As he had scheduled to be a guest at the Kant territory for a few days, after a rather sumptuous welcome feast, Viscount Victor Kant arranged accommodation for Gawain and his accompanying personnel.
The feeling that this old castle brought to Gawain wasn’t particularly good.
Although its interior was filled with light and warmth — the magic crystal lamps that could be seen everywhere and the doors, windows, tables, and chairs that had been cleaned up to look like new — all dispelled the gloom brought by the arrival of night, but unpleasant feelings still continuously emerged in Gawain’s heart. It was as if he could see the underlying appearance of this castle through those shining windows and painted white walls. —— Behind those polished covers was black, icy cold stone; it was full of slimy moss and cracks in all directions, as well as the shadows and germs that bred ceaselessly in those humid cracks.
After a brief conversation with Victor Kant, Gawain returned to his own room with the excuse of needing to rest first after his journey. This was a room specially set up for distinguished guests. There was a warm fireplace and furnishings as similarly magnificent as the bedroom of the owner of the castle. The two rooms to the left and right of his were Amber’s and Sir Philip’s guest rooms respectively. Opposite their rooms, there was also a lounge where guests could play chess and enjoy some entertainment as well as a place specially set up for tea sampling and reading.
The rain outside the windows was still pouring and showed signs of becoming ever more violent with the winds. Gawain went to the window, watching the Kants’ old castle in the rainy night through this expensive man-made crystal. Wriggly streams of water formed traces that constantly changed on the windowpane, which also made the scenery outside blurry and distorted. And in this fuzzy and distorted visual field, he could see several towers of the Kant castle standing in the night.
There were a few windows with lights lit at the base level of those towers, vaguely depicting the outline of the structure, but their upper portions were a sea of black, almost blending into this dark night.
Gawain carefully observed those towers while frowning. After he focused, he suddenly saw an obvious crevice appear in the middle section of one of the towers.
That crevice seemed to squirm and grow in the dark, swiftly extending to the entire upper section of the tower. They broadened bit by bit, and a blood-like glow leaked from the cracks. —— The tallest tower appeared to be in tatters amidst these bloody cracks and collapsed little by little in a slow-motion manner; there were even exclamations and yells mingled in all that.
Gawain promptly sobered up. The moans of the wind and patter of the rain entered the room through the window again. He saw that the tall tower opposite was back to being intact once more: the collapse and shouts earlier vanished like they’d been a dream.
However, Gawain wouldn’t really take them as hallucinations. He immediately frowned, uncertainty breeding in his mind. “There’s a large-scale illusion in the castle?”
Light footsteps suddenly came from outside the room; they seemed to be heading toward this room. Gawain swiftly sorted out his expression as if nothing had happened. He only walked over to open the door when knocks sounded.
The door was opened. A lady, seemingly 30 years of age, dressed in a white long dress with a lantern in hand stood outside the door. This lady had flaxen hair, while her complexion seemed to be especially pale from being sick and weak. She stood there cautiously, seemingly some hint of reservation and nervousness as she looked at Gawain.
Gawain stolidly examined her with a glance and then revealed a curious look. “Madam?”
“Hello, may I ask if you are Duke Gawain Cecil?” The lady at the door asked in a very low voice as if she would become breathless if she spoke a little louder.
Gawain nodded. “I am Gawain Cecil. Who are you, Madam?”
“Victor Kant is my husband,” this sickly lady who looked to be only around thirty years of age replied softly. Although her voice was very soft, there was still the elegance that an aristocrat lady ought to possess in her tone. “I am the lady of this castle. My name is Lilith Kant.”
“Viscountess?” Gawain looked at the other party in fair surprise. He didn’t expect that Viscount Kant who appeared to be already older than dirt to actually have such a young and pretty wife, but at the thought of the aristocrats’ ‘conventions’, his surprise didn’t last for too long. Instead, he was only curious why he hadn’t seen her at the banquet earlier, nor had he heard the old Viscount mention her. “You didn’t attend the banquet earlier?”
“My body is weak. My illness left me with no way of dining together with many people. Neither am I able to come out to welcome guests in the day,” Lilith Kant said apologetically. “I knew you would be visiting the castle, but my husband insisted I rested till the night before stepping out. ——Now that my spirits are better, he let me come greet the guest.”
Following that, she hung the lantern she held on the hook beside the door and bent slightly to give her greetings. “Welcome, Duke Gawain Cecil, and I also ask that you forgive me for being unable to fulfill my duties as the lady of this territory earlier.”
“Ah, it’s alright.” All sorts of guesses and suspicions leaped out one after another in Gawain’s mind, but the expression on his face remained very indifferent. “Are you only able to come out and move about at night? Oh, I know a little about medicine. It might be of help to your health.”
Lilith Kant revealed a pale smile. “My husband got the best apothecary for me. Only my frailness is not only due to my illness but also because of my natural constitution. This is something that medication cannot cure. But I’m still very thankful for your concern, Duke.”
Gawain had no intention of inviting the Viscountess before him into his room. As she was calling on him alone, such an invitation would be discourteous —— even if this was the Kant Clan’s castle. He only stood at the door and made some small talk with her for a while; then this lady took her leave.
And only after she left did Gawain’s gaze instantly turn fierce.
That lantern in her hand!
That was the magic lantern that Gawain had seen serving as the center of a ritual in the basement of the Kant Clan’s castle in the dream realm. It was precisely the lantern that Gawain Cecil had gifted to the then Dream Bishop, Selena Gerfen, 700 years ago!
However, Gawain did not point it out then and there, nor did he take any action. This was because he hadn’t sensed any fluctuations of magical power from that lantern. This meant that the lantern was ‘fake’ —— it was either a counterfeit or the lantern had been reformed using magic, its true core of power still hibernating somewhere in this castle. And acting rashly in such a situation would highly likely only make things worse.
At this time, a voice coming from his side interrupted Gawain’s thinking. “Eh? Old— Gawain, why are you standing at the door?”
The door next door was pushed open; half of Amber’s head poked out from the door frame. She was staring curiously at him.
And she didn’t wait for Gawain’s response. She promptly stuck out her arm animatedly and waved it, a set of paper cards in hand. “I found a set of ‘King’s deck’ in the room! Get the poker face next door over, and the three of us can play cards!”
“I was intending to get the two of you here, but it isn’t to play cards.” Gawain glanced resignedly at this half-elf and then knocked on Philip’s door.
When he had gathered everyone in his room, Gawain spoke about the lady who’d visited earlier. “I met Victor Kant’s wife, Lilith Kant, just now. There seemed to be something very fishy about her…”
After listening to Gawain’s description, Amber’s sharp ears immediately quivered. “A man that old took a person who could almost be his granddaughter as his wife? Eek—— You bunch of aristocrats are really shameless.”
Following that, her thoughts unraveled. “A person with elven blood like me is still better. If I won’t say it, others wouldn’t dare to guess my age. Even if you, this 700-year-old, married me, you can go out and brazenly tell others that we’re actually of the same age…”
The always serious and solemn Sir Philip instantly stared at Amber in horror. The half-elf girl’s thoughtless and full-of-crap way of speaking had this pitiful upright knight in a real spin once more.
And Gawain’s response to Amber was a hit on her head. “Proper business!”
“We’ve never heard of the existence of such a ‘Viscountess’,” Sir Philip said solemnly. “That Viscount Victor Kant didn’t mention her either. This is very unusual —— even if the Viscountess is unable to receive visitors due to being sickly, it’s unlikely that the Viscount wouldn’t even mention her at all, right? Moreover, there are so many manservants and maidservants in the castle. Not one of them spoke in private about having a mistress here… This is too odd.”
“If we were to put it another way, I’d chatted with the people in the castle earlier,” Amber rubbed her head that had been hit by Gawain as she also joined in the discussion. “Though they didn’t speak of having a mistress in the castle, they mentioned that the old Viscount has a son called Belm. But he’d left the castle at a very young age. It was said that he’d gone traveling in the central region, and it seemed he hadn’t returned for several decades…”
Gawain stroked his chin. “Never returned for several decades? Had he gone traveling, or was he sold away?!”
Amber rolled her eyes. “Perhaps he’d gone to be a hostage in some big aristocratic clan in the central region who had benefits to be exchanged for? Isn’t that the vogue for all of you aristocrats?”
“Don’t spout nonsense. This wasn’t the trend in our days,” Gawain immediately defended solemnly. “In our time, forming alliances relied on one’s self. We didn’t depend on little games like exchanging hostages.”
Sir Philip instantly wore a look of admiration. “That is what a man of integrity ought to do.”
“No, it’s mainly because the old pigeons who founded the kingdom all had short tempers. At that time, anyone who went back on their words would be beaten up by the entire kingdom’s aristocrats. —— Occasionally, when the King had time, the King would personally go do the beating up. As transport wasn’t convenient, everyone took turns. Sometimes, old founding pigeons who dropped in to give a beating would come one after another successively for a whole year. Really, no one dared to break any agreements…”
Philip: “…”
“Oh damn, how did the aristocrats who were that straightforward and honest all end up how they are now,” Amber really yearned for the era that Gawain had described; associating it to the present time, she shook her head rather regrettably. “In short, the heir of the Kant clan, known as Belm, had indeed gone traveling because he often sent letters back. —— If everything goes well, after that old Viscount Kant dies, Belm Kant would end his travels and come back to inherit the family property.”
As he had scheduled to be a guest at the Kant territory for a few days, after a rather sumptuous welcome feast, Viscount Victor Kant arranged accommodation for Gawain and his accompanying personnel.
The feeling that this old castle brought to Gawain wasn’t particularly good.
Although its interior was filled with light and warmth — the magic crystal lamps that could be seen everywhere and the doors, windows, tables, and chairs that had been cleaned up to look like new — all dispelled the gloom brought by the arrival of night, but unpleasant feelings still continuously emerged in Gawain’s heart. It was as if he could see the underlying appearance of this castle through those shining windows and painted white walls. —— Behind those polished covers was black, icy cold stone; it was full of slimy moss and cracks in all directions, as well as the shadows and germs that bred ceaselessly in those humid cracks.
After a brief conversation with Victor Kant, Gawain returned to his own room with the excuse of needing to rest first after his journey. This was a room specially set up for distinguished guests. There was a warm fireplace and furnishings as similarly magnificent as the bedroom of the owner of the castle. The two rooms to the left and right of his were Amber’s and Sir Philip’s guest rooms respectively. Opposite their rooms, there was also a lounge where guests could play chess and enjoy some entertainment as well as a place specially set up for tea sampling and reading.
The rain outside the windows was still pouring and showed signs of becoming ever more violent with the winds. Gawain went to the window, watching the Kants’ old castle in the rainy night through this expensive man-made crystal. Wriggly streams of water formed traces that constantly changed on the windowpane, which also made the scenery outside blurry and distorted. And in this fuzzy and distorted visual field, he could see several towers of the Kant castle standing in the night.
There were a few windows with lights lit at the base level of those towers, vaguely depicting the outline of the structure, but their upper portions were a sea of black, almost blending into this dark night.
Gawain carefully observed those towers while frowning. After he focused, he suddenly saw an obvious crevice appear in the middle section of one of the towers.
That crevice seemed to squirm and grow in the dark, swiftly extending to the entire upper section of the tower. They broadened bit by bit, and a blood-like glow leaked from the cracks. —— The tallest tower appeared to be in tatters amidst these bloody cracks and collapsed little by little in a slow-motion manner; there were even exclamations and yells mingled in all that.
Gawain promptly sobered up. The moans of the wind and patter of the rain entered the room through the window again. He saw that the tall tower opposite was back to being intact once more: the collapse and shouts earlier vanished like they’d been a dream.
However, Gawain wouldn’t really take them as hallucinations. He immediately frowned, uncertainty breeding in his mind. “There’s a large-scale illusion in the castle?”
Light footsteps suddenly came from outside the room; they seemed to be heading toward this room. Gawain swiftly sorted out his expression as if nothing had happened. He only walked over to open the door when knocks sounded.
The door was opened. A lady, seemingly 30 years of age, dressed in a white long dress with a lantern in hand stood outside the door. This lady had flaxen hair, while her complexion seemed to be especially pale from being sick and weak. She stood there cautiously, seemingly some hint of reservation and nervousness as she looked at Gawain.
Gawain stolidly examined her with a glance and then revealed a curious look. “Madam?”
“Hello, may I ask if you are Duke Gawain Cecil?” The lady at the door asked in a very low voice as if she would become breathless if she spoke a little louder.
Gawain nodded. “I am Gawain Cecil. Who are you, Madam?”
“Victor Kant is my husband,” this sickly lady who looked to be only around thirty years of age replied softly. Although her voice was very soft, there was still the elegance that an aristocrat lady ought to possess in her tone. “I am the lady of this castle. My name is Lilith Kant.”
“Viscountess?” Gawain looked at the other party in fair surprise. He didn’t expect that Viscount Kant who appeared to be already older than dirt to actually have such a young and pretty wife, but at the thought of the aristocrats’ ‘conventions’, his surprise didn’t last for too long. Instead, he was only curious why he hadn’t seen her at the banquet earlier, nor had he heard the old Viscount mention her. “You didn’t attend the banquet earlier?”
“My body is weak. My illness left me with no way of dining together with many people. Neither am I able to come out to welcome guests in the day,” Lilith Kant said apologetically. “I knew you would be visiting the castle, but my husband insisted I rested till the night before stepping out. ——Now that my spirits are better, he let me come greet the guest.”
Following that, she hung the lantern she held on the hook beside the door and bent slightly to give her greetings. “Welcome, Duke Gawain Cecil, and I also ask that you forgive me for being unable to fulfill my duties as the lady of this territory earlier.”
“Ah, it’s alright.” All sorts of guesses and suspicions leaped out one after another in Gawain’s mind, but the expression on his face remained very indifferent. “Are you only able to come out and move about at night? Oh, I know a little about medicine. It might be of help to your health.”
Lilith Kant revealed a pale smile. “My husband got the best apothecary for me. Only my frailness is not only due to my illness but also because of my natural constitution. This is something that medication cannot cure. But I’m still very thankful for your concern, Duke.”
Gawain had no intention of inviting the Viscountess before him into his room. As she was calling on him alone, such an invitation would be discourteous —— even if this was the Kant Clan’s castle. He only stood at the door and made some small talk with her for a while; then this lady took her leave.
And only after she left did Gawain’s gaze instantly turn fierce.
That lantern in her hand!
That was the magic lantern that Gawain had seen serving as the center of a ritual in the basement of the Kant Clan’s castle in the dream realm. It was precisely the lantern that Gawain Cecil had gifted to the then Dream Bishop, Selena Gerfen, 700 years ago!
However, Gawain did not point it out then and there, nor did he take any action. This was because he hadn’t sensed any fluctuations of magical power from that lantern. This meant that the lantern was ‘fake’ —— it was either a counterfeit or the lantern had been reformed using magic, its true core of power still hibernating somewhere in this castle. And acting rashly in such a situation would highly likely only make things worse.
At this time, a voice coming from his side interrupted Gawain’s thinking. “Eh? Old— Gawain, why are you standing at the door?”
The door next door was pushed open; half of Amber’s head poked out from the door frame. She was staring curiously at him.
And she didn’t wait for Gawain’s response. She promptly stuck out her arm animatedly and waved it, a set of paper cards in hand. “I found a set of ‘King’s deck’ in the room! Get the poker face next door over, and the three of us can play cards!”
“I was intending to get the two of you here, but it isn’t to play cards.” Gawain glanced resignedly at this half-elf and then knocked on Philip’s door.
When he had gathered everyone in his room, Gawain spoke about the lady who’d visited earlier. “I met Victor Kant’s wife, Lilith Kant, just now. There seemed to be something very fishy about her…”
After listening to Gawain’s description, Amber’s sharp ears immediately quivered. “A man that old took a person who could almost be his granddaughter as his wife? Eek—— You bunch of aristocrats are really shameless.”
Following that, her thoughts unraveled. “A person with elven blood like me is still better. If I won’t say it, others wouldn’t dare to guess my age. Even if you, this 700-year-old, married me, you can go out and brazenly tell others that we’re actually of the same age…”
The always serious and solemn Sir Philip instantly stared at Amber in horror. The half-elf girl’s thoughtless and full-of-crap way of speaking had this pitiful upright knight in a real spin once more.
And Gawain’s response to Amber was a hit on her head. “Proper business!”
“We’ve never heard of the existence of such a ‘Viscountess’,” Sir Philip said solemnly. “That Viscount Victor Kant didn’t mention her either. This is very unusual —— even if the Viscountess is unable to receive visitors due to being sickly, it’s unlikely that the Viscount wouldn’t even mention her at all, right? Moreover, there are so many manservants and maidservants in the castle. Not one of them spoke in private about having a mistress here… This is too odd.”
“If we were to put it another way, I’d chatted with the people in the castle earlier,” Amber rubbed her head that had been hit by Gawain as she also joined in the discussion. “Though they didn’t speak of having a mistress in the castle, they mentioned that the old Viscount has a son called Belm. But he’d left the castle at a very young age. It was said that he’d gone traveling in the central region, and it seemed he hadn’t returned for several decades…”
Gawain stroked his chin. “Never returned for several decades? Had he gone traveling, or was he sold away?!”
Amber rolled her eyes. “Perhaps he’d gone to be a hostage in some big aristocratic clan in the central region who had benefits to be exchanged for? Isn’t that the vogue for all of you aristocrats?”
“Don’t spout nonsense. This wasn’t the trend in our days,” Gawain immediately defended solemnly. “In our time, forming alliances relied on one’s self. We didn’t depend on little games like exchanging hostages.”
Sir Philip instantly wore a look of admiration. “That is what a man of integrity ought to do.”
“No, it’s mainly because the old pigeons who founded the kingdom all had short tempers. At that time, anyone who went back on their words would be beaten up by the entire kingdom’s aristocrats. —— Occasionally, when the King had time, the King would personally go do the beating up. As transport wasn’t convenient, everyone took turns. Sometimes, old founding pigeons who dropped in to give a beating would come one after another successively for a whole year. Really, no one dared to break any agreements…”
Philip: “…”
“Oh damn, how did the aristocrats who were that straightforward and honest all end up how they are now,” Amber really yearned for the era that Gawain had described; associating it to the present time, she shook her head rather regrettably. “In short, the heir of the Kant clan, known as Belm, had indeed gone traveling because he often sent letters back. —— If everything goes well, after that old Viscount Kant dies, Belm Kant would end his travels and come back to inherit the family property.”
