037
━━━━━━━━×
Aira Merton
Gender: Female
Age: 16
Race: Human
[Stats]
[Skills]
[Relationship: Friendly]
━━━━━━━━
‘Merton?’
She was from the Merton ducal family, one of the three largest landowners in the western kingdom.
The Merton duchy’s territory bordered the dwarven and elven races, so there was frequent unrest, but also substantial profits.
“I-I’ve been discourteous. I’m Aira, of the Merton ducal family.”
Perhaps because I didn’t say anything, Aira hurriedly introduced herself. With her silver-streaked green hair neatly draped, her pale face turned beet red, almost making me laugh.
“Ah!”
“This is bad. She’s a lady of a ducal family.”
The security officers who had been clearing the crowd turned ghastly pale.
It was only natural they’d be flustered, having just watched a lady of a ducal family get harassed by a ruffian in the middle of the capital.
I discreetly checked their affiliation.
‘The 1st Security Force.’
Under the control of the First Prince’s faction.
The secret of birth that Akard was investigating led to his untimely death, Beortio got entangled with the demon tribe, and now this incident on top of that?
I don’t know if Countess Miloa’s hair loss is coming. Well, to be honest, my true feeling is that I’m going to get sued to death.
I decided to clear up Aira’s misunderstanding as she was clinging to me in front of my eyes.
“I didn’t come out without any preparation, but thank you for your concern. My companions were also injured, so let’s move to my residence.”
“Ah, I spoke without knowing the subject. Thank you! I’ll make sure to visit you while staying in the royal capital!”
I nodded with a wry smile at Aira, who was bowing her head deeply.
“I’ll be waiting. Alfonso, let’s go now.”
“Yes. Oh, where are you going, Your Highness! I’ll go with you!”
I walked ahead of Alfonso. I quickened my pace and entered a narrow alley between the shops.
There was a figure with a hood pulled over their head.
“Long time no see, Lady Fran. I hope you’ve been well?”
“Nothing special, except for the fact that the one who told me to visit when I had time didn’t show his face at all.”
I had heard such words conveyed to Alfonso. But I should have had time to leave the palace. The New Year’s banquet was right around the corner, and I had to practice dancing too.
“Why are you here, Lady Fran? And how did you know the prince was here?”
Alfonso, who entered the alley a step behind, was also startled to see her.
“How did I know? I called him, so I knew.”
It was as Fran said.
When I looked around before appearing in front of those guys earlier, my eyes met Fran’s. Since she, a mage who handles the seven stars, gave me a look telling me to go out, I went out without hesitation.
But I would have gone out eventually, even if it wasn’t for that.
“I’ve been quite busy. I was planning to visit you anyway.”
“Well, never mind that. I was about to butt in at that very moment, but thanks to you, I saved some trouble. If I had gone out, things would have gotten complicated.”
“What’s going on? Were you really going to butt into such a troublesome situation?”
Alfonso asked what I wanted to ask.
“Aira is the daughter of an acquaintance of mine. I’ve seen her a few times when she was little. But even if it wasn’t for that, I would have gone out because I didn’t like what those guys were doing, you brat! What do you think of me?”
Suddenly raising her voice, she swung her staff towards Alfonso’s head.
Swish-
“Ouch.”
Swish- Swish-
Alfonso kept narrowly dodging her attacks. Fran’s face was gradually turning red, which seemed to be a sign of her getting quite worked up.
I gave Alfonso, who was dodging towards me as if telling him to take one hit and be done with it, a slight push.
“Ugh!”
“You bastard!”
Swish- Thwack!
“Argh!”
End of situation.
Fran finally regained her natural complexion, feeling relieved.
“But why were you looking for me?”
“There’s something I wanted to confirm.”
He was hungry, and felt it wasn’t right to continue the conversation on the narrow street.
“Have you eaten?”
“Not yet.”
“Do you like spicy food?”
“It’s obvious where you’re getting at. Let’s go.”
***
Office of the Chief Secretary, Royal Intelligence Agency.
Miloa was tearing her hair out, staring at the report in front of her.
Since when had the Fifth Prince been connected to the Northern Liberation Army? And how did Beortheaux come to possess the Necronomicon?
Along with other matters she had ordered her subordinates to investigate regarding the Fifth Prince.
Though the report droned on and on, it could be summed up in one line:
– We have no idea.
‘How could this be happening?’
There’s no more fearsome adversary than an unseen enemy. To Miloa, that was the Fifth Prince. She couldn’t grasp anything about him at all.
The only thing that came to mind was the far-fetched notion that the Fifth Prince might actually be a contractor of the Demon Race.
Knock, knock, knock.
Miloa’s heart skipped a beat at the urgent knocking sound.
“Lady Miloa, urgent news!”
She used to calmly receive reports upon hearing that voice. But now, she opened her mouth with a trembling heart.
“Come in.”
The second-rank clerk who entered the chief secretary’s office flinched at her haggard expression.
“Speak.”
“It was reported that a member of the Hamil Imperial family, who was scheduled to attend the New Year’s banquet, harassed the Lady Merton in the middle of the market square.”
“The security force on duty at the time……”
“First Security Force.”
Miloa quietly rose from her seat and went to the window. Opening the window and putting a cigarette in her mouth, she looked down below.
‘Third floor…….’
If she did it right, she could pretend to be injured and lie in bed for a few months. That thought crossed her mind.
“Lady Miloa?”
“I won’t fall. Don’t worry about me…… Oh, wait. So how did it end? Please don’t tell me that bastard took Lady Merton away. Right? Please tell me that’s not how it ended.”
“Fortunately, the Fifth Prince, who was undercover in the market, intervened and resolved the situation.”
The second clerk’s answer saved Miloa.
“The Fifth Prince?”
Her feelings towards the Fifth Prince, who had been in the depths of hell, improved slightly.
“At least the worst was avoided. Alright, you can go now.”
After the second clerk left, Miloa lit her cigarette.
Puff- Haa-
Exhaling smoke, she tried to picture the Fifth Prince’s face. It didn’t come out well.
‘I should meet him and talk to him in person.’
There was no need to make a separate appointment. Rumors had spread that the Fifth Prince would escort the Third Princess at the upcoming New Year’s banquet, so she could meet him there.
‘Time to use my charms again after a long time.’
Putting the cigarette down in the ashtray for a moment, Miloa stood in front of the full-length mirror and gathered her soul into her chest.
Indeed, she was still alive.
As she raised the corners of her mouth in satisfaction, she noticed a bald spot where she had been tearing at her hair earlier and flinched.
She had to quit smoking.
***
“Three servings of the Hellfire Pit. Understood. Please wait a moment.”
After the restaurant staff took their order and left, Evan and Fran took off their hoods.
“Ah, I thought I was going to suffocate.”
In response to Fran’s grumbling, Evan asked, “Couldn’t you just use a perception-blocking spell? Or an artifact?”
“I was just going out to buy bread from the market in front of the house. Isn’t it ridiculous to go that far?”
“It is, isn’t it?”
“What about you?”
“Ah, I have my own circumstances……”
Evan trailed off, unable to admit that he couldn’t afford the artifact.
“But why did you ask me to visit? You clearly told Alphonso to return all the magic books. Did this guy not return some of them?”
“Eh, no. I returned every single one to the little guy.”
Alphonso insisted on his innocence with a serious expression.
“It’s not that. Since the food will take some time to come out, it’s convenient. Take a look at this.”
A spell the size of a human head floated above Fran’s right palm.
Normally, it would be no easy feat to show others the spell one has constructed, but for Fran, who was once a professor at the Arcane Academy, it was like eating warm soup.
Evan watched with fascination as the spell spun around on Fran’s palm.
“I’ve heard that students at the Arcane Academy learn magic by observing spells directly constructed by their professors. Seeing it in person, it must be vastly different from self-study.”
“Well, that’s why everyone grits their teeth to get into the Academy. Anyway, do you know what will happen if this spell is activated?”
“Hmm…… It’s a spell that causes [Combustion] on Alphonso’s head for 10 seconds? The temperature is…… around 700 degrees?”
“What?! Professor Fran! I’m suddenly feeling uneasy!”
From noble mtl dot com
Alphonso was startled.
“Relax. I won’t activate it.”
Fran glared at him reassuringly before turning back to Evan.
“Now, I’m going to ‘slightly’ modify this as a base.”
The spell nearly doubled in size. The mana circuits filling the inside had become incomparably more complex than before.
After checking the spinning spell, Fran nodded in satisfaction and spoke.
“Can you interpret this spell?”
Evan stroked his chin for a moment, then tilted his head and asked.
“Isn’t it just doubling the duration of the previous [Combustion] and raising the temperature to about 1,000 degrees?”
Leaning forward, Evan began pointing at various parts of the spell densely packed with mana circuits.
“Do these parts really need to be here? It seems like it would activate even if they were connected in one line. And this part is dissipating the heat it just raised. But why is this isolated circuit here? It doesn’t seem to have anything to do with the spell’s activation.”
Evan’s questions came one after another.
Alphonso, to whom Fran’s constructed spell looked like a mobile seen by a newborn, nodded, “Ah, I see.”
In contrast, Fran’s expression grew increasingly serious.
‘What is this guy, really?’
What Evan had just done was akin to looking at the thick clay covering the sculpture and finding the original shape of the sculpture hidden within.
While ordinary mages would disassemble each spell formula to find the answer, Evan was closer to finding the answer first and then analyzing the spell formula afterward.
It was a kind of intuition.
An unbelievable level of intuition.
The basis of the spell formula that Pran had just constructed was merely [Vocalization], but at her level, it was no big deal to create a spell formula that even the professors at the Magic Tower would have to struggle for a long time to interpret.
‘That idiot was doing the exact same thing.’
Pran knew one person like Evan.
The youngest Magic Tower Master in history.
In fact, Pran herself didn’t know to what extent Evan’s intuition could manifest. She had the talent to quickly remove the clay covering the sculpture, but not the talent to see the sculpture inside.
7 Stars? 5 Stars?
Perhaps his intuition would be blocked at the 3 Star level.
But.
If by chance his intuition manifested even in 8th or 9th-tier magic, beyond the 7th tier. If it was similar to the level possessed by the youngest Magic Tower Master.
Pran, the mage, not the friend of Richard Bain, the Sword of the North, felt a thirst as if her throat was parched.
With a serious expression, she grabbed Evan’s hand.
“You, forget about being a prince and become my disciple instead. You’ve mastered the Core? You’re still at the 1st Tier? Let’s break it somehow and walk the path of a mage again. I’ll help you. If you can’t believe me, I can even swear on the 7 stars roaming in my head.”
Evan, who didn’t understand, could only be perplexed.
“Huh?”
“I’ll even help you escape from the palace. Let’s go.”
“Uh······.”
Knock, knock.
“Dinner is ready.”
With the arrival of the servant, Evan’s expression brightened.
“Let’s eat first, then talk.”