After Wayne returned home, he took off his robe and placed his cane in his cabinet. The housekeeper next to him gulped his saliva down quietly. Wayne Jaewick’s personality was on the nasty side, and most servants had to be on their tiptoes around him; however, Wayne seemed to be in a worse mood than usual. In times like this, the housekeeper knew that if something caught Wayne’s eyes, he wouldn’t let go of it easily.
“How is Mawin doing?”
Unfortunately for the housekeeper, he was asked the question that could possibly irritate Wayne the most. However, it wasn’t as if he could refuse to answer. The housekeeper readied himself and answered, “Young master is still shutting himself in his room, sir.”
Wayne gritted his teeth quietly, while the housekeeper shut his eyes tightly. Thankfully, the response he had expected didn’t come, and Wayne made a surprising gesture at the housekeeper. He gestured towards the housekeeper to get out. As if he was escaping from a hungry lion’s den, the housekeeper thanked his good fortune and quickly exited the room.
Wayne sat in his seat and thought about the meeting that had happened today.
“Damn it!” He picked up the decorations on top of his table and threw them at the wall.
Crash!
Since they were made from wood, the decorations didn’t break; but by the commotion they made, it was obvious that they would be chipped. However, Wayne showed no interest in these decorations.
‘That damn wanderer!’
It had been Wayne’s first-time meeting with Zich. Yet, he wasn’t any different from Wayne’s expectations; Zich was rude and arrogant just like Wayne thought he would be. Even just the sight of Zich’s face stirred up curses to the back of his throat. Even so, Wayne pulled out all the patience he could muster to attend the meeting.
‘But he still dared to insult me!’
Even though Wayne picked a fight with Zich first, that wasn’t the important part. Zich should have endured at least some grumbling from Wayne considering his higher status and authority, but Zich insulted him back instead.
Wayne clenched his fists.
‘Especially at the end!’ Just because he proposed to investigate the robed figures’ organization at a later time, Zich suspected him. Out of everything, that angered him the most. Of course, no one sincerely thought that Wayne was the culprit; they simply looked at him with suspicious eyes for a moment. Zich’s idea was simply a possibility, and the Jaewicks were still a prestigious family. However, it irked Wayne that he had been suspected for even a short moment. However, that wasn’t the only reason why Wayne was infuriated.
‘I was found out!’
Like Zich said, Wayne had purposefully tried to change the topic regarding the robed figures. Yet, all of his efforts became useless after hearing Zich’s few words. Now, even Walwiss Dwayne would try to investigate the organization behind the robed figures.
‘I guess it can’t be helped.’
Wayne took out a piece of paper and placed it on the table. Then, he picked up a pen and roughly scratched the paper with it. Black ink systematically formed characters. The characters weren’t part of a writing system used anywhere in the world, but they were a secret code. Wayne took out several more pieces of paper and wrote the same code on them. Then, after he rolled up the pieces of paper and tied them with a string, he got up.
The place he headed to was the top of the mansion where they kept carrier pigeons. He prepared as many pigeons as he had letters and tied the letters to the pigeon’s legs.
Flutter!
The pigeon carriers flew up. They circled around the sky a couple of times and scattered all over the place.
‘This is good for now.’
Wayne stared at the place where the pigeon carriers circled. The sun was setting and streaks the same color as blood shone.
* *. *
The investigation for Elena’s whereabouts continued. People searched the city inside and out, checking every nook and cranny of the forest surrounding it. Innocent beasts and monsters who had nothing to do with the incident were slaughtered amid the search.
Yet, they still couldn’t find a trace of Elena. Like usual, Zich wandered around the back alleyway for the purpose of finding Elena. He beat up the bad guys hanging around these alleyways while asking about Elena. Of course, these guys had no way of knowing where she was.
‘It’s because we are the ones who have Elena.’ The people who Zich beat would have foamed from their mouths if they heard the truth, but Zich didn’t feel an ounce of guilt.
‘Torturing bad guys is not a sin,’ he simply thought.
“Kuh!” Zich threw the gangster who also couldn’t answer his question against the wall and went to another back alleyway. He planned to relieve his stress—no, find another bad person who might have any information about Elena.
‘…Hm.’ Zich’s pupils moved to the side. However, he behaved normally with his legs moving forward, arms shaking lightly, and face looking straight. Meanwhile, he sensed the figures behind him.
‘I am being followed.’
There were about two of them. Zich pretended to not notice and made a sharp turn inside the alleyway.
‘They seem like assassins.’
Their movements weren’t like normal civilians, or swordsmen, or mages.
They were people who had professionally learned to hide their presence and target their opponents.
‘Are they the robed guys?’
However, for them to be the robed figures, their movements weren’t skilled enough. Zich headed towards an even more deserted area. He soon saw houses that looked like they would fall apart at any moment. It was an abandoned place where there was no sign of anyone living inside. Zich searched the area as if he was looking for Elena.
‘…They are not coming out.’
Even though he had moved to a deserted area where it was easy to ambush him, his opponents didn’t move. They were simply staring at Zich while hiding their presence.
‘Their goal isn’t to ambush me.’
Then, what was it? Zich stopped his search. When he moved, the people tailing him also moved. He came out to the main street this time, and they continued to follow him.
‘They are still tailing me.’
That meant only one thing.
‘They are waiting for me to go to Elena.’ It was clear that Zich had been caught kidnapping Elena. It was a dangerous situation, but Zich smiled instead.
‘I’ve caught them!’
Normally, Zich’s favorite method was to use the guys tailing him to extract information, but he decided against it this time. On the contrary, Zich slowed down his pace so that they wouldn’t miss him. While he wandered all over the city all day, they continued to follow him; this continued even when Zich went back to his lodging.
‘I guess they’re not coming inside the lodging though.’
It seemed as if they didn’t want to risk going that far. Zich went back to his room., and the people following him remained in the same place. One presence left for a short while and another came back.
‘They’re taking turns.’
This meant that whoever was following him was preparing for a long haul. Zich went out of the lodging once again, and people tailed him from behind. When Zich bought several fruits and went back to his lodging, they also stayed near his lodging. Then he felt two more presences station themselves near the lodging. Since their movements felt similar, Zich predicted that they were in the same group as the people who followed him.
‘They’re the guys who are tailing Lyla.’
As Zich predicted, a presence was moving towards Zich; the person was moving towards a room next to Zich—it was Lyla’s room. Zich opened the door to Lyla’s room and pushed only his upper body in.
“You scared me!”
Zich saw Lyla jump up in surprise. When Zich laughed, Lyla’s lovely forehead crinkled.
Lyla asked, “Why did you come here?”
“I have something to tell you. Come into my room.”
They went into Zich’s room and sat with a table in between them. Zich said, “There are people watching us.”
“People are watching us?” Lyla narrowed her eyes, and Zich nodded his head.
“Two people are watching us each. Since they’re tailing ability seems to be pretty good, I think they’ve been professionally trained. Ah, but they’re not really dangerous. If they attack you, you’ll probably be able to strike back easily.”
“Of course, even if I’m much weaker in close combat, I don’t plan to be defeated by those guys in hiding, but…” Lyla thought it still felt unpleasant to know that there were people following her. “Who sent them?”
“I don’t know, but I have some predictions.”
“Don’t speak in a roundabout way and just tell me.”
“The mastermind behind this scheme. Or at least people related to that person.”
“And why do you think that?”
“I think it’s because they found out that we kidnapped Elena.”
Lyla’s eyes widened. She tilted her head. “How? In matters like this, there’s no one as shameless as you, so they must not have found out from you, and I was also very careful with my actions.”
“What do you mean shameless? You’re saying mean things to me.”
“Yeah, because it’s a fact.” Even with Zich’s protest, Lyla didn’t withdraw her words. “Perhaps, did Hans and Snoc get found out?”
“No. If that happened, I don’t think they’d be sneaking around like this right now. Judging by their actions right now, it seems like they are waiting for us to go to Elena.”
“Then, how did we get caught?”
“There’s one explanation that I can think of.” Zich crossed his arms and leaned back with a cheeky smile on his face. Lyla felt her tension slowly ease up; she recognized that expression.
“Is this also a part of your plan?”
“It might be?” His nonchalant voice sounded like he was uttering a line from a play.
Lyla lightly kicked Zich’s shin and said, “Stop playing around and just tell me.”
“Since my lady requests it, I guess it can’t be helped.” With an exaggerated introduction, Zich began his explanation. “Well, let’s discuss the first matter. Don’t you think Elena’s kidnapping happened very suddenly?”
“Suddenly?”
“Yeah. Before we got locked up, you know how I gave a couple of orders to Hans and Snoc, right?”
Lyla nodded.
“Honestly, if I was the mastermind, kidnapping Elena would not be my top priority. That’s because there are a lot of different ways to increase the rift between the Dwayne and Jaewick family. Moreover, even if they did kidnap Elena, it would have been more effective if they carried out her kidnapping at a later time. For example, when the relationship between the Dwayne and Jaewick family was even worse than now, Elena’s kidnapping could act as a final blow to end their peaceful relationship.”
“You’re saying that Elena’s kidnapping happened at an earlier time than you expected?”
“Yeah, and that’s not the only thing. The robed figures directly moved to kidnap Elena. So far, they preferred to use other people as agents and supported them from behind. They usually only revealed themselves when incidents were coming to an end. But this time, they came into the heart of the city and directly took the risky and dangerous job of kidnapping Elena.”
“Then, is it already almost time for this incident to end?”
“For that to be true, not much has happened yet. Think about all the incidents that the robed figures created so far. So far, did we do anything else other than beat the hell out of Mawin Jaewick?”
Lyla gestured Zich to continue with her eyes.
“This is what I came up with. The robed figures decided to move their plans way ahead of schedule. If we think of it like that, it’s not strange that they’d risk it and directly carry out their plans. Since their plans went awry, they’ll have to directly intervene to at least get some results.”
With this explanation, it made sense that the robed figures, who usually moved with great caution, made such a big and risky move.
Zich continued, “Then why did those guys push their plans ahead of schedule? It’s because a variable appeared. A variable that those guys really, really hate.”
Lyla asked, “Are you saying it’s because of us? Because we taught Elena magic?”
“That’s probably not it. She could always learn magic one way or another. She’s a young lady from an esteemed family, her grandfather is the master of the magical tower, and her father is also an amazing mage. There’s no way they made a plan that could be broken by Elena just learning magic.”
“Then what?”
“We used a special method.”
“…Nowem’s mana.” Lyla suddenly opened her eyes wide. “Now that I think about it, you said it was okay for Elena to keep studying magic by using Nowem’s magic! Did you perhaps predict that this might happen?”
Zich grinned.