When Alfonse returned from lunch, he showed her the rest of the estate, or at least what he thought might be useful. After all, this building is monstrously huge.

There are many bathrooms here, each serving a different purpose. The first type is for the lords of this estate. They are very spacious and adorned with gold and various gemstones; it's evident that no expense was spared. The second type is for guests, looking almost identical to those for the estate owners, just slightly smaller. The servants have ordinary baths, and there are many of them in the room, so Maria assumes that the servants bathe together. Apparently, the ghost servants can bathe where their master permits.

The library was, of course, not spared either. It's enormous; Maria would swear she has never seen a larger room. Books of all kinds are here, and experienced mages and history enthusiasts would kill for the volumes present. The ceiling is adorned with glass to provide enough daylight. To prevent fires, every visitor is thoroughly searched—except for the ghost servants and their masters. Glass jars filled with fairy dust are used as night lights, left in the sun during the day to emit a bright glow at night.

The gardens are full of flowers of all kinds. Specially crafted fertilizer by elves is used, allowing even rare plants that wouldn't survive in this part of the continent for more than a few hours to thrive. The main owner of this estate is probably a flower enthusiast; the entire garden is swarming with gardeners carefully examining every leaf to ensure they are in good condition. Maybe if they took care of the inside in the same way, the estate would look much livelier.

This whole tour took them about five hours. Since there is no teleportation device here for protection, all those stairs and passages have left Maria and Alfonse quite exhausted, and so they sat on one of the benches in the garden.

"Was Kristoph as they say he was?" Alfonse suddenly asked after a moment of silence.

"What have you heard?"

"Well..." He paused for a moment, thinking, before continuing. "According to everything, he was very smart, brave, and strong. A strict but kind ruler of Eamer. He won countless battles. Since he cared for both the poor and the rich, he was a favorite of both classes."

Maria couldn't help but smirk and raised an eyebrow. "So you've only heard fairy tales and legends created by wandering bards."

"Really?!" Alfonse exclaimed in surprise, leaning on Maria's knees and stretching towards her. "Tell me more!"

Maria looked at him in surprise for a moment, then realized and pondered.

"Well..." She hesitated for a moment. "When I met him, it was shortly after I became a ghost. He was a young boy, if I remember correctly, around sixteen years old. Very quiet, took some time before he started talking. He wasn't supposed to ascend to rule; he was his father's youngest son."

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

"So, he was somewhat like me!" Alfonse excitedly interrupted. "I'm the seventh of eight! And what happened next? Tell me more!"

"He was indeed very smart, as you said. He came up with many inventions that no one had thought of before. For example, glasses... After all, why invent such a thing when we have witches, right? But Kristoph noticed during a visit to a village that these witch services were very expensive for the poor class, so he came up with the idea for them. He created many of them, significantly improving the lives of the poorer class. However, he mostly handed over most of these inventions to his brothers, thinking he wasn't fit to rule. One day, he asked me to bring a sketch with the invention of glasses to his oldest brother Zikreso. Instead, I took it to his father."

"And the father realized everything was his ideas and decided to name him the successor?" Alfonse eagerly asked, thinking he had the answer.

"No, not that. His father knew everything and secretly recorded all these inventions under his name, not his brothers'. He asked me to talk to Kristoph about it. But Kristoph didn't want to hear about it, so I presented the idea with the glasses in his stead. Thanks to that, he won part of the competition his father created to decide his successor."

She took a deep breath before continuing, Alfonse still with an intense expression, eagerly listening.

"Since there was a war in the country at that time, all brothers were sent to the front. Unlike the others, Kristoph didn't fight; instead, he helped the wounded. Normally, they would bring all the healing-capable witches to the battlefield, but he ordered only a few of them, along with elves, vampires, and others. Witches closed large wounds, but not completely to avoid exhaustion. They were then disinfected with healing herbs from the elves and stitched up. If someone lost a lot of blood, the vampires stepped in. As you may know, they can recognize blood types, and Kristoph used that. They gave the person the same blood type, and with the help of witches, stabilized them. Werewolves, with a stronger sense of smell, took care of changing bandages, and those who could control their claws even opened bodies for surgery. So, even though he didn't fight, he became a literal hero, winning another part of the trial."

"When you put it that way, he sounds like a very kind and clever person..." Alfonse commented after absorbing the information. "So where did the idea come from that he is strict and unsympathetic, punishing criminals?"

"A few months after becoming a ruler, he had to attend trials, of course. Kristoph didn't have the heart to condemn anyone, seeing only the good in people. His first case was a vampire who killed a few innocent people-"

"And he let him go?" Alfonse asked, and Maria nodded.

"He should have normally received the punishment of drying up in a coffin, but Kristoph gave him a second chance, with a condition... which was a mistake. A few days later, it was discovered that he not only killed humans but also vampires. He was a cannibal, and because Kristoph let him go, twice as many people died as before."

"Why didn't he just imprison him? It was clear that it would happen, right?" Alfonse asked, puzzled.

"He told him how much he regretted it and that he couldn't control himself. He secured blood supplies for him from the blood bank—established easily after the war. He believed there was a chance for him to change and that the vampire hadn't done it on purpose. When he learned what happened because of him, he felt sick, stressed, and kept repeating that everything was his fault and how sorry he was. Since then, I have executed judgments at the trials in his name." Maria finished as the bell rang.

"It looks like it's dinner time. Well, you can finish telling me more another time." He said, getting up from the bench. It's already quite dark outside; Maria didn't even realize how quickly time flew by.