Chapter 30

Edited by Baset

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“You’re here, madam.”

Upon arriving at the Great Hall, the butler bowed to me.

I trembled at the words that I couldn’t get used to. Compared to the other servants, I was not used to the way the butler said my title.

“The Grand Duke…where is he?”

“He’ll be down shortly.”

I sat in the chair that the butler indicated, and he brought me a cup of tea.

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome, Madam.”

At the end of each sentence, the old butler said the word ‘Madam’ like it was a punctuation mark.

Madam…

He told her that he’d been with Devan since he was very young.

He probably felt like I had married his own son.

Even though he knew it wasn’t a real marriage.

Whether it represents the feelings of the butler, the Great Hall has been splendidly appointed since the banquet.

It was not comparable to other castles, but they would add things, like the vase that had its flowers changed every day or a new decoration that I’d never seen before.

“I will serve the food as soon as His Highness arrives, Madam.”

After greeting me politely, the old butler disappeared.

“You came early.”

Huh— I turned my head.

Devan was alone and walked slowly towards me.

“I didn’t come early, it’s that Your Highness was late.”

“You seem particularly impatient today.”

As soon as he sat down, I asked.

“What happened?”

“What?”

“With the manastone!”

When he tried to pretend not to know, and simply shrugged.

“You looked into it by yourself, right?”

“Who do you mean by myself?”

Bang—

The door opened, and I heard the sound of clattering armors.

I jumped up from my seat.

“Sir Karen!”

She strode toward me and did not hide her embarrassment.

“My Lady, I didn’t know you’d welcome me so enthusiastically.”

“What happened?”

Karen blinked slowly, and alternated between looking at me and Devan.

When Devan nodded, she started to speak.

“Is it related to the lady? If I knew that, I would’ve been more careful. Do you know how hard I worked?”

She limped towards the table.

“Can I join you?”

Devan nodded with a disinterested expression.

As she sat down on a chair, placed her helmet on the table, and she sighed as if he was finally alive again.

“Sir Karen!”

“Don’t rush me, it won’t change anything.”

The old butler pushed the tray to the table, then placed food in front of Devan, myself, and Karen.

He put down an exceptionally large plate at the end and stared at Karen.

“Be careful with your words and actions to the Grand Duchess.”

“What? …What? The Great Duchess?!”

Karen knocked her helmet to the floor as if she was throwing it.

Clang—

Devan crumpled his face at the noise he didn’t want to hear.

***

Karen left for Ellywoon the day before Devan and I made our marriage pledge.

Nevertheless, I wondered why she didn’t know about the marriage. She’d said she was busy everyday, and that she didn’t even have time to sit down before going to Ellywoon.

From then on, Karen kept picking fights with me, leaving the knight inside of her somewhere else.

I could see the reason for that.

It seemed that all the responsibility for my escape went to her.

While talking about it, she didn’t forget to stare at me.

For my part, I wasn’t very sorry.

In reality, it was true that the security was poor. I even thought about getting revenge on her for hitting the back of my neck.

“Why did you get married so quickly? What about the ceremony?”

“We’ll be doing it soon.”

“Where are you going to have it? Are you going to System?”

While listening to Karen’s rapidfire questions, I nervously put down the tableware to see if Devan was going to finally explode.

“Why do you want to know? Just tell me about Maseok.”

Karen closed her mouth and took out a bunch of paper from her arms.

“These are all the places we looked at, and we didn’t exclude any places that handled manastone. I even went to the main distribution hub outside of Ellywoon. Maybe now… I now know the geography better than the lady… or Madam… who lived there for a year.”

She talked a lot this time.

“So what’s the conclusion? Are you saying you found it or not?”

“I couldn’t find anything.”

She couldn’t find it.

My heart was pounding. The fact that she couldn’t find Maseok, even though she searched all of Ellywoon, meant one thing.

That someone was intentionally hiding the manastone.

I looked at Devan, as he frowned deeply and said nothing.

“However!”

Karen lifted the knife in her hand high.

She seemed to think I was disappointed because she couldn’t find it.

“It’s not that I haven’t found anything. Ellywoon is really cold and it’s snowing a lot in the area, okay? I was able to find a clue after persuading, bribing, and intimidating my way all the way to the very top person representing Ellywoon.”

“What did you find?”

“It was really a coincidence. No, maybe it was fate. It was just when I stopped by a store to take a breather and drink a beer after visiting all the top people. As the moonlight fell on the snowy streets…”

Karen closed her eyes and tried to tell her heroic story.

“Hey, Karen Webow.”

Devan pushed his own plate forward and turned towards the knight sitting at the table.

“Do you really want to die?”

“After a few days in Ellywoon, my brain must have gotten as soft as snow, right?”

While Devan was smiling, his eyes were cold.

Karen crouched down and bit her lips hard.

“I’m sorry, Your Highness.”

“Start over, and just get to the point.”

“So, there was a witness. He said he saw someone walk up to the monster that His Highness killed and do something.”

“They saw someone do something? Did they see who it was?”

“He said ‘I didn’t see them clearly’, but he said the person was wearing long white clothes.”

“White and long… like a formal uniform.”

As I muttered quietly, the two pairs of eyes turned towards me.

“Did he say what they did?”

“They seemed to be recovering something. After that, I heard that the manastone wasn’t recovered when the monster was dismantled. So it is correct to assume that the manastone was taken.”

“Did he say there was nothing weird about it?”

Karen smiled, as if she’d been waiting for this question to be asked.

“There were two strange things. First; in order to dig out manastone, it usually requires completely dismantling the creature. In this case, the body of the monster was almost undamaged, except for the injuries caused by His Majesty.”

“What’s the second one?”

“The second thing… They said the person seemed to have done something to the corpse before they left. I was told that enough black smoke was produced that it could be seen from a distance. According to the witness…”

Karen had lowered her head and whispered.

Without realizing it, I leaned in closer to her, and Devan looked at us with an apathetic look.

Karen, who was looking around, finally opened her mouth.

“So it was like… It was like they used black magic.”

There was silence at the table.

I blinked slowly.

…Black magic? What’s that?

“What do you mean black magic? That’s ridiculous.”

It was Devan who broke the silence.

He was already staring at his meal indifferently.

“Your Highness! Don’t you trust me?”

“Of course, I don’t trust you. Nor do I trust the witness, who you just happened to meet while drinking. It’s been a long time since black magic disappeared.”

“Well… that’s definitely true.”

Karen began to eat the soup along with Devan, as if she was only half-confident.

“So, what is black magic?

I asked what I was curious about this whole time.

Black magic.

Of course, I could tell that it was bad from the hints they’d dropped.

I was curious because there was no mention of it in the original book I’d read during my previous life, and that was odd.

If it’s true that the temple used black magic, then it should’ve appeared in the book…

“It’s a relic of the old times.”

Devan summarized it in one sentence.

Karen seemed to suddenly feel hungry, as she almost drank all of the soup in one go, and quickly cut into the meat elegantly.

“So my lady… or Madam, black magic means that someone signed a contract with a devil.”

Devan laughed at what Karen said.

“There’s no such thing as a devil.”

“Then what is black magic? All the magicians of the temple acknowledged it as that. It uses spells that can’t be used with ordinary or divine magic.”

“No, to be more exact, it’s not clear that it’s even magic.”

“If it’s not magic, does that mean it’s a power?”

“It’s not magic or divinity, but something else.”

I put down the tableware and then asked.

“Then what is it?”

Somehow, I felt a sense of déjà vu.

It’s not magic or divinity, but some unidentified power.

“It means the source is different.”

“The source?”

Karen asked a question this time.

Devan replied by gracefully slicing the meat in front of him.

“The source of divine power is God. The source of magic is nature. If it’s not magic, but something we don’t know about yet…”

What?

Devan stopped talking and looked at me.

While I looked at him.

We were thinking the same thing, even if we didn’t say anything.

A new source, a transcendent being that we don’t know.

That might be…

“What? So, then what is the source of black magic?”

Ignoring Karen, who had a confused look on her face while she alternated between looking at Devan and me, we jumped from our seats at the same time.

“Call on the wizards to begin an investigation into black magic.”

“I’ll look at the old books. Sir Karen, please return Elywoon and find another witness, or clue.”

“…What? Again?”

Karen blinked foolishly.

“I…I just came back though…”

She muttered with a wounded look.

But no one was listening.

***

Is Karen a man or a woman? Someone tells me. I guess she’s a female knight?