Chapter 20: The tomb is rather luxurious (2)

A few hours ago.

Around the time Valt had just surrendered to the guards and been arrested.

“Chloe hasn’t come home?”

Groomloc and Yaltarion were in a panic.

Chloe had said she would be back after finishing one last commission.

But she hadn’t returned, even late into the night.

“Yes! She should have been back long ago… Did she not stop by to see you, Your Excellency?!”

“She didn’t come here! I haven’t seen her for a few days!”

“Good heavens. Don’t tell me she was kidnapped…?!”

“Yaltesance doesn’t have a serious crime problem, does it? Besides, who would target that child!”

Yaltarion made a calm judgment.

The Painter’s Guild Leader kidnapping Chloe?

Nonsense!

‘That man wasn’t interested in Chloe at all!’

Yaltarion remembered clearly.

The contempt the Guild Leader had shown for Chloe’s painting.

Then what about Peggio, who had caused trouble during the last competition?

Unthinkable.

‘Would he dare kidnap Chloe, whom His Excellency Yaltarion cherishes, unless a knife was at his own throat!’

Groomloc remembered clearly.

The sight of Peggio, not daring to escalate matters for fear of falling out of Yaltarion’s favor.

The Painter’s Guild Leader’s desperate efforts.

The various schemes targeting Chloe.

Since none of them had caused even a small ripple, the two couldn’t even imagine who the true culprit was.

This time, Chloe was in the wrong again.

Still, Yaltarion was the world’s greatest Archmage.

It wasn’t a title he was fond of, but it was a useful one.

It allowed him to exercise some minor authority in emergencies.

Therefore.

“It was really the Painter’s Guild Leader?!”

“Yes? Ah, yes. That’s correct.”

That day, Valt surrendered to a mage twice,

and sold out his client twice.

The price was a 30% reduction in his prison sentence.

“That’s what happened.”

“D@mn it!”

Yaltarion returned after a few hours.

Upon hearing the news from him, Groomloc, uncharacteristically, slammed his fist on the desk.

“I was naive. To think they would resort to something like this!”

“Don’t blame yourself. From what I hear, it seems he was quite cornered.”

Groomloc reluctantly nodded.

To commit such a crude crime.

There was a high probability he was being threatened by powerful figures.

And.

It was at that very point that Groomloc and Yaltarion significantly re-evaluated the Guild Leader’s dangerousness.

It was only natural.

“Who would have known? That a man whose life was being threatened would foolishly waste over two months!”

About two months.

The time the Guild Leader had wasted uselessly.

The Guild Leader had squandered that long period with no results.

And he did so while his own life was on the line!

Even now that they had uncovered the truth, they were still half in doubt.

He had done so little that they wondered if he had ever truly been targeting Chloe at all.

It was so bad that even the target herself, Chloe, had no idea she was being targeted!

How could they have suspected?

That the Guild Leader was cornered enough to resort to a desperate kidnapping.

That was why the two men were trembling.

“The courage to disguise himself as the world’s biggest fool…!”

There had been a hidden motive behind it all.

A wicked scheme to make the kidnapping target lower their guard!

“For two months, all he did was meddle in a children’s competition…!”

“Such detailed, intellectual… foolishness…!”

What incredible patience.

There was nothing to say but that they had been outplayed.

The two men were anxious.

He was a villain armed with such wicked wisdom.

They were afraid to even imagine what terrible treatment Chloe might be enduring.

Was it because of that?

The master painters failed to notice.

The commotion that had been going on since dawn.

And the presence of a third party who had woken up a little early because of it.

“…Grandpa. What did you just say?”

“Gasp!”

“E-Emil!”

The girl who had come down with a new painting she’d drawn overnight to have the masters evaluate it.

Noemillica murmured with a pale face.

“What… happened to Chloe?”

• Thud.

The painting fell from Emil’s arms.

A caricature depicting a beautiful, silver-haired girl.

It was a gift she had drawn to apologize to Chloe.

Chloe had been kidnapped.

When she learned this fact from the conversation she happened to overhear.

The first thing that came to Emil’s mind was one thing.

‘…It’s my fault.’

If only I hadn’t pushed Chloe away.

If only I hadn’t gotten angry when she said she was quitting painting.

No.

If only I hadn’t commissioned a painting from her.

‘If I had just done that, the Painter’s Guild Leader wouldn’t have been able to take Chloe.’

Therefore.

If you reverse this conclusion.

The cause of Chloe’s kidnapping was Emil.

‘Ah.’

It felt as if the ground beneath her was crumbling.

A person’s heart didn’t beat on its own.

It was the will to live that kept it beating without stopping.

Emil couldn’t help but think so.

Otherwise, there was no way to explain the pain in her chest,

the dizzying sense of falling as if the blood had stopped circulating in her body.

Her breath quickening, Emil gritted her teeth.

“…Not yet.”

It wasn’t too late yet.

She had to believe that.

Even knowing that the wounds Chloe sustained wouldn’t disappear even if she was rescued, still.

Emil had no choice but to believe.

Because Emil had neither the right nor the heart to give up on Chloe.

Fwaaa-!

Suddenly,

a flash of magical light, brighter than the dawn.

Yaltarion and Groomloc froze in astonishment.

‘This is…!’

‘An advancement in a mage’s rank?!’

The emotions she had suppressed overflowed as magical power.

Emil instinctively controlled the flow.

She disperses it.

Melting her emotions into the water.

So they won’t fade.

So they won’t disappear.

Preserving them so they won’t dry up until needed.

So that when these emotions are boiled in fire again.

She can draw them out and wield them just as they are now.

“…Emil?”

“I’m fine.”

This time, she didn’t need Yaltarion’s encouragement.

Emil sublimated even the turmoil of her emotions into fertilizer.

As sustenance to surpass her original Trainee rank and ascend to become the youngest First Light mage.

It was only natural.

Her name was Noemillica.

Noemillica Alzenova.

The strongest Archmage in history who would one day surpass Yaltarion.

“The banquet.”

“What?”

“When is the soonest banquet?”

Emil’s question flustered the master painters.

Her tone showed no consideration for the listener.

“A banquet…? Oh! Of course.”

But what if the person knew that this tone stemmed from Emil’s genius-level intellect?

Yaltarion quickly grasped the meaning of her question.

“Your Excellency? Did Emil figure something out?”

“Think about it! That man will surely try to publicly announce his relationship and position with Chloe as soon as possible!”

“Ah!”

He would act as a broker for Chloe to the powerful,

and have her officially recognized as his own disciple.

Whether he was being threatened or scared of Yaltarion coming after him, the Guild Leader would do so nine times out of ten.

If only to save his own skin.

In other words.

“The Guild Leader will try to take Chloe to a banquet where the powerful gather!”

“He would. He can’t last long with such petty tricks.”

Chloe currently had no official teacher.

Because she had been working under the pseudonym Synthia.

So the Guild Leader was trying to get their master-disciple relationship officially recognized before they could.

Pointing out the sequence of events would be useless.

It would just make them look like they were making excuses after losing a talent.

‘It’s hard to believe the lords or great merchants the Guild Leader has approached will give up on that child so easily.’

Chloe.

Because that child was that much of a genius.

Groomloc, impressed by Emil, hurriedly asked.

“Do you know when the soonest banquet is?”

“The day after tomorrow.”

“The day after tomorrow?!”

“In three days, it’s the Holy Empress’s birthday.”

The day before her birthday.

The day of.

The day after her birthday.

A three-day festival celebrating the ruler’s birthday.

It was the typical form of a birth-anniversary banquet for most nations.

“Considering the time and distance, they’ve probably already arrived near the banquet hall.”

“D@mn it. They would have passed the guard post checkpoints long ago.”

Of course, there was still a way.

To attend the banquet themselves.

But this was also the most disadvantageous method.

‘If we crash the Empress’s birthday and cause a commotion…’

Yaltarion and Emil would be fine.

The reputation and achievements of an Archmage were that weighty.

But Groomloc?

And Chloe?

There was no guarantee they would escape unscathed.

It was likely correct to assume the Guild Leader had been aiming for the Empress’s birthday from the start.

Yaltarion almost clicked his tongue.

‘If I knew this would happen, I would have declared Synthia my disciple when she competed against Emil.’

It was a situation where he couldn’t even complain freely.

It couldn’t be helped.

Emil, who looked even paler than Yaltarion.

His granddaughter’s head was bowed low.

However.

The truth was a little different from Yaltarion’s thoughts.

Emil’s head was bowed.

But her two eyes were burning with a cold fire.

‘Chloe.’

Where are you now.

What kind of torment are you enduring.

It’s okay.

Just believe and wait a little longer.

‘Soon… I’m coming to get you.’

The apology for her mistake would come after she got her friend back.

A deep darkness bloomed in the genius’s eyes.

It was a light called rage.

And.

At the same time.

At the Painter’s Guild Leader’s hidden villa.

“Guild Leader!! This steak is so delicious!!”

“Wor-cla-cla-class…! For someone who looks like you, you sure eat greedily. How unsightly.”

A mouthful of beef and a blossoming smile.

Chloe was happy right now.

I absolutely did not succumb to a high-quality steak I’d never even tasted in my past life.

This is, uh, that thing.

A strategic choice to make the enemy lower their guard.

[Aren’t you the one most thoroughly deceived by that strategy? 😊]

Won’t you shut your mouth?