Chapter 75

As Turan set down the unconscious Meisa, he clicked his tongue at how feeble her resistance had been.

Considering that the most significant factor in a wizard’s physical abilities was the amount of magic power they possessed, it was alarming that despite having noble-class magic power, her strength was this weak. It meant her body was in complete disarray.

‘Well, she barely weighs a quarter of what I do.’

He guessed that if they were to fight using only their fists, it would be a fairly even match with his younger self, back when he used to herd sheep on the Hisaril Hill.

In this condition, not only was she unable to utilize her full strength, but even her lifespan couldn’t be guaranteed.

Determined to restore her health somehow, Turan pried open Meisa’s mouth and inserted the prepared tube.

There was no need to worry about its hard and rough surface causing scratches on her throat or internal organs.

After all, noble skin was impervious even to needles, so her internal organs were unlikely to be any different.

In fact, the tube, which he had inserted forcefully, was squeezed by the sphincter inside her esophagus, requiring him to infuse it with magic to reinforce its strength.

‘Is this enough? No, a little deeper, there.’

Blowing air into the tube to check the flow, Turan confirmed that the tip had reached her stomach. Then, using fluid manipulation magic, he funneled in the nutrient porridge.

The amount was roughly two ladles of soup.

He had intentionally reduced the portion, recalling how, back in Kalamarf, he had seen starving people die after consuming food too quickly.

Even if a noble’s body was sturdier than a commoner’s, it was best to avoid any unnecessary risks.

Once he had finished administering the food, Turan removed the tube and gathered moisture from the air to form a water droplet.

Rather than tapping or shaking her, splashing this on her would be more effective.

“Mm…”

Just then, with a faint groan, Meisa’s eyes fluttered open.

As Turan dispersed the water droplet resting on his palm, she struggled to sit up.

“…Is it over?”

“Yes.”

She only held her head in dizziness for a moment before she swirled her tongue inside her mouth to wash away the lingering metallic taste.

Fortunately, she didn’t feel the nausea that usually accompanied eating.

Perhaps it was because she hadn’t even registered the act of eating itself.

“I didn’t expect it to be this simple…”

“If we do this a few more times, your recovery will be quicker. But you can’t rely on this forever, you’ll need to overcome it on your own in the long run.”

“I’ll try.”

She wasn’t confident she could succeed, but Meisa responded nonetheless and put back on the magic equipment she had removed earlier.

After that, they erased all traces left in the bakery and parted ways, each returning to their respective dwellings.

Upon returning to her usual empty mansion, Meisa collapsed onto her dust-covered bed.

‘My body… feels hot.’

For the first time, she could feel a strange vitality coursing through her body, which had always been languid. A feverish heat spread across her form.

It was a reaction triggered by her body, which had been starved for ten years, greedily breaking down the nutrients and converting them into strength.

*

The next day, waking up earlier than usual, Meisa immediately left her mansion and flew towards the main gate of her family estate.

The guards stationed there, as usual, were stunned into a rigid stance at the sudden appearance of the heir.

“A-Ah, my lady! What brings you here…?”

“I wanted to get some fresh air.”

Although the powerful figures of Arabian disregarded and oppressed Meisa, she was still the family's sole heir in an official capacity.

No one dared to demand something like a transit pass from her, so she passed through the checkpoint without an escort of nobles or knights and soared into the vast sky.

Perhaps because she was in better condition than usual, even her flying speed felt faster than before.

After a few hours of flying around freely and returning, she found the family estate in an uproar, as expected.

“What on earth were you thinking, Meisa?! An heir behaving so recklessly! Do you even realize how many people dropped what they were doing because of you?”

The senior members of the family, including Cadrum, all rushed out and surrounded Meisa, bombarding her with questions.

For an ordinary person, the overwhelming atmosphere would have been enough to make them wet themselves, but Meisa stood firm without even batting an eye.

“I was just feeling stifled, so I went for a walk. Does my uncle or anyone else need permission when they go out?”

“You need to be aware of your position! What if you were attacked by Zahar’s assassins-”

“Do you think their head would go all the way to the Takein Plains just to target me? If not, then there’s no problem. Besides, wasn’t it you, Uncle, who told me before that I was being overly paranoid?”

“That was when you were a child.”

“Anyway, I’ll be going out whenever I feel like it and coming back on my own, so don’t bother worrying about it.”

After firing off her words, Meisa didn’t even wait for a response and turned back toward the mansion.

The middle-aged nobles, including Cadrum, whispered among themselves with displeased expressions but couldn’t reprimand her any further.

No matter how much they outranked her in age and authority, Meisa was still the heir.

Upon returning to the mansion, she found that the elderly maids, seemingly already scolded on her behalf, rushed over to complain about something. However, Meisa waved them away lightly and went straight to her bedroom to sleep.

Several hours passed, and by the time dawn approached, she quietly checked her surroundings before slipping out of the mansion.

She entered the bakery she had visited before and snapped her fingers lightly, yet nothing happened.

‘…Is Reto nearby?’

Last night, Turan had promised that he would only reveal himself if he was certain that Reto wasn’t around.

His absence now meant one of two things: either he had failed to bypass Reto’s concealment ability, or Reto was nearby, lurking and watching.

Meisa wandered around a few more places but ultimately returned to her mansion without success and went back to sleep.

Perhaps because her digestive system had been reactivated after consuming food for the first time in ages, an intense hunger gnawed at her throughout the night.

On the second day, as Meisa headed toward the checkpoint as she had the day before, she was met by a few relatively low-ranking Arabian nobles.

If they couldn’t stop her from going out, it seemed they had at least decided to keep her under surveillance.

Since they insisted on accompanying her on her walk, Meisa didn’t bother shaking them off.

Instead, she simply flew at a faster speed, exhausting them out of amusement.

After returning, she slept, then slipped out of her bedroom at dawn once more, wandering through deserted areas, but again, she was unable to meet Turan.

Two more days passed, and just as impatience began to creep in, she was loitering near the knights’ training grounds, where the musty scent of sweat lingered in the air, when Turan finally appeared before her.

“Turan!”

“Reto has been tailing you nonstop for three days.”

“Were you able to detect her?”

“Yes. Fortunately.”

Turan nodded, fiddling with his Mimic Relic.

Over the past few days, he had foregone sleep, hiding inside Meisa’s mansion to observe its interior.

As a result, he had witnessed Reto sneaking into Meisa’s room under the cover of invisibility, meticulously searching every corner, and even stealthily trailing her when she left in the middle of the night.

As an added discovery, Turan realized that his Mimic Relic was capable of seeing through Zahar’s concealment techniques.

After three days of observing the observer, he had only revealed himself once Reto stopped her pursuit, having concluded that Meisa’s outings were aimless.

“…I didn’t sense anything at all.”

“That’s only natural. So, do you think there won’t be any issues with your outings?”

“Yes. It seems like they’re just letting me go for the sake of giving me a change of pace.”

While Meisa could maintain the facade of an heir in public, the true absolute ruler she had to obey without question was the head of the family, Badal.

If he ordered her not to leave, she would have no choice but to comply.

However, he hadn’t taken any direct action regarding her sudden outings.

Only the senior members of the family, what Turan called the "middle-aged faction", were making a fuss on their own.

This outcome wasn’t too surprising.

Through her research in various archives, Meisa had confirmed that for the past several decades, the family head had delegated nearly all responsibilities to his relatives while remaining secluded in his residence.

The only recent occasions when he had left his residence were during the war with Zahar and when he saw off the Dark Elf subjugation force.

“I had considered searching his quarters if he personally came out, but that seems unlikely now.”

One of the plans had been to take advantage of the family head’s presence outside to rummage through his residence, but that idea now had to be abandoned.

After wrapping up their brief discussion, Turan knocked Meisa unconscious, just as he had three days prior, and administered her food.

Thus, the same routine continued for several more days.

Walks, sleep, and food intake.

On the fourth night, as Meisa regained consciousness after fainting, Turan spoke.

“We escape tomorrow.”

“Already?”

“If we wait any longer, people will start getting suspicious. You’re gaining weight faster than I expected.”

Over the past few days, Meisa’s body had undergone such drastic changes that calling it a transformation wouldn’t have been an exaggeration.

The hollows around her eyes had filled out, her once-wrinkled skin had smoothed, and her twig-like frame had thickened.

Though the changes were still subtle enough to be dismissed, a few more days would make them undeniably apparent to anyone who saw her.

“We’ll meet at the western side of Morgen City at noon tomorrow. If an hour passes and I haven’t shown up, return home, it means something went wrong.”

One of the advantages of his tracking ability was that they didn’t need to designate an exact meeting spot.

*

On the morning of the escape, Turan woke at dawn and immediately put his plan into motion.

The first step was infiltrating the residences of Cadrum and the other middle-aged nobles to secure their corruption-related documents.

For this, rather than using invisibility, he fully utilized the disguising abilities of his mask.

Having entered and exited several times over the past few days, he was already familiar with the internal layouts.

“Hm? Beck, didn’t you leave earlier?”

“The master gave me another task.”

Turan casually moved through the estates, disguised as various household servants, slipping in and out of libraries without drawing suspicion.

The entire process of securing all the documents took two hours.

Had he not needed to walk between the estates like an ordinary commoner, it would have taken even less than half that time.

Once he had gathered documents from a total of fifteen individuals, Turan retrieved the preserved strand of hair and activated his tracking magic.

His target was the Zahar noble, Reto.

‘Let’s see… Perfect, she’s outside her quarters. That saves me some trouble.’

As a personal maid directly serving the family head, she usually resided within his quarters. However, she would occasionally leave a few times a day to run errands or handle various tasks.

In truth, kidnapping her was the most unpredictable part of the plan.

If she happened to stay inside the family head’s residence all day, there would be no way to act.

In that case, he would have had to return the documents and postpone the escape until the next day.

Disguised as an ordinary gardener, Turan relied on his tracking magic as he navigated through the main estate and arrived at a particular mansion.

‘This place…’

Next to the mansion’s gate, large letters spelled out [Sirel Arabian].

The son of the Nagin house’s woman, and Meisa’s half-brother.

Reto seemed to be inside his mansion, engaged in conversation with someone.

‘This guy didn’t have anything noteworthy when I investigated him before.’

The documents in his study were all ordinary, and while he had a familial connection with the middle-aged faction, he wasn’t actively involved with them.

But Meisa utterly despised him.

That was because Sirel’s mother was the family head’s consort, Anieta Nagin.

‘After Meisa’s mother and younger brother died… that woman mocked her, didn’t she?’

It was that very incident that led Meisa to send a letter to her half-brother, Renaud, calling him a murderer.

Even if the full details were unclear, it had practically exposed the Nagin family’s involvement.

One of the lingering mysteries was the connection between the middle-aged faction and the Nagin family.

If the family head was truly one of the gods, then a mere consort shouldn’t have held any real significance.

It might have simply been an excuse to torment Meisa, but Turan suspected that there was a deeper issue within the Nagin family as well.

Or, on the contrary, it could be that they were using this situation to exert influence over the Nagin family.

Lost in thought, Turan suddenly noticed Reto exiting the mansion after finishing her conversation.

Having already completed his disguise, he immediately approached her and called out.

“Reto.”

Reto’s eyes widened in surprise at Turan’s voice, but she quickly smiled and bowed her head.

“Yes, Lord Cadrum! What brings you here-”

“Follow me. I have something for you to do.”

Turan wasn’t entirely certain if he had perfectly mimicked Cadrum’s appearance and voice.

Meisa had assured him that it was identical, but he hadn’t been able to verify it by directly comparing himself to Cadrum.

However, Reto showed no suspicion and obediently followed him.

Turan had prepared a response in case she asked what the task was, but, like a well-trained assassin, she didn’t even question it.

As they entered Cadrum’s mansion, an elderly butler looked at them with slight confusion and spoke.

“My lord? You should be attending the daily meeting at this time…”

“I forgot something.”

At Turan’s response, the butler’s face briefly showed doubt.

Was his disguise too crude to fool someone who had known Cadrum for a long time?

However, the butler seemed to dismiss his own suspicions as mere overthinking and simply gave a respectful nod without further questioning.

Suppressing a sigh of relief, Turan led Reto to the mansion’s basement.

“Um… Lord Cadrum? Why are we going down here…?”

Since she had never been led to the basement before, a strange unease finally surfaced on Reto’s face.

Did she think Cadrum was after her body?

Instead of answering, Turan silently continued walking.

After hesitating for a moment, she ultimately chose obedience and followed.

The basement was dark, its lights left unlit.

As a well-trained maid, Reto instinctively closed the door behind her, triggering the pre-installed barrier.

“Urgh…!?”

Before coming to capture her, Turan had used up a portion of the magic stored in the Mimic Relic, specifically the power from the bloodline of barrier master.

The barrier he had set up was designed to slow down the target’s movements, effectively restraining them.

Startled, Reto struggled to pull out a few concealed throwing weapons from her clothes, but her movements were sluggish to an extreme degree.

Turan leisurely grabbed her hands, stripping her of the weapons, and then bound her tightly with the magic-suppressing chains he had once used on Solif.

As her body began draining of magic, Reto shouted in panic.

“L-Lord Cadrum?! What in the world-!”

Instead of answering, Turan drove his fist straight into her face.