CH 128

Budding Of Anomalies

Translated by SoundDestiny

Edited by Zil

At the same time that Neimilia and Célia fell.

In the town of Ulfin, where he had set up his base, Raidorl noticed something strange.

“The mark..is gone?!!”

It was already half past midnight. Raidorl, who was already in his bed, woke up with a sudden burning in his chest.

The cause of the change was plain to see. The engraving of the covenant he had once made with Granard had disappeared without a trace.

“This…can’t be. Did something happen to Neimilia ……?”

The Curse of the Covenant was woven by the dark witch Neimilia, combining it with the power of the curse of Dáinsleif. If anything were to happen to her, of course, both the Covenant Curse and the Mark would be extinguished. 

“It’s possible that the court magician lifted the curse, but …… isn’t it too fast? Did something happen at the Capital? Impossible…but..”

Raidorl’s maid, Neimilia, had been left behind in the capital with another keeper of the holy sword, Célia.

Raidorl knew that if something happened at the capital, those two are capable of dealing with it without any problems. 

“Your Highness, Raidorl! May I enter?”

“Hm, Darren?”

There was a knock at the door of the room from outside. The voice belongs to Darren Garst, could be heard through the door. Raidorl gave him permission to enter, and Darren and a soldier entered the room.

Darren, too, had fallen asleep and was dressed in his nightgown and jacket. The soldier seemed to be a guard, armed with armor, despite the fact that it was the middle of the night.

“What’s going on? It’s the middle of the night.”

“It’s just that……one of our soldiers has found something strange.”

“Well, Your Highness. It’s this…..”

“Hmm…”

The soldier held out to Raidorl a crow.

It had jet-black feathers that melted in the dark and red eyes. There was something eerie about the bird.

“It flew suddenly to the front of the house. Crows aren’t supposed to fly at night….and these legs……”

There was some kind of paper tied to the crow’s leg. When the soldier tried to remove it, the crow spread its wings and rampaged.

“Aa!”

A crow flaps its wings and perches on Raidorl’s shoulder. A soldier rushes towards him, but Raidorl stops him with his hand.

“It’s okay. This bird is from Neimilia.”

Raidorl stroked the crow’s beak with his fingertips, and it made a pleasant little cry, then disappeared into thin air. All that was left was a folded piece of paper that the crow had tied to its leg.

When he took the paper and unfolded, it revealed a messy, scribbled text.

“Was this written by…..Mertina?”

Raidorl thought it was a letter from Neimilia, but the sender was Mertina Marcell.

He began to read the messy text……as he read, his complexion became pale and grim as he finished reading the paper. 

“…..war council.” 

“Your Highness?” 

“Gather the others!! We will be having a military conference!” 

“!! Yes, Your highness!” 

Darren immediately bowed his head and rushed out of the room. The soldier who had accompanied him hurriedly followed at his back.

“……!”

In the room where he was left alone, Raidorl touched  his chest, where the curse had once been engraved.

In the paper sent from Mertina, it wrote, there was a strange event in the royal capital. A pillar of light shone from the royal castle. A strange thing that Neimilia felt. Raidorl then remembers what Zacharias have said about the existence of the witch’s apostle, the magic sword, which may be the cause of it.

The information is fragmentary and too poor to reveal the full picture of the situation.

But that was enough for Raidorl. It was enough to convince him.

“Brother……King Granard Zain. Have finally fallen. Becoming the witch’s apostle……!”

It was a wild guess, without any evidence or circumstantial proof, but it hit the nail on the head.

Was it the intuition of the keeper of the holy sword? Or perhaps it was the small amount of blood that remained in his veins, their brotherhood, that made him understand.

From the messy and scribble information, Raidorl had correctly predicted that Granard Zain had become a witch’s apostle and had acquired the magic sword.

“You’re such a stupid brother. You don’t even listen to your little brother’s last wishes.” 

Raidorl clenched his fists, his lips quivering with anger and regret.

In the not too distant future, Raidorl intended to take the throne from his brother. The preparations for this were being made in this town, east of the capital.

In a few more months, he will be ready. The day to take action is coming. But just then, this happened.

It is clear that Granard has fallen so far that he is no longer functioning properly as a king.

Granard may no longer be the brother Raidorl had before he was chosen to be the holy sword. Worst of all, Granard may not even have any sanity left.

“If I could have done it, I would have sent you away and told you to go fuck yourself. It’s not fair to run away from reality before you get beaten up. I hate you, brother…….!” 

The words, mumbled in a sombre voice, seemed to melt away into the midnight sky.