Chapter 26
Chapter 26
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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 25
Chapter Title: The Heros Family's Treason
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“I’m sorry, but I need to hurry back to the territory. I should catch the merchant who sold that item and see if he’s connected to the black sorcerer.”
Even though it was a sudden situation, Paris Emporus responded convincingly.
“You must be upset. I should have been more careful…”
“It’s okay. There have been a lot of bad things happening lately anyway.”
Rachel replied to the baron with a face drained of color. She couldn’t stay calm with a corpse right in front of her.
“Bad things? Like falling down the stairs?”
“Actually, there have been a lot of near-miss dangers besides the stairs. I almost got crushed by a statue, nearly fell into a well, tripped over an apple tree root, and almost fell into the rose bushes.”
Rachel listed off the accidents connected to where the curse mediums had been found. As she enumerated each perilous incident one by one, the skin under the baron’s eyes twitched.
His expression looked genuinely furious, and Rachel nearly applauded.
‘Who would think this is acting?’
“That must have been really scary. The mansion is so old that accidents happen more frequently here. Why don’t you come to Harpa Castle?”
“Harpa Castle?”
“Yes, it’s newly built, so there’s nothing broken anywhere, and it has features this mansion doesn’t. Plus, it’s more developed than here, so there’s plenty to see.”
Rachel nearly let out an incredulous laugh. If she followed him now, it was obvious she’d be offered up as a sacrifice immediately.
“I appreciate the thought, but for the time being, I want to rest thoroughly at the mansion.”
“Alright. Let me know right away if you change your mind.”
The baron backed off readily. He soon left the mansion. He made the excuse of catching the merchant selling ominous goods, but Rachel knew better than anyone that wasn’t the case.
“He wouldn’t, would he?”
Evelyn muttered as she watched the departing carriage.
For now, Rachel was satisfied with this. She had planted suspicion of him in Evelyn. But it wasn’t enough to kill him yet.
One person had died, but Rachel had no reason to feel guilty. Paris Emporus was the one who had killed him.
Evelyn and Deyner entered the mansion first. Rachel spoke to Enoch, who was still staring in the direction the carriage had gone.
“Enoch, I have something for you to do.”
Enoch, realizing Paris Emporus was no pushover, had been lost in thought and turned his head a beat late.
“Yes, anything.”
“Why say that if I asked you to do something strange?”
“Are you going to ask for something strange, then?”
“No, not that.”
At Rachel’s response, the tension on his face, stiff since seeing the corpse, eased.
“So, what do you need me to do?”
“Please send a letter to the temple in your name. I’ll write the contents.”
“Understood.”
He nodded but said nothing more. Rachel spoke to him again.
“He’s no easy opponent, is he?”
She couldn’t bring herself to say the words they had planned in advance.
After Rachel revealed the metal piece, Enoch, as a priest, had tried to properly interrogate the baron, but with a death involved, he forgot what to say.
“Yeah. I didn’t expect him to slip away like that.”
Enoch understood Rachel’s caution. Without this level of prudence, they would have been the ones in danger.
The two slowly walked back into the mansion.
Two more years ahead. Rachel planned to prepare for a few things and then focus solely on training for those two years.
***
That year, in late spring, news spread of the crown prince’s death.
With the confirmed heir to the throne dead, rumors swirled that the second prince, Carion, would inherit the right to the crown.
In the summer, a flood hit. But thanks to the letter Rachel had the Peace priestess send, the temple prepared for the disaster, and the flood damage was less than in previous rounds.
Moreover, thanks to information leaked by the temple, many merchant groups stocked up on grain, preventing grain prices from skyrocketing as before.
However, the power struggle between the second and third princes was fiercer than in previous rounds.
In the winter after the king died, a civil war broke out, and by the following summer, the third prince’s faction, led by Pa, defeated the second prince’s faction.
Though it was a couple of months off, Demian became king just as before.
Demian ruled with tyranny as before. He conscripted soldiers during the harvest season in autumn and drastically raised taxes to prepare for war with the Hass Kingdom.
Public resentment grew louder, but the king and the nobles in high positions paid no mind.
And so, the second winter of the 18th round arrived.
Rachel spent her time gauging it precisely while devoting herself only to training.
“Is this really okay?”
Enoch asked, handing her a handkerchief. Rachel passed the wooden sword she had just been swinging to Enoch, took the handkerchief, and wiped her sweat.
Paris Emporus had become a count. After the music box incident, he hadn’t approached the mansion.
Even as her enemy grew stronger, Rachel took no particular measures and stubbornly focused only on training.
But when a year had passed since Rachel began physical training, everyone realized something.
Rachel had no talent for physical pursuits.
Enoch thought it would be more efficient for Rachel to rely on his or Deyner’s protection rather than trying to grow strong herself, but Rachel wanted to become strong on her own.
Seeing her like this, as if doing nothing at all, made Enoch anxious.
All he had done so far was deliver the letters Rachel asked him to send to the Peace priestess and pass on the replies from the Peace priestess to Rachel.
Rachel turned to the anxious Enoch and replied.
“We need to wait a little longer.”
“The atmosphere in the world is bad these days. Things have been quiet for a while, but I’m worried they might try something under the cover of war.”
Rachel knew what Enoch was worried about.
The political situation was dire. Though war with the Hass Kingdom was expected, in previous rounds, no war broke out until Rachel regressed.
‘First, I need to figure out why Mother dies.’
The physical training was for that purpose. She had no talent for the sword, so everyone told her to take it easy, but she needed to follow Evelyn when she moved secretly.
[Mental Strength: 5]
Just then, her mental strength point rose.
In two years, her stamina points had increased by 5. Strength by 3, agility by 8. Mental strength had just gone up by 1 to reach 5.
From what Rachel could roughly gauge, a point of 5 seemed about average for an adult male.
Her strength was less than an adult male’s, but her agility was much better.
She couldn’t confirm exactly what mental strength and stamina were, but since stamina couldn’t be hit points like in typical games, she figured it was something like endurance.
Mental strength seemed like the willpower to endure hardship, given how it increased the more she pushed through tough times.
Rachel wasn’t entirely satisfied with the results of nearly two years of training.
Deyner and Enoch’s skills had grown by leaps and bounds. Enoch now won one out of every five spars with Evelyn, and Deyner beat such an Enoch one out of every three times.
Meanwhile, Rachel staggered just from clashing swords once with Deyner.
Deyner hadn’t hit his growth spurt yet, so his build was similar to Rachel’s, but his physical abilities overwhelmingly surpassed hers.
Rachel, who had swung the wooden sword exactly ten more times than the day before, wiped her sweat and began her cool-down stretches as she opened her lips.
“Hmm, it’s about time I told you.”
“I’m all ears.”
Enoch stood before Rachel, doing stretches alongside her as he replied.
“The Heros family will soon commit treason and be wiped out.”
“The Heros family… before Lady Evelyn married…?”
“Yes, exactly. My maternal family.”
“Is Lady Evelyn implicated somehow?”
“No, not that, but Mother passes away.”
If Evelyn had been implicated and died because of it, Rachel could have arranged an escape or sent a letter to her family advising them to obey the king.
But Evelyn had left the Heros family through marriage and, as an outsider by marriage, wouldn’t die for treason.
Yet the day after receiving a letter, she vanished from the mansion, and Rachel regressed.
Rachel still didn’t know how Evelyn had died back then.
“We need to find out where Evelyn is heading and what she’s planning to do.”
“Wouldn’t it be better to stop her in advance?”
“If we can stop her, that would be ideal.”
With a year and a month left until the three-year mark, if they could hold out without regressing, that would be better.
The time ahead was uncharted territory for her too, so the remaining 61% danger level might come crashing down, but still.
“We need to pay attention the night the letter arrives saying the Heros family has been executed.”
“Lady Evelyn can move more discreetly than us, so we’ll have to watch closely then.”
“Yes.”
The stretches ended. Rachel drank cold water and shivered. No matter how warm the water was when brought, it was always cold by the end of training.
The training ground, once an open lot, had a roof and wooden walls built a year ago, so no one outside could see them training.
Without a fire, the winter air felt cold, but thick clothes and movement solved that.
Rachel and Enoch put on the clothes they had taken off during training and returned to the mansion.
As they entered and shook snow off their boots, they ran into Henri coming down the stairs.
“You still haven’t left?”
Rachel asked Henri, whom she ran into. One of the changes from previous rounds was this.
Henri, whom it was hard to even glimpse before, had been coming home frequently this round.
‘At this point, it’s time to apply the crime of outrageous conduct.’
If he wanted to come home, he could have anytime.
The excuse that he hadn’t come before because he suspected who the biological father of his daughter was—how outrageous was that?
“Rachel, don’t talk to your father like that when he’s come home from work.”
Evelyn said from the second-floor railing. The couple’s relationship was even closer than before, making Rachel often wonder if a third child was on the way.
“You worked so hard you couldn’t come home for 15 years.”
“Yes, yes.”
Rachel let it slide, looking at Henri’s guilty expression.
She sometimes visited Henri’s study with tea or snacks instead of the maids, but she saw no books or suspicious items related to black magic.
‘Was it that suspicious groups approached him when he stayed in the capital without visiting the mansion?’
The good thing about Henri coming home often was getting capital news quickly.
“So, what’s the atmosphere in the capital these days?”
He scratched his chin and replied.
“Well, my colleagues and the new batch are busy.”
“Because of the priest ban?”
“Yeah.”
Lately, with fewer people in the palace able to receive healing from priests, visits to doctors had increased.
It was due to King Kudas’s recent policy. He had taken an adversarial stance toward the temple.
It was suspicious no matter who looked.
The king was the one losing out by not allowing priests into the palace. King Kudas, having crowned himself, wasn’t recognized as a true king by the temple or foreign nations.
He needed the pope’s recognition more than anyone, yet he antagonized the temple.
‘There’s a black sorcerer in the royal castle, and the current king is involved.’
Rachel tapped her fingers as she thought.
For any uncertain future, she had noted the nobles who rose in status when this king ascended.
Not just Paris Emporus, but the new nobles from merchant backgrounds who received titles alongside him, and some scholar-turned nobles.
But the ones trying to sacrifice her were from the Emporus family, so dealing with uncles Paris Emporus and Sari Emporus should suffice somehow.
Crow had died long ago, caught by priests and holy knights dispatched by the temple. Paris Emporus had slyly denied any connection and escaped.
‘If the king’s involved, we’re done for.’
Just then, a knocking sound came from the door.