"I... I... I'm..."

Seeing her stuttering, looking so pathetic, I just couldn't stand it anymore.

"If you have nothing to say, then we are done here, Karina."

"N-no..."

That was the last thing I heard before walking out of the room.

"Gwen."

Appearing out of nowhere beside me, she asked,

"Yes, Young Master?"

"You've been listening to our whole "conversation"?"

"..."

"Have you been listening to our conversation?" I asked, sounding firmer and more overbearing.

"Y-yes, Young Master."

"Then you should know how pathetic she looked, so, please, escort her out, but give her one more chance." I said, before handing Gwen a sealed letter.

"Make sure that nobody else reads it." I said, before walking off, leaving Gwen standing there, staring in contemplation at the letter.

"Oh, and one thing."

"Yes, Young Master?"

"You're going to read it anyways no matter what I say, right? So, I'll give you permission just to ease your conscience."

"..."

I started walking off again.

"T-thank you, Young Master!" She called out to my fleeting back whilst bowing.

Just turning my head around, I nodded, before continuing to walk whilst taking my gloves off and stuffing them into my pockets.

Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.

...

"Char, was that the last of the books?"

"Yes, I'll have to start making trips to the town's library now to get you more books."

"Visit the other nobles and high households in the area too. They should be in possession of some books that I haven't read yet."

"Yes, Young Master."

"And what about the artifact, has it been sealed in the Castle Safe yet?"

"Yes, I've put it in the most secure safe box inside the Castle Safe."

"Then please, send it to my sister when you have the time, make sure that it is in her hands, and only her hands."

"May I ask what the item is?"

"It's one of the Hero's artifacts, "The Crucifix of Light"."

"Oh... Then I'll make sure that it gets in her hands immediately." She unconsciously muttered, looking off into the distance, deep in thought.

But still, her training by the Endendyk Family was indeed superb. She was still able to answer me, and her face was still impassive as ever, not even twitching to reveal the shocked state that she was in.

If I hadn't been with her since I was born, then I wouldn't have noticed how her eyes were slightly gray, indicating that she was deep in thought.

"Thank you Char, and please, have Gwen do the delivery, I need you to do the other thing for me."

"What other thing?..."

"Get me the books of course. You're the only one that has catalogued every book I've read, and memorized the list, so you should be the one to attain them, right?"

"Yes, I'm sorry, Young Master, for forgetting about that. I was just too shocked by the news that that object was an artifact of the hero."

"It's okay Char, we all should be."

After saying that, I looked at her in finality, so she bowed and left the room.

I sighed, looking up at the gray ceiling of my room, and right then and there, I decided that I needed to move rooms, after all, I was getting seriously depressed without a window to look out of.

But, right now, there was no one to help with the transition, as the only ones qualified to do it, Gwen and Char, were out right now, hurriedly doing the tasks that I had set for them.

"Sigh, I'll just bask in the stone grayness for one more day, just one more day." I muttered to myself.

...

A few more days passed before Gwen returned from delivering her message.

During this time, I had, along with Charlotte, moved our sleeping quarters to the only room in the castle with a glass window in it.

The children had helped, along with Sari, but they would have made a mess if they hadn't been under the direction of Charlotte.

Whilst they were doing that, I was just walking around the castle, wanting to find the secret buried somewhere beneath.

The secret had been mentioned in the novel, but the novel had never detailed where it had been found.

You see, the Lysander of the novel hadn't awakened by himself like I had, he had just found a forgotten awakening room somewhere beneath the castle, along with the castle's hidden inheritance.

And, although the awakening room was not necessary for me anymore, I really wanted that hidden inheritance.

After all, it was an artifact of immeasurable power, and let's just say that, if Gwen or one of the others decide to turn on me, then I'll be well prepared, enough to fight on equal terms with them.

Because, you see, although my stats had gone way up during my travels through the north, they were still not on par with the level that Char or Gwen was on.

This was all due to the fact that, the higher your stat points, the harder it was for you to grow it.

We can see this with an anecdote.

Say that a person raised their stat from 5 to 5.1, and another person raised their stat from 8 to 8.1; the person that raised their stat from 5 to 5.1 would have used about 1/1,000,000 of the energy that the person that had raised their stat from 8 to 8.1 would have used.

Of course, this was only an estimation, as everyone was different, evident from how fast my intelligence stat was growing even though it was in the eights.

Anyways, right now, I was still weaker than Sari, who was only 5 years older than me, so, I really couldn't even stand on the same level as a regressor who kept their powers after each regression, or a nanny who was given many different artifacts to raise her strength past the limits.

So, I could only get stronger by getting an artifact of my own, and this one was an extremely overpowered one. It was actually probably the only reason that the Lysander in the novel could even stand up against Eve, the Hero.

Well, back to the present, I had been searching around in the wine basement of the castle, when I found something strange with a bottle of wine.

You see, although all the bottles around it were still in perfect condition, the extreme cold of the north having preserved the contents, this bottle, for some reason, had a worn out neck.

Grimacing, I gripped it from the bottom, and then pushed it up with all my strength.

"GRRRRRRRRRRR."

Hearing the sounds of gears turning, I could only smile in satisfaction.