Episode 27.5

After a while, Norma stopped crying and let go of Lecan, taking a slight distance from him.

The two stayed silent.

(No clue what to say here.)

His savior came from outside.

"Lecan. Got a minute there?"

Vice Commander of Royal Knights, Neisan Aspell has come to visit.

"Yea. Come on in."

"Pardon me. Aa."

Neisan stopped moving for a second when he saw Norma sitting next to Lecan.

"Am I interrupting something?"

"No. Never mind it."

Far from that, Neisan's visit was a lifeboat.

"Norma. He's Vice Commander of the Royal Knights, Neisan Aspell."

"Norma-dono. Excuse me."

"Nice to meet you, I'm Norma a medic."

"I have heard about how great of a scholar your father was."

"It's an honor."

Lecan picked up a bottle of liquor.

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"Want a sip?"

"Yea. Sure."

Lecan handed a Neisan high-class liquor bottle and a silver tumbler before gesturing for a toast with his own. Neisan, Lecan and Norma drank up the content of their tumblers.

"This is good."

Lecan pushed the bottle toward Neisan without taking another sip. Neisan poured his own drink.

"I was thinking about reporting the matter with Roland."

"I see."

"He came back to the town lord's mansion this morning."

"Morning? Quite late."

It was last night when the Vice Commander of Royal Mages, Roland Batt was found by Lecan trying to sneakily set up a barrier in the guest house and got himself banished to Shira's house by Shira herself, he could have gone back before morning came.

"He said he couldn't get out of the house because of an ape."

"Hou."

The barrel Roland got <Exchange>d with was probably a barrel in the warehouse. He'd have to pass through Jericho's room if he wanted get out of the house from there unless he climbed over the wall.

"When we asked what happened, he kept screaming out 'ape, the ape'. Just what was going on over there."

"Beats me."

Jericho would have let him go on his merry way had he gone out of the house without doing anything. Roland was probably attempting to do something inappropriate there. And Jericho gave him a hard time for it. Not sure how though.

"Anyway, we had long gotten the written evidence from the two mages and mage squires by the time Roland came back. With oaths and signs in tow. We've secured the magic tools as evidence as well. There's no way to weasel out of this one."

"In the end, what was he trying to do anyway?"

"Apparently they were trying to get their hands on Lecan's and Shira-sama's magic tools."

"Magic tools?"

"Indeed. Powerful and unusual magic tools."

"Dunno what you're going on about, but Skalabel was also present in the guest house. What's he doing attacking the house."

"He was insisting that he needed to confiscate the suspicious magic tools Shira-sama and Lecan had with them in order to protect Guide Skalabel. Even so, that doesn't give him the right to deploy that thing. He was planning to neutralize everyone in the guest house, including us guards and snatched Shira-sama's and Lecan's magic tools afterward."

"You gonna hand out punishment to Roland?"

"No. Not like it can't be done, but his family won't stay quiet if we did. We will hand over the written evidence and proof to Prime Minister Office once we're back at the capital. They will probably make up some reason to make him quit Royal Mages on his own."

"So you're letting him roam free here?"

"Guy looks like he's lost all his vigors. And he was always been a hard-nosed man. Apparently, Shira-sama's magic came as a huge shock."

"<Exchange> huh?"

"Yes that. I heard it's an extremely high level spell. Got his mind broken after tasting that for himself. I don't think he'd try to raise trouble for you or Shira-sama anymore."

"Do the rest of the mages and squires remain bound?"

"No no. We completely lack the personnel to do that. Even if we stand watch on the four separately, we'd be left with a minimum number of personnels for the guest house. We've released their confiscated equipment too."

"You're sure they won't do anything unwarranted then."

"I'm sure they won't. The two mages actually tried to stop Roland. They were against Roland coming with the entourage to begin with. But those two are common born. They can't go up against Roland."

Neisan's dinner came while they were talking.

"Sorry. Mind if I eat here?"

"Go ahead."

"I could have an early dinner thanks to the talk finishing early. Gonna stand watch after taking a quick nap after this."

"Thanks for your hard work. Hold onto this."

"This is... That Stamina Restorative huh!"

"Gathered the mats and made that myself. It's pretty much free."

"Ain't this thing quite valuable. The perfection of medicine making or something."

"Ah, nah. This one's made in a cauldron. It's got pretty much the same effects though."

"Either way, you have my thanks. I'll keep it in case of emergency."

"It's got burst effect for half an hour, but the slow dripping effect remains for half a day. It's even better than <Recovery> for continuous stamina restoration."

"Man, you're really an apothecary eh. Don't look like one though."

"Lecan-dono is also an outstanding medic. He's capable of accurately probing the insides of human body."

Afterward, Neisan spoke about the entourage's state of affairs, while Lecan gave a brief summary of the talk in the lounge. When Neisan heard about a project to mass produce Norma's father's literary work, he congratulated her enthusiastically. It seems he's completely forgotten about having a match with Lecan.

"Now then, I've imposed on you for too long. Can I come again?"

"Yea."

Once Neisan left, a maid came by right away and tidied up the table.

Lecan and Norma put hot water in their bath and cleansed their body.

But someone interrupted his sleep.