Turan thought of Keorn, the old knight who had lost all his family and friends in the war. It left a bitter taste in his mouth to learn that the house the man took such immense pride in had betrayed him so terribly.

No, when it came down to it, the thousands upon thousands who had died, directly or indirectly, because of the war between the two houses were all victims. While the sheepdogs and young shepherds fought and tore into one another in ignorance, the old shepherds were shaking hands and whispering behind their backs...

He wanted nothing more than to wipe out the leadership of both houses, but he could not. Powerful a wizard as he had become, if the great-house heads were humans, he was at best a wildcat. Even that was an enormous improvement over his former self, when he had been no more than an insect—or something even less.

Suppressing the indignation boiling inside him, Turan spoke quietly to Reto, who sat slumped on the ground.

"Fine. Answer my questions willingly, and I'll let you meet Lord Talis. Who gave you your orders, and how? Whose instructions did you follow in Arabion?"

Reto stared at him in bewilderment.

"No, wait... Didn't you understand? This is what the higher-ups want! You dare interrogate me?"

"Answer the question."

When Turan ignored her warning, Reto looked around and clenched her teeth. The same venom as before glinted in her eyes.

"... Lord Talis. Let me see Lord Talis! I can tell you everything in front of—"

Turan reached out and clamped a hand over her mouth, then lightly pinched her forearm with the other. A chunk of flesh tore free, and a terrible scream rang out behind his hand.

"I'll ask again. In House Zahar—"

"You crazy bastard!"

Rather than respond to the curse, Turan covered her mouth again and tore another piece of flesh from her forearm.

At the sight, not only Solif but even Maysa, who had been glaring with hatred moments before, went white. Both had experienced real combat as heirs to great houses and had killed people, but neither had ever seen a helpless person tormented so thoroughly.

Unlike them, however, Turan felt no emotional disturbance whatsoever, despite torturing someone for the first time in his life. To him, Reto was now a villain who had served those old shepherds, toying with innocent people. Once he defined someone as an enemy—a wolf outside the fence—there was nothing he could not do without hesitation.

Of course, a wizard might have endured it, but Reto, now no different from an ordinary person, could not withstand such brutal torture for long. Before long, pain and blood loss brought her to the brink of death, but Turan would not permit even that escape.

There was Baraha's healing-potion magic tool. It was inefficient on an upper-tier noble's body, but three top-tier nobles pouring mana into it could make up for that inefficiency.

How many times had he forced medicine into Reto's mouth as she shook her head in resistance, restoring her only to break her again? Unable to bear the sight, Solif was the first to leave the valley, saying he would keep watch outside. Even a man who had calmly slaughtered hundreds of pirates found the spectacle too sickening to watch.

With the sound of Vije hopping about and playing on the dirt beside him in the background, Turan steadily honed his torture skills on Reto. Using his keen sense of smell and ability to learn, he analyzed the scent of her pain, discovering where and how to hurt her to cause greater suffering.

At last, when even Maysa, who had merely watched from behind, looked visibly exhausted, Reto muttered with empty eyes.

"I'll talk. No, I'll tell you everything. Please, please stop... Just kill me instead..."

She was utterly quiet compared with her performance when she had first regained consciousness, sobbing and shouting. Turan brought his nose close to the hollow of her neck and deeply inhaled her scent. Amid the heavy reek of blood were fear, despair, and resignation.

* * *

According to the half-broken Reto's confession, the person who had personally dispatched her to Arabion was Rahman, one of Zahar's candidates for heir and a younger cousin of its House Head. Her orders were to faithfully carry out the instructions of six senior Arabion figures, including Kadram Arabion. Since the orders were secret, she did not know who in Zahar knew about them apart from Rahman. In Arabion, only those six and their direct subordinates knew her identity.

Surprisingly, Arabion's House Head was not among the six, and Reto did not know whether he was aware of their secret dealings. Even those six treated her strictly as a maid in his presence, and the House Head gave her no special treatment either.

"Did you ever search the House Head's residence? It wouldn't have been difficult with stealth."

"I never really looked. I thought learning things I didn't need to know would only put me in danger..."

Reto confessed that she had merely carried out her assigned duties mechanically, without trying to learn more about the people issuing her orders. Turan found such passivity absurd, but people like that were the majority in this world.

After checking once more that she was not lying about doing only her assigned work inside the House Head's residence, he turned the subject to the man himself.

"What was the House Head like?"

"Just... an old man. So exhausted that he had no interest in anything in the world..."

Listening beside him, Maysa unconsciously nodded. It seemed she had received much the same impression of her father as Reto had.

Was the House Head controlling everything from behind the scenes and feigning ignorance, or was he truly nothing more than an indifferent supreme ruler? Given Maysa's upbringing, the former seemed more likely, but the latter could not be ruled out entirely.

Running through all manner of hypotheses, Turan next asked how she had operated as a spy for so many years without being discovered. Surely a maid who never aged would inevitably be suspected of being a wizard.

The solution to that problem, however, was absurdly simple. She had pretended to be twenty when she infiltrated the house fifteen years ago, then gradually changed her makeup to make it look as though she was aging.

"People believed that?"

"Yes..."

Turan splashed water over Reto's face, a mess of tears and blood, to wash off her makeup. Sure enough, where she had previously looked to be in her early to mid-thirties, she now looked about twenty-five. Changing one's face without a magic tool—was that not a magical skill in its own right?

His admiration for this discovery was brief. Turan went on to question Reto about the crimes she had committed. These were things already hinted at in the middle-generation nobles' documents, but hearing the perpetrator describe them in detail was another matter entirely.

As he pointed out passages in the documents and annotated them one by one, the subject of Maysa's family arose.

"I used poison on those two... No, three, to be precise. I slipped it into their food when they went on a picnic near the city."

"Poison?"

Turan frowned at the unexpected answer. It was common knowledge that poison did not work on wizards, especially nobles. A knight might die after consuming enough poison to kill hundreds of ordinary people, but a noble could drink it until their stomach burst and recover after little more than a bout of diarrhea. It would be another matter if someone possessed the poison-wielding bloodline descended from the Night Hunter, but that was said to have died out in ancient times.

"Yes. I don't know where they got it, but it was incredibly potent. It killed that woman, who was a noble, however weak she might have been. Even Maysa... Lady Maysa was in danger, though she'd already grown quite powerful by then."

Turan drew his brows together at the news that Maysa had been poisoned too. Apparently, that had been the direct cause of her eating disorder.

What he could not understand was why they had poisoned even her, when she was presumably meant to become a divine being's body. This was a poison potent enough to kill Maysa's mother, a noble, however weak. They must either have known precisely that she would survive, or considered it irrelevant whether she died or suffered serious harm.

"You're certain you don't know where the poison came from?"

"Yes..."

He repeated the question persistently, watching for signs of agitation, but sensed no lie. After confirming the details of several more crimes, he finally ran out of questions.

"Well, I think we've gotten everything we can out of her... Maysa, if you'd like your revenge, I'll step aside."

"No, that's all right."

Unexpectedly, there was little hatred for Reto visible on Maysa's face as she answered.

"She looks like there's nothing left but a shell. And pain... I don't think I could inflict it as thoroughly as you have."

Did that mean merely watching Turan torture her had satisfied her desire for vengeance? Maysa raised her hand, gathered a small charge of electricity, and sent it crashing down to end Reto's life.

A short time later, with Solif back, the three of them and the black eagle absorbed the dead woman's mana, dispersing her soul. Once they had erased every last trace, Solif spoke into the somewhat awkward silence.

"That torture. Didn't it bother you?"

"Not really. It had to be done anyway."

Solif opened his mouth at Turan's answer, then shook his head.

"They weren't kidding when they said desert nobles were cold-blooded... Well, fine. Cruelty to your enemies is a necessary virtue. As long as you're good to our side."

The way he muttered sounded more like he was trying to convince himself than speaking to anyone else.

In truth, Turan knew this aspect of his personality was far from ordinary. Most people could not become so numb merely by deciding someone was an enemy. That was why, when Keorn had once praised him as a good person, he had inwardly disagreed.

Once they had more or less finished putting things in order, Turan addressed Maysa, who looked rather dazed.

"Then it's time we parted ways."

"So it is."

Unlike Maysa, who was fleeing far away, Turan and Solif planned to return to the Berg residence. They needed to distribute the documents they had obtained among the vassal houses to stir outrage, and prevent Arabion from exerting undue pressure. Even if everything went wrong, they would at least have to help the Berg family escape.

"I think we should feed you before you go. It'll be a while before we meet again."

"Ah..."

At Turan's words, Maysa glanced back at Solif, looking rather embarrassed.

"Feed her?"

"As I mentioned before, Lady Maysa has difficulty eating, so I have to help her."

"How?"

Rather than answer immediately, Turan glanced at Maysa. He thought she might find it humiliating to have someone know he knocked her unconscious and inserted a tube down her throat to feed her.

"May I tell him, Maysa? You might need to ask him to help if I'm not around someday."

Maysa gave a small groan, then nodded. When Turan explained how he rendered her unconscious and delivered food into her stomach through a tube, Solif gaped.

"... I take back what I said earlier. You really are a crazy bastard."

* * *

After one final feeding, Maysa flew south on the swing suspended from Vije. Her destination was the hot springs in Shiraf Marsh.

If Vije helped her establish friendly relations with Aicul, the Monkey King, there would be nothing nearby capable of touching her. Lida, who often visited the place, was not particularly belligerent either, so there was no need to fear a fight.

After secretly returning to the Berg residence, Turan told Asiz everything that had happened. Asiz sank deep into his chair and shook his head vigorously, as though struggling to bear the pressure.

"You really went and did it... So now it's a contest of nerve?"

"That's right."

In a few days at the earliest, or a few weeks at the latest, Arabion would learn that an unidentified accomplice had helped Maysa escape. Turan guessed he would surely be around third or fourth on their list of suspects. Reto and other Zahar nobles would occupy the first few places.

His task now was to establish that he was not that accomplice while protecting House Berg from unjust pressure. In other words, a kind of show of force. With his current strength, it was entirely feasible, but the restriction of having to pretend to possess the Barrier-user bloodline meant it would not be easy.

"Can we weather this?"

"Absolutely."

He had already arranged for couriers to deliver anonymous accounts of the Arabion nobles' corruption to each vassal house. With all of them enraged, could Arabion impose excessive penalties on House Berg, or try to destroy it? Unless Arabion's House Head attacked in person, that was out of the question. Without even being certain that Turan was responsible, the cost of attempting such a thing would far outweigh the gain.

Several days passed. Unexpectedly, the Arabion nobles did not come storming in, even by the time Solif's hand was fully healed. Through Vije's return, Turan confirmed that Maysa had arrived safely at the hot springs. He also became acquainted with Lua, the woman with the Healer Bloodline who had been treating Solif.

On learning that Turan was the patron paying for Solif's treatment, she proposed several plans to improve commoners' lives, and Turan readily provided the money. He was pleased to see a shepherd caring well for her sheep, and the payment also served to buy her silence regarding Solif's treatment.

About another week later, the corruption documents secretly sent to the houses began to take effect. Several outraged vassal houses sent proposals that they travel together to Morgen City to protest.

Naturally, Turan had sent an anonymous letter to House Head Midella as well, so House Berg joined them. When Turan and Solif offered to accompany her, she was delighted. With a show of force needed, Turan was welcome, of course, and even Solif, the supposed wandering noble, would be useful simply by adding to their numbers.

Leaving only Haram and Asiz's father behind to guard against the unexpected, the Berg family set out for Morgen City with dozens of knights. More than a dozen noble houses had already gathered there. It was an immense force, with dozens of nobles alone and hundreds of knights, recalling the earlier Dark Elf subjugation force.

"So the Head of Berg has come as well."

"Of course. I couldn't believe Maysa had been living in such conditions! What on earth were they thinking—"

The fury of Midella, Head of Berg and cousin to Maysa's mother, was perfect for inflaming the mood. As everyone awaited Arabion's official response, dozens of Arabion nobles approached along Morgen City's main avenue.

Turan's expression hardened at the presence he sensed among them. Beside him, Solif asked quietly,

"What is it?"

"He's here."

Arabion's House Head, Badal Arabion. When Turan told him the man had come in person, Solif clicked his tongue.

"If he comes after us here, aren't we all dead?"

"Surely not."

Would they try to drag Turan away for questioning without a shred of evidence that he was responsible? That would mean throwing away the entire position of privilege Arabion had maintained. Whatever the House Head, the leadership, or that divine being were thinking, they could not do such a thing so long as they intended to preserve the existing order. And if Arabion's House Head ignored all that and attacked him anyway—

'We should be able to block one blow and escape.'

If he faced the House Head alone, he would probably die in a single strike. But here, there were dozens of nobles, starting with Solif. No matter how transcendent an opponent's strength, numbers like these afforded some capacity to resist.

If he weathered the attack, mingled with the fleeing crowd, and flew away on Vije, not even Arabion's House Head could catch him. Vije was far too fast for any human flying with wind magic to keep up.

Even as he reasoned this out, Turan felt cold sweat running down his back from involuntary tension. No matter how certain one was of escaping, it was only natural to feel fear and unease when a beast capable of tearing one apart approached.

Then Badal Arabion opened his wrinkled mouth and spoke.

["My brothers, I regret that we have gathered under such unfortunate circumstances."]

As before, the House Head's words carried clearly for hundreds of meters in every direction through wind magic. From behind the assembled house heads, Turan gradually edged closer, pushing the Holy Relic's senses to their utmost as he tried to examine the man's symbols.

The closer he came, the clearer the initially hazy symbols became. Arabion's distinctive lightning-laden cloud, and beneath it, a tightly clenched fist... Three kinds of symbols shone brightly.