question.
"Even if not, I should at least check to see if he's stopped by here."
Everyone agreed. Ron stepped forward and banged on the large, bulky door, shouting loudly.
"Excuse me! I have some business to attend to, so please open the door."
Originally, the Magic Tower was not a place that would easily open its doors and welcome visitors. The entrance to the Magic Tower was a door that could only be opened by someone with magical powers who could demonstrate at least a little of their abilities. In a way, it could be said to be a kind of first test that those who wanted to become magicians had to pass.
However, a few days ago, the magicians who had been severely beaten by Jeremiah were startled when they saw the knight uniforms they were wearing and immediately ran out. They were worried that this time, they would draw their swords, break down the door, and cause trouble. The heavy iron door creaked open.
"Who... who are you?"
A wizard peeking through the open door asked in a frightened voice.
"We are the Northern Knights from the Empire. His Highness the Grand Duke of Colesberg has already left for this place. Is he still here?"
"The Northern Knights?"
“Grand Duke of Colesberg...”
"Ah, as expected...!"
"At that time, that person..."
"Then they too..."
The wizard did not answer their questions but instead muttered something among himself.
"Please wait a moment."
With those words left, the door closed. The news of the Northern Knights' arrival at the Tower was immediately relayed to Max. Max, who was worried, reported their visit to Pavel instead of Mikhail.
"Let them in."
"Yes? But..."
"We don't know when the Grand Duke will wake up, so we can't keep those guys waiting outside."
Pavel wasn't wrong.
"If they had their minds set on it, they wouldn't cause trouble. I'll explain the situation, so you go and prepare a room to release them."
"...All right."
So the Northern Knights stayed in the Tower.
***
Eventually. Max went to Mikhail's office to tell him this fact.
"Ugh."
He sighed as he looked at Mikhail, who was stuck in his office.
'Whenever I ask you to do some work, you just run away.'
Mikhail, who hated paperwork, volunteered to skip meals and spend his days surrounded by paperwork. Max said as he placed a plate of bread and soup on the table for easy eating.
"Make sure to eat properly. It can harm your health."
"No need."
Mikhail didn't even look at his plate and answered dryly. Right now, checking the documents was more important to him than eating or sleeping. It had already been four days since Jeremiah entered Karina's consciousness. He thought he would wake up right away when Karina's consciousness came to him, but Jeremiah himself didn't wake up.
"As expected. I should have gone then, even if it meant forcing myself to do so..."
Mikhail looked through the documents, mumbling to himself occasionally as if he was feeling agitated.
"You pathetic little brat! If you've entered Karina's consciousness, you should've come quickly. What are you going to do if you get lost in there too?"
Mikhail ground his teeth. He believed that he would wait and see when she woke up.
"The two are being watched by the Lord of the Tower. He is checking to see if there are any similar cases in the old books. Don't worry too much."
Max tried to appease him with those words.
"Then what is he doing? Karina still hasn't woken up."
"..."
It only backfired.
"If only I could, I would take his place right now, but I'm barely holding back!"
Mikhail had no choice but to wait silently, as he was told that forcing himself awake while he was already conscious would be a great burden not only to Jeremiah but also to Karina, the master of consciousness.
"Oh, yes."
Max, who regretted bringing up the subject in response to Mikhail's angry reaction, changed the subject.
"Actually, the Northern Knights are here at the Tower. They came to find the Grand Duke of Colesburg. I think they'll stay here until he wakes up."
"The Northern Knights? What good will they do if they come?"
Mikhail furrowed his brows and made a displeased expression.
"First of all, we don't know when the Grand Duke will wake up. It is the Lord's will to bring them inside."
"..."
Max saw Mikhail mouthing a curse, but he pretended not to see it.
"By the way. The documents you are looking at now. Can you really trust these?"
Max asked, sorting through the scattered papers. Mikhail was looking through the documents he had brought from the basement of the cabin where he had encountered the warlocks. He wanted to find out what the warlocks were up to and why they kept getting involved with Karina.
"These are the materials that the warlocks encountered in the forest and tried to destroy but failed. You can almost trust them."
The documents contained a variety of shocking details, from a list of families who received supplies of plants grown in herb gardens to instructions on how to extract and mix specific components of those plants to create highly addictive hallucinogenic drugs and lethal poisons that could kill people.
"There's all sorts of content."
Furthermore, there were also research materials on how to combine contaminated magic stones with the cores of monsters to create more hideous and vicious entities. Judging from the fact that there were experimental logs that were over 500 days old, it wasn't research that was done in a day or two.
"I never thought that the black magicians would use tainted magic stones to manipulate monsters to their liking."
Mikhail laughed in vain, shaking the papers in his hand. The fact that monsters that were considered 'natural and inevitable disasters' could be artificially raised and controlled was a very serious matter.
"If it's true, shouldn't it be made known to other countries as soon as possible?"
Of course, it was natural for representatives from each country to gather at once and hold a meeting to devise countermeasures.
However.
"No. I think it would be better not to tell anyone for now."
Mikhail was adamantly opposed.
"Why?"
In response to Max's question, Mikhail raised one corner of his mouth and continued speaking.
"It's strange that we didn't know about the warlocks doing this behind the scenes. It's impossible unless someone with power knows about it and hides it."
"..."
Silence fell in the room, as Max heard what Mikhail was saying.
"Are you saying that the Empire's leadership is secretly helping the warlocks?"
"I don't know if they're just helping or if they're colluding. If not, then it just doesn't make sense."
Mikhail's eyes glowed coldly.
"If you look at the transaction records here, most of them are imperial nobles. They are so entangled in such dirty business, do you think they will readily admit to their relationship with the warlock and confess their guilt even if the truth is revealed?"
"I don't think so... "
"It would be fortunate if they were to deny it. The Imperial Family might try to cover up the fact that the Imperial nobles were colluding with the Warlocks to do dirty work."
"If they really are in league with the warlock, then yes."
Max nodded back and forth, thinking it was a plausible guess.
"There's no guarantee that only the Imperial leadership will do this. So rather than telling everyone, it's better to pick out people you really trust and gradually reveal the information. And simply revealing this fact isn't enough. We need something more decisive to prevent them from getting away."
After saying that, Mikhail concentrated on looking through the documents again. These contents were important, but nothing that could actually be related to Karina came out.
'If there is, it must be something related to dragons. What on earth is it?'
And he also had to find out why and what their purpose was for controlling the monsters. His eyes became even more serious. That's how, each of them was moving steadily for what they wanted, behind the invisible waters.
Support Novellate!
Comments
Post a Comment