44 What Lies Behind the Problems

The northern duke spat on the ground. "Don't let me see your face again!" He kicked the courier, who immediately stormed out of the room.

"Old man! Hey, old man!" He called.

An old butler entered the room, bowing to show his respect. "What's the matter, my Duke?"

"Get someone to clear all of this! I want to take a nap."

"It shall be done." The butler exited the room, looking for male workers to clean the room.

A few minutes later, with the help of three other people, the room was cleaned of all debris. Thus, the butler came forward to his master. "What's next, my Duke?"

"Just leave me alone! Didn't I say before that I want to take a nap?!" He slammed his fists to his table, messing up his table arrangement, though he had none in the first place.

Seeing that his master was becoming increasingly angry, the old butler bowed, excusing himself as he exited the room.

Outside, murmurs came from all around the workers. Talking about the deeds of their master. The old butler turned a blind eye, or in this case, a blind ear to them all. He knew well his master well enough that he only employed males in the manor. So that he could spare the young women his duke's lusty gaze.

His shoulders drooped, affected by the weight of his duties. He dearly missed his late master, the one who they called the North Watcher, his current master's father. Still, he steeled his steps, ready for everything his master commanded him to; except, when the kinds of orders that would sacrifice someone's future came, he would try to find a workaround for such an order.

Laying down on his bed, Claude Bastian whispered to himself. "The old coot is hiding things from me, as always. I need to find a new one." He shook his head. "No, I can't. Father always said to follow the old man."

A voice unlike his own echoed. "Was father always right? He'd still be here if he was."

"No! Father is always right. I looked up to him!" He threw his pillows at the mirror.

The voice hissed. "You're wrong! Father died due to his own mistakes! Because of his kindness! Claude Bastian's reflection flared at himself.

"No… NO!" His ailing mind fell to the stress it was subjected to. There he lay in his bed, looking as if he was in a deep afternoon nap."How, in the nine hell's name, did they fail a very simple request!" Claude Bastian smashed his wine glass into the floor and he took the shaking courier by the scruff. "Come on then, tell me how!?

"We've got no response, sir." The courier replied with cold sweat pouring down his back.

The rotund young man laughed loudly. "No response? No response at all, huh? How about I give you a fucking response!" He slapped the courier, flinging him across the glass-littered floor.

With various cuts and scratches, the courier quickly kneeled. "I-I'm sorry my Duke, however, they simply gave us no response! No response! We got nothing from them!" He pleaded with a stutter.

Not long later, he would wake up, unaware of everything he did prior. Becoming even more malevolent, and greedy for power.

=======

The Orthodoxy was in a great uproar.

A ferry full of test subjects was brought out without permission, now lost, nowhere to be found.

From the records, it was found that a supervisor who was studying under the 6th-level arcanist, Pollo, had asked to be granted permission to bring the now-lost ferry into the sea in order to test his subject's reactions.

After a deeper investigation, the supervisor Arum was found sleeping soundly at the coast of the island. He can't remember anything three days prior to his sleep, and when asked, he became increasingly agitated to the point of attacking other arcanists.

The madness continued, and it spreads wide. From Arum to the nurse that was tasked to take care of him, who now bears the same symptoms. And from her, the facility started to get infected. If we don't find a cure fast, we'll be left with an empty husk, controlled by something unseen.

We checked, and checked, and checked. Still, nothing came up. We had looked at Arum's belongings and found nothing but a bunch of his study papers and an unassuming jewel, pitch black in colour, yet transparent and crystalline.

We continued our vigil until it was finally clear that everyone who came close to Arum's belongings would show the same symptoms as the infected. We separated the items one by one and found our culprit. Everyone who was near the jewel or anyone the jewel had personally infected, will be affected. And once you were affected, there's no going back. However, there's a silver lining. Those second generations of the infected won't affect anyone else. It might be because the jewel itself was neither pure nor large enough to spread its infection.

We used a large number of mind-numbing and mind-clearing spells, inscribing them to sigils and runes, all in order to contain such a shard of madness. It was impervious to fire, water, and all manners of magic, however, a simple physical blow from a thrown rock would shatter it into pieces. But it doesn't end there. Whenever it was damaged in some way, it would coagulate and remake itself.

After a large number of tests, we found out that it was not all that impervious to a spell. It had its upper limit, though it was rather high. Still, it gave us the confidence in continuing to research such a thing. We even posted a request for funding to the higher-ups, sending them our research summary.

Our request was put under probation as the head of all arcanists, Damon Freeces, the one and only 13th-level arcanist, visited our facility in order to view the jewel.

The very day he came here, he looked at it with a frown on his middle-aged face, before casting an uncountable amount of spells in under one second; immolating the jewel to nothingness. His suit stayed clean throughout his magical barrage, revealing his impeccable control of it.

"Never ever touch such a thing again." He cautioned, waking up all of the afflicted in the facility using only a resounding clap imbued with spells of cleansing and purification.

"Sir, how about the ferry we left at Rivellon?" a level 7th arcanist asked.

"Rivellon? What happened there?" He replied with great interest.

After hearing the full story, he clenched his fists, before finally letting it all go with a sigh.

"Leave Rivellon alone. Give them the ferry, then pay for all the damages we've caused."

The arcanist excused herself, doing what was asked of her.

With no one else in the room, he closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

"Laincelot. Catariel. How can I make it up to you…"

=======

A letter addressing him came this morning, and it was from the Council of Elders. The contents within roughly said, "Sir Allocer von Hohenheim was to return as soon as possible to the Council of Elders."

"Of course, they recalled me back." He sips his morning tea while opening up the newspaper.

Done with the letter, he burned it to ashes using his blood as a medium. He stretched his body, ready to visit the Duke of Rivellon in order to entrust Maria to him since his position was now at risk unless he could convince the Council otherwise. Still, he was composed.