When Maysa woke after losing consciousness from the poison, the House Head's lawful wife, Anieta Nagin, came to see her and threatened her in a mocking tone.

["This accident was entirely your mother's fault. She thought bearing one strong daughter gave her the right to be insolent to me. So mind yourself from now on, won't you? If you go running your mouth anywhere, you or your mother's relatives will meet a similar fate. You understand what I mean, don't you?"]

After watching the two deaths truly be swept aside as an "accident," Maysa had steadily nurtured her hostility toward the woman from House Nagin and the main house's leadership. Of course, all she could do was heap curses on her two older half-brothers, in letters and in person.

Ever since hearing this story, Turan had wondered what role House Nagin played. Had Arabion's middle generation merely used them as an excuse to torment Maysa, or was there some deeper bond between the two...?

And now, all of a sudden, Renod Nagin was being linked to the librarian's disappearance. Turan cleared his throat lightly to suppress the tremor in his voice, then asked another question.

"Did he happen to mention where he was going? He's close to an acquaintance of mine, so I'd like to pay my respects if he hasn't gone too far."

"Oh, is that so?"

His face openly said, A mere wandering noble has ties to a wizard from a great house?

"Yes. Renod Nagin was originally the son of Arabion's House Head, but he manifested his maternal family's bloodline and was adopted into House Nagin. I'm friends with his younger half-sister, Lady Maysa."

"The Skeleton Prin—Arabion's heir, you mean! I've heard her name. You certainly have an impressive acquaintance."

Perhaps the demonstration of his familiarity with a great house's internal affairs had worked. Unlike before, Gillon accepted his explanation without showing any suspicion. Or perhaps Renod had told him something similar during his visit.

More remarkable, in fact, was that Maysa's appearance was infamous enough to be known even here, so far away. Then again, her reputation had reached even the Enril Desert.

Just then, Marvin Valtas, who had been quietly eating, slipped a question into the conversation.

"Is she really that scrawny? I've heard she's so hideous that one look at her makes you fear she'll haunt your dreams."

"Shut your mouth, Marvin! She isn't someone you can speak of so carelessly!"

Startled by Gillon's shout, Marvin ducked his head. Speaking ill of Maysa when Turan had just said they were friends!

What if Turan passed those remarks on to her? There were rules governing relations between nobles, but needlessly earning the enmity of someone powerful was still foolish.

Of course, this attempt to salvage the situation was pointless: Maysa was struggling to keep her expression under control after being called hideous to her face. Naturally, neither of the brothers suspected she was the Skeleton Princess herself.

"Ahem. My apologies, but if you could forget what was just said..."

"Of course. I see no need to pass unpleasant remarks on to a friend. Now, about my earlier question?"

At any rate, Marvin's thoughtless remarks had given Turan a little more control over the conversation.

"Ah, you asked where he was going? He said he intended to return to his main house for now. He may well be there already."

"I see."

Turan clicked his tongue softly, feigning disappointment, then asked how many attendants Renod Nagin had brought, how long he had used the library, and how long he had stayed in Orem. Perhaps hoping to make amends for the earlier indiscretion, Gillon answered diligently, giving him a considerable amount of information.

* * *

After the banquet ended, Turan invited Maysa and Solif to his quarters and dismissed all the maids. Naturally, their discussion concerned what connection Renod Nagin might have to the librarian's disappearance.

"For a start, because of the war, no one except Renod has visited the library in the past few months. That makes him our only real suspect. Unless someone else sneaked in, as I did."

"What we heard about his visit was absurd to begin with. He came barging in with three nobles, forty knights, and even monsters, demanded access to the library, then went in alone for a few minutes and left immediately? He claimed it would be impolite to linger in a city at war, but... if that was his concern, he shouldn't have come at all."

Solif muttered in disbelief. He was right: if Renod had had any other business in the library, he should have stayed at least an hour or two. Even skimming the covers to see whether it held a particular book would have taken tens of minutes.

"Maysa, did he like books?"

"I don't really know. I haven't seen the bastard since he was adopted into House Nagin when I was nine. But I don't remember ever seeing him read."

Turan nodded slightly at her answer. If someone who wasn't particularly fond of books had brought other nobles to a library, it had to be house business. The circumstances made it highly likely that Renod had interfered with the librarian.

The problem was that they had no idea how he had detected the librarian and destroyed or captured him—or why he had suddenly done so now.

"If Renod could do anything to the old gentleman, he must have at least three bloodline abilities. Otherwise, the great-house wizards who visited the library before would have been able to see him too."

"Or couldn't he have used some sort of tool? Say he walked into the library and opened a flask that sucked the spirit inside and trapped it. Something like that."

"There are magic tools like that?"

"There are stories about a Holy Relic like that in the east. I don't know whether it really exists, though."

While Solif earnestly answered Maysa's startled question, Turan tapped the desk, deep in thought.

"House Nagin's bloodlines were Dominator and Tamer, weren't they?"

"I've heard of Tamers, but never Dominators. Do they only exist in the west?"

"They're almost impossible to find here, too. Actually, House Nagin might be the only people with that bloodline."

Maysa answered Solif calmly. As the name suggested, the Dominator bloodline granted power over living beings, but for such a grand name, it offered little practical value. As Turan had once learned firsthand, magic that controlled living things barely worked on Magic Creatures.

Of course, its power to control living beings was correspondingly exceptional. A powerful noble could command hundreds of thousands of humans with a gesture—but what use was that? A noble of that caliber with a different bloodline ability could wipe out hundreds of thousands with ease anyway.

There was always a reason a bloodline hadn't spread widely. Either it was so powerful that it had been strictly controlled and eradicated, or it was too useless to spread.

After hearing the explanation, Solif spoke with a puzzled look.

"But do spirits have mana? Wraiths obviously do, but..."

"Of course... No, he didn't."

Turan realized he hadn't sensed any flow of mana from the librarian's body during their last meeting. In other words, although he was a spirit born from a magically constructed building, the librarian himself was not a Magic Creature.

"Then they might have controlled the spirit with the Dominator bloodline—or be trying to."

"If they destroyed him, that's one thing, but that would be trouble. I've told him so much. If they've abducted and interrogated him..."

"We'd have to assume they know practically everything about you?"

"Exactly."

Turan groaned quietly, realizing how troublesome the situation was. From what he had learned about the Night Hunter in the underground labyrinth to his own bloodlines, the librarian knew no small number of secrets.

"I'll have to check for myself. I also want to know why they suddenly went into the library now, of all times."

Even if House Nagin harbored a divine being who found the librarian's existence objectionable, wasn't it strange to act suddenly after leaving him alone for thousands of years? The only unusual recent event was his meeting with Turan, and no matter how Turan considered it, that hardly seemed reason enough to eliminate him.

Looking at it another way, perhaps they had only just learned that the librarian existed? The only possible trigger he could think of was his own careless mention of the librarian to the Valtas nobles on his first visit.

No, it seemed far too strange for that story to have made its way all the way to House Nagin. They were only one region apart, but the western wilderness and Nagin's snowfields were practically different cultural worlds.

At Turan's declaration, Solif spoke with an uncertain look.

"You're not planning to take Nagin head-on, are you? They're a backwater great house, so they wouldn't be on Arabion's or Zahar's level, but... somehow, I feel like you'd actually do it if you said you would."

All great houses were powers ordinary wizard houses had to look up to, but even among them there was a hierarchy.

The most highly regarded were the ancient houses founded immediately after the old empire's collapse by direct descendants of the Freyans, before their power had fully waned. Arabion and Zahar belonged to this category, with histories stretching back at least two to three thousand years.

A step below them were the great houses established when bloodline combination produced a new founding ancestor. Baraha, Ravista, and Karmine fell into this category, generally boasting histories of one to two thousand years.

Nagin was a rising great house founded later still, less than five hundred years ago. To an ordinary human, that was an unfathomable span of time, but to nobles, who counted a hundred or two hundred years as a generation, they were nothing more than newly risen upstarts. That was why they had settled in the barren snowfields despite being a great house.

Still, a great house was a great house, and there was a strong possibility that some divine being stood behind them. A direct clash would be not merely dangerous, but reckless.

"Attacking them outright would be madness. First, we'll pursue Renod. If we're lucky, we can catch him before he returns to House Nagin. If not, I'll infiltrate them like before."

"Didn't you say it's been a month? Isn't that more than enough time to get home?"

"It would be if a single noble ran home alone, but he brought dozens of knights. We don't notice because we ride Vije, but the world's bigger and harder to travel through than you'd think. Even more so when you're traveling with a large group."

"True, now that I think about it... it took me months to get from Baraha to the South Sea. And I was alone."

Nobles and knights might be swifter on foot than ordinary people, but unless they were on a proper road, they still had to take detours around terrain. They also had to stop to eat and sleep along the way, so they could never move as fast as they could by flying.

Worse, no road from the old empire connected the western wilderness to the northwestern snowfields where House Nagin resided, forcing them to take a roundabout route.

Maysa, who had been listening quietly, asked in a low voice.

"Then are we leaving first thing tomorrow? I don't think the lord here will like that."

"We're leaving right now. I'm sorry, but we're in too much of a hurry to worry about his dignity. There's no helping it."

* * *

Announcing their hasty departure honestly would likely only waste time in an argument, so Turan left a single note and departed Orem City with his companions. The three boarded the swing pulled by Vije and flew straight north, on and on.

Needing every bit of speed they could muster, they even fed her restorative potions and flew literally without rest for a day and a half. In that brief span, they covered a distance that would have taken Turan more than a fortnight to run himself.

The problem was that none of them had been here before. They didn't know Renod's route—or even where House Nagin's seat was. The only way to solve that was through legwork.

"Find anything?"

"Yes. They passed through three days ago. Northwest."

"At least we found their trail. Let's get back on, then."

"Ugh, I'm sick of this."

Whenever they spotted a village or city, they secretly landed nearby and asked whether House Nagin's wizards, led by Renod, had passed through, then set off again in the reported direction.

Naturally, Turan made sure to keep changing his face with the disguise mask throughout the process. If a clash did occur, someone would come asking who had been following them.

Only after another full day of searching did Turan's party finally catch up to Renod.

"Found them."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes. Three nobles and thirty-eight knights... The other two probably died or split off on some other business. There are three monsters, too. They're probably bonded to the nobles."

"From what we heard earlier, Nagin's capital was four days away, so they would have reached the main house tomorrow or the day after. We got lucky."

In the dark of night, Turan used the Holy Relic's senses to survey the Nagin wizards' camp from hundreds of meters away as clearly as the palm of his hand. Gillon had said Renod was the nobles' leader, so the most powerful wizard among them was probably him. Sure enough, one of the three had upper-tier noble mana.

"You said Renod isn't considered an heir in House Nagin, right?"

"Right. Just someone fairly capable."

"That certainly matches what I can see."

Leaving Maysa, Solif, and Vije waiting to one side, Turan cast stealth magic and entered House Nagin's camp. There were barriers around it, perhaps because one of the nobles was a Barrier-user, but with senses that could see through them and the ability to fly, he passed them without difficulty.

"Whew, it's getting chilly. It really feels like we're back home."

"It was summer down south. Nice and warm."

"You thought that was warm? I was dying of the heat."

"A knight, talking such nonsense!"

Turan paid little heed to the knights' chatter as he approached Renod, keeping away from the bright campfires. On the way, he saw an enormous beast pass beside him with a rumbling growl.

'A wolf... No, a dog?'

A dog whose head stood as high as a person even on all fours was prowling around, looking in Turan's direction. There were also a bear and an elk, both larger still. It was a fitting assortment for a great house with the Tamer bloodline.

Soon, Turan reached the largest tent, where Renod was staying. Before entering, he heightened the Holy Relic's senses and saw the symbols belonging to the person inside. A hand reaching toward a doglike beast would be the Tamer, and strings attached to a human figure, controlling it from above, would be the Dominator.

Fortunately, he could see no symbols beyond those two.

'Two bloodline abilities, at least for now. But just in case—'

Activating every defensive magic tool he possessed, Turan tensely lifted the tent flap and stepped inside. If Renod revealed his power as a vessel for a Freyan, Turan would detonate the Spirit of Fire, and Maysa and Solif would come running at once.

Yet despite all his precautions, Renod merely lounged crookedly in a chair, looking bored, and showed no particular reaction. After waiting nearly a minute, Turan let out a small sigh of relief.

'What? So it wasn't Renod?'

He had suspected Renod because of his apparent ability to harm the librarian, yet surprisingly, the man not only had just two bloodlines but had failed to notice Turan's approach. Of course, without some special means, even a top-tier noble normally couldn't detect a Zahar noble in stealth. Or perhaps, as with Badal Arabion before, a third bloodline would not appear until he activated his mana.

Turan calmly examined the magic tools on Renod and inside the tent, one by one. If they had subdued a spirit, they would surely have put it in some object imbued with magical power.

'It probably isn't the cloak... The staff looks suspicious. Should I take it? Leave it for now. He's wearing the ring, so I can't steal that without him noticing. And this is—'

His gaze finally settled on a chest in a corner of the tent—or rather, the jewelry box inside it. It was a little larger than his palm. Not only did it hold a notably stronger flow of mana than the other magic tools, but he could see something gray wavering within.

'Could this be it?'

Everything, from its appearance to the qualities he perceived through the Holy Relic, told him the same thing. This had to be a magic tool for sealing spirits.

After a quick glance at Renod, Turan tucked the jewelry box into his clothing, left the tent, and returned to Maysa and Solif. Naturally, none of House Nagin's wizards noticed a thing.

Dropping his stealth, Turan let out a deep breath.

"Whew."

"Did you find it? Is Renod the one?"

"You weren't spotted, were you?"

Maysa and Solif, who had been waiting anxiously, hurried to question him. Both seemed to have felt the strain of waiting nearby, knowing they might have to fight a divine being.

"I wasn't spotted, and I found this. I'm not certain, but I think it probably holds what we're looking for."

"A magic tool? None of us is an Enchanter, so we can't check it right now. Is it safe to just open it?"

"There's no time to visit Asiz. If this isn't it, we'll have to ambush them, subdue them, and question them. Vije, could you keep the swing attached? We might have to flee immediately."

[Got it!]

Smiling slightly at Vije's writing, which seemed to say he could count on her, Turan carefully opened the jewelry box. Since he had to consider the possibility of a trap, he stood a little apart from the others with his defensive magic tools activated.

Thick smoke poured out with a hiss, followed by someone's muttering from within.

"Hmm, where am I now?"

"It's been a while, sir."

Recognizing the librarian's voice, which he had heard not so long ago, Turan greeted him with a smile.