On the day Zich returned, his companions held a welcome party for him. Joachim and Evelyn also attended the party. Although they had gathered and drank like this a couple of times before, the mood today was more festive than usual.
“Thank you so much, Sir Zich!” Joachim bowed deeply to Zich a few times; Joachim usually paid overt respect to Zich. Today, he was worse than usual. However, Joachim thought it was only natural for him to act this way. “Thanks to you, it seems that the Dracul family will receive much better treatment than before.”
Even though Joachim had requested Zich to help with the bandit investigation for Marquess Campbell in hopes of bettering the Dracul family’s reputation, he didn’t have many expectations. He thought Zich would find the bandits’ home base with his special abilities and gain Marquess Campbell’s affection, but nothing more. Of course, that would have been a huge help to the Dracul family, but what Zich did was much more than finding the base of a bothersome group of bandits. Zich had prevented Bambis, the center of the Marquess Campbell’s commerce center, from suffering huge losses.
Considering the situation Campbell had been in at the time of the bandits’ attacks, it was difficult to imagine the effect the incident would have caused if Zich hadn’t prevented it. Of course, Marquess Campbell was very grateful to Joachim for sending Zich to his place and even sent a thank you letter to him. A marquess holding a considerable amount of influence in the kingdom owed him a favor now; and the Dracul family name also regained a lot of the prestige that they had lost.
“Congratulations, sir. I am glad to hear that my work was of help.”
“I can’t thank you enough. It’s such a difficult job to regain our family’s past reputation, but I am sure the recovery time has become much shorter now. I think I can at least go around to places and introduce myself as Count Dracul without having to feel embarrassed about it,” Joachim said and smiled brightly. It was shocking to hear that Joachim had to feel embarrassed about his self-introductions when he was a count. It made one realize how notorious the Dracul family’s past predecessors were.
Then, Joachim told Zich, “Ah, I also have another piece of news to tell you.”
“Is it more good news?”
“To me—no, I mean, for us, it is.” Joachim stared at Evelyn sitting next to him. Without conscious intentions, his face relaxed and formed a smile. The same thing happened to Evelyn. Zich wasn’t stupid enough to miss what their behavior could mean.
“Could it be, you two?”
“Yes, I proposed, and Evelyn accepted.” Instead of saying Lady Rouge, Joachim said her name bashfully. Then, he said, “This is also all thanks to you, Sir Zich. Truthfully, even if I am a count, I had basically been outcast by society, so I couldn’t even think of proposing to a lady from a marquess’ family. Now, I think I will at least be able to save face thanks to what you did, sir.”
“We really want to thank you.” Evelyn bowed to Zich.
Although Joachim and Evelyn had been developing feelings for each other, Joachim didn’t dare to propose to Evelyn, considering his circumstances. It was the same for Evelyn. Even if Marquess Rouge had taken a step back regarding matters about her marriage after what happened with her ex-fiancé, it would’ve been a different matter if she formed a relationship with a disqualified candidate. Thus, the two had been distancing themselves from each other even if they felt affection for each other. Howver, thanks to the case that Zich solved this time, they saw a possibility.
Joachim added, “Of course, we know it will be difficult. The Rouge family won’t be pleased about this at all, but it’s not like I have no hope. After all, I am still a count.”
It was rare for people Joachim’s age to have a noble title; they were usually the sons and daughters of nobles or heirs at most. Furthermore, there was a strict power difference between a noble and their heir.
Zich glanced back and forth between Joachim and Evelyn. Then he said, “Like you said, the road in front of you will be rough and difficult. Are you both really fine with that?”
Joachim and Evelyn looked at each other, full of affection. They stared at Zich again. “It’s not like we can’t even see a path like before; although it’s a tough road, we still can see a path. Then, I am willing to go through it. After all, I’m not alone.”
“It’s the same for me.”
Joachim and Evelyn placed their hands on top of each other. Seeing that, Zich smiled brightly and said, “I see. I suppose I won’t have to worry about you two any longer. Congratulations.” Then, he added, “I wish for you guys to be happy.”
“Yes, thank you.”
“Thank you.”
Other people would have thought Zich was simply giving some blessings, but Lyla thought differently.
‘Thank goodness.’ Zich wasn’t saying those last words to Joachim and Evelyn; he was saying them for himself.
Zich still had complicated feelings after killing Tim Platt, and seeing Joachim and Evelyn try to find their happiness was probably very meaningful to him. Therefore, the party that celebrated Zich’s return and the birth of a new couple continued late into evening.
* * *
To uncover Clowon’s identity, Zich and Lyla began moving right away.
“Give me all the information you know. It’s fine even if you aren’t certain of them,” Lyla requested and Zich told her everything.
“You mean, Glen Zenard?” Lyla questioned.
“Yeah, he is the guy I suspect the most.”
“So, you are saying that Glen Zenard could have regressed multiple times.” Lyla pondered over the new information. “Did you say that he couldn’t remember the past you experienced?”
“Before I died, he preached to me about living a kind life. However, when I asked him about it some time ago, he didn’t seem to know about it at all.”
Lyla tapped the table with her thumb. “Well, the first thought I have is that the only person who has memories from before the regression is the regressor and nobody else.”
“I think so too.”
“You think the Key That Distorts Destiny was the thing that caused your regression. That thing was part of Windur, right?”
“Yeah, it was stuck inside my finger, but I don’t remember who or what placed it there. You saw what it looks like too, right?”
“Yeah, I remember it clearly. I thought you were going crazy that time.” Lyla recalled the memory of Zich suddenly slicing his finger without any warning.
“Then, let’s organize this. How about we summarize all the information we know into a couple of keywords? Regression, Key That Distorts Destiny, Windur, Glen Zenard, Clowon, Violuwin’s ruins, and the tree in the elf kingdom. What else?” Lyla asked.
Zich coldly replied, “The robed figures’ organization.”
Lyla folded her arms. “If your suspicions are right, Glen Zenard is connected to them, right?”
“Probably.”
“Did Glen Zenard make that organization?”
“Hmm!” Zich rubbed his chin. “If he can regress whenever he wants, it’s not completely out of the picture, since he literally has the power to know the future. Even if he didn’t build the organization from scratch, he can combine various groups to make a large organization with his knowledge of the future.”
“But it’s difficult, right?”
“I’m just saying it’s a possibility.”
“Then Glen could have also not made that organization.”
The robed figures were not an ordinary group. Every single one of them possessed abilities and strength beyond a normal level. Moreover, Zich was more impressed about a matter other than their fighting capabilities.
‘Brainwash.’
In order to raise puppets that didn’t spit out information in front of torture and death, how much time and effort did they have to use?
“Glen could have stolen an organization that already existed. If he can regress infinitely, then that’s a possibility.”
“About that, Zich.” Lyla took out a large heap of papers from her magic box, and unknown letters filled each page. “I haven’t told you the results of my work, right?”
“I was planning to ask you about that. How did it go?”
“I translated all the tablets we brought from the tombs in Violuwin.”
Zich’s eyes beamed. “As expected, you’re amazing.”
“The books I received from the elves were a great help. For matters like this, it’s better the more clues I have.” Lyla spoke as if she had completed a small task, but it was not an easy feat at all.
The clues they brought from the elf kingdom were only a couple of books they thought looked important. They didn’t know which books would be helpful in deciphering the language. In the worst-case scenario, not a single book would be helpful. Moreover, even if they were lucky and most of the books were helpful in translating, it was still a large amount. It would take an enormous amount of time just separating and finding out which parts were useful or not.
‘As I thought, she’s a monster.’ The same thing could be said about her knowledge and magic.
Zich thought that no one could match him, and even that Glen Zenard was beneath him in terms of pure skills. However, his judgment of Lyla was different.
‘If she progresses like this, she might become as strong as me.’ Zich was also very curious about Lyla’s identity.
“Zich, I’ll tell you this in advance, but it’s best if you lower your expectations as much as possible.”
“I guess nothing amazing was written on those tablets?”
“Honestly, since we collected these tablets while being chased after those large statues, the information we had was pitiful.” Lyla grabbed a few pieces of paper and pushed them in front of Zich. Beautiful and elegant handwriting densely filled up the pages.
Zich skimmed through the pages. “Most of them are achievements.”
‘One emperor merged surrounding countries; one emperor successfully overpowered a monster.’ Achievements like these were written about the emperors.
‘I guess I should have expected this.’
If that place was really the tomb of Clowon’s emperors, it was not strange for their achievements to be written on their tombstones. Scholars might be interested in these types of information, but Zich and Lyla were not looking for this type of information at all.
“Honestly, I was very disappointed while deciphering these texts. It wasn’t people’s achievements I wanted to know.”
“But even so, you worked hard.” Zich comforted the pouting Lyla.
Then, Lyla said, “But it wasn’t a complete waste of time.”
“Yeah, it seems like it.”
Even amongst the texts that merely lined the emperors’ achievements meaninglessly, there was a phrase that caught Zich’s attention. It was a line that was probably written on the tomb of the first emperor or the emperor nicknamed the Golden Emperor.
Zich slowly read the line out loud, “The empire’s main source of strength, The Brushel System, was made by the first emperor …”
Lyla opened her mouth. “I translated a few of the elves’ books and researched a bit about the Clowon Empire. Since I didn’t translate that much, I can’t be sure of this, but all the emperors I found information about possessed extraordinary skills and achievements. But do you really think that’s possible? For geniuses to continuously come out of one family.”
“Then, what about the possibility that people became emperors not because of bloodlines but because of their ability?”
“There are records of blood ties between some emperors. Of course, we can’t say that all emperors were blood-related just because of that.”
“Judging by how it used an empire system, there’s a high possibility that emperors were chosen because of their bloodline.”
“I agree.” Lyla nodded. “So, I thought of a hypothesis. What if this Brushel System made regression possible, and all the emperors used the regression ability to lead their empires?”
“That would make sense. Regardless of how stupid someone is, if they have the power of regression, they could reign over their empire as a competent emperor. Even more so if they regress multiple times.”
“I also think the same.”
“Clowon fell into ruin. Was there perhaps such an idiot who led their empire into ruin even with a powerful ability like regression?”
“Yeah, that’s exactly it.” Lyla raised one of her fingers. “No matter how great the power of regression is, in the end, what if there was a limit to it?”
Lyla leaned her upper body forward and put her finger on one part of the paper that Zich was holding. “Do you remember this? This was the very first line I translated.”
“…Yeah. I remember it.”
Zich looked at the phrase with a meaningful stare.
[You must never use too much of it.]