“…An eagle. If it’s the divine beast of Count Tereze, it might be able to find it.”

A divine beast is still fundamentally an animal, so if they let it smell the scent of the paper and track down a place with the same scent, it might be able to find the location of the study.

As soon as Merche reached a promising conclusion, she thoroughly searched the surroundings and picked up a piece of torn paper.

Then she called over Tereze’s eagle, which was aimlessly circling near the corpse, opening and closing its beak, and let it smell the scent. The eagle, understanding her intention, concentrated its sensitive sense of smell and walked step by step towards a certain place.

After following the eagle for a while, at some point, the eagle stopped walking and halted in place.

Is this really the study? What she saw in front of her eyes was not even a building, but seemed to be just the traces of one remaining.

As Merche hesitated, the eagle, seemingly impatient at her reaction, grabbed pieces of the building’s debris one by one with its talons or beak and threw them far away.

Then, the space hidden within the collapsed ruins finally revealed its entrance.

The door to the secret space collapsed with just a few kicks from Rude, without even needing to find a lock.

“Elder sister…?”

“Christine!”

Merche ran and tightly embraced Christine, who walked out dazedly through the crumbled gap.

Christine, having also faced a life-threatening situation, sobbed for a while and nestled obediently in her elder sister’s arms, as if melting away the anxiety that had piled up like a mountain.

“Young lady! Oh my, how haggard you’ve become!”

Karin, who belatedly came out supporting someone, immediately ran to Merche, crying loudly.

Merche, who was about to worriedly ask if she was alright and if anything had happened inside, belatedly noticed a man with a haggard complexion standing alone in the distance, gazing at this place.

As if moved by his survival, he whimpered shyly, and when his eyes met Merche’s, he hiccupped and shrugged his shoulders.

“Are you perhaps Count Ailean of the Sano family?”

“Yes, elder sister. That person is Sir Ailean.”

Although the question was directed at Ailean, the one who provided the answer was Christine.

Christine glared at him and almost wrote an entire novel’s worth of complaints about how timid and frustrating the young master was, how sickly and weak he was, and how many days she had fought with him.

However, even until the end of that long and lengthy reproach, Ailean did not intervene in any way.

Merche pondered. Among the nobility, there are occasionally people like Ailean.

People who have difficulty dealing with others and shrink back in fear even at small things.

Moreover, the current Ailean was in a situation where his family was facing a bloody storm and everything was unstable, so she had to consider the high possibility that he was not in a suitable state for conversation.

“…Count Ailean.”

However, in the end, she couldn’t avoid talking to him.

Aside from obtaining information about what happened here and what became of the head of the Sano family… Merche had something she needed to say to him, didn’t she?

Ailean, who stiffened his body even when only his name was called, slowly and politely lowered his head to Merche.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you for the first time. I am Merche Venenum.”

“…Yes.”

“I sincerely thank you for healing my younger sister’s eyes. I know it’s a favor that cannot be repaid with anything.”

“…Ah, no. Christine is also my close friend, so it’s not something to be thanked for.”

Ailean’s voice, heard for the first time, had an uncontrollable tremor that could be felt even in a brief moment.

What’s with that goat? Rude muttered discontentedly beside her, but Merche looked at Ailean even more warmly than before.

For him, apologizing would actually come first.

No matter what, just the fact that he healed Christine’s eyes was something she could only be grateful for beyond words, but she even missed the timing and lost the opportunity to protect his family forever.

She should definitely express her apology. With that resolution, Merche walked a few more steps and approached Ailean.

“Actually, Count Ailean. Before coming here, I received a warning from Count Tereze of Aquila that a terrible thing would happen.

Although I hurried the schedule as much as possible to rush here, in the end, I was too late and ruined everything, so it’s difficult to even fathom what words to use to apologize.”

At those words, Ailean’s face became a little somber.

Even with eyes that seemed like he would cry if someone just lightly touched him, he finally managed to hold back his tears without shedding them and blinked his eyes several times, trembling his eyelashes.

After biting and releasing his lips repeatedly for a while, he answered Merche’s question.

“No. How could that be your fault…? The sin lies with Aquila, who attacked our family for no reason, not with you. So please don’t apologize like this.”

That’s right. How is it elder sister’s fault? It’s Aquila, who carried out this terrible massacre, who should apologize!

Even Christine, who was watching the conversation, raised her voice and shouted.

However, right around this time, when the subject of the conversation was flowing towards condemning Aquila’s cruel massacre, Merche had one thing she absolutely had to bring up.

She waited silently for Ailean’s damp eyes to dry, and when he looked at her with a clear question of ‘Why isn’t she saying anything?’, Merche opened her mouth again.

“Count Ailean. Actually, the one who planned this evil scheme is not the head of Aquila, but someone else.”

“Pardon?”

“The one who truly wanted to destroy Sano is His Highness Prince Magnus.”

“…Ah.”

But surprisingly, Ailean nodded without much surprise.

“Yes, I know. That His Highness Prince Magnus is deeply involved in this matter.”

“…Count. Excuse me for asking, but how did you know that fact?”

For a moment, Ailean’s face darkened.

He was a person like a mirror, completely different from the numerous nobles who could hide their true intentions without even blinking an eye.

His eyes, especially resembling those of a cow, had an aspect that tugged at the heartstrings of the beholder.

The emotion that Ailean clearly revealed now was fear.

Just as a cow about to be slaughtered blinks its eyes, knowing its fate, Ailean also blinked his eyes several times, trembling his eyelashes, unable to overcome the fear that consumed him.

After repeatedly biting and releasing his lips for a while, he answered Merche’s question.

“I met him a little while ago…”

Him. In context, it must be referring to Prince Magnus. Then, does that mean Magnus personally came here and met Ailean?

Confusion piled up without a single gap.

“His Highness… told me to hand over our family’s heirloom, that is… the precious item bestowed by King Iker. If, if not, he said he would kill me… Heu, hic!”

“Count. It’s alright. You don’t have to say any more, so first catch your breath.”

“Haa, hic…!”

Ailean finally gasped and clutched his chest.

Hot tears flowed from his eyes, narrowed in pain, thoroughly wetting his roughened cheeks.

Christine, unable to bear the sight of his pitiful and miserable appearance, gritted her teeth and concurred.

She said that Ailean’s words were true, that the wicked prince threatened him so vilely to take away someone else’s heirloom.

“How can a person do that? He even threatened to throw Alienor’s body off a cliff so that it could never be found if he didn’t hand over what he wanted. How can such a person be called a prince with noble blood!”

“…Why? Why go to such lengths to threaten…?”

Merche expressed her doubts faintly, as if talking to herself.

What exactly is that heirloom that he had to go to such lengths to obtain it? What is the reason why Prince Magnus not only gave orders but also personally came here?

In an instant, her mind became chaotic.

It was as if someone brought a very loud bell and rang it in her ear, stimulating Merche’s instincts with something fast and intense.

Merche carefully searched through her memories and finally realized the identity of the ‘something’ she was feeling now.

It was an ominous feeling.

A red premonition so immense and deep in color that it could never be ignored even if one tried.

A chilling energy that seemed to penetrate her entire body from head to toe.

“Count Ailean. Can you tell me exactly what that precious item, the heirloom of Sano, is?”

“…It is a record personally written by King Iker during his lifetime.”

“If it’s a record, what kind of record is it?”

“I have only read it three times myself, so I haven’t fully grasped everything… The content is so vast that it would be difficult to summarize what it’s about.”

Ailean slowly began to recite the list of records as he thought of them.

King Iker’s oldest memory, the record of the day he first met the heads of the six families, King Iker’s divine objects, his coronation ceremony…

“…King Iker’s divine objects.”

Her nerves stood on end all at once, as if a thorn had been stuck in her finger at that point.

The king’s three divine objects. Something Merche had also once tried to find related information about by searching through the entire Venenum library.

She gathered the scattered fragments one by one in her hand.

Prince Magnus and the divine objects of King Iker he had collected so far. What was he unable to find among the three divine objects?

In the past, at a gathering of the heads of the five families, he declared that he possessed two of King Iker’s divine objects.

That was something Rude personally heard and conveyed, so it was undoubtedly true.

Then, what were the two divine objects that Magnus had collected?

“Rude. Do you remember what each of the divine objects Prince Magnus revealed were?”