As Kadram's elderly butler inspected the mansion's cleanliness, he thought back to his master's behavior a little earlier. Somehow, the man had seemed strangely unfamiliar today.

There was supposed to be a house meeting this morning, yet he had returned in a hurry. And hadn't his manner toward the butler suggested a guilty conscience? Then he had brought in one of the House Head's personal servants, whom the butler had seen a few times before, and ordered that no one enter the basement. Nothing like this had happened in all the decades he had served his master.

'Could he possibly...?'

Just as his thoughts were straying in a decidedly odd direction, the maid who had gone down to the basement with Kadram came back up carrying a sack. It was fairly bulky, but judging by how easily she carried it, its contents could not be very heavy.

"Oh."

The sight of her convinced the butler that his suspicions had been correct. Unlike her immaculate appearance earlier, her clothes were disheveled, as though she had dressed in haste... Some parts were even torn, as though someone had forcibly stripped them off!

Perhaps noticing his gaze, the maid took one hand off the sack and discreetly straightened her clothes.

"He said not to come down to the basement for a while."

"Ah, understood."

Kadram and his wife were unusually devoted to each other for nobles and had taken pride in neither keeping a lover. Apparently, that ended today. Lamenting the destruction of domestic peace, the butler hastily looked away from the maid. As a result, he failed to notice that the sack was about the size of a person curled into a ball—or that the maid had grown slightly taller.

* * *

"Thank you for your hard work! Here's my pass."

"Ugh, that stench... Fine, just get moving!"

The cart reeked of food waste. No matter how often he smelled it, the checkpoint official could never get used to the stench. He waved it away in disgust. Disguised as a cleaner, Turan bowed and pulled the cart through the checkpoint.

"Whew..."

How many days had he spent in that deadly place, hemmed in on every side by walls and barriers? Sighing with relief as the pressure of those confines lifted, Turan entered a nearby alley, opened the lid at the front of the cart, and took out Reto in her sack. Bound tightly in chains and beaten unconscious, she was now no different from an ordinary person.

'That was easier than I expected.'

The plan had gone smoothly: disguise himself as Kadram to lure Reto in and capture her, leave the mansion disguised as Reto, then put her in the prepared food-waste cart and pass through the checkpoint. After all the trouble he had gone to over the past few days—practicing disguises and secretly stealing a cart, clothes, and an entry pass—it felt almost anticlimactic. He had even swallowed a little Illusion bloodline mana in case an overzealous checkpoint official decided to open the cart.

Still, getting out smoothly was all that mattered. Turan changed into the white clothes favored by Arabion nobles, slung Reto over his shoulder, and took to the sky. Flying wizards were nothing new around here, and no one paid him any attention.

After flying west for twenty minutes or so, Turan reached the outskirts of Morgen City. He took out a strand of red hair and cast tracking magic to find his direction.

Before long, he spotted Maysa and three Arabion nobles flying leisurely over a deserted hill. He immediately sent his voice to her on the wind.

["Everything went according to plan, Maysa."]

Of course, there was no way Arabion nobles, who could read the flow of wind, would fail to notice.

"What was that?"

"I think that man sent the wind. Do you recognize him?"

"Never seen him before. He does look a little like Dex..."

Arabion had many nobles, as befitted a great house, but they numbered only a hundred and some. With their lives far longer than those of ordinary people, they generally knew every one of their kin by sight. The only faces they might not recognize belonged to elders who rarely appeared in public.

The reason they did not immediately suspect him was that he was wearing an older version of the young knight's face he had used before. As a blend of several Arabion nobles' faces, it looked vaguely familiar, making them wonder if he was a relative they had never met.

Just as their puzzlement was about to become suspicion, an enormous surge of electricity erupted behind them. Maysa's sudden attack burned all three Arabion nobles to blackened corpses before they could even scream. Looking down at the dead, she muttered as though offering an excuse.

"All three were their lackeys."

"You did well. Let's move."

Had they belonged to the young faction, they might have merely knocked them out, or persuaded them to lie about the direction of their escape. With members of the middle generation, killing them was cleaner. Having cut off every avenue of pursuit, the two flew south at full speed.

* * *

At full speed, a great house's heir-caliber noble could fly several times faster than an ordinary noble could run. They reached Zavillin City, House Berg's territory, in only a couple of hours.

Rather than enter the city immediately, Turan and Maysa landed in a nearby deserted valley. Turan focused his mind on the soul bond, and before long, a black eagle descended.

"Vije!"

Perhaps overjoyed to see her soul-bound companion after so long, Vije chirped, undid the ropes connecting the swing to her legs, and flew into Turan's arms. After rubbing herself against him, she landed on the ground and wrote an epic-length account of how much she had missed him, interspersed with scolding over why he had taken so long.

Guilty of leaving her alone for quite some time, Turan listened patiently, saying, "I know, I know." Watching from behind him, Maysa burst into a little laugh. Meanwhile, a man climbed off the swing Vije had set down and approached Turan.

"You took far too long, you bastard."

The grumbling man wore his gray hair in a ponytail and was dressed like a traveler. From a distance, one might almost have mistaken him for Turan. Up close, of course, his shorter, stockier build and entirely dissimilar face made it clear he was someone else. Solif pulled off the gray wig and spoke.

"Do you know how many days I've spent flying around here on her?"

"You always wanted to ride her. I thought you'd enjoy it."

"For a day or two, maybe."

For the past ten-odd days, while Turan infiltrated Arabion's main house, Solif had been flying around Zavillin in a wig and similar clothes, just as he was now. It was a precaution in case they suspected Turan of helping Maysa escape. With Asiz arranging matters so that he avoided contact with others inside the house, while his double appeared in public, Turan had concealed his absence from House Berg.

"Well, enough of that! You must be the young lady of Arabion. I'm Solif. A pleasure to meet you."

"I've heard a lot about you. I'm Maysa... Ah!"

Maysa accepted Solif's offered handshake, only to scream in horror when his hand came away at the wrist. His prosthetic-hand prank a success, Solif burst out laughing.

"Got you!"

"Don't tell me you've put off getting it healed just to do that."

"What do you take me for, an idiot? We started a little while ago, but it's not healing easily. Still, I've gone from the elbow to the wrist."

As he said, Solif's right arm, once severed above the elbow, had now grown back as far as the wrist. The young Healer Asiz had finally brought over recently seemed to be working quite hard.

Ignoring Maysa's incredulous stare at the two of them, Turan lowered Reto from his shoulder to the ground.

"Well, shall we unwrap the present?"

Soon Maysa would have to ride Vije far beyond Arabion's reach. Before that, they needed to interrogate Reto for information and dispose of her.

Once pulled from the sack, Reto bore little resemblance to her formerly neat self. The repeated punches during her capture had broken her nose and cheekbones, swollen her eyes and lips, and knocked out several teeth.

A splash of water brought her around. Her eyes darted over her surroundings, then she hastily bowed her head to Maysa, the one face she recognized.

"M-my lady, please spare me! I don't know what I've done wrong, but please forgive me..."

Her pleading, nasal voice was so pitiful that even a member of another race might have thought twice before eating her. But Maysa's blue eyes as she looked down at Reto were sharpened with nothing but hatred.

"Was it fun?"

"Pardon?"

"Killing my family. Was it fun?"

Reto's trembling body abruptly stilled. As though her behavior until now had been an act, she raised her head, clicked her tongue, and let out a deep sigh.

"Ah... So you found out? I knew this day would come eventually—Aaaagh!"

Maysa shot a bolt of electricity straight into Reto as she drawled. It was too weak to kill even an ordinary person, but after so long in the chains, an 'ordinary person' was precisely what Reto had become.

"Keep talking."

"I-I'm not sure what you want me to say... How much blood your mother and brother coughed up back then? Something like that?"

To taunt her like that even after being shocked—her courage, at least, was almost admirable. Seeing the enraged Maysa about to fire another bolt, Turan hurriedly stopped her.

"Why..."

"You're too worked up. Take a moment to breathe. I'll question her for now."

Only then did Maysa realize that she had nearly lost herself in rage and killed Reto. She could not let that happen. That woman had to die suffering several times more than her family had.

While Maysa stepped back and closed her eyes to calm herself, Turan briefly explained the situation to a puzzled Solif: this woman was a Zahar-blooded noble who had assassinated Maysa's parents and worked for Arabion.

"A Zahar assassin was working for Arabion? Why in the world?"

"That's what we need to find out. Do you know anything about torture?"

"How would I? Do you?"

"I've never done it, but I think I could if I had to."

Hearing their exchange, Reto chuckled.

"You sound like such greenhorns I can hardly stand listening. Children, I don't know what that girl promised you, but you'd better let me go now. Otherwise, you'll soon regret ever being born. Surely you don't think you can run from Arabion forever?"

Despite being utterly helpless, Reto wore a venomous expression as she threatened them. Yet Turan could smell the thick fear and despair rising from her. Her display was little more than desperation—a thin shell that would peel away at the slightest prod.

"Better yet, tell me something. How did you win Kadram over? I never imagined I'd be ambushed there! Tell me that, and I'll tell you something in return. How about it?"

"I'm the one asking the questions."

"You said you've never tortured anyone. Hurting people takes more than beating, burning, and cutting them. Torture won't work, so you'd be better off getting information this—"

Reto, who had been taunting him so enthusiastically—perhaps to shut out her own anxiety—suddenly stopped. Looking up, Turan found her staring at his face, her swollen eyes stretched wide.

"... Karim?"

"Who's that?"

Startled by his question, Reto snapped her mouth shut, but he could already smell bewilderment and confusion rising from her. Unlike him, of course, Reto would be unable to smell anything on Turan. The inside of her broken nose would be filled with the smell of blood.

"Tell me. Who is Karim?"

"... Who are your parents? No, what bloodline do you belong to?"

Her question told Turan that once again, someone had glimpsed traces of another person in his face. After a moment's thought, he offered a lie he had just invented.

"Talis Zahar."

"What?"

"You should know who that is."

In Komad, the Enril Desert's port city, its lord had told Turan that he resembled Talis, Zahar's second-in-command. If Reto was a wizard raised entirely within Arabion, she would not know Talis's face. But if she wasn't...

"... Now that you mention it, you do look a lot like him. Even your eyes are the same color. He can't have remarried, so are you a bastard?"

Had she seen Turan use the disguise mask, she might have thought even this face was false. But all she remembered was being suddenly beaten by Kadram and waking up here. Who could possibly imagine the existence of a Holy Relic that let someone change their face at will?

Even as she spoke, Reto had unwittingly revealed a crucial piece of information: she was not someone born to serve Arabion, but a noble born and raised in House Zahar. Giving no sign that he had noticed, Turan questioned her again.

"As I said, I'm the one asking questions. Who is Karim?"

Reto answered with a look of incomprehension.

"Lord Talis's son, of course. If what you say is true, he's your older half-brother... Though I suppose you might not know him, since he died during the war?"

At those words, all the clues Turan had gathered fell into place. From what he had learned in Kalamap, the man he believed to be his father had been a young noble. Talis, second-in-command of a great house and the House Head's full younger brother, could hardly be young. If both Talis and his son resembled Turan, then the circumstances strongly suggested Talis was his grandfather, and this Karim his father. More importantly...

"He's dead?"

Hearing that the man who was likely his father had already died filled Turan with both disappointment and relief. Disappointment that he could no longer meet the man who had brought him into the world; relief that, from the circumstances, the man had not betrayed his mother.

"Y-yes. But if you really are Lord Talis's son, hurry up and take these off! I'm only here on orders from above! You know how frightening your father is, don't you?"

Was it because a chance of survival had appeared where she had despaired of even a shred of hope? Reto became desperate and servile, as though her earlier composure had been a lie.

But Turan's face hardened at her claim that she was here on orders from above. It meant that the leadership of the two great houses, which had once gone to war and still snarled at each other, were secretly colluding.