Chapter 90 — The Fountain Pens
Chapter 90 — The Fountain Pens
Translation: Godtl
"...She left behind everything I attached for tracking."
Romeo answered, and Griffith frowned.
"Then what's that?"
Griffith asked, pointing to a bundle of medicine bottles.
"Those are mine! I separately requested something special."
Kalix answered as gathering the medicine bottles.
They were painkillers and sedatives Lelia had left behind for him. Kalix pinched the bridge of his nose as if holding back tears.
"This bastard really knows how to move people..."
Romeo and Griffith ignored him while he wallowed in emotion.
Leaving the fool to his theatrics for the moment, Griffith turned back to Romeo.
"Is tracking possible?"
"It won't be difficult."
Romeo answered lightly, taking out a fountain pen from his inner pocket.
Romeo's magic power had stabilized. Just as he had when tracking Leo's fountain pen before, all he had to do was follow the magical trace.
Romeo immediately began tracking.
He didn't know how Lelia had figured out that tracking magic had been placed on his cuff buttons, but she couldn't possibly know about the fountain pen. It hadn't originally been meant for tracking.
Besides, even if Lelia somehow knew the fountain pen could be tracked, she would never throw it away.
Because that child is Leo.
"Wait... what's going on?"
Romeo tilted his head. He had expected the tracking to work immediately, but the magic stone couldn't get a lock.
It felt like being blocked by a wall that magic power couldn't penetrate. What on earth?
"No good?"
"......"
Romeo held his head.
His magic power was currently very stable, yet tracking didn't work?
It made no sense.
Lelia had no magic power or divine power—nothing of the sort. What method could she possibly have used?
Seeing Romeo confused, Griffith said.
"...Then try tracking Oscar."
At that, Romeo said "Ah!" and immediately grabbed the fountain pen again.
The magic stone glowed, absorbing magic power flowing from Romeo's fingertips.
After a moment.
"This bastard..."
Romeo cursed under his breath.
Oscar's fountain pen was also impossible to track. Clearly he had blocked it somehow.
Griffith raised one corner of his mouth as if expecting this.
'Did that guy find out too?'
It was certain.
His unusually friendly behavior toward Lelia the day before had made it obvious.
When they reunited after parting ways at the Temple as children, Oscar had been a completely different person.
Griffith had thought he'd gone mad. Oscar had lost the soft, gentle eyes he once had.
His red pupils were lifeless like artificially created beads.
Oscar would sit alone hugging his knees whenever he had a chance, muttering unintelligible words.
What drove him mad was 'Leo's' death.
When the demonic sword fell into Oscar's hands, Griffith instinctively sensed it.
That child could bring destruction to this world.
Oscar even began freely wielding the demonic sword's power, difficult to handle.
And now that demonic sword would have absorbed an unimaginable amount of blood.
It was a terrible power that could never be called clean. That dark power would grow stronger and larger.
That's why, at this very moment, Griffith felt irritated and impatient.
His obsession with Leo was at a level ordinary people could never understand.
He didn't know what that madman might do to Leo.
Having learned that Leo, whom he obsessed over, was alive, he would be capable of anything.
He had to separate them.
He must never let Leo fall into Oscar's clutches.
Because that obsession and madness would surely ruin Leo.
04. Superion Territory
One week after leaving the capital.
Lelia ran and ran across the vast grasslands near the border.
Now, passing through one large territory and one small territory, she would arrive at Superion Territory.
Though traveling alone was lonely, it was a worthwhile experience in its own way.
Riding horses, camping, gathering food.
Things she could only do now.
Everything would have been perfect if only she didn't miss her friends.
Still, the thought of meeting family upon reaching the territory was comforting.
Especially her uncle, whom she hadn't seen since he left for the battlefield, so she missed him dearly.
After passing through the vast grasslands, she entered the territory of Count Treich.
This place was famous for having the Kreuz Church's sacred site. Many people came for pilgrimage, making it a tourist city as well.
As a sacred site, it had an enormous temple, and Lelia had heard that priests were dispatched directly from the neutral divine zone to oversee it.
Perhaps for that reason, priests in temple robes were visible immediately upon entering the territory.
Lelia planned to stay at the Count's residence tonight.
There was a Count's castle in this city.
The Count was acquainted with her father, so she intended to visit and ask to stay one night.
After handing her horse to the stable keeper and entering the castle, commotion erupted from a dining hall.
Turning to look, a man was being dragged away by people rushing in from outside.
"I'm not! I'm not a coin thief! Save me!"
The man thrashed and screamed. He appeared to have been dragged away while eating, as he held a spoon in his hand.
Lelia, about to pass by, stopped walking at the sight.
Though it wasn't her business, she couldn't ignore someone potentially innocent being dragged off.
In the end, unable to stand by, Lelia moved toward the commotion.
"Catch him! That bastard stole the donation box!"
The priests shouted while dragging the man.
Lelia's eyes turned cold.
She had been thinking the priests looked noble, but now she felt like she was looking at demons wearing human masks.
Lelia entered the guest room and bit her lip anxiously.
When she asked the innkeeper she had met on the stairs, she learned that recently the Temple has been conducting a massive search to round up alchemists.
It started from cities favorable to the Temple, like the Count's territory where the pilgrimage site is located, but the problem was that the Temple had placed a large bounty.
Mercenaries and hunters alike all flocked there. Because of that, even ordinary people were being taken away, like what happened earlier.
No wonder—she felt like she finally understood the reason for the strangeness she had sensed when entering the territory.
The inspection to enter the territory moved quickly with the line shrinking rapidly, but getting out the other side took quite a while.
Since many of those entering were mercenaries seeking the bounty, they were let in relatively easily, while those leaving were tightly controlled.
Lelia felt an unbidden tension rising within her.
'I must leave as soon as dawn breaks.'
Though she didn't possess the same power as the alchemists of this otherworld, in the eyes of others, she likely wouldn't appear much different.
Lelia kept only one medicinal pill for emergencies and placed everything else into her inventory.
After that, she ate the meal the innkeeper had left at her door, washed briefly, and fell asleep.
Before the dawn light could rise, Lelia woke from sleep and departed.
At the checkpoint inspection point, she waited her turn and slipped the one remaining potion into her inventory.
Thanks to this, she passed the inspection of her belongings without issue.
However, the moment she passed through the checkpoint, Lelia realized there were people following her from behind.
Turning her head, she saw fifteen or so men on horseback chasing after her.
From their appearance, they were the mercenaries she had seen in front of the inn yesterday.
Lelia gritted her lips and drove her horse forward.
However, they were far more skilled at handling horses. Lelia was surrounded by them near the forest.
"Damn... didn't you say you gave them sleeping pills?"
"I don't know. Looks like that woman just took the money and didn't give them any."
"Should we go back and kill her?"
"Why bother when there's bigger money right in front of us?"
They laughed with greedy gazes. Lelia furrowed her brow.
"Why exactly are you following me?"
When Lelia asked, they shrugged their shoulders.
"In these harsh times, traveling alone is dangerous. When there are guys like us around."
"Don't worry, if you behave, you won't get hurt. We just need to collect the reward."
"What reward?"
Surely not....
"Yeah, from today you're an alchemist. I heard the Teles Territory right next door gives a bigger reward than the Trick Territory? So let's go there quietly, alright?"
After saying this with a lewd laugh, the thick-bearded man pulled out a bow from behind his back.
What he was aiming for was the horse Lelia was riding.
It seemed he planned to knock her off the horse first, then bind her hands and feet.
Lelia hurried to open her item window but instead grabbed the horse's reins first. The man sneered at her and quickly released the bowstring.
However, the man failed to hit Lelia's horse even at close range.
The arrow he shot floated in empty air, standing still as if time had stopped.
"What is that?"
It was when the men were buzzing at the strange scene.
"Argh!"
Suddenly one of them fell from his horse screaming.
What followed was a horrific sight. The man who had fallen to the ground let out a monstrous scream. The blood flowing from his body was being absorbed somewhere.
In an instant, the man had all the blood drained from his body and twisted grotesquely.
The men, startled as if witnessing a demon, quickly began to flee.
But Lelia stood frozen in place, unable to do anything.
The sword that had absorbed the blood pulsed as it emitted a red mist.
Holding that sword, Oscar was looking at Lelia.
"Leo, didn't I tell you?"
"...."
"You really have no learning ability."
He tilted his head and smiled. It was a chilling smile.
"I warned you like that... and you abandon me again?"