Limon shook his head at Ainsha, the white-haired girl spouting nonsense with her chest proudly thrust out.

Who would ever take this hopeless idiot off his hands? Just thinking about it somehow made his sense of responsibility swell.

But there was no way to restore the idiot princess to her former self, either. All he could do was nurse his headache.

A voice tinged with laughter roused him from his thoughts.

“With everything in London followed by Ainsha’s troubles, I was worried your trip had turned out more taxing than expected. I’m glad to see you’re all right.”

“Taxing? It was barely more than a picnic.”

Limon gave a light snort as he looked at the gently smiling, black-haired girl, Li Qingyu.

After leaving Tartarus, he had delivered Ainsha to Tata and immediately returned home. With his search for the lost girl safely concluded, there was no reason to linger.

... Though he certainly hadn’t expected Tata to have Ainsha’s bags packed in advance and push her out the door, leaving him to bring her along, too.

‘This is why dealing with the White Dragon Clan is such a pain.’

By that point, Limon could roughly guess what had been going on behind the scenes.

Her disappearance had merely been a pretext. Ultimately, the very fact that he had been told about it was part of Tata’s scheme to use this opportunity to bring him and Ainsha closer.

Even if her precognition had shown them returning safely, to think she had even skimped on the search for her princess for that purpose.

Like nanny, like princess: recklessly decisive, and magnificently idiotic.

But the fact that their idiocy had actually yielded something useful was another of the troublesome things about the White Dragon Clan.

“For a mere picnic, you seem to have caused quite a stir.”

Li Qingyu smiled wryly.

Indeed, the world had practically been turned halfway upside down during the two weeks Limon had been away.

Monsters had appeared without warning, turning London, the heart of the British Empire, into a battlefield and causing a massive upheaval as every citizen evacuated.

An incident of that magnitude was bound to have far-reaching consequences.

But what had shaken the world most was not the damage to London, but news of one man.

The death of Karl, the Monarch of Magic!

Even those who had paid no attention to the news from London could not hide their shock at that revelation.

In this age dominated by players, no one had even imagined that a Monarch—an absolute being beyond anyone’s reach—could meet such a sudden death.

“It’s made me a little busier as well.”

“Hmm, yes. I imagine it has.”

Li Qingyu calmly explained that, besides keeping the Black Dragon Clan’s companies steady amid global stock markets surging and plunging like waves, she had been busy monitoring the suddenly active governments and ten great guilds through Leviathan’s branches.

Limon nodded as he listened.

Having cut down absolute beings more than once or twice, he knew better than anyone how much turmoil their deaths could cause throughout the world.

Only Li Qingyu could have remained this composed. Anyone else would surely have collapsed from overwork.

“On that note, there’s something I’m really curious about...”

That was why, after nodding along, Limon had to turn to his side with a decidedly peculiar expression.

“Countess, what are you doing here?”

He stared incredulously at Rose, the blue-haired woman who had been drinking tea with Li Qingyu ever since his return.

He hadn’t expected to meet her again so soon after saying goodbye to her in London just the other day.

However many people Karl’s death had made busy, in terms of sheer workload, she could easily relegate anyone else to a distant second place.

“Didn’t you say you’d be incredibly busy? And I’m sure you are. Yet you have time to sit here drinking tea?”

“Well...”

Rose merely blushed faintly, unable to bring herself to give a proper answer.

Li Qingyu, who had been leisurely sipping her tea, spoke in her place.

“Oh, Rose came to consult with me.”

“Consult?”

“There simply aren’t enough hands to rebuild London, so she said she wanted help from Black Dragon Construction and our clan’s other businesses.”

“So she’s here on business?”

“Yes. We haven’t ‘decided’ on the detailed terms yet, so we’ll need to meet a few more times for further ‘consultation.’”

Li Qingyu nodded. Then, looking at Rose, whose eyes had widened ever so slightly, she asked with her usual gentle smile,

“Isn’t that right, Rose?”

Rose bit her lip tightly.

She met Li Qingyu’s obsidian eyes with a heavy gaze, and only after a long while did she slowly nod.

“... It is as Li Qingyu says.”

“Hmm, is that so?”

Limon nodded.

Each clan of the Seven Dragons Society specialized in a different business sector.

The Black Dragon Clan’s main businesses were lodging, including Leviathan, and food services, but they also excelled in construction. They had accumulated expertise and know-how from building hotels around the world.

In that sense, it was perfectly reasonable for Rose to seek their help rebuilding London.

... If only she hadn’t answered that perfectly ordinary business question with all the reluctance of a knight whose weakness had been seized upon, forcing her to submit to evil.

‘Has the Black Dragon Clan been up to its usual tricks again?’

Limon immediately realized that something he knew nothing about had passed between Rose and Li Qingyu.

But he gave no sign of it. Whatever their reasons, if the two princesses had reached an agreement of sorts, he saw no need to interfere. As her fiancé, he also trusted Li Qingyu to have handled matters properly.

So instead of probing further into why Rose was here, he changed the subject.

“More importantly, what do you think about that?”

“What do you mean?”

“The story told by that Saint’s ghost, Shera.”

Li Qingyu’s expression grew peculiar at those words, and Rose straightened in her seat.

Having already heard a rough account of what had happened in Tartarus, they understood the importance of the matter.

“She mentioned a meteor shower, didn’t she?”

“There must have been several meteor showers over the past hundred years, but only one comes to mind.”

“It is certain. It cannot be any other meteor shower.”

“Yes, it was probably that day.”

Li Qingyu was calm. Rose was serious. And Ainsha had made her assertion without expression.

Limon nodded in agreement with the shared opinion of the three princesses, despite their utterly different personalities.

From the moment he had heard the words “meteor shower,” only one thing had come to mind.

“The day the constellations first appeared.”

* * *

Thirty-two years ago.

The day constellations and dungeons had first appeared in this world, bringing the Age of Heroes to an end.

Recalling the meteor shower that had rained down all over the world as though celebrating the dawn of a new age, Limon continued quietly.

“That old hag Cir said that when my violin was first made, it was just an ordinary cursed magical artifact on the level of a divine relic.”

“But she said that something later came to reside within it in the form of a seal, correct?”

“Yes.”

“The violin is merely a vessel. What matters is the sealed contents.”

“And if it’s true that a star fell onto the violin during the meteor shower...”

The legendary Great Witch’s appraisal and the Saint’s ghost’s testimony.

Taken together, they led to only one conclusion.

“The Seven Arcs weren’t originally made as arks. They first ‘came into being’ thirty-two years ago.”

He had suspected as much ever since learning that even Cir, the violin’s maker, knew nothing about them.

He simply hadn’t known who had done it, when, why, or how.

But Shera’s testimony had confirmed two of those things: ‘when’ and ‘how.’

“You mean that, of the meteors that rained down worldwide thirty-two years ago, seven stars came to reside within certain objects, turning them into the Seven Arcs.”

“Most likely.”

“... Do you have any idea what might have happened that day?”

“How would I know?”

Limon scratched his cheek.

He had personally witnessed the meteor shower raining down thirty-two years earlier.

The problem was that far too much had happened that day.

Dungeons had suddenly sprung up all over the world, players contracted to constellations had appeared, and stars had fallen from the sky.

With the entire world thrown into chaos by those sudden anomalies, he’d hardly had time to watch a meteor shower.

Moreover, he had still been unable to see constellations directly back then, so there was a good chance he wouldn’t have properly seen whatever had happened.

“But there is one thing we know for sure.”

“What is that?”

“This lets us narrow down the possibilities for the Seven Arcs somewhat.”

“... Indeed. You’re right.”

After a moment’s thought, Li Qingyu nodded.

“The remaining Seven Arcs must be among antiques made at least thirty-two years ago, correct?”

“Among those, I believe we should focus our search on magical artifacts of divine-relic caliber, or treasures of comparable value that could serve as vessels for a seal.”

Magical artifacts of divine-relic caliber were treasures traditionally treated as strategic resources.

Even while Europe was being devastated, only nine had found their way into London, and most of those remaining elsewhere had been designated national treasures or sacred relics of religious orders.

In other words, they were exceptionally rare.

Of course, counting every treasure in the world would yield hundreds of candidates.

Even so, that alone would make the search dramatically easier than relying on vague precognition.

“There are also the stars. They are an important clue.”

Ainsha added her own observation.

According to the White Dragon Clan’s investigation, there had been witnesses who saw a star fall near Tartarus thirty-two years ago.

Their accounts had merely been dismissed as hallucinations or bizarre tales because no traces of a meteorite had been found. But if that had been a sign, similar things must have happened with the other Seven Arcs.

“We’ll have to check London’s records from thirty-two years ago to be certain, but the Liberation Brigade must be using that clue to find the Seven Arcs, too.”

“You mean they don’t know what objects the Seven Arcs are, either?”

“Right. If they knew, there’s no way they would still be looking for them.”

Limon spoke matter-of-factly.

There was no clear evidence yet, but it was more likely that the Seven Arcs had appeared at random all across the world.

“And one more thing... No, that’s not certain yet, so let’s leave it for now.”

He started to say something, then shook his head.

Rummaging through his luggage, he took out an object and placed it on the table.

“Anyway, all of you be careful when you’re looking for the Seven Arcs. Those Liberation Brigade bastards will be coming at us even more desperately now.”

With Li Qingyu, Rose, and Ainsha watching, Limon opened the lid of the glass case he had placed on the table and continued evenly.

CLICK.

“Now that we’ve taken this from them as well.”

At that moment, the three princesses fell silent.

It wasn’t because they didn’t know what lay inside the glass case.

Quite the opposite: as princesses of the Seven Dragons Society who routinely encountered all manner of treasures, they knew its value all too well, and could not tear their eyes away.

“... So this is the object you mentioned?”

“Yes.”

Limon readily nodded.

He continued as he looked at the object he had taken after killing Crown Prince Edward in the British Museum—the second of the Seven Arcs after the Violin of Deepest Black, given to him by Rose and the witches of the twenty-seven magical lineages as a reward for saving London.

“It’s a relic of Plato, the Wordsmith.”