Chapter 115 — In which Saf uses the PAPER (2)
“Excuse me?!”
The secretary, who was gathering the wills to sent them to Rubrun, dropped the papers.
“Yo-young lady! Wh-what are you trying to imply?”
Saffra just tilted her head.
“Murder?”
She asked with the innocence of a child, asking for candies.
The secretary just stared at her, agape.
The poor old man seemed to have suffered a shock of his life.
“Surprisingly, it’s not a bad idea.”
Not surprisingly, Orche agreed to it after a moment of thought.
Considering that he seemed to be quite close to Sulfious, Saffra expected that he would take the bait.
He might be a dickhead, who loathed his sisters, but he didn’t live in the void.
There were things he loved and things he cared about.
One of those things was his father.
Saffra didn’t believe that love was just an act.
“… You think Father was murdered?”
On the contrary, it was Mimosa, who was hesitant.
Saffra shook her head to her half-sister’s question.
“I don’t think anything right now. But when the throne ruler dies, such an investigation needs to be carried out. And it gives us good excuse not to appoint the new ruler, right away.”
The ruler of Yellow Throne was determined based on the military power.
The military power was mostly held by nobles, so whoever nobles followed, would be the ruler.
But while both Mimosa and Orche had many supporters, there were many nobles who didn’t take any side, and would simply follow whoever the previous ruler appointed.
That meant they would be waiting for the last will to be announced, but the two candidates were in deadlock.
If fact that there were two opposite wills was revealed it would only lead to chaos and could destabilize the position of the rightful ruler, when finally appointed.
Therefore, neither Mimosa nor Orche would push for it right now.
Rather, announcing that they’re investigating the General’s death would be the best excuse.
As if recognizing this, Mimosa nodded and agreed for the investigation to be carried out.
“There is someone we should call if we wish to investigate General’s death…”
Saffra took a breath and prepared to have a long discussion.
*-*-*
After a few hours, when she finally achieved her goal, Saffra headed to a certain room.
It was a place that the lady like her shouldn’t be and if she was found, she would cause uproar, but Saffra, being more than adept in sneaking around, had no problem reaching her destination.
Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.
She knocked on the door.
No answer.
She frowned slightly and opened the door.
Citrie jumped from the desk, when the door creaked loudly.
“Young Lady!”
Saffra raised an eyebrow, stepped inside and closed the door.
Her gaze swept over the books and papers scattered on the desk.
“What are you doing?”
“That what I should be asking, Young Lady Saffra. What is Young Lady doing sneaking into the knight’s quarters?”
“I wasn’t sneaking in, I knocked.”
She put aside the fact that she sneaked her entire way to the said door.
Seeing slightly disheveled Citrie, with his hair not properly tied, and not all buttons fasten, she clicked her tongue.
“I have an important mission for you, Sir, but you can’t be looking like that.”
“That’s too bad.”
The man grumbled and sat down, picking up some historical book again.
He acted so unusual when compared to his daily always read for action, always sniffing around self, that it gave even Saffra a pause.
‘Did you meet Ver once and got depressed immediately after leaving his side?’
That was serious.
Thankfully, Saffra brought a cure.
But being rudely welcomed, she didn’t feel like giving it immediately.
Instead, she jumped around the subject, recalling something that bothered her.
“Sir Citrie, come to think of it, didn’t you call Lesser Lord Mage ‘Lord Mage’?”
“… I did.”
“… Wow. I thought Orche was the most likely to cause a war, but I didn’t expect Sir Citrie to be the most dangerous element out there.”
“Yes?”
Citrie looked up from his book, clearly confused.
“Sir Citrie, don’t you know what title of ‘Lord Mage’ stands for?”
“I… No? I just thought it was a polite version of referring to a mage below the rank of the Archmage? I mean, they refer to the Archmage as Lord Archmage so…”
Citrie’s words trailed off, as he saw Saffra’s grin grew wider and wider.
He turned a bit pale and asked:
“What does it stand for?”
“Ah~ You see, that needs a bit of history lesson.”
Saffra took out a piece of blank paper and started writing with a reed pen.
“You see, after the First Mage Vermillian died, the next ruler to take over decided to call themselves Archmage.”
“… Isn’t it like putting themselves above the First Mage?”
“It is. So that ruler was very quickly murdered by the furious people. The next ruler took this lesson to heart, and tried to use the same title as the First Mage, but that got people furious too. Who is she? Trying to be like the First Mage. So the ruler couldn’t use a title that would put them above the First Mage, but they also couldn’t use the same title, and using anything lesser would be… It wouldn’t suit the ruler they thought. And after long thinking they come up with the title of ‘Lord Archmage’.”
“… Isn’t it even worse?”
Citrie asked a bit weakly, as if he was guessing where it was going, but wished very much to deny it.
“It would be, if not for their sophistry. You see. First Mage was famous for being quite…” she hesitated over her words, “humble. He hated being addressed by some lofty titles. He thought that people should either call him Master, if they were his students, or Mage, if they were just common-folk. But people sought way to express their respects, and they finally settled on the title. ‘Lord Mage’.”
“Wasn’t First Mage’s title ‘His Reverence’?”
Citrie asked with a face that turned even paler.
Saffra shook her head.
“That title came after his death. In fact this is true for other rulers too. Saffaron was addressed as Commander or General, Lord added if you wanted to be very respectful. The title of ‘Her Majesty’ came after. But among the three, Ver… millian’s humbleness was the most famous. So Rubrun’s rulers said this ‘Lord Mage humbleness was higher than stars in the sky. We can never attempt to even reach it, and even thinking of it would be blasphemous, as we’re but mortals. Rather than attempting to hide our flaws, we will show them to the world to be cursed and spit upon.’ And that’s how the title of ‘Lord Archmage’ came to be.”
Saffra ended her tale and looked at Citrie with a wide smile.
“So, Sir Citrie, did you directly call Lesser Lord Mage by the title of the First Mage?”
“…”
“Ah, we can really only hope he took it as a compliment and not…”
Citrie abruptly stood up.
Saffra blinked and then caught the man, who seemed like he was about to sprint out of the room.
“Where are you going?”
“I-I…”
Citrie seemed to be in a state of panic, as he couldn’t even form a sentence.
Saffra patted him on the back with the other hand.
“Calm down. If he didn’t say anything, he probably just thought you’re uneducated. Besides, you will meet very soon, so how about correcting yourself then?”
“Yes?”
The man finally sat down again and looked at her bewildered.
Saffra explained:
“You were chosen as a scapegoat. Congratulations.”
Her explanation didn’t help very much.
*-*-*
Saffra returned to her room with a box in hands.
The box was a gift Citrie decided to give her, after she magnanimously decided to properly explain to him what’s going on and what was his mission, and contained something very special he found during Ver’s coming-of-age ceremony.
It was also something she would make sure to investigate in soon-to-be future.
After hiding it in the hidden compartment she made, she sat down at the desk and began gather her thoughts.
Yesterday there was a lot to do, so she didn’t have time properly organize everything that happened.
She didn’t even get to do her full evening and morning training, which caused her to be uselessly on edge, and she had to work hard not to show it.
Saffra couldn’t afford to make a mistake here.
To calm her thoughts, she recalled the faces of her brothers, which she finally got glimpses of after 300 years, and the face of her miracle, which scattered in her arms 400 years ago.
She took a deep breath and picked an empty paper.
‘I’ll make this work this time…’
As she vowed in her heart, she suddenly had an idea.
They say little gambling can relive one stress, and if she wasn’t going to do anything stupid like gambling with money…
She smirked, grabbed a reed pen and hastily scribbled a square with divided into nine smaller squares.
Then she filled them up.
Satisfied, she put it aside.
She would have to find out later if she was right.
*~*~*
Thank you for coming this far with me, now, while I'm on this break, do you want to play a game?
Chose a number from 1-9 and leave it in the comment (well, you can just note it down somewhere, but comment would me more fun).
