After leaving Maysa’s room, the Zahar noble headed to the drawing room on the first floor rather than leaving the mansion. The elderly maids greeted her with a liveliness they had lacked earlier.

“Oh, why are you back already? Didn’t you stay to talk?”

“She was sleeping soundly, so I just left the books she wanted and came out.”

“The sun hasn’t even finished setting...”

“It seems all she does lately is sleep.”

“It’s because she’s unwell. She needs to eat something to get her strength back.”

“We can hardly force her to eat when she says she doesn’t want to.”

The women chattered away, unaware that Turan stood right behind them under stealth. Thanks to them, he learned without any effort that the noble’s assumed name was Reto, and that she was none other than the Arabion House Head’s personal maid. A Zahar-blooded noble inside Arabion’s main house was shocking enough, but the House Head’s personal maid?

‘How on earth?’

From what he had seen, servants of the main house were all members of knights’ families, rigorously trained from childhood. Given how slowly nobles aged, surely there was a limit to how long one could masquerade as a commoner. He wondered whether she was using a disguise magic tool like his, but even the Holy Relic’s senses detected nothing.

‘Either she’s found some ingenious way to disguise herself, or... Arabion has a Zahar-blooded noble of its own?’

For nobles, bloodline abilities were a kind of fence. You have the same abilities as I do, so you are one of us; you have different abilities, so you are an outsider.

There were religious and political dimensions to this as well. Noble bloodline abilities had originally descended from the gods, and their powers themselves symbolized their authority to rule as the gods’ descendants.

For these reasons, nobles formed houses strictly among those who shared the same bloodline abilities. Of course, since marriages between first cousins or closer relatives were frowned upon, they quite often brought in outside bloodlines. Even then, however, a child whose bloodline differed from the house’s could not remain within it.

For example, if the head of an Enchanter house married a noble with the Healer Bloodline, any child born with the Healer Bloodline had to be sent to a Healer house for adoption, regardless of being the House Head’s child. Breaking this rule by keeping a noble of another bloodline in one’s house and employing them was called bloodline theft. It was treated much like murder committed to steal mana.

But didn’t taboos and rules exist precisely because there were people who broke them? Perhaps Arabion had been raising Zahar-blooded nobles for quite some time. Still, he was not yet in a position to be certain which of the two explanations was correct.

While he was lost in thought, the women finished chatting and Reto left the mansion. Turan tried to follow her under stealth, but soon had to stop. She was heading for the House Head’s residence right next door.

‘Following her inside... would be pushing it.’

Maysa’s residence was simply unusually poorly guarded. The House Head’s likely had its own separate defenses. Turan was confident he could escape anyone else, but he had to avoid facing the House Head. The moment the man attacked in earnest, Turan would likely die before he could try anything.

Abandoning the pursuit, Turan instead discreetly stole a hair clinging to Reto’s maid’s uniform. Since it might have come from a wig or someone else, he even used tracking magic to verify that it was hers.

‘Good. With this, I can follow her wherever she runs.’

The principle of tracking magic was to specify certain conditions, then use enhanced senses to detect a matching target. The more precise the conditions, the larger an area one could search with less mana, and finding someone through a piece of their body was among the most efficient conditions of all.

In other words, with his current power, Turan could use this single hair to find and pursue its owner even thousands of kilometers away. There was a reason people feared Zahar’s tracking abilities.

Having secured a means of tracking Reto, Turan let her go and returned to Maysa’s room to open the books. He had expected something containing important information about the house, but they were merely ordinary fairy tales: The Woodcutter Who Lost His Axe, The Prince Who Became a Frog, The Star Child—

‘I know all of these.’

Every one was a story his mother, Bijella, had told him at bedtime when he was young. On reflection, that was only natural. The fairy tales known to an Arabion knight’s daughter would all have originated in this region.

He skimmed them several times, wondering whether they contained some hidden code, but there seemed to be nothing unusual. Of course, even if there were, it could hardly be called a code if a complete novice like Turan could spot it so easily.

Reading fairy tales for the first time in years had drawn Turan into old memories. He soon collected himself, closed the book, and turned to Maysa.

‘Did she just want to read fairy tales?’

Unfortunately, he could get no answer from her while she slept, so he left the room and resumed his survey of the mansion. He was looking for somewhere to stay and use as a base, but soon discovered that every room, all the way up to the fifth floor, stood as empty and open as those on the first. Even the attic, a common feature in mansions like this, lay completely exposed through its rotted floorboards.

Turan realized that staying in this mansion as his base was simply impossible.

‘If they’ve let the mansion get like this to guard against Zahar infiltrators, it’s surprisingly effective...’

He could not maintain stealth forever. Eventually he would have to drop it and rest, and that was impossible here. A single shift of his body would make the half-rotten boards creak, while the walls and floors that should have muffled the noise were riddled with holes. If he so much as snored, a noble would surely hear him even from the first floor.

His only viable way to rest was to reveal his presence to Maysa and share her room, but he had found too little information here for that. To persuade her, he would at least need evidence that Arabion’s main house was scheming against her, much as Solif’s had against him.

* * *

Leaving the mansion, Turan searched for somewhere to use as temporary lodgings while employing both stealth and flight magic. Magic lamps illuminated the streets, but their light was only bright enough to drive back the darkness. Maintaining stealth up in the air was easy enough.

After several minutes of roaming with the Holy Relic’s senses heightened, checking the people passing below, he spotted a family of four approaching in the distance. One of them possessed the mana of an upper-tier noble.

“Today’s performance was so much fun, Father!”

“I didn’t think much of it...”

“Oh, but you were crying earlier, Dora.”

“I was not!”

“Don’t be so embarrassed. There’s nothing wrong with crying when you’re moved.”

The middle-aged noble walking along and chatting pleasantly with what appeared to be his wife and children had a familiar face. Had his name been Kadram? Turan remembered him as none other than the vice-captain of Arabion’s Dark Elf subjugation force.

He recalled Keorn mentioning that the man was the House Head’s younger half-brother and one of his trusted aides. His home seemed a promising place to find useful information. Judging by the man’s strength, Turan was also confident he could escape or subdue him even if an alarm went off.

After watching Kadram’s family enter their mansion, Turan maintained his stealth and used telekinesis to open a window near the roof, then slipped inside.

It appeared to be a seldom-used attic, yet it was still tidier than Maysa’s residence. Apparently keeping the interior of one’s home in ruins was Maysa’s personal preference, not a taste shared by Arabion’s nobles.

Turan released his stealth, removed his mask, and let out a deep sigh.

“Whew...”

As the mana that had been draining away little by little began to recover, fatigue washed over him. He was confident he could escape unless he was caught right under the House Head’s nose, but infiltrating a great house’s stronghold was bound to be stressful.

Turan took out the Mimic Holy Relic, absorbed a small amount of Barrier-user bloodline mana, and placed barriers on the attic door and windows. Judging by the dust accumulated here, no one was likely to come for a while, but he wanted to be prepared just in case.

With a safe place secured, he dozed for several hours. Once rested and replenished, he confirmed that the only people awake in the mansion were one or two servants on night watch, then immediately began exploring.

Naturally, his target was Kadram’s study. The easiest place to find a person’s private secrets in their home would surely be wherever they kept their assorted documents.

Fortunately, he did not have to search the fairly large mansion room by room. He could sense that a room in a corner of the second floor was locked with an actual magic tool. If it was not the study, why would it be guarded more closely than the bedroom?

‘This is easy enough.’

Kadram might have thought he had secured it thoroughly, but defenses like these were nothing before the Mimic Holy Relic. After examining the flow of the magic tool sealing the study entrance, Turan found what appeared to be its matching key in Kadram’s bedroom.

Kadram, asleep after a vigorous bout of reproductive activity with his wife, never even noticed the intruder entering his bedroom.

‘It keeps striking me how lax security is inside. So much so that I wonder how they can allow it...’

Turan had saved time and entered quickly thanks to his mask, but with enough time and effort, other Zahar nobles could surely infiltrate by posing as servants. The woman he had seen earlier might have used that very method. How did they intend to respond if an infiltrator then began slaughtering people at random? How could they be so defenseless?

Mentally clicking his tongue at Arabion’s inadequate security, Turan entered the study. It held one desk and roughly ten bookcases packed with books and documents. It was time to find out whether the information he wanted was among them.

‘Let’s see.’

As he had more or less expected, the papers spread across the desk contained little of value: approval forms concerning the distribution of goods within Morgen City and similar matters. Considering how little interest nobles generally took in such things, Kadram’s role was surely little more than stamping them.

Turan carefully put the papers back in order, then began pulling items from the shelves one at a time, checking them, and sliding them back into place. An ordinary book of general knowledge, a religious text, a genealogy of Arabion’s nobles...

‘Ah.’

After several minutes of searching, a report on the recent Dark Elf subjugation caught his eye. Its first page concerned importing large timber at low prices from settlements near the western forest region.

A little farther in, he found an account of himself. It described him as a noble of unknown origins who had distinguished himself in the Dark Elf subjugation and received special attention from Maysa. On the next page, perhaps to supplement that account, was a document detailing his personal background.

‘Oh...’

Along with a magically drawn, lifelike portrait, the document included a partial record of his past activities. These few pages effectively summed up who Turan was in Arabion’s eyes.

[A noble of unknown parentage with the Barrier-user bloodline. Specializes in launching stones with a sling. Combat rating: 4.]

[After rescuing Asiz of House Berg from Dark Elves, stayed as a guest and befriended the runaway heir.]

[The recent Dark Elf invasion is presumed to have been prompted by the Dark Elves killed in that battle.]

[Currently rules the lordless city of Kalamap in the Gray Zone.]

[Commands one black eagle monster through a soul bond.]

The fact that he had handed Kalamap over to another house and left was probably missing because the latest developments had yet to be incorporated. Turan could ride Vije and come and go in a day or two, but an ordinary person would need months simply to cover that distance.

Meanwhile, the absence of any mention of Hisaril Hill suggested that Keorn really had told Arabion’s upper ranks nothing about him.

Reading on, Turan frowned at the section at the bottom. Judging by the presence of at least three different hands, several people seemed to have taken turns adding to the document, as though exchanging letters.

[Recent developments: Returned to House Berg and attempted to contact the heir. Concerns over excessive closeness. Elimination requested.]

[The noble’s combat rating is at least 7. Elimination will not be simple.]

[Reto?]

[Excessive. Intercept the letters for now and observe the response.]

[Remember when the heir broke down.]

[Why has the combat rating risen from 4 to 7 in less than half a year? Check for errors.]

Reto. The name of the Zahar noble he had just seen... This told Turan that she belonged to Arabion’s side—or at least that Arabion’s high-ranking members knew of her existence. Wary of him growing too close to Maysa, they had considered sending a Zahar noble to assassinate him!

‘I sent that letter three weeks ago. I could have ended up fighting a Zahar assassin.’

Turan had never yet faced a Zahar noble using stealth, so he did not know whether the Mimic Holy Relic could see through it. If it could, the fight would be laughably anticlimactic; if it could not, he could not afford to underestimate even a weak opponent. Despite his guardian magic tool and other defenses, a blade driven into a vital spot while he slept could still be fatal.

More importantly, what did “remember when the heir broke down” mean? He would need more information to understand the details. For now, he put the documents back in their original order, carefully memorizing their location. Now that he knew where they were, he could simply return and take them if necessary.

‘Besides, this man hardly seems to be the only person worth investigating.’

Didn’t this mean there were at least three high-ranking nobles with the authority to command a Zahar noble? He did not know whether the House Head was among them, but no one knew he had infiltrated the compound yet. He had plenty of time.

As expected, the rest of his search through the documents was rather tedious. Though most were administrative papers, he had to read each one in case something unexpectedly meaningful turned up.

In the midst of his search, an old letter fell from between the books with a rustle. Turan carefully unfolded it, taking care not to let the paper crumble.

[Dear Uncle,

Life here at House Nagin is quite uneventful. My mother’s relatives are all strangers to me, so our awkwardness is only to be expected. I suppose we will simply have to grow closer little by little over time.

Sirel keeps saying everything is fine, but the letters often seem rather halfhearted. I would appreciate it if you could check whether Sirel has been neglecting lessons.

Also, Maysa suddenly sent me a letter calling me a murderer. Has something happened in the house?

Renod.]

Turan reopened the Arabion genealogy he had seen earlier. Renod Nagin, Sirel Arabion, Maysa Arabion. All three names appeared beneath that of the House Head, Badal Arabion, and the first two had the same mother’s name listed beside them: Anieta Nagin.

‘Come to think of it, I think Asiz told me something about this.’

Searching his memory, he recalled their first conversation about Maysa. Hadn’t Asiz said that the House Head had three children, and that the eldest had manifested the maternal bloodline and been sent to that house for adoption?

‘Maysa sent her older half-brother a letter calling him a murderer...’

Turan read the letter over and over, committing it to memory. He had no particular evidence, but his instincts told him it held the reason she was hostile toward her own house.