Chapter 103 - Ghost Maids

 

“It’s almost fully stuck back together. Should I cut it off again?” Estian stared and prodded at the man’s head.

“Hey! Hey now! Hold your horses! It took so much effort to reattach! How could you think of cutting it again!” Richard cried out in alarm. The mage lord, who had been bound and thrown into the underground interrogation cells, was flopping about, as he struggled like a fish out of water.

“Wouldn’t it be weirder to wait for your recovery? To ensure you never attempt something pointless again… “

“Pointless? I say, emperor. There’s a reason why you haven’t killed me, despite the constant threats to lop off my head, no?” Richard’s previous frivolous attitude abruptly disappeared, and the tone of his voice dropped an octave lower. The sudden change heightened the chill that descended throughout the interrogation cell. While he usually acted with insanity, it was moments like these that his overwhelming aura as the lord of the Mage Tower expressed itself. “Your… wife. Yes, Cecile is her name? You’re curious as well, aren’t you? Curious as to how she summoned that dragon. Aren’t you still keeping me alive to find out the reason?”

Richard’s provocation was met with silence, but Estian’s face hardened at his utterance of Cecile’s name. Still, he was unable to refute Richard, who had hit a nerve. Emboldened by the emperor’s hesitation, Richard continued, “What I brought was definitely the egg of a phantom beast. If an ordinary person touched it, something as common as a salamander would’ve popped out… yet a dragon was summoned. You saw it too. We didn’t even lay a hand on the egg. The only one who touched it was the empress.”

“It could’ve been a dragon’s egg from the start” Estian countered in a subdued voice.

“Then that would make it an even bigger issue!” Richard said, bursting into laughter. “It looks like you don’t know much about dragons, but their eggs have impenetrable protection. They can nullify all magical attacks from the moment they are laid, and are immune towards almost all physical attacks as well. It’s not an egg that can be easily broken.”

“Then how are dragons born if the eggs are so difficult to crack.”

“It’s said that a dragon lord would stomp on the egg until it cracks,” Richard confidently answered.

‘What nonsense is that? I should just kill this knave after all.’ Estian thought, as he silently drew the sword from his belt.

“Hey! Hey! Put the black steel away now! It’s real! I’m not kidding! There are many records! The data’s all in the tower!” Richard hastily cried, sensing the emperor’s murderous demeanor. “Anyhow, that impressive egg is what the empress managed to break with a touch of her hand. It’s an impossible feat, for you and the dragon lord.”

Estian paused upon hearing Richard’s desperate cries, as he debated whether the mage lord was simply spouting nonsense. “So, what is it you are suggesting?”

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“Your dear empress. Aren’t you curious about her identity? Do you really think that woman is just a normal human being with a pretty face? That she became your empress by pure coincidence?”

Estian had to admit that he had been plagued with a sense of uncertainty for a while now, stemming from even before the dragon summoning incident. He had felt an instant attraction to Cecile from their first meeting. Has there ever been another case where Estian had felt one-sided goodwill towards another? Even Kane, who was his closest confidant, did not have his unshakable trust. Yet, he held absolute belief in Cecile. There was also the curious matter in regards to Princess Yuliana. While everyone had succumbed to her power at the banquet, Cecile had not only managed to resist the spell, she had even dispelled it.

“You’re curious, aren’t you? I can help. There must be something special about your empress. I’ll find out what it is! Without killing her! So, if you’ll allow at least some partial dissection—” Richard was instantly overwhelmed by the killing intent emanating from Estian. ‘Oh no, I’m dead.’

However, before Estian could lop off Richard’s head, he was interrupted by a knock on the interrogation cell door. The only person allowed access to the cell aside from himself was Kane, and his knight commander was not one to seek him out unless there was an urgent matter. He straightened himself with a sigh, and called out, “Enter.”

Greeting the emperor, Kane quickly began reporting on the issue. “The men dispatched to the royal villa in Navitan have returned.”

Estian nodded, recalling the command to bring the maids who raised Cecile. Whenever Cecile talked of her childhood, she would recount how she had been raised by the maids of the palace. “No one ever came to my royal villa. It was the maids there who raised me. If not for those maids, I would’ve died in that place,” Cecile had said fondly. Her face had been full of longing, so Estian decided to bring those maids to the empire. He was certain it would be a great gift to his empress. He was pleased just imagining how happy she’d be.

“Right. What’s the matter? Have they all been brought over?”

“Regarding that…” Kane’s hesitation indicated something wasn’t right.

“What is it? What’s the problem? Did they refuse to come?”

“No, that is not it. According to the men… there were no maids in that royal villa.” Bewilderment was apparent on the knight commander’s face.

“What? Did they quit and leave? Or are they dead?”

“No, that’s not it either…” Kane wavered before continuing, “It’s said that there haven’t been any maids in the villa in the past few decades.”

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