Chapter 198: I'm Going to Raise a Dog (5)
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 198: I'm Going to Raise a Dog (5)
Even the click of a tongue sent a throb of pain through his head.
They said that once you reached the 6th Circle, you could drink without getting drunk, but most of Valkan's mages were of the 4th Circle, with only a few at the 5th. Arsen, who had unfortunately stalled out after hitting the wall of a 5th Circle Master, had not yet reached that coveted state.
Thanks to that, after downing a single glass—a hellish concoction of every strong liquor mixed together—he had slept like the dead. Perhaps he had actually passed out and only imagined he’d slept, but what was the point in splitting hairs?
In any case, Arsen had no memory of when Kyrie left Alan’s house. He had no idea that Kyrie, whose mind was a tangled mess after being cornered and subjected to a drunken tirade, had seriously contemplated snapping his neck. Nor did he know that Kyrie had unceremoniously tossed him onto the sofa like a sack of garbage.
"Well, aren't you a piece of work."
And, of course, he had absolutely no idea how much those liquors—which he had so boldly opened and mixed together—actually cost.
Naturally, Alan didn’t yet know that Calian had revealed his secret to Arsen. Had he known, he might have at least offered the man a hangover cure before laying into him.
Thus, Arsen had planned to explain the situation, complain about how Alan had kept the truth from him, and then make a dignified escape.
The only problem was that mixed into that concoction was a top-grade Basilica from Secritia. It was a bottle Alan had treasured, ignoring even Suleiman's covetous glares, intending to share it with Calian on a day the prince felt like drinking. Aged for over forty years, its flavor was said to be magnificent.
"It's irreplaceable. So, what do you propose we do about it?"
The value of that single bottle was far too immense for Arsen to confidently explain his blunder. Worse, hearing it was meant for Calian left him utterly speechless.
Enduring his spinning head and churning stomach, Arsen opened his mouth.
"In my opinion, the Prince doesn't seem the type to drink, Commander."
With that pathetic excuse—the absolute best his hungover brain could conjure—he succeeded only in making Alan angrier. Seeing this, Arsen quickly tried again.
"No, wait. I'll find a way to replace it, no matter what."
"What are you going to do? Raid Devlan's wine cellar?"
Only two such bottles existed on the entire continent.
One had been in Alan's house. The other was in Devlan's wine cellar.
"Should I?" Arsen asked, his expression remarkably serious. He had always kept his troublemaking within manageable limits, after all. If he made a mess, he had to be the one to clean it up.
"If we use the teleportation magic circle to the Siegfried Territory, Secritia is just a stone's throw away, Commander."
Without a single thought for the implications of raiding the King's private wine cellar deep within the Secritian Royal Palace, he simply pointed out that the trip wouldn't take very long.
Staring at the mad mage—unsure if he was driven by confidence, arrogance, or sheer, witless fear—Alan wore an expression of utter exasperation.
"I shouldn't even bother talking to you. Forget it. Just leave it."
It wasn't that he was being particularly merciful. Alan just figured that drinking the same liquor Devlan possessed probably wouldn't be very pleasant for Calian anyway. Perhaps it was for the best.
Having generously prevented a diplomatic crisis between the two kingdoms, Alan clicked his tongue once more at the pathetic state of Arsen, who looked ten years his senior.
"The Prince would be thrilled to know you acted so recklessly over a bottle of alcohol. Why on earth did you do it?"
Took him long enough to ask.
After pouring and gulping down three glasses of water, Arsen relayed what he had heard from Calian the day before.
In short, Alan’s secret was out. Again.
And of all people, Calian had spilled it to Arsen.
Looking at Arsen's miserable state, it didn't seem like any major harm had been done, but the fact remained: he had carelessly let his secret slip once more.
The sharp lines around Alan's eyes softened.
"...I swear, that boy..."
Unaware—or perhaps uncaring—that Arsen's shoulders had frozen stiff from the sheer pressure that momentarily radiated from him, Alan turned his head and spoke.
"Anyway, clean up your house and rest today. Don't bother coming to the palace. I'll go see the Prince."
I am definitely going to give him a piece of my mind this time.
No matter what, I will absolutely scold him.
* * *
...Or so he thought.
"Teacher!"
The one who pried the secret out was at fault.
The one whose secret was discovered had done nothing wrong.
After all, if someone was clearly trying to hide something, one should have the decency to look the other way. You pretend not to know even if you do, pretend not to have seen even if you have, and act as if you heard nothing. What right did that man—Arsen, of all people—have to demand the truth from his precious disciple's face?
The moment Alan saw Calian's bright smile, as warm as a spring breeze and as sparkling as winter frost, his anger melted away. Realizing he couldn't possibly praise him for getting exposed, however, he forced himself to be stern.
"Tell me who's next on your list. I'll go ahead and eliminate them beforehand."
In the past, he had at least pretended to scold him. Now, he couldn't even manage that.
When told to decide the order in which to inform people, his disciple had actually made a list. How could anyone find it in their heart to scold this one-of-a-kind disciple, who listened so well to his teacher? He was so precious that even wrapping him in cotton wool might not be enough to keep him from harm.
So, wasn't it better to simply eliminate the next person on the list so his lovely disciple wouldn't have to suffer any more heartache?
"There aren't many people left who don't know, so it would be really bad if anyone else found out, wouldn't it?"
If you know that, then why on earth did you…
"I'll be careful," Calian said with a beaming smile, quickly adding a plea just in case. "But you mustn't eliminate Euria, Demirea, or Lemain."
In the end, a sigh of defeat escaped Alan's lips.
Knowing better than anyone that this sigh meant forgiveness, Calian grinned broadly. He paid no mind to the owner of the room, who sat across from them wearing an expression of utter disgust.
Franz took a bite of an exquisite dish—boiled chicken breast and sliced avocado wrapped in long strips of cucumber lightly pickled in apple cider vinegar. He silently continued his meal, wondering whether he wanted to spit out the cucumber or a string of curses. He couldn't even remember how the three of them had ended up having lunch together; he’d simply returned from his duties with the knight order to find Alan sitting there as if he owned the place.
Calian turned to Alan, who was putting a piece of thick bacon topped with perfectly caramelized onions into his mouth.
"Is Sir Hertz alright? I heard he couldn't even make it to the palace."
He had heard from Franz that Arsen hadn't shown up. The previous day, Kyrie had, for the first time, refrained from relaying the details. Consequently, Calian only knew that Arsen had ruined Alan's liquor and passed out drunk, not what they had actually discussed.
Chewing and swallowing his food unhurriedly, Alan replied, "That man is perfectly fine, so don't you worry. You should look after your own peace of mind, Prince Calian. You must have been through quite an ordeal yourself."
He doubted Calian had the emotional capacity left to worry about Arsen, but Alan felt it was his duty to worry about Calian, who seemed to carry the burdens of everyone in the Kairis Royal Palace.
"Isn't that right, Prince Franz?" he asked, suddenly addressing the other prince.
Alan had hoped that their frequent meals together might have thawed the ice between the two brothers, but watching them now, he saw nothing had changed. So, he decided to try and start a conversation.
Franz, who felt like he’d been dragged into a family dinner with his younger brother and his brother's overbearing guardian—a dinner happening in his own room—had been eating in absolute silence. Without offering a proper reply, he simply picked up his apple cider and took a sip.
"Ah, both of us are a bit preoccupied today," Calian said, whether he understood Alan's intention or not. He drew Alan's attention back to himself, a subtle request to leave Franz alone.
Understanding the underlying message, Alan furrowed his brow.
"Honestly, that man has done nothing right in his life other than fathering you two princes," he grumbled, referring to Lemain. Whatever was troubling Franz, he was sure it was Lemain's fault. Clicking his tongue, Alan set down his fork and knife.
He looked ready to storm off and nag Lemain that very instant, but Calian smiled faintly and spoke.
"Teacher, if you have some time, could you help me with something? If you're busy, of course, you can go."
Alan was the type of person who would grab Serenti by the collar to stop time or hold the sun in place just to make an opening in his schedule. Besides, how could he possibly refuse a request for help from Calian? Without even checking his appointments, he nodded.
"Tell me what it is. I'll help you."
He vaguely recalled having a meeting with Lemain that afternoon, but whether Lemain had to wait or not was none of his concern.
* * *
Three cups of moderately sweet milk tea were placed on the table.
The sight reminded Calian of Hina, who had once called a horse of that exact color "platinum." He smiled faintly while Alan massaged his temples, staring at the documents Calian had spread out.
"Is this separate from the request for information on the Crown Prince of Tensil?"
"Yes. The information on the Crown Prince of Tensil is for Brother Randel. This is for my own purposes."
The matter of 'Zeon' was indeed Calian's own business. He was looking into it with some urgency because of Franz, and to be precise, it was connected to both Kairis and Secritia. But for now, it was something Calian had to verify himself.
Alan nodded and picked up one of the sheets to examine it. It was a detailed drawing of the Axis of Time in its original form, along with the characters engraved on its ring, which Chase had written down from memory.
Staring at it quietly, Alan spoke. "Will knowing the meaning of the characters on the stone change anything?" He was asking if deciphering them would actually help uncover the origin of Zeon.
"If they had only targeted the birds, I might have thought so. But they also went after the Association President. I'm not just referring to the characters on the stone, but the writing on the cave walls as well."
He wanted to read the papers that had been attached to the cave walls, which bore the same script as the stone. However, deciphering ancient characters was no simple task. It wasn't something that could be solved by comparing three pieces of information; one needed a vast amount of data just to grasp the meaning of a single character.
"Won't that be far too difficult?"
"That's why I've put aside trying to read them for now," Calian admitted readily, his tone light. He looked at Franz, who was sitting across from him. "I asked to borrow his clever brain, and as expected, my very clever brother managed to find something quite cleverly."
"Keep barking," Franz snapped, irritated by the constant compliments about his intelligence.
Ignoring him, Calian pointed to the characters on the drawing of the Axis of Time. "If you look at these characters, you'll see small dots. If we assume these aren't part of the letters but a different kind of marker…"
A ring of considerable size. Fingernail-sized characters inscribed upon it. Calian pointed to several of them as he continued his explanation.
"There are characters with dots in the exact same positions. If you gather them, they all share a common stroke. I wondered if these dotted characters might hold a different meaning, so I extracted only the overlapping parts…"
As he spoke, Calian traced something on the table with his finger. A dark red aura seeped from his fingertip, forming a character.
"And something fascinating appeared."
It was a script no longer in use, passed down solely within the Secritian Royal Family.
Calian grinned. "It's read as 'Zeon'. And…"
A word unfamiliar to Alan. But a word that remained vivid in Calian's memory.
"It means 'King of Humans'. I wondered if it was just a coincidence, but since it's written here as well, I can't ignore it."
Recalling how those long-eared beings—whom he never wished to encounter again—had addressed him, Calian concluded, "Did Your Highness perhaps treat the elves very harshly? It seems I'll have to meet them at least once—the Elf Grand Elder."
Or that 'Mother Tree' they loved so much.