Chapter 12 : Chapter 12
Chapter 12. The Statue Made of Gold (3)
The Tolome family owned vast land within Baltimere, the capital of the Felix Kingdom.
The size of the Tolome mansion was one thing, but the size of the garden surrounding the mansion also boasted a formidable width.
The Tolome family, which had assisted Wilhelm I since he founded the Felix Kingdom.
Since such families were collectively called Meritorious Nobles of the Kingdom, one could know how great their prestige was.
Although Meritorious Nobles of the Kingdom could not possess territories, they were families that could be called great in terms of the wealth and influence accumulated since the early days of the Felix Kingdom.
This was also the reason the Tolome family could possess huge land in Baltimere.
“I mean, the land is so vast, so go play somewhere else.”
“I don’t want to! This was originally my land!”
‘Dealing with brats is difficult.’
He himself was a brat of fourteen on the outside, but inside he was a middle-aged man in his forties, so he could not fathom the minds of children at all.
“There were flowers and herbs I planted diligently here! They were here before you bulldozed everything!”
“‘You’? Am I not strictly your older brother?”
“You are a Cadmus! I am a Tolome! Is a Baron family telling a Count family what to do right now?”
‘Should I hit her?’
A blond girl was puffing up her cheeks, which had turned red, and venting her complaints.
For a week now.
It had not been long since Vitelli Tolome, Blanc’s maternal uncle and Bartomyu’s second son, said he would prepare a separate training ground, but he had quickly whipped up a training ground in a corner of the garden before anyone knew it.
Although it was only at the level of flattening the ground and erecting a temporary building in a hurry, Blanc was satisfied even with just that much.
Of course, it goes without saying that the one who liked it more than Blanc was Rakshar.
Rakshar, who would have wagged his tail furiously if he had one, liked it so much that he brought his belongings to the temporary building even before the ceiling was installed.
However, even that Rakshar was nowhere to be seen here now.
It was all because of Iselin Tolome, the ten-year-old kid here.
“And where did that weird-looking werewolf go!”
‘He ran away to avoid you.’
Just as Blanc had made a dog hole leading to the hunting grounds in his childhood, the young lady here seemed to have established her own secret base within the garden of the Tolome family.
But since Vitelli did not know that fact, he had bulldozed her secret base and made Blanc’s training ground.
Iselin, who dared not unleash her dissatisfaction on Vitelli, her uncle who handled the family’s major and minor affairs, was catching the easy target, Blanc, and throwing a tantrum.
“I will tell Rakshar. We just have to plant flowers and what was it, herbs? somewhere else.”
“No! It must be here!”
“Why on earth!”
Blanc shouted, finding Iselin whining next to him annoying.
“Eeek, eeek…… It is my land! You stupid jerk!”
Iselin grabbed dirt and threw it at Blanc while tearing up.
“It was mine, so why did you come and destroy everything! Give it back!”
The ten-year-old girl sat down on the ground with a thud and burst into tears while making unreasonable demands.
‘Is she crying again?’
Through observation over the past week, Blanc knew that once Iselin sat down like that, she would not move for an hour or two until someone soothed her.
Of course, Iselin was not the type to just shake it off and stand up immediately because she was soothed. The soothing also had to be done for an hour or two.
In other words, it was a training ground made to train out of others’ sight, but he could not avoid others’ sight.
“Waaaaah…… You stupid Cadmus! Get out of Tolome quickly!”
It had become a place where he could not train either.
‘Ha, if she were a boy, I would at least beat her…….’
***
“In my opinion, it seems she wants to play with the Young Master.”
“She wants to play, but she comes and picks fights that don’t exist and cries?”
“Isn’t that the age when one is not very honest?”
Following Emilia’s words, Billy, who had been in the Tolome family the longest among them, also added a word.
“Wouldn’t it be because you are the one with the smallest age gap among her siblings, Lord Blanc?”
Blanc’s party was moving in a carriage provided by the Tolome family to investigate the statue of Wilhelm I again.
The topic of conversation in that carriage was about Iselin, the youngest Tolome.
“My faithful gamekeeper and now training ground manager, Rakshar.”
“Yes, yes. Young Master.”
“Why do you disappear whenever Iselin comes? If she is a child who wants to play, shouldn’t you play with her?”
In fact, Rakshar would notice her presence like a ghost and disappear whenever Iselin came.
“Whenever Lady Iselin sees me…….”
“Why? Does she have a seizure from shock?”
Ordinary werewolves maintained a normal human appearance usually and only transformed into a werewolf on nights when the full moon rose, but Rakshar, who was a half, could not do that.
Perhaps because he inherited genes halfway, he had the appearance of a werewolf even usually.
People seeing Rakshar’s appearance for the first time would often fall over in surprise.
“N-No, it is not that, but she keeps pulling my fur saying it is fascinating and trying to open my mouth…….”
It seemed Iselin found Rakshar, who had the form of a werewolf, fascinating rather than scary.
“And?”
“Last time, she said she liked my canine tooth and wanted to p-pull it out to have it…….”
Listening to Rakshar, it seemed Iselin had even brought tools to pull out the canine tooth.
Rakshar, who was horrified by Iselin, ran away into the depths of the garden just seeing Iselin’s blond hair.
Even though he was the manager who had to guard the training ground.
“Is she scary enough for you to abandon me?”
Rakshar nodded furiously as soon as Blanc finished speaking.
Blanc himself was Iselin’s cousin and the head of a Baron family, so it didn’t matter much if he shouted loudly, but Rakshar couldn’t do that, so it seemed he had suffered quite a bit.
“Right…… Running away is the best policy against irresistible violence. Keep running away well in the future. Take good care of your canine teeth.”
“T-Thank you. Young Master.”
Rakshar finally felt relieved at Blanc’s permission to flee.
Chatting like that, the carriage arrived at the destination before they knew it.
In front of the carriage stood a four-story cafe teeming with people.
“By the way, why are there so many people?”
“It is because this is the only place where the picture of Wilhelm I is visible. Baron.”
Blanc, Emilia, and Billy were being swayed here and there in the crowd.
Even the loyal Rakshar did not dare enter after seeing the people filling this cafe and was waiting outside.
Even if he tried to enter, Rakshar with his werewolf appearance would have been stopped at the entrance anyway.
The party barely made it up to the second floor in the building consisting of a total of four floors.
Blanc easily found Rakshar waiting for the party outside, wearing a hood and drooping.
Blanc couldn’t help but chuckle, feeling that appearance was similar to a wet dog.
“As expected, most of the people here are couples.”
“You said there was a romantic legend.”
“That is true, but is there a reason you must see it, Young Master? You don’t even have a lady you know, let alone a lover.”
“I respect Wilhelm deeply in my heart. I want to look up anything related to him, so to speak.”
It was a lie.
“Still, there aren’t many people today. Normally, there are cases where you can’t go up to the fourth floor even if you wait all day.”
“Why do so many people flock here?”
“There are various reasons…… The certain thing is the legend of lovers. This is the only place where you can see the picture drawn in the code of law.”
As Billy explained, the location of this cafe was on high ground even in Baltimere, and since the building was built up to four floors, it was a place known for overlooking the scenery of the capital Baltimere as well as the statue of Wilhelm I.
“Does that legend really have an effect?”
“Certainly, it is said that lovers who saw the picture of Wilhelm I here often ended up getting married.”
“So it really has an effect?”
Emilia’s eyes shone at Billy’s explanation.
However, Billy pushed up his glasses, which had slid down to his nose, and continued speaking calmly.
“This place is one of the most expensive places for coffee in Baltimere, and considering the price, it isn’t worth it. Therefore, the lovers who come here have the economic ability to pay the expensive coffee price just to see a picture.”
Billy’s glasses shone white.
“And as I told you earlier, there are cases where you can’t see it even if you wait all day. Yet, waiting means they have excellent patience and the relationship between the two is deep enough to endure that much.”
In other words, since two people who had economic power, strong patience, and were already in a deep relationship came to see the picture, it was Billy’s opinion that they were people with a high probability of getting married even if they didn’t bother coming to see the picture.
‘It’s…… persuasive!’
Blanc naturally listened to Billy’s logical analysis.
He seemed to have a pretty decent brain, perhaps because he was a butler candidate for a Count family.
‘I should ask Lord Bartomyu for him when I become independent later.’
Billy never dreamed that his fate was decided by his remark just now.
***
Blanc’s party managed to ascend to the balcony on the fourth floor after waiting and enduring for a long time.
Sure enough, the magnificent back of Wilhelm I was visible in the distance.
“Young Master, it is here.”
“Did you prepare it in advance? Excellent.”
Blanc liked Billy even more for his preparedness in having a telescope ready.
‘Let’s see.’
According to Billy, the picture drawn inside the code of law was said to be related to celestial bodies, with things like stars, the moon, and the sun drawn on it.
‘This is……!’
Looking at the picture engraved in the code of law through the telescope, Blanc’s heart was trembling.
“The prevailing interpretation is that the picture drawn inside the code of law symbolizes the universe. That perhaps he captured the universe in the first code of law to engrave the principles of all creation…….”
No. It was not that.
The stars drawn in the code of law were a code.
And it was the code of the Liberation Front, the last force of humanity struggling to survive from the Void.
To decipher that code, one had to interpret it following the correspondence table matching the position and size of each star, so it was understandable that historians dared not think it was a code and mistook it for a picture.
But Blanc had memorized that correspondence table.
‘……!’
Blanc, who interpreted the positions of the stars according to the correspondence table, screamed in his heart.
Because inside that picture was a message he had never imagined.
-My regression failed.
‘Lord Ulrich……!’
Words made with a code that would be created 30 years in the future were written on a statue made 200 years ago.
-My regression failed. If either of you sees this writing, follow the guidance of gold and call the name of the one who was my disciple. From Ulrich Tiedemann in Goddess Calendar year 164.
It was currently the Goddess Calendar year 354.
One of the two Regressors he had waited for was in the past, 190 years from now.