NOVEL NEXT 159 - Duskmere Continues His Investigation.
When I'm walking through the village, Ronan's voice reaches my head.
It has been quite a while, I imagine you have already defeated them, my lady.
He doesn't sound even a little worried.
He holds me in higher esteem than I've proven I deserve. But I'm willing to change that.
Yes, all good. The wolf helped me finish them off.
Great.
I cut the contact. Once at the academy, before taking a bath, I knock on Mary's door to assure her I'm okay.
"You look a bit down. Are you sure you are okay?"
"Yes, Mary," I answer with a somewhat tired smile. "It was harder than I expected. I'm not looking forward to repeating it."
She doesn't know how many wraiths there were or what they actually do, and I'm not going to fill her in.
"Did you level up?"
The truth is I haven't even checked. I haven't felt anything special either. I don't think I leveled up.
"No, reaching level 11 is incredibly hard," I tell her.
As soon as I'm alone—I don't want to do weird things like staring into space while I open the system and check—I'll find out how much experience I've gained.
"As soon as Ronan and I got back from the dungeon, I went to touch the stone slab here at the academy. I'm level 7! You have no idea how grateful I am to you both."
"I'm really happy for you, and even more so knowing that you're going to keep leveling up."
Once in my room, I check my stats and see that I have 11,883 XP. I need 22,026 for level 11. Leveling up gets harder every time. The pup is at 84% toward level 8.
The downside of helping Mary is that I can't leave kills for the pup to level up; it has to settle for 5% of mine. Maybe earlier I could have left some for it on the first floor.
As for the wraiths, there were about seventy. They were the bulk of my XP.
The rest of the afternoon passes without incident. At dinner time, it's just Ronan, Mary, and me. We chat about the dungeon in a relaxed way. Mary seems eager to do it again.
I understand her. Learning new spells and leveling up can be addictive.
I wake up startled. It's Thursday morning and I think I've had another one of those nightmares caused by the assassin I killed.
I let my breathing and heart settle down, check that Judith is sleeping like a log, and trying to make as little noise as possible, I get dressed and go downstairs for breakfast. I have to wait for the dining hall to open.
As I'm finishing my meal, Mary and Ronan arrive. I stay with them until a teaching assistant comes over to our table and tells me that Duskmere wants to see me. I follow him to his office.
"Any news?" I ask once I'm inside and we're alone, since I assume he's calling me about the assassination attempt.
I've taken a seat across from him on the other side of his desk.
"The assassins were hired by a trading house from the kingdom of Daertyle."
That's one of the kingdoms that borders Alverdan.
"A trading house? Why would merchants want to kill me?"
"They would have been contracted by the crown. A way to further mask whose hand wants to eliminate you."
"Because you're sure the attempt was meant for me and not Mary?"
"Mary is a light magic user with great potential, but she doesn't possess a legendary sword that could make a huge difference in the welfare of a kingdom's lower-level citizens."
Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.
Basically, almost everyone who isn't nobility.
"I understand."
"Nor does she possess more than one element," his tone becomes accusatory.
"Excuse me?"
"You told Mary and the bodyguard overheard."
In the park... I wanted to get away from people, just in case there was the extremely rare chance that some air mage was nearby—and, for whatever reason, was spending mana to listen at that moment—and I had the wolf in the fold.
I should have just stayed at the pastry shop.
"But that was the same day. They couldn't have tried to kill me so soon."
"But maybe it slipped out at some other time?"
"Well..."
I start to think back. Ronan knows, Vincent knows... I couldn't swear that at some point, especially with Ronan, I might have said something inappropriate out loud when we thought we were alone. In the goblin forest for sure. With Vincent, I doubt it, because he's an air mage and knows how to take precautions.
"Bianca, we suspect that's one of the reasons they wanted to assassinate you. I wanted to ask if you're aware that something might have slipped out at an inappropriate moment."
"Well, aside from when I train with Ronan in the forest near the village where I practice, I can't think of anything."
He looks at me with a skeptical expression.
"Right. You need to be more careful. Sharing it with Mary the way you did wasn't very smart. That bodyguard told the crown prince. He's loyal to his faction. Apparently, His Highness Sigfrig took advantage of the fact that they were assigning a bodyguard to a student close to his brother to pull strings about who would fill that position, to keep tabs on Vincent. You've been his unexpected prize."
"Prize?"
Now I really don't understand anything.
"You're some kind of magic prodigy, something never before seen, and you have the legendary sword."
Great. Now the heir is going to try to control me or use me somehow? Well, he can at least wait until he's king.
"Is that why you called me? To warn me?"
"I'm not one to speculate about the intentions of our future monarch. And no. The reason I called you is to ask if you've noticed anything suspicious or remembered anything that might give us a clue."
"Hmm... no. I haven't noticed anything suspicious or strange these past few days; I've been in the dungeon most of the time. And I haven't remembered anything either, sorry."
"I see," he murmurs, lacing his fingers together in front of his collarbones, his thumbs resting against them. "I imagine you also haven't remembered anything new about the case I came for, the attempted assassinations of the princes."
"No."
"Well, you might be interested to know that I've closed that case." He looks at me intently and taps lightly with his thumbs on his collarbones. I think he suspects something. "I've concluded that no one tried to assassinate them, that they were unfortunate coincidences. It's clear that something disturbed the balance of the aquatic dungeon's core, increasing its dark mana. But no matter how much I've investigated, no one from this academy, this kingdom, or the neighboring ones has such power. Not even our most promising dark magic student or the few necromancers residing in neighboring kingdoms. There are also no spells or rituals that achieve something like that. The only thing is legends from ancient times about divine beasts. But these beasts, though there's no record of them leaving the world like their masters, did completely disappear. And of all the exam students, only two of you entered with pets. You, who are ruled out because of your magics, and a water magic girl with a little rabbit. After investigating her, I ruled her out too."
He's observing me in detail. But the part about me being ruled out sounded very sincere. I think he suspects I'm keeping some secret, if only because I've been present at both incidents, and I don't want to say what it is. On the other hand, having saved both royals' lives, I also can't be suspected of attempted assassination.
"Divine beasts manipulating a dungeon core? Sir, I doubt anyone from our group in the desert dungeon could do something like that. And I certainly didn't see anything strange in the aquatic one that could suggest such a thing."
"The desert one's core wasn't manipulated. You simply accessed a new level."
"Yes, thanks to my brat pup. Oh." I open my eyes wide. Going for that Oscar. "You don't think?" I pull him out of my pocket and hold him out.
"No, Bianca, that's not necessary. Besides, I already examined him. He's just your little dog."
That's right, I remember that. He examined it. And he didn't notice anything. It's the fourth advantage of my contract: The seed of darkness will hide its dark aura and pass as a puppy dog when the future Dark Lord needs to be in human settlements or interact with other intelligent beings without revealing she is bound to a divine-level magical beast.
Clearly its power exceeds Duskmere's detection abilities.
"Good, that's all" he continues after placing both palms on the desk and leaning slightly toward me. "I told you about my investigation so you can breathe easy regarding your friend Ronan."
"Thank you. If someone from another kingdom has tried to kill me, it would make sense that they would have done the same to the royal siblings."
In this world, they can't go to open war, army against army, but it seems the gods allow palace intrigue, betrayals, and assassinations. As well as the games.
"Only if they also plan to finish off the heir."
Uh, I see him surrounded by bodyguards even to go to the bathroom. I don't like him very much, but I almost feel sorry for him.
"Then, if you'll excuse me, I'll go back to my friends."
"Go ahead."
He dismisses me with a wave of his hand and I notice he's watching me as I leave his office.
The bodyguard—mine—is waiting outside. I give him a look loaded with bad vibes. I can't help it; it just comes out when I remember he's spying on me for Vincent's brother.
Seriously, what is he plotting?
He's already the crown prince. Why does he want to have his brother under control? Vincent is a sweetheart, he'd never scheme to overthrow him.
The bodyguard lowers his eyes to the floor, as if ashamed. Yes, he already knows that I know. Perfect, because I'm done saying anything around this man.