The Prophet and the Guardian (2)
“What does Her Highness the Second Consort like best?”
It was an unexpected question. The maids stared at her with wide eyes.
“You’re curious about something like that?”
“Yes. I want to reference it while doing embroidery.”
Already thinking about how to win favor. The maids burst into laughter as they looked at the young, talented new seamstress.
“Don’t push yourself too hard, dear.”
“That’s right. There’s nothing good about catching the Second Consort’s eye in our embroidery department.”
“Why not?”
The new maid tilted her head, genuinely confused.
One of the older maids glanced around before leaning in to whisper in her ear.
“Well… the late First Consort was originally a seamstress in the Second Consort’s palace.”
In the middle of the path leading to the Second Consort’s palace lay a vast, maze-like garden. Tucked inside it was an old, rarely visited stone gazebo.
“So?”
I leaned against one of the gazebo pillars and asked.
“Aside from the fact that the First Consort used to be a maid in the Second Consort’s palace, did you learn anything else?”
The girl holding a basket on one arm answered with a small nod instead of words.
She had the exact same face as the girls I’d seen at the Golden Goose Merchant Coalition.
They said they planted her in the Emperor’s palace, but it looks like she was moved straight to the Second Consort’s palace.
It hadn’t been that long since I asked Somnia to investigate the Radcliffe Marquisate. Yet she had already relocated one of her hidden informants in the imperial palace to the Second Consort’s palace.
I heard the servants in the Emperor’s palace have a hard time transferring elsewhere.
I couldn’t even guess what method she’d used to change the girl’s affiliation.
Did she blackmail one of the related nobles?
Like the chief steward of the Emperor’s palace, for example.
I shook off the trivial thought and straightened up from where I’d been leaning against the pillar.
“All right. Let’s meet here again in two weeks.”
The girl gave another small nod at my words and began walking away as if nothing had happened.
“Ah, wait.”
A memory that suddenly flashed through my mind made me stop her.
“Have you ever heard the words ‘Prophet’ or ‘Guardian’ in that place?”
Prophet and Guardian.
Both terms had come from the mouths of the mercenaries hired by the Radcliffe Marquisate and the members of Angel’s Breath.
Whatever they meant, they seemed deeply connected to the Second Prince’s faction.
“I haven’t heard them, but if I do, I’ll let you know.”
The magical doll. Or rather, she was called Lily here, wasn’t she?
I gave the girl a short reply without turning around.
“Yes, I’m counting on you, Lily.”
“It’s nothing.”
Lily, the seamstress maid of the Second Consort, flashed a smile devoid of any soul before walking away with light steps.
The face that had been completely expressionless just moments ago suddenly came alive with energy.
It was a vivid expression, just like a real living person.
She must have already fixed that vulnerability I mentioned last time.
Unlike the doll I’d seen in Paradis, I could hear a faint pulsing sound coming from the one before me now.
What terrible taste.
It was a clear display of Somnia’s perverse philosophy that even fake things must look exactly like the real thing.
Well, it works in my favor.
The danger of having to sneak into the Second Consort’s palace myself had vanished.
After confirming there were no suspicious presences nearby, I quietly left the area.
“Your Highness, so this is where you were.”
When I returned to the Third Prince’s Palace, I spent a long time searching for Edwin, who wasn’t in his study. After several fruitless attempts, I finally learned his whereabouts thanks to running into Catherine.
“You don’t even knock anymore?”
Sage grumbled at me as I entered the hut.
“Do we really need to knock with each other?”
“Honestly, you only call us close when it’s convenient for you.”
Edwin, who had been beside the grumbling old sage, lit up when he saw me.
“You’re back?”
“Why do you look like that, Your Highness?”
Edwin was quite filthy for the first time in a while. With his sleeves rolled up, he was diligently sorting through various weeds on a large round table. From the terrible smell, it seemed like medicinal herbs and poisonous plants were mixed together haphazardly.
“Sage.”
I frowned as I called out to him.
He was already looking guilty, pursing his lips.
“His Highness Edwin is not your assistant.”
“I know! He’s not my assistant!”
Sage subtly tried to hide behind Edwin. As if that massive frame could actually be hidden.
“But he’s my disciple! What’s so wrong with a disciple helping his master?”
Instead of answering, I simply stared at him intently.
Edwin waved his hands with an awkward smile.
“It’s fine, Rachel. It’s almost dinner time, so you came to get me, right? I still have a little work left. Can you wait just a bit?”
“Sigh.”
He had become such a gentle soul.
In the past, he would have barked about why he was being made to do this.
I had no idea how the venom had completely drained from his personality when I was feeding him poison every day.
In the end, I sat down on an empty chair without saying anything more.
“Master, this one is both a poisonous herb and a medicinal one. How should I classify it?”
“Hmm. The toxicity is only in the root, so cut that part off and separate it.”
Perhaps because they had spent quite a bit of time together, the two worked surprisingly well in sync.
I thought he only taught imperial studies.
I watched Sage, who seemed far more enthusiastic than usual.
Well, his main specialty is medicine, after all.
He was, after all, the developer of a cure for an incurable disease. No one in the empire could probably match Sage’s medical knowledge.
“Hmm?”
As I idly tapped my foot to pass the time, my eyes suddenly fell on a stone sitting on the desk.
I wondered what a random rock was doing there, but upon closer inspection, it was a mana stone.
But it feels a bit different from the mana stones I know.
Mana stones usually had a bluish tint. However, the one on the desk was reddish.
I could sense faint mana from it, so it was definitely a mana stone, but perhaps a different kind?
“Sage.”
“Ah, what? I’m not done yet.”
“What is that stone? It looks like a mana stone, but it doesn’t resemble one at all.”
Sage, who had been answering grumpily, stopped what he was doing at my question.
“Ah, that thing.”
The old sage suddenly let out a deep sigh and made a troubled face.
“It is a mana stone. To be precise, it’s a mana stone that came from the body of a mutant monster.”
A mana stone from a mutant monster’s body?
For a moment, the face of the Adamant king flashed through my mind.
“What?”
At that moment, Edwin looked at Sage with shocked eyes.
“A mana stone came from a mutant monster’s body?”
“That’s right.”
Sage saw the look in his disciple’s eyes that clearly wanted more explanation and set down the herbs in his hand.
He sat down in a chair beside the desk and continued.
“Both of you remember the mutant monsters we saw in Luxen Village, right?”
“Yes! I remember!”
Sage nodded at Edwin’s eager reply and went on.
“I’m not sure if I mentioned this before, but the mutant monsters in Luxen didn’t appear just that one time. They had shown up several times before then.”
Luxen was a plague village. The only forces capable of fighting monsters were the village guards.
“At that time, the guards had desperately killed several mutant monsters.”
From the corpses of the monsters the guards had slain, strange little jewels of peculiar color had emerged.
Sage hadn’t been interested, but his assistant Leo thought they resembled mana stones and secretly took some.
At first they thought it was just a coincidence, but afterward, small mana stones continued to appear from the bodies of mutant monsters.
“So what makes this mana stone different from ordinary ones?”
At first glance, it only seemed to differ in color.
I carefully examined the ominous blood-red mana stone as I spoke.
“It’s not just the appearance that’s different.”
“Of course not. This is a fake.”
“A fake?”
“Yes. It’s an artificially created mana stone.”
An artificially created mana stone.
I had heard that mages sometimes condensed their own mana to create artificial mana stones. This was the first time I had seen one, though.
“But that’s not the important part.”
Sage suddenly rummaged through a shelf on the wall. What he pulled out was a bundle of dried leaves.
“This is a common weed called ‘devil’s grass.’ The peculiar thing about it is that it only reacts to holy power. When it touches holy power, it burns.”
A plant that burns upon contact with holy power.
I immediately understood why it was called devil’s grass.
“If I bring it close to this…”
Sage moved the dried devil’s grass near the mana stone.
Whoosh.
The devil’s grass caught fire instantly. The small flame burned fiercely at first, then quickly died out.
“Whoa!”
Edwin covered his mouth in surprise, while I wore a serious expression.
“See that?”
Sage looked down at the mana stone with a disturbed expression.
“This mana stone contains an extremely faint trace of holy power.”
“That’s impossible!”
Edwin shook his head, eyes wide with shock.
“Holy power and mana have properties that repel each other. It’s impossible for them to coexist!”
As Edwin said, holy power and mana were completely opposite forces.
Holy power purified mana, while mana contaminated holy power. They were essentially incompatible.
Yet there’s holy power dwelling in a mana stone, which is essentially a mass of mana.
Logically, it made no sense.
Sage scratched his head at the prince’s words.
“I thought so too.”
He picked up the devil’s grass he had brought near the stone.
“Actually, it’s hard to say it ‘dwells’ in it. Look at this.”
Only the very tip of the leaf on the devil’s grass that had touched the mana stone was slightly singed.
“At this level, it’s more accurate to say it’s not an object imbued with holy power, but rather one that bears the trace of holy power.”