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The unexpected arrival of Servian caused a stir in the banquet hall. Even I hadn’t heard that Servian would be coming. I turned to Axel, my eyes demanding an explanation, but he subtly avoided my gaze. When I quickly glanced at Kirke, he too was pointedly looking elsewhere, pretending to be engrossed in something else.

It seemed there was some secret plan in motion, one that involved stealing the prophecy book and had been kept from me.

“You left me out of the loop again?” I grumbled in frustration. Axel shrugged, rather unapologetically.

“Even Bael wasn’t told about this one. You can’t involve a kid and a priest in something shady, right?” Axel gestured to the prophecy book he had swiped, mouthing the words “shady business” once again for emphasis.

I couldn’t help but scoff. “People aren’t supposed to do shady things, you know?”

“Sometimes, it’s necessary,” Axel replied nonchalantly. While we continued our banter, Servian effortlessly dealt with the drunken man disrupting the music.

“Ahhhh!” The wind spirits under Servian’s control picked the man up and tossed him out of the window.

“We can’t have a drunk ruining the atmosphere on such a fine day,” Servian remarked, smiling contentedly as he watched the man disappear from sight. The only thing left where the man had stood was the instrument he had snatched, now floating eerily in mid-air. The man’s scream, which had been loud and close, now faded into a distant echo, barely audible.

Servian, seemingly oblivious to the fading scream, casually handed the instrument back to its rightful owner.

“The music was quite pleasant. Please, continue playing.” His tone was markedly more polite than when he had mocked Ayaxen earlier. This contrast was not lost on Ayaxen, who could no longer contain himself and stepped forward, visibly trembling with anger.

“It seems the time for leisurely dancing is over, Marquess. We should now inspect that supposedly remarkable prophecy book. And you ought to apologize for your rudeness…”

Servian raised a hand slightly in a non-threatening gesture, but Ayaxen flinched and immediately fell silent, his mouth snapping shut. It seemed he had noticed the cold, dangerous glint in Servian’s eyes.

Despite being the most playful and seemingly light-hearted member of our group, Servian had a far more serious and formidable side to him.

‘He’s actually the scariest one,’ I thought. Ayaxen must have sensed this too, as he gulped and waited in tense silence for Servian’s next move.

Servian’s smile returned as he looked Ayaxen up and down. “I believe it’s you, Baron Ayaxen, who should be apologizing.”

“…What do you mean by that?” Ayaxen asked, his voice strained.

“You attempted to disrupt this important event in the presence of His Majesty the Emperor.”

“Me?” Ayaxen’s eyes widened in disbelief, and he looked around for support. “I was simply standing here, waiting patiently for the prophecy book to be revealed along with everyone else. Are you suggesting that asking to see the prophecy book in detail is an attempt to disrupt the party? Why would that be?”

As he continued to speak, Ayaxen’s tone grew more confident, bolstered by murmurs of agreement from the crowd. “Does inspecting the prophecy book mean ruining the party? Why? Isn’t this event meant to showcase the prophecy book? Everyone here wants to examine it closely, Marquess.”

“Perhaps. But I doubt you, in particular, have any real interest in ‘that’ prophecy book,” Servian said with a meaningful smile, waving his hand lightly in the air.

A light breeze stirred around Servian’s hand, and from the direction of the window where the drunkard had been thrown, a small object came flying in. Servian effortlessly caught it in mid-air.

‘That’s…’

It was a book, identical in appearance to the one I was holding. The crowd began to murmur in confusion.

“What’s going on? Why are there two prophecy books?”

“There’s only supposed to be one, right?”

As the whispers grew, Servian smiled knowingly.

“Baron Ayaxen, where do you think I found this?” he asked.

“Why are you asking me that?” Ayaxen replied, trying to keep his composure.

“Why do you think?” Servian’s tone was light, but his question was loaded.

Ayaxen bit his lip, his eyes darting nervously between Servian and the book in his hand. His gaze was filled with panic.

“This doesn’t make any sense. I was sure… I had…”

Ayaxen, clearly disoriented, mumbled to himself before suddenly pushing past Servian and bolting out of the banquet hall. It was as if the sight of the book he believed he had stolen being in Servian’s possession had broken his mind.

I was just as surprised as everyone else. I nudged Axel’s side, demanding an explanation.

“When did you track down the fake prophecy book? Even if you cast a tracking spell, you’ve been with me the whole time…”

Tracking a magically marked object isn’t simple—it requires concentration and effort to trace its location. But Axel had been by my side the entire time, even dancing with me.

‘How could he have done this while dancing?’

Even for a skilled mage like Axel, multitasking in such a way seemed impossible. And there was no way he could have communicated with Servian to retrieve the book so seamlessly.

Axel understood my confusion and smiled as he whispered in my ear, “To be precise, I didn’t track it down. The fake book that the baron stole is still with him. Only he knows where it’s hidden.”

“What? Then that book…?”

“Since what Ayaxen stole was a fake, it’s not surprising that there could be multiple fake books,” Axel explained casually.

I gaped at Axel’s explanation and then looked over at Servian, who was confidently holding the book as if it were the one Ayaxen had stolen. Even knowing the truth, Servian’s performance was so convincing that it made it seem like he was truly threatening Ayaxen with the stolen book.

“So, the tracking spell you mentioned wasn’t real magic…”

“It was psychological magic,” Axel said, grinning. “If someone believes they’ve stolen something important, only to see it suddenly appear in front of them, they’ll be rattled. They’ll want to run to wherever they hid the original, to check if it’s still there.”

When I first presented the prophecy book, Ayaxen might have dismissed it as a decoy. But when Servian appeared with another identical book, the shock and confusion must have thrown him off balance.

“And you avoided using real magic because you didn’t want the culprit to sense any traces?”

Axel’s subtle smile confirmed that I had guessed correctly.

“Now, Servian’s spirits will be following Ayaxen. They’ll find out where he hid the stolen prophecy book.”

“But isn’t identifying the culprit enough? Do we really need to find out where he hid it too?”

From the beginning, I had thought the focus of this entire play was simply to find the “culprit.” Blinking in realization, I asked Axel, who gave a slight, somewhat arrogant nod.

“If you had something you absolutely couldn’t afford to lose, where would you hide it?”

“In a safe that only I know about, I guess.”

“Exactly. And don’t you think that such a place would already be full of other secrets he’s been keeping?”

* * *

Ayaxen bolted from the banquet hall and hurriedly climbed into his carriage, his mind racing. The unexpected turn of events had left him completely disoriented. Although he had plenty of time to calmly reflect on the situation, his thoughts were a chaotic mess.

When he first heard the news of the former emperor’s return, Ayaxen immediately recognized it as a golden opportunity to advance his position. The former emperor’s power base had weakened considerably, having lost much of its cohesion. Although Duke Kreutz had taken the reins and was leading the faction, it was not with the same authority the emperor once commanded.

As a vassal of Duke Kreutz, Ayaxen was well aware of how the Duke had risen to prominence by ingratiating himself with the former emperor. The Duke had a knack for anticipating the emperor’s needs and acting accordingly, which had secured his place in the inner circle.

Determined to follow in the Duke’s footsteps, Ayaxen secretly made contact with one of the former emperor’s allies. He promised to deliver something crucial that would aid the emperor upon his return to the capital. He had urged them to trust him, insisting that he could pull it off.

Though the former emperor had seemed skeptical, Ayaxen had boasted confidently. His confidence wasn’t without foundation—he knew that Duke Kreutz had connections within the Ivory Tower. These “connections” were meant to keep an eye on and manipulate the Duke’s son, Eugene.

Ayaxen had planned to exploit these connections to create an incident that would earn him favor with the emperor.