Chapter 76
13 min read ·
Cadrum’s old butler inspected the cleanliness of the mansion while recalling his master’s behavior from earlier.
Somehow, today, his demeanor felt utterly unfamiliar.
There was certainly supposed to be a family meeting this morning, yet his sudden return was unusual. Moreover, his attitude seemed as if he was hiding something.
On top of that, just a moment ago, he had brought in one of the household’s direct servants, someone the butler had seen only a few times before, and gave strict orders that no one was to enter the basement.
This was something that had never happened in the decades he had served his master.
‘Could it be…?’
Just as his thoughts started drifting toward strange possibilities, the maid who had gone down to the basement with Cadrum earlier came back up, carrying a burlap sack.
It was fairly large, but judging by how easily she lifted it, it didn’t seem to contain anything particularly heavy.
“Oh.”
Seeing her, the butler realized that his suspicions were correct.
Unlike her previously immaculate appearance, her attire now seemed hastily put on, as if she had dressed in a rush…
Even worse, some parts of her clothing were torn, as if they had been forcibly removed!
Noticing the butler’s gaze, the maid subtly adjusted her outfit with one hand while still holding the sack.
“He said no one should come down to the basement for a while.”
“Ah, I understand.”
Cadrum and his wife had always prided themselves on their strong marital bond, uncommon among nobles, and had never taken on concubines. But it seemed that ended today.
Lamenting the collapse of the household’s peace, the butler quickly averted his gaze from the maid.
Because of this, he failed to notice that the burlap sack was roughly the size of a crouched person and that the maid appeared slightly taller than she had been earlier.
*
“You’ve worked hard! Here’s my pass.”
“Ugh, that smell… Just go through quickly!”
A cart reeking of food waste.
The checkpoint officer, recoiling from the unbearable stench he could never get used to, waved his hand in disgust.
Disguised as a cleaner, Turan bowed slightly and pulled the cart past the checkpoint.
“Phew…”
How many days had it been since he had been trapped inside the demon realm, surrounded by walls and barriers?
He let out a relieved sigh as the oppressive atmosphere of the enclosed space lifted from his shoulders. Entering a nearby alley, he opened the lid at the front of the cart and pulled out Reto, who was stuffed inside the burlap sack.
She was tightly bound in chains, beaten to unconsciousness, and now looked no different from an ordinary person.
‘That was easier than I expected.’
His plan had worked smoothly, disguising himself as Cadrum to lure and capture Reto, then transforming into Reto to leave the mansion, finally stuffing her into a garbage cart and passing through the checkpoint unnoticed.
Thinking back on the past few days, practicing transformations, secretly acquiring a cart, stealing clothes, and forging an entry pass, Turan almost felt a sense of anticlimax.
He had even absorbed a small amount of magic power from the Illusionist Bloodline, in case an overzealous checkpoint officer decided to inspect the cart.
Regardless, since everything had gone smoothly, that was all that mattered. After changing into the white robes commonly worn by House Aravion’s nobles, Turan slung Reto over his shoulder and took off into the sky.
It was not unusual for wizards to be seen flying in this area, so no one paid him any attention.
After flying west for about twenty minutes, Turan reached the outskirts of Morgen City and pulled out a strand of red hair to cast Tracking Magic, determining his direction.
Before long, he spotted Meisa leisurely flying over a sparsely populated hill, accompanied by three nobles from House Aravion.
Using Wind Magic, Turan sent his voice to them.
[Everything went as planned, Meisa.]
Of course, there was no way the nobles of House Aravion, adept at reading wind currents, would fail to notice this.
“What was that?”
“Did that guy just send a message through the wind? Do we know him?”
“I’ve never seen him before. He does look a bit like Dex…”
Even though House Aravion was a great noble house with a considerable number of members, their total count was only around a hundred or so.
And since they lived far longer than ordinary people, they could usually recognize all of their kin.
The only ones whose faces were relatively unknown were the elders who rarely engaged in external affairs.
The reason they did not immediately suspect him was that his face resembled that of the young knight he had previously disguised as, only aged up.
Since his features were a blend of several House Aravion nobles, they found him oddly familiar and assumed he must be an unknown relative.
Just as their vague suspicion was about to turn into full-fledged doubt, an enormous surge of electricity erupted from behind them.
Caught off guard by Meisa’s sudden assault, the three nobles of House Aravion were incinerated into charred corpses before they could even scream.
Looking down at the dead bodies, Meisa muttered as if making an excuse.
“They were all his underlings.”
“Well done. Let’s move immediately.”
If they had been nobles from the younger faction, they might have only incapacitated them or tried persuading them to misdirect the pursuit. But since they belonged to the older faction, killing them outright was the cleanest option.
Having eliminated any traces of pursuit, the two immediately flew south at full speed.
*
The flying speed of nobles at the heir-apparent level of a great house was several times faster than an ordinary noble’s running speed. As a result, they reached Zavilin City, the territory of House Berk, within just a couple of hours.
Instead of entering the city directly, Turan and Meisa landed in a secluded valley nearby.
Focusing his consciousness on the Soul Bond, it was not long before a golden eagle descended.
“Bije!”
Perhaps it was the joy of reuniting with his soul-bound companion after so long, Bije chirped loudly, untied the rope binding the swing between its legs, and flew straight into Turan’s arms.
The bird rubbed itself affectionately against him before landing on the ground, where it began writing a lengthy message expressing how much she had missed him and scolding him for taking so long to return, practically composing an epic poem.
Feeling guilty for leaving her alone for so long, Turan simply nodded along, responding with gentle affirmations. Watching this, Meisa chuckled softly from behind.
Just then, a man stepped down from the swing Bije had carried and approached Turan.
“You sure took your sweet time, man.”
The man, speaking in a grumbling tone, had gray hair tied in a ponytail and wore the typical attire of a traveler.
From a distance, one could easily mistake him for Turan.
However, up close, it was evident they were not the same, he was shorter, had a more robust build, and his face bore no real resemblance to Turan’s.
The man, Solif, tossed his gray wig aside and spoke.
“Do you know how many days I’ve been flying around here on this thing?”
“I figured you’d enjoy it, considering how much you always wanted to ride it.”
“That was fun for the first day or two.”
During the past several days when Turan had infiltrated the Aravion main house, Solif had been flying around Zavilin City in disguise, wearing a wig and similar clothes to Turan.
This was to prepare for the possibility that Turan would be suspected as the one who had helped Meisa escape.
Within the Berk household, he had avoided contact with others thanks to Ashiz’s cooperation, while publicly showing himself outside to maintain the illusion that he had never left the Berk territory.
“Well, anyway! This must be the Aravion lady. I’m Solif. Nice to meet you.”
“I’ve heard a lot about you. I’m Meisa… Ah!”
Meisa had reached out to shake Solif’s hand, but the moment their hands met, his wrist detached and fell off, causing her to scream in shock.
Solif burst into laughter at the success of his prosthetic hand prank.
“Gotcha!”
“Don’t tell me you’ve been putting off fixing that just to pull this prank?”
“Do you think I’m an idiot? The healing process has been slow since I started treatment a while ago. But look, I’ve regrown everything up to my wrist.”
As he said, Solif’s right arm, which had once been severed above the elbow, had now regenerated down to the wrist.
It seemed the Healer girl Ashiz had brought in was diligently doing her job.
Ignoring Meisa’s bewildered gaze, Turan lowered Reto, whom he had been carrying over his shoulder, onto the ground.
“Well then, let’s unwrap our gift.”
Soon, Meisa would have to ride Bije and fly far away, beyond the reach of House Aravion.
Before that, they needed to interrogate Reto, extract any useful information, and dispose of her.
As Reto crawled out of the burlap sack, her once neat appearance was now barely recognizable. Having been repeatedly punched during her capture, her nose and cheekbones were broken, both eyes and lips were swollen, and several of her teeth were missing.
When a bucket of water was thrown over her, she regained consciousness and quickly rolled her eyes around to assess her surroundings. Spotting the only familiar face, she desperately bowed her head toward Meisa.
“L-Lady, please spare me! I don’t know what I did wrong, but please, I beg for your forgiveness…”
Her pitiful whimpering, muffled by her broken nose, was enough to make even other species reconsider eating her out of sheer sympathy. However, Meisa only looked down at Reto with cold, sharpened hatred in her eyes.
“Did you enjoy it?”
“…What?”
“Killing my family. Did you have fun?”
At those words, Reto, who had been trembling, suddenly froze.
As if her previous demeanor had been an act, she lifted her head, clicked her tongue, and let out a deep sigh.
“Ah… so you found out? I figured a day like this would come eventually- Aaaaaah!”
Before she could finish, Meisa struck her with a bolt of electricity.
The power of the attack wasn’t enough to kill even an ordinary person, but after being chained up for so long, Reto was no different from an ordinary person now.
“Keep talking.”
“I… I’m not sure what you want me to say… Maybe how much blood your mother and little brother coughed up back then?”
Even after being electrocuted, she still had the gall to mock them, if nothing else, her courage was commendable.
Seeing Meisa about to lash out with electricity again, Turan quickly intervened.
“Wait…”
“She-”
“You’re too worked up. Take a deep breath and calm yourself. I’ll handle the interrogation for now.”
At his words, Meisa finally realized she had nearly lost control and killed Reto in a blind rage.
That couldn’t happen.
This woman needed to suffer several times more than her family had before she died.
As Meisa stepped back and closed her eyes to steady herself, Turan briefly explained the situation to Solif, who was watching in confusion.
That this woman was a noble of the Zahar Bloodline who had assassinated Meisa’s parents and had been working for House Aravion.
“A Zahar assassin working for Aravion? Why the hell would she do that?”
“We’re about to find out. Do you know anything about torture?”
“Wouldn’t say I’m an expert. What about you?”
“I’ve never done it before, but I could if necessary.”
Hearing their exchange, Reto suddenly let out a chuckle.
“You two sound like clueless kids. Listen up, brats. I don’t know what that girl promised you, but you’d better let me go now. Otherwise, you’re going to regret ever being born. Do you really think you can run from Aravion forever?”
Even in complete captivity, Reto’s face was filled with venomous defiance. However, Turan could smell the thick stench of fear and despair emanating from her.
Her bravado was nothing more than a thin shell, one that would crumble with the slightest push.
“Rather than that, why don’t you tell me something? How did you get Cadrum on your side? I never expected an ambush in that place. If you tell me, I’ll give you some information in return. How about it?”
“I’m the one asking the questions.”
“You just admitted you don’t know how to torture someone. Beating, burning, and cutting aren’t the only ways to inflict pain. Torture won’t work, so you might as well-”
Perhaps her outburst was an attempt to ignore her own inner panic, but Reto, who had been passionately taunting them, suddenly stopped speaking.
Turan, sensing something was off, looked up to see her swollen eyes wide open, staring at his face in shock.
“…Karim?”
“Who’s that?”
At Turan’s question, Reto gasped and quickly shut her mouth. However, he had already caught the scent of her rising confusion and distress.
Of course, unlike him, Reto wouldn’t be able to smell anything from Turan.
Her broken nose was likely filled with the overwhelming stench of blood.
“Answer me. Who is Karim?”
“…Who are your parents? No, which noble bloodline do you belong to?”
From her counter-question, Turan realized that she had once again seen traces of someone else in his face.
After a brief moment of thought, he spontaneously came up with a lie.
“Talis Zahar.”
“What?”
“You must have heard of him.”
Back in the port city of Comad in the Enril Desert, the city’s lord had remarked that Turan bore a resemblance to Talis, the second-in-command of House Zahar.
If Reto had been raised solely as a wizard under House Aravion, she might not recognize Talis’s face. But if that wasn’t the case…
“…Now that you mention it, you do look a lot like him. Even your eye color is the same. There’s no way he got married again, so… are you an illegitimate child?”
Had she seen him using a Transformation Mask, she would have assumed that even this face was fabricated. But her only memory was of being suddenly beaten by Cadrum before waking up here.
Who could possibly imagine the existence of a relic that allowed someone to change their face at will?
Moreover, in the midst of all this, Reto had unconsciously revealed an important piece of information,
She wasn’t born and raised under House Aravion; she was a noble from House Zahar.
Without revealing his realization, Turan continued questioning her.
“As I said, I’m the one asking the questions. Who is Karim?”
At his words, Reto gave him a confused look and answered,
“He’s Lord Talis’s son, isn’t he? If what you’re saying is true, that would make him your half-brother… though, well, I suppose you wouldn’t know since he died in the war.”
The moment he heard those words, the scattered pieces of information in Turan’s mind connected into a single picture.
From what he had learned in Kalamaf, the man presumed to be his father was a young noble. Talis, the second-in-command of a great house and the direct younger brother of its head, wouldn’t have been considered young.
If both Talis and his son bore a resemblance to Turan, then logically, Talis was likely his grandfather, and Karim was most probably his father.
More importantly…
“He’s dead?”
Hearing that the man he assumed to be his father had already died, Turan felt a mix of disappointment and relief.
The disappointment came from knowing he would never be able to meet the man who had brought him into this world.
The relief came from the implication that, at least circumstantially, his father hadn’t betrayed his mother.
“Y-yeah, that’s right. But listen, if you really are Lord Talis’s son, then hurry up and untie me! I was only here because of orders from higher up! You must know how terrifying your father is, don’t you?”
Was it because she had found a glimmer of hope in what had seemed like a completely hopeless situation?
Reto, who had been maintaining her arrogance just moments ago, now displayed an urgent and pitiful desperation.
Meanwhile, Turan’s expression hardened at her words, she had come here under the orders of the higher-ups.
That meant that despite the war between their factions and their ongoing hostility, the upper ranks of the two great houses had been secretly working together behind the scenes.