NOVEL NEXT Chapter 22: Why is magic so prescriptivist!
The Investigators’ interrogation of the Cordovans didn’t take too long.
“Thank you for your time and cooperation,” Lead Investigator White finally said. He closed the files in front of him and looked at Baron Cordovan opposite him. “Are there any questions you’d like to ask us before we depart?”
“This matter is dreadful. My late sister and the late Earl would be reassured that their son was able to catch those killers,” Baron Cordovan said sombrely. “We won’t delay the Investigators’ time any further.”
One of the Royal Guards opened the door, letting Baron Cordovan out. Lady Cordovan was waiting outside, having already finished her own interrogation interview.
Rian also stood up and walked out of the interrogation room.
“Thank you for speaking with the Investigators, I’m sure Earl Rosewood appreciates this,” Rian said politely. “I believe that the funerals will be planned soon. We shall meet again, Baron Cordovan, Lady Cordovan.”
Baron Cordovan’s lips thinned slightly. “Of course, your Highness,” he said shortly. With that, Baron Cordovan and Lady Cordovan farewelled the Investigators and the prince and departed.
Unbeknown to Baron Cordovan, Senior Investigator Marais had gone to the Cordovan’s house in the neighbouring Cordovan fief in secret, while another Investigator in the Capital had gone to the Cordovan’s main capital home in secret to check their servants.
The assassins might not have known who was hiring them, but they had suspicions. Because Ayden Rosewood had caught them and because Ayden and the town guards kept them unconscious until the Capital Investigators came, the assassins also didn’t have time to cast any spell that could have prevented them from being questioned.
And so questioned they had been. The Investigators had used invasive methods to trace back the memories of the assassins and uncovered the features of the people that had hired them.
Earlier, Rian had suggested that these people might be servants. The Investigators compared those memory-details with the servants employed by the Rosewoods first. Again, it was Rian’s suggestion to check the Cordovans’ servants for completeness…
After all the interrogations and secret investigations, the Investigators and Prince Rian all reconvened in a group meeting back at the Rosewood summer manor.
Senior Investigator Marais was grave. “Yes,” he said directly. “I found some matching people at the Cordovan’s summer manor.”
Rian’s eyelids lowered a fraction. The Cordovans really hadn’t been careful enough.
Marais continued to speak, explaining his investigative process before revealing the names and backgrounds of the people whose body outline, voice, way of speaking, way of walking etc. matched the assassins’ memory-details.
Lead Investigator White deliberated. “Then it would seem that Baron Cordovan is behind the deaths.”
“Alternatively, it’s possible that someone else framed the Baron,” Rian said calmly. “It won’t be good if the wrong people are accused.”
Investigator Bennett made a face. “Yes, it won’t be good to offend incorrectly.”
Rian tilted his head in thought. “I’ve been learning a lot of history lately with Count Aegean. It’s not that common for nobles to be murdered like this. Not only that, but six assassins were sent after the Rosewood family. Given that Roland Rosewood was unable to fend them off, those assassins were highly skilled, and thus must be very expensive.”
What Rian left unsaid was that the Cordovans weren’t that wealthy. They were barons, the lowest of the peerage. Marie Cordovan, who had been the best mage of her family’s generation, had married into the Rosewood family.
Junior Investigator Bennett nodded. “If it weren’t for Earl Ayden Rosewood’s fire ability, those six assassins would have escaped.”
Senior Investigator Marais narrowed his eyes. “I did notice something off about the Cordovans’ manor. Contact the Capital and have them examine the Cordovans’ recorded income and taxes. Bennett, re-question those assassins and find their rate.”
“Yes, sir.”
Lead Investigator White stroked his beard. “Bennett, draft a report for the King about this and hand it to me.”
“Yes, sir.”
Rian looked between the Investigators as they planned their next steps. But he wasn’t overly concerned. As the eldest prince, he was thinking about another matter: the fact that the Cordovans would accept money from such an external source and willingly weaken Sedaveria. Due to that very action, Rian felt that Baron Cordovan and Lady Cordovan were no longer suitable to be nobles of Sedaveria.
After his last meeting finished, Ren Xiyang returned to his suite, locked the door, and frowned grumpily.
If the Transmigration Bureau had wanted someone to be a manager, they should have pulled someone else. He was not suited to be an earl.
Unfortunately, letting Manager Gregory have free reign would be worse. He also understood that being an earl gave him power.
Ren Xiyang unbuttoned his long coat and threw it over one of the sofas. As he walked to his desk, he pulled off his hair tie and re-tied his hair up. It was already starting to curl up again since he last straightened it out.
Straightening it wasn’t important. Investigating magic was what he really wanted to do.
From his talk with Prince Rian yesterday, to the meetings today, magic came to his mind time and time again.
Such as healing magic and magical alternatives to say, PPE gear. Such as a magical alternative to, say, hormone therapy. Such as using magic directly as a potentially green energy source in place of electrical and mechanical energy. Such as whether magic was even a renewable resource.
It would be nice if someone had worked on these things already. But that might not be the case, given the novel’s romantic-magical-fantasy overhead.
Ren Xiyang opened the book on healing book on his desk, scanning through it.
The level of anatomy and medical knowledge required for casting healing spells was very minimal to non-existent. While there were some cleaning spells, it was clear that germ theory wasn’t publicly known. In the book, there were no spells specifically mentioning removal or protection from germs. There was no mention of concepts like ‘platelets’ in spells stopping blood loss, and certainly nothing about viruses in various fever-relieving spells. Maybe those medical researchers from Angio knew about germ theory…but Ren Xiyang doubted it. The disease in the book had been a plague-curse—magic played an important role in its epidemiology.
As for magical hormone therapy, Ren Xiyang had zero expectations that it existed. This was a het romance novel for entertainment, after all. It was already enough that there weren’t any gay ‘jokes’ in it.
In the healing book, there were many spells ranging from weak to powerful that were simply general-purpose healing spells that just apparently worked. After saying the correct terms with the correct pronunciation, magic somehow ‘understood’ and did the rest. This wasn’t a bad thing for an end-user. And this kind of setting was perfect for powerful and mysterious healers in the world’s history—the Saintesses, and in the future, the female lead Cassiopeia Schauss—who could heal without spell-words in such a way that no one else in the time-period could understand what was fundamentally happening on the microscopic level.
But this method of magic was highly unhelpful for Ren Xiyang who couldn’t predict how those spell words were actually pronounced and who wanted to write his own spells.
It felt that magic in this world understood a ‘language’ in very precise ways like a computer, but the magic books Ren Xiyang had gathered didn’t seem to write about how this language was put together, let alone how to make new ‘magical programs’ (spells). It was as though the magic books were simply teaching vocabulary and set phrases and didn’t describe the underlying syntax. Or maybe there were no patterns and relied on an amount of user self-belief that the spell would do a certain thing.
Rn Xiyang attempted the spells in the healing book first, starting with a cleaning spell.
…Cough. It took an embarrassingly long time for him to make the damn spell work. It was even more difficult than the Release spell for the hair-colour changing charm.
Why did pronunciation and enunciation matter so much? Why was magic so prescriptivist!
And even when he got the spell working, it didn’t have the same satisfactory feeling as directly manipulating fire. How it worked didn’t make sense in the same way. Maybe part of the reason why it took him so long to get the spell was working was because he didn’t have the default belief that such a nonsensical spell would work.
He felt great distaste upon the idea of having to speak during battle to cast spells.
There had to be a different way to do this. There had to be a way that would come more naturally to him.
After Count Aegean left at the end of dinner, Rian set his crystal ball up as usual to call his Imperial Mother.
On time, the crystal ball previously reflecting the room around him turned dark. But instead of producing the image of his Imperial Mother’s room, it showed his Imperial Father’s study room instead. His Imperial Mother and Imperial Father were sitting side by side.
“Good evening, Mother. Good evening, Father,” Rian greeted.
“Rian Azure,” King Edric replied in a pointed tone. “I’ve heard much about your recent activities. Are you taking on some small responsibilities, or are you creating more work for myself and your mother?”
“The Inner Capital was very lively,” Queen Mira added.
Rian smiled slightly, giving his parents his best I’m-very-cute-and-obedient-and-can’t-do-any-wrong look. “Isn’t it good to be lively? Imperial Father, I was able to successfully use nonverbal spells in a non-training situation.”
“Very good, Rian,” his mother praised, an indulgent smile growing on her face.
King Edric, however, remain cold-faced. “Your trip to the Rosewood fief was not for this reason. Tell me, have you done what you told me you would do, Rian?”
Rian put on a confused look. “Doesn’t Mother, Count Aegean, and my guards tell you everything? You’re so busy, why do you want to hear all about it again?”
King Edric: “…”
King Edric had very complex feelings. His son was really growing up.
Queen Mira chuckled behind her hand. “Rian,” she admonished lightly.
Rian put on a chastised expression. “Yes, Mother.” He smoothly reported on all the things he had ‘learnt’ recently under Count Aegean’s tutelage and what had happened today with the Capital Investigators—all things that his father and mother should know already. For his father’s benefit, he also re-narrated his duel with the new Earl Rosewood.
King Edric listened. He had the Investigators’ recent reports on his desk. He had known that Baron Cordovan and Duke Schauss had been preparing to petition him to become regent-lords. However, for the purposes of balancing power across the kingdom, he personally preferred Ayden Rosewood as the Earl, provided he wasn’t too incompetent or covetous.
Rian pursed his lips. “Father, the Cordovans…”
“I will deal with them.”
Rian hummed. The Cordovans were done for, even if they didn’t know it yet. “Father, it’s a little scary to think that someone unknown is behind those who killed the Rosewoods.”
“Hm.” King Edric had read those latest reports too. Regardless of who it actually was, such a secretive group was beyond young Rian. “I will deal with this.”
“Imperial Father is powerful,” Rian praised. “One day, I want to be as good as you at dealing with internal and external adversaries too.”
King Edric’s pupils narrowed a fraction. External? Who…
Rian continued as though he didn’t notice anything. “Regardless, I think Earl Rosewood has very novel ideas. He has directly implemented the new four-crop rotation system on his fields, which I believe can really transform Sedaveria.” Rian then smiled mischievously. “Earl Rosewood told me something very interesting just yesterday.”
“Rian, what is it?” Queen Mira asked.
“Earl Rosewood told me about something called ‘germs’, or more precisely, micro-organisms, pathogens, bacteria, and viruses. These are tiny little things, like tiny animals, smaller than we can see. They cause disease, and they can be found in the air that we breath in, on all the surfaces that we touch…”
And so, the King and Queen of Sedaveria joined the oh-dear-do-germs-actually-exist club.
Rian described everything with relish. Haha, it turned out his father’s face could look like that! “Earl Rosewood seems to have heard about this recently, and he’s very concerned. He has even provided soap for the servants to use regularly,” Rian said.
King Edric cleared his throat. “We will investigate this particular matter,” he said. Ignoring the crawling feeling across his skin, he peered at the image of his son through the crystal ball. From his reports, and from Rian’s own words, his eldest son had already taken a liking for the new Earl. Whether this was a phase, or whether his son was starting to build his future networks remained to be seen. “Earl Rosewood is your age. As you want more responsibility, he will become your responsibility.”
Rian smiled. “I accept the task, Father. After all, didn’t King Rex Red of old ascend the throne when he was thirteen? That’s what Earl Rosewood said.”
King Edric gave Prince Rian a long sharp assessing look. His lips curved up slightly, but the smile didn’t reach his eyes. “As expected of my son. Strive high and work hard. Now, I hope you won’t spend too long being leisurely at the Rosewood manor. Your other tutors await you back at the Capital.”
Queen Mira sighed. “Our little boy is growing up.”
“Yes, Father. Mother, one day I’ll be taller than Father!”
King Edric’s lips twitched, ignoring his wife’s small chuckle. “Is that so?”
Rian nodded earnestly. “Mother, Father, will you come for the funerals?”
“We will if we can,” Queen Mira answered.
King Edric wasn’t one to waste time on small talk with his children, especially not when he had many important matters to enquire about. After reminding his eldest son of various matters, he returned to his desk while Queen Mira continued talking to Rian for a little longer.
After the call ended, Rian leaned back against the sofa. His gaze unfocused from his surroundings as he thought to himself.
In this second chance at life, there was already more change than he initially expected. And that wasn’t a bad thing.
More than simply avoiding dying from the plague-curse, wouldn’t it be fun if he could bring Ayden Rosewood to his faction? That kind of future Kingdom would be sure to shock an old traditionalist like Imperial Councillor Blewitt~
Count Aegean: See! I told you that Prince Rian has suddenly become more naughty!
King Edric: …