Finding the Castle Lord's Location
Finding the castle lord was simple. Follow the chain of rank upward. In plainer terms, search the castle lord's own building and stick to the strong ones.
Yujun paid particular attention to the Heavenly guards. There was a chamber he suspected belonged to the castle lord. Someone had tried to wall even his senses off with a barrier, but he nullified it without breaking a sweat. He did not erase the thing outright. He only laid a light hand on it, just enough that the effect would never trigger. It was hardly easy work, but he could do it. A simple sense-blocking barrier was one thing. A barrier of any real sophistication would have been far harder to meddle with.
He climbed the stairs to the third floor without a whisper of sound, and his mouth fell open. What in the world are they doing up here. More than twenty guards lined the corridor alone, and every one of them was stronger than the ones posted in the banquet hall. Even if they prize security, this is excessive.
In that corridor, Yujun caught a proper whiff of something rotten. Not a literal smell. An instinct that the castle lord was up to something suspicious.
"Doesn't the banquet hall look like fun?"
"I'd love to go watch, but of all days, I'm on duty."
"Of all days, nothing. They posted extra people today on purpose."
"They've got several big events lined up. What can you do."
"If I were weaker, at least I'd rotate off. All this useless stamina, and I don't even get tired, so I won't catch a glimpse of the banquet."
"I know. What a shame."
The guards did not seem to know a thing. The castle lord's trail leads into that room. There was no chance Yujun would lose a presence as strong and distinctive as that. He did not rush. He followed the trace at an easy pace.
You've got to be kidding me. Traps. He had wondered why the guards were stationed so far from the castle lord's room. Magical traps of tremendous firepower had been laid all along the way. They don't care if the room gets blown apart?
He could not simply ignore them and walk through. Not because he was afraid of getting hurt. If the castle lord caught wind of him and ran, the one left in trouble would be Yujun. If he's confident in his own strength, he probably wouldn't flee... No. The Demon God Worshippers might have given him orders. Did the cult even know he was coming for the castle lord? If they were capable of thinking at all, they would have considered the possibility. Doesn't matter.
Whatever trial came, Yujun was sure he could overcome it. And if things looked truly dangerous, he could always pull out at the right moment.
"Dad, if you need my help, just say the word!"
"Where'd that come from?"
"In a straight space like this, my breath is a direct hit!"
"Fair enough."
Harp's breath was wide enough to blanket the whole corridor, so it was not wrong. I'm curious how strong Harp's gotten, too. The little beast was a divine beast that grew in proportion to its master. It needed no separate nurturing items, and it could not equip gear, but growing alongside him was an enormous advantage all by itself. When I first met Harp, I was so weak it's not even comparable to now. Manuela would have been appalled to hear it, but it was the truth. The only part that was not quite accurate was that his growth had been brutally steep, and aside from the very beginning, there had never really been a weak enemy at all. I ought to give Harp a chance to fight later. He looks like he's itching for it.
Yujun paused before the traps and thought. If he moved fast, he could break through without getting caught. The problem was that the traps would still go off. The guards would come running at the noise, and the castle lord would have an easy time responding. That would not do. It would defeat the entire point of slipping in. Wait. They're magical traps. If I'm careful, I might be able to disarm them.
An ordinary trap and a magical trap were not the same thing. Magical traps hit harder and were built with more precision. Their weakness, if they had one, was that they could be dismantled from a distance, provided the mage stood at least two tiers above the trap. I've never disarmed a magical trap of this caliber. Still, I should manage, right? Whoever had set them was no ordinary mage. Yujun was even less ordinary.
The instant he began to analyze the first trap, a chime sounded. It was not the trap. It was a messenger alert only he could hear. That startled me. The timing was so perfect he nearly jumped out of his skin. The sender was Asilien.
Yujun clutched his head. Too many problems were still unsolved, the Demon God Worshippers chief among them, and now another Great Cataclysm? Why could this world not stay peaceful for a single moment? Not knowing what kind of cataclysm it would be nagged at him most of all.
Preparing for the Great Cataclysm this very second would not change a thing. I need to finish what I'm doing in Heaven and get back to the Continent. He had never meant to linger in Heaven this long. Yujun went back to the traps, analyzing them while he kept watch on his surroundings.
Click. One magical trap came undone without a hitch. The trouble was that more remained than he could count. Daunting. Still. At least disarming them was not as difficult as he had feared.
"What's the castle lord doing?"
"No idea. He went into his room a while ago and still hasn't come out."
"He's not going to the banquet hall?"
"Well, his health hasn't been that good lately... Nothing to be done."
"Hey. Watch your mouth. Blab that and you could vanish without a soul knowing. It's not even certain."
"Right. Pretend I didn't hear it."
"You're only alive because I know how to keep my mouth shut. If it weren't for me, you'd have been reported ages ago."
"Th-thanks."
The two Heavenly guards nearest him, standing watch as a pair. Hearing them, Yujun's eyes went wide. The castle lord's health is bad? He had not known that at all. When the man stood on the dais earlier, giving his address, he had looked perfectly fine. The guards might simply be wrong. Don't jump to conclusions.
He kept disarming the traps without a pause. Each one let out a faint sound as it released, so he wove a small barrier and shut the noise out completely. If all I'd ever done was polish a sword, what would I have done here? Without magic, all sorts of inconvenient situations would have piled up. Choosing Ancient Magic from the skill archive was a stroke of genius. No matter how he turned it over, that decision had been nothing but a gain. Never a poison.
Click. Click, click. Before he knew it, he had cleared half the magical traps, and he let out a thin breath. There are far too many. This is dedication, pure and simple. For the sake of whoever built all these, I ought to erase every last one. Because he had not made a single mistake, the guards had not noticed a thing. Even so, he could not relax. The real work started here. The traps that were hard to disarm had all been clustered toward the back. At least every one of them is still within what I can handle. They were of a level that even Yenil, or Yenil's grandfather, would not have dared to touch, so the danger was very real.
Time slipped by. Yujun released the last magical trap and stood before the chamber he believed was the castle lord's. No traps inside the room, at least. Passing through the door with Flash would be difficult. A barrier there blocked spatial teleportation and Blink-type abilities, and this one could not be nullified so easily. Ah. Caught or not, it hardly matters now.
He used Flash as he was and slipped through the firmly locked door.
A spacious room. If it could even be called a room. A great hall, no less grand than the palace where a king might live. Exquisite sculptures caught the eye, and splendid paintings hung all along the walls. Golden furniture that must have cost a fortune. It was not even gilded. Astonishingly, it was pure gold. Jackpot. Nibbling away at golden flowers could not begin to compare with claiming furniture of this size.
Yujun sharpened his senses and searched for the castle lord. Lying there nice and quiet? But the presence felt weaker than before. No. It was markedly feebler than when he had seen the man earlier. He drew closer, and bewilderment crossed his face. Is this the same castle lord?
The face was visibly haggard. It was clearly the same face, and yet the man looked as if thirty years had been dumped on him all at once. How had he withered this badly in so short a time? It was not only the aging. His skin was so pale he might have been a corpse dead for quite a while, if not for the groaning that kept leaving his mouth.
"Nngh..."
The castle lord's face was twisted tight with pain. He looked so much like he might be the castle lord's father, rather than the man himself, that Yujun could not quite adjust. Is this the poor health the guards were talking about? Seeing it in person, it was well past "not feeling well." Perhaps he had deteriorated at a frightening speed over a very short time. I should wake him. But will he even get up if I do?
Yujun did not wake him. He wandered the great hall instead, tucking the golden furniture into his subspace pocket. The bulk made for a conspicuous theft, but there was not a soul around to see it. No surveillance orb in sight, either. No reason to flinch. What a windfall is this.
A smile tugged at his mouth as he swiftly gathered the golden furniture. The owner of it, meanwhile, was wandering the border between life and death. It might have been cold of him. Would there ever be a better opportunity? Yujun swept up every last golden thing in the castle lord's room.