CHAPTER 22

AN UNEXPECTED HAUL

With twice the speed of his longshot, the charred container's contents followed a serpentine path and landed in Hans's hand. “Good thing I did my target practice with Khitan, it was damn tricky to avoid all those people.” Hans thought as he looked at the object, a thick fountain pen like structure.

"Here, catch!" Hans tossed it to Delimira, surprisingly intact despite the melted container from which it emerged.

“You are letting me discover this first?”

“You or me, it's all the same. Besides, you're the one who's been scouring the county for this little thing, aren’t ya?”

“You are only doing this because you know you won't understand it?" Delimira questioned, her eyes narrowed like paper-thin slits, startling him.

Hans’s sudden silence made her chuckle. It appeared she had hit the bullseye, but she didn’t want to make fun of Hans right now. She twisted half of the pen and opened it up, a rolled document was in there, sealed with a rune. However, she was also from the elven lineage and being Sierra’s disciple had perks. She learned magic runes far more exceptionally as Sierra had taught her the basics.

“Can’t you open it?” Hans peeked through her shoulder.

“But Hans, once we see it, we can’t unsee it. You sure you want to be in centre of events again. Xandor, your undead father, Clandor and now this. Don’t you think your plate is already overloaded?” She asked genuinely concerned.

Hans was surprised for a moment but it only lasted for fraction, “So, what do you want me to do when its already on my hand. I just have to wing this one too, now open it up.”

“Just a moment then, Prince Parv,” she responded, concentrating on the seal, delving into the intricate mana equations to unravel the seal. If it was someone else, they’d have consumed a lot of time to lift the seal, but Delimira was top of her class and had broken seals of many possessions because her mother had asked her not to, and Sierra had given her wings in that department by teaching her personally.

“Buzz!” A hissing sound filled the air as the patterned seal markings burned away, revealing the opened document before the. “What is this?” Hans squinted at the writing, unable to decipher its meaning.

“A receipt of purchase.” Delimira mumbled, but Hans was close enough to hear and guess this time.

“But what? Does it make any sense to you?” All he was seeing were abbreviations and numbers.

“I’m afraid not, Hans.” Delimira was not knowledgeable enough to understand what exactly these acronyms were referring to. But if the king of Grimgar was looking for it, then it has to be of some grave importance, and both Hans and Delimira knew it very well.

Samwell never wanted that document to become public; he only wanted to possess it to bend his in-laws to his wishes, but that chance disappeared. Upon the hit of the third thief, Kansas and the territory knight had sensed something was going on and were on high alert. They soon pinpointed the three locations and were late to extract any information.

Now both Sylvetor and the royal family were perplexed, asking themselves what to do. Since their intel said it was a group of four and three thieves were found with exploded heads, they all thought that the one escaped had betrayed them.

Meanwhile, Deli wasn’t in the mood for giving up, a problem which she can’t solve was not suited for her personality So Hans left her alone with the new toy she found. And knowing what exactly this document signified and Delimira kept checking it for hours. Finally in the evening, she came running to Hans. “I found it.” She exhaled hard.

“Spill it then.” Hans jumped out of his laziness.

“See here.” She pointed at the first letter, “These are short for elven nobles. A lot of Sylvetor will die after this—”

“Why?”

“Look at the seals. The snake symbol is for the Sylvetor family, and the libra… for the Hearthwine family of Clandor…it’s my mother’s maiden family.”

“So?” Hans motioned his hand asking to elaborate.

“Look closely,” she pointed out, “Since the elven king and my mother are siblings… So, Clandor’s king might be in bed with Sylvetor or worse; the Hearthwine family is doing this behind his back.”

“So, what are they buying from Sylvetor?” Hans asked, his eyes piqued, there was practically nothing elves were interested in from humans.

“It doesn't matter what they were buying. Every Sylvetor involved is going down. The Hearthwine family means business — Shit." She abruptly stopped mid-sentence, falling silent. Her mind raced with theories, and she concocted a story that fit the situation perfectly. Suddenly alarmed, she turned to Hans and asked, "Do you know what I did together with those Devildom folks?”

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Hans said puzzled, “Didn’t you go to find this—”

“It wasn't just this Hans,” her tone turned emphatic. “We rescued people. From a range of arrogant nobles to ordinary folk, all ages from young to old. But we were hushed up because the youngest Sylvetor, a sixteen-year-old, was among the abducted—or so I believed at the time! What kind of idiot I was?”

“A very big— ….pretty idiot.”

“Tsk.. focus Hans, the Sylvetor’s youngest wasn’t an abductee, but I think he was the one making the deals. Hearthwine is purchasing humans from the Sylvetor.”

"Isn't it supposed to be the other way around? Since when do elves start snatching up humans?”

“Who knows. Hearthwine are always good at hiding, but humans are just braggarts by nature.”

Hans couldn’t refute her reasoning, neither did he plan to put his finger on this unknown pie. But it didn't take much thought to realise that the document in his hand spelled trouble for many people. "I could have leverage over Grimgar, Sylvetor, and Hearthwine. Not a bad deal—"

"Or make yourself a target for those three powerful families to practice their archery on, you idiot.”

Hans smirked. "Who says I'd be the one applying pressure, Winters? Don't we have our cunning old man?”

The tiring day passed one, both Hans and Delimira were living in the tranquility of the Watchtower. No one was paying any mind to what they were doing. Delimira was experimenting with what she could achieve as a third circle mage, and Hans was coming up with every possible way to counterattack her in his mind.

Neither he nor she exposed their hidden secrets and were walking on eggshells when it came to showing what they could do to each other. They lived like this for a few more days.

Hans had expected things to calm down in a that time, but his recent talk with Aldrich said otherwise.

Both the king and Sylvetor had come to some sort of agreement and were searching for the missing documents together. Their rowdy works even forced Rudolf to come back, and he was pissed. The tension between the three factions was on the verge of exploding.

And today, he was waiting for Sierra to contact him as usual. The orb lit, and Sierra’s face projected out. “Hans, you should hurry back to the estate now.”

“What happened, Granny? You don’t look so good.” Hans noticed Sierra’s troubled expressions.

“Nothing… just hurry back.” She cut off the connection after demanding his presence, and Hans agreed to it nonchalantly. He didn’t know what was happening, but if there was something bad happening around his family, he wanted to be there to help.

Hans came to Deli and hollered, “We are flying right away. Get your things—”

“What things? The driver will bring it back.” Delimira noticed that Hans was anxious, so she didn’t pry much and agreed to it quickly. Piggybacking her, Hans activated the wind gem and flew with his maximum speed to the Edenberg mansion.

The distance was around a hundred kilometres, and he reached the place in mere minutes. He landed, gasping, and saw Hodges coming to assist. “What happened?” He asked, continuing his rough breathing. The mansion didn’t look as great as he had left it. Some structures were cracked, some towers destroyed, and some rubble was still smoking.

There weren’t many who could turn Rudolf’s home into this mess. So the answer was clear as a day. Kansas and Rudolf fought there. With his anxiety rising, he asked Hodges, “Is… is Grandpa alright?”

However, Hodges had a blank expression. Not for some sad reasons, but he was startled at why Hans was asking this. “You think anything can happen to the Count when the Countess is present?” He glanced around and added, “Kansas and Rudolf just had some argument.”

“This is just an argument?” Hans asked, dumbfounded.

“They are both warlords. Their aura is enough to put down buildings, young lord.” Hodges coughed.

“Then everyone is alright?”

“Yes.”

“Then why the— why did she ask me to hurry back?” Hans asked with a tinge of frustration.

“Hmm. That’s probably because the whole Sylvetor people vanished without a trace. Hence the argument between Count and Sir Kansas—”

“Oh, so were they blaming Grandpa for the Sylvetor people’s mysterious disappearance? Are they idiots? Grandpa doesn’t have the brain to do this without messing up—”

“Yes, but you do.” Hodges pointed out, prompting Hans’s face to distort. “These bastards. All of their fuck-ups are because of me. I only thought they’d put the blame on me for their blunder, but these morons did one up and are blaming me for the Sylvetor people’s disappearance—”

Hans’s thoughts were broken as Hodges interrupted, “You weren’t even here. So I thought it was nonsense too, but your uncle was adamantly blaming you.” Suddenly, Hodges’s face shifted from concern to pride and declared, “So, our Count saw nothing and wreaked havoc amongst their ranks.”

“He didn’t kill anyone, did he?” Hans was puzzled.

“No,” Hodges firmly denied, his expressions turning grim in haste, “Since the situation became quite tense, when another news came from the Sylvetor duchy. First, their knights and mages disappeared from our lands, and then their sons were found dead in their domain, killed by a thorough torture.”

Hodges wasn’t finished yet. Hans’s sight turned to Delimira, who wore an expression screaming, “I told you so.”

Sylvetor duchy was the westernmost region of Grimgar, a place guarded by Warlocks and Warlords. To torture the children of such a family and get away without a squeak to their names was on par with Xandor doing his wonders. Hans gulped, “I really shouldn’t touch these people. Arat will see to it as he deems fit.”

Whatever the hesitation he bore before of leveraging the rolled document in his space belt disappeared like the Sylvetor people in the county. “So these guests of ours left, right?” Hans asked, hoping it to be right, and an affirmative response from Hodges relieved him.

Feeling free of worries, he entered the mansion only to be stopped by Rudolf’s furious gaze. “What now?” He perplexed.

Rudolf came stomping,“I know it’s far-fetched, but nothing is far-fetched when you are involved. So I’m going to ask once, were you involved in the killings of Young Sylvetors?”

“The heck! What do you take me for, a running killing machine—”

“Hans, I’m in no mood for your antics. Just answer truthfully.”

Hans raised his right and said with firm resolve, “I promise, I didn’t do shit to any Sylvetor. Ask your Warlock. We were too noisy at the tower, he’ll tell you.”

“It’s good then. Pack your things. Your holidays end here.”

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