The Sword and The Shadow

”The footsteps of that person?” Leguna asked, unable to contain his curiosity, ”Who might that be?”

Marolyt fell silent and returned a question. ”You donʼt know this even though youʼre the head of the bureau?”

”What are you talking about?”

”I thought you already knew.” Marolyt sighed and muttered, ”Are both empires trying to keep that under wraps? Hehe…”

”Pops?” Leguna called out probingly.

The man turned around to look at him. ”Kid, if youʼre really interested in the matter, go check up on the founding war. I doubt itʼd be hard to unearth this matter with the bureauʼs capabilities.”

”Alright.”

There were many records about the founding war, but Leguna hadnʼt paid them any attention due to how busy he was. Seeing how mysterious Marolyt was going about it, he felt that it was something he had to check out. Only then could he better understand this nation.

Eirinnʼs crying faded away. Seeing that she had more or less vented her feelings, Leguna stepped forward to calm her down.

The sight of Leguna being intimate with another girl caused Marolytʼs brows to twitch. He approached Annelotte and said, ”Hey…”

”Donʼt worry, Iʼm fine,” she replied calmly.

”Alright…” he nodded, ”If he dares hurt you, make sure to tell me. I will take him out.”

Annelotte merely nodded, though it wasnʼt sure she was agreeing to her fatherʼs offer or thanking him for his concern.

When Eirinn was calmed down enough, they left Fort Kesta. Alpacinoʼs casket would be sent back to his hometown by Legunaʼs minions.

Dealing with that matter took him up to ten days. During that time, letters asking him to return to Melindor would come for him non stop. It seemed that the loss of Fort Kesta caused quite a lot of trouble for Hocke.

Leguna knew that he couldnʼt shirk his duties off any longer, so he prepared to go back to Melindor with Annelotte.

He couldnʼt afford to dally thanks to the urgency conveyed through the letters. Fortunately, Annelotte was a high-order magus and using her transference spells, Leguna was able to make it back in two or so days.

By then, word of Annelotte killing Saron single-handedly had spread far and wide. To welcome the brightest star of the empire back, many citizens in Melindor assembled their own parades.

Not a single citizen was disappointed. Annelotte was the cream of the crop when it came to looks, atmosphere and behavior. Coupled with her magnificent achievement, almost all the citizens cheered the moment she showed up.

Marolyt seemed to enjoy the atmosphere quite a lot and waved his hands nonstop as if he was the star of the show. Leguna wasnʼt too surprised by that, however. Annelotte was Marolytʼs daughter, after all. Who could fault him for being excited about the adoration the others had for her?

Annelotte, on the other hand, seemed quite unaccustomed to being in the spotlight. She furrowed her brow in annoyance as if she couldnʼt stand the crowd.

Eirinn also seemed rather perturbed, especially when she was standing beside a world-class beauty like Annelotte. She felt it accentuated her ugliness, so she tried to hide in a corner to not catch attention.

How she acted affected Leguna quite a bit and he decided that the first thing he would do after settling down was to recover Eirinnʼs looks.

But, regardless of how they reacted to it, there was no escaping the grand welcome. Annelotte rushed back to her alchemy lab immediately. Though she began to have doubts about what she was doing, she wasnʼt one to stop things half way. They were in the crucial stage of the research and she had to put in more effort.

After bidding her goodbye, Leguna decided to find a place for Eirinn to stay. He decided to let her stay with Innilis and him since the two got along rather well. He hoped that Innilisʼs optimism could help Eirinn forget the recent painful events. It was a relatively quiet residence in which the three lived. Annelotte also had a room reserved for her as well.

When he was done settling her down, Leguna rushed back to the bureau. While Xeno and Gerd were running the place, Leguna no longer dared to so willingly pass his power on to others ever since that incident with Arikos.

He did hear that Gerd did quite a number of small moves during his time as acting bureau head, but he was only reaping a little more benefit for himself without doing anything like scheming against him. Even so, he didnʼt spare any effort to rebuke Gerd for his selfish acts.