Chapter 257 : Chapter 257
Chapter 257. Scent
The Prime Minister’s voice was so even that no emotion could be heard in it, as if he were merely discussing the weather. “This matter will be handled personally by Moros, the Chief Court Diviner. If the investigation proves their innocence, that will also silence public gossip.”
“Many thanks, Prime Minister.” The Minister of Finance revealed a victorious smile and swept a provocative glance toward Eleanor.
Only the Minister of Military Affairs sat to one side, secretly shaking his head with a sigh.
“Idiot.”
The Minister of Military Affairs mouthed the word inwardly.
He understood mages far too well. Leaving aside the fact that divination between people of the same level was already greatly diminished in effect, for a genius who had touched the Sixth Tier at twenty-two and was even regarded by Dean Barnabas as a “future Seventh Tier,” this sort of malicious intrusion.
It was a declaration of war.
In his heart, he observed a minute of silence for that unfortunate court diviner.
He only hoped the man had purchased enough life insurance.
“Dismissed.” The Prime Minister waved a weary hand, as though receiving that royal edict had drained him completely.
The scrape of chairs against the floor rose one after another. The ministers stood and departed with all manner of expressions. Some hurried off to deliver the news, while others clustered in twos and threes, whispering among themselves.
Only the Minister of Military Affairs did not move at once.
This old general, who had served the old king for thirty years, was staring thoughtfully at the scroll of golden parchment the Prime Minister had placed upon the desk.
The wax seal of the royal family’s supreme authority still remained on it.
He rose to his feet and, under the pretense of adjusting his cuffs, passed by the Prime Minister as if by accident.
One step. Two steps.
The instant he passed that royal edict, the Minister of Military Affairs narrowed the eyes hidden beneath his bramble-like brows into a thin slit.
Something was wrong.
The smell was wrong.
The old king had long been bedridden. To suppress the lesions ravaging his body, a specially prepared incense had been burned in his bedchamber all year round.
Its odor was extremely heavy, carrying the scent of rotting wood mixed with bitter herbs, and it clung to things with astonishing persistence. Any object that emerged from the royal bedchamber—even a single sheet of paper—would be tainted with that medicinal smell of decay and bitterness.
But that so-called “royal edict” had no medicinal scent on it whatsoever.
The Minister of Military Affairs raised his head, only to meet the Prime Minister’s gaze head-on as the latter prepared to leave.
The Prime Minister adjusted his glasses and revealed a flawless smile. “What is it? Does the Minister of Military Affairs have other business?”
“...No.” The Minister of Military Affairs lowered his eyes, concealing the flash of shock that had passed through them, and said in a hoarse voice, “I was only lamenting that His Majesty has lain sick in bed for so long and has not attended court in ages. I am deeply worried for him.”
The Prime Minister smiled.
“His Majesty’s heart remains with the nation and the realm. Naturally, he has rallied.” With that reply, the Prime Minister turned and left.
...
Meanwhile, at the top floor of the Stargazing Tower in the Royal Capital—
Chief Court Diviner Moros was scratching his head in frustration before a dim, lightless crystal ball. As the man who stood at the pinnacle of the Kingdom’s art of divination, he now could not divine even the faintest trace of the Second Prince. All he saw was fog, and it made him feel that his professional career was nearing its end.
“This is far too cursed...”
Moros plucked out one of the few whiskers he had left, his face full of bitterness. “Whose handiwork is this bizarre anti-divination interference? I’ve never seen anything like it!”
At that very moment, a mechanical carrier pigeon flapped its wings and flew in, dropping a highest-priority urgent order from the Privy Council onto his desk.
And with it came a plan that made his vision go dark—
“Brute-Force Divination.”
“Investigate? Investigate whom? Every high-tier combatant who appeared on the southeastern defensive line?”
Moros stared at that long list, his eyelids twitching wildly as a powerful sense of foreboding surged up in his heart.
His gaze swept quickly past the names of those insignificant military officers, then finally stopped on the most eye-catching line of the list, the one marked as the “primary suspect”—
【Commander-in-Chief of the Northern Reinforcements: Logaris West (Sixth-Tier Mage)】
Snap.
The quill in Moros’s hand broke.
The old man’s face instantly turned the color of a bitter melon. The anxious hope that had been hanging by a thread inside him finally died completely.
Was this some kind of joke?!
They wanted him to forcibly pry into the past of a mage of the same tier? And not just any mage, but Logaris—the one who had advanced to the Sixth Tier at twenty-two, whom the circles of mages hailed as a “future Seventh Tier,” and who had mastered all six major schools of magic?
In the world of mages, this kind of deep divination without permission was no different from prying open someone’s door in the middle of the night and wildly taking photographs at the foot of their bed.
It was nothing less than an outright declaration of war!
Worse still, he was a mage of the Prophecy School. His tier was high, yes, but in a real fight against someone of equal rank, he was support at best.
The man on the other side, meanwhile, was famous for being a monstrously versatile battle mage. If Logaris felt insulted and blasted him apart with a high-tier evocation spell, whom could he possibly complain to afterward?
The Minister of Finance, that idiot pig?
“This isn’t an investigation. This is sending me to my death...”
Moros looked at the scalding order in his hand and felt like crying, but he had no way to refuse. It was the joint will of the Privy Council and “His Majesty.” The consequences of disobeying such an order would arrive even faster than offending Logaris.
And so, carrying the tragic resolve of a man walking to the scaffold, Moros had no choice but to board the Magitech Train bound for the southeast.
...
Morning at Scream Fortress had no birdsong, only the black smoke of burning corpses and the acrid stench of disinfectant.
On the second day after the beast tide retreated, this battered military stronghold resembled a patient who had just survived open-chest surgery. It was still alive, but tubes seemed to be sticking out of it everywhere.
Combat engineers were repairing the breaches in the walls. The bricks that had been eaten through by acid were being chipped away and replaced with fresh stone.
A low, heavy hum sounded from the distance.
Accompanied by a muffled roar and the shriek of mana boilers, a magitech train bearing the Golden Rose emblem slowly rolled into the central square that had only just been cleared.
Before the sparks from the wheels scraping the rails had even faded, a line of spellcasters in violet robes, crystal staves in hand, filed out of the carriages.
They did not spare a glance for the wounded soldiers nearby, whose injuries were still bleeding. Instead, the very first thing they did was scatter silver powder around the train to seal off prying eyes.
At their head was a gaunt old man, his beard white, his eye sockets sunken deep. At the tip of the staff in his hand was set a massive Eye of Heaven gemstone.
It was none other than Moros, Chief Court Diviner of the Royal Capital, a sixth-tier Divination Archmage.
Standing in the mud-churned square, he frowned tightly. The filth staining his boots made him deeply uncomfortable.
But what made him even more uncomfortable was this mission—
to investigate the primary suspect named Logaris.
Before leaving, Moros had secretly performed a divination for himself.
The result had been: ominous, but not fatal. And the solution to this ill omen was very simple—
“Follow the will of your heart.”
Which, in plainer terms, meant one thing: be a coward.
As long as I surrendered quickly enough, death would not catch up with me!
“My lord, shall we go straight to Prince Carlisle’s quarters to investigate?” a young assistant beside him asked in a low voice, his arms still full of expensive materials needed to set up the Retrocognition Array—Sand of Time, Stardust Powder, and other such things. The cost of those supplies alone was enough to buy half a barony.
“Go there for what? That place is probably cleaner than my own face by now. What could we possibly find there?” Moros snapped irritably.
Then his tone changed and turned almost frightening.
“And another thing—every one of you had better keep your tails tucked in and behave yourselves. If anything happens, don’t drag me down with you!”