CHAPTER 67……………………..
“Brother, please be careful on your way home.”
Linaria seemed completely unaware that August had lost his chance.
Thud—
No sooner had she finished speaking than the door closed, and Kaas got into the carriage through the opposite door.
Inside the carriage, it seemed Linaria was saying something to Kaas, but August couldn’t hear it.
Soon after, the carriage started moving.
“Haha!”
Watching the carriage gradually fade into the distance, he burst into laughter.
“Seems like it’s worth every rune of its price.”
“Linaria.”
A few days later.
Magnus’s eyes widened as he came to see Linaria.
“Is it someone’s birthday today or something?”
Magnus was flustered.
In front of him was a cake as tall as he was.
“No. It’s not that.”
“Then who is this prepared for?”
“For the Tower Lord.”
“…Me?”
Magnus pointed at himself with his index finger, his expression full of bewilderment.
“Yes. You worked hard to treat Duke Ignas. Looking back, I felt I owed you a great deal, so I prepared this.”
Ahem!
Magnus coughed unnecessarily to hide the corner of his mouth lifting into a smile.
“Here’s a fork.”
“Let’s cut it together. Where’s the knife?”
“You’ll need a knife, right?”
“Which household eats cake without a knife? How uncivilized.”
“I thought it’d be better to eat it with a fork, so I didn’t prepare a knife. I’m sorry.”
“You did it on purpose? Why?”
He believed that Linaria, who valued etiquette, would have made a knife herself if there wasn’t one.
But she did it on purpose?
“I grew up like family with the nurse’s daughter. But one day, she ate cake without cutting it first.”
“….”
“That looked so delicious. I wanted to try it once, but I guess it was just my own thought. I’m sorry.”
“Wait. You said the nurse’s daughter? Then you could have just said you wanted to eat it all, couldn’t you?”
Of course, if Linaria had given the order, he would have prepared it.
Then why talk as if she never got to eat a single piece?
Magnus, puzzled, listened as Linaria calmly recalled the memory.
“I was told not to get fat since the only thing I had going for me was my looks. It was the same then.”
“….”
“Now, my stomach isn’t big enough to eat an entire cake, so I can’t even try. But the Tower Lord is different…”
“The secret that cake tastes better when eaten uncivilized is now exposed!”
Hmph!
Magnus snorted, using a fork to cut off a corner of the cake and place it on a plate.
It was large enough that even one piece could fill him up.
And though he had roughly cut it with a fork, it strangely looked perfectly straight, as if measured.
“Don’t go somewhere and go hungry.”
Magnus held the piece out in front of Linaria.
“If you gain weight, it means your presence in this world increases by that much. What’s wrong with that?”
She muttered shyly, avoiding eye contact.
“And what do you mean you only have your looks? A smart person like you can solve problems at a glance. Where else would you find someone like that? Don’t spout such nonsense!”
As he spoke, Magnus seemed to swell with righteous anger.
“Is that nurse still in this mansion?”
“No, she was kicked out.”
“You didn’t do it yourself, I assume? Was it your father?”
“Yes.”
“Finally did something I could approve of.”
That nurse had made such ridiculous claims to Linaria, yet Dante hadn’t quietly dismissed her.
Magnus felt some satisfaction and moved to eat the cake.
“But Tower Lord—”
“Hmm?”
“Kaas saw the divine beasts.”
Clink—
He dropped his fork.
“They even say they made a sound, but I don’t know why.”
Linaria handed Magnus an extra fork and recalled the conversation she had with Kaas.
“Kaas, about what we talked in the dressing room earlier… the part you said you could see.”
It was on the way home after parting from August.
With only Kaas and Linaria, she brought up the topic of the “divine beasts.”
“When did you start seeing them?”
“From a long time ago.”
“Specifically? Was it after meeting me?”
“Very… very long ago. I don’t know exactly when. Sorry.”
Kaas frowned, desperately trying to remember.
It was pointless to interrogate someone who couldn’t recall.
But it was certain that he had seen the divine beasts even before meeting Linaria.
“Then on the day you first met Noah, you must have seen Eunho too. Why did you pretend not to?”
That day, Linaria had carried Brimstone above her head.
It was hard to ignore, yet he hadn’t said a word.
“You didn’t want me to.”
“….”
“You wanted to hide the fact that you could see them.”
Kaas watched Linaria’s reaction.
“Really?”
“…Yes. You’re right.”
Invisible to ordinary people, she could easily have been treated as crazy.
Kaas’s actions were correct, yet at the same time, impressively sly.
Just as it seemed nothing would come of it, Kaas said something significant.
“Liri.”
“Hm?”
“Do you treasure them?”
“Treasure the divine beasts? Hmm… that seems too strong a word.”
They were cute, behaved adorably, and could even communicate.
Linaria thought it unfortunate that she was the only one to interact with them.
But since they belonged to another family, “treasuring” them wasn’t appropriate.
She denied it, and Kaas visibly relaxed.
“I hope you keep your distance from them. It’s dangerous.”
Kaas asserted that the divine beasts were dangerous.
Considering their power, it wasn’t entirely wrong. Yet Linaria kept mulling over his words.
‘Are the divine beasts really dangerous?’
Honestly, she wasn’t sure.
She looked at Magnus, still dazed.
“Kaas has probably been able to see divine beasts since he was very young.”
“Now that you mention it, that guy is a double divine beast contractor. It makes sense that you’d first think he might see them.”
Magnus speculated, unaware that Kaas was a multi-divine beast contractor.
“Does that mean the Crown Prince can see divine beasts too?”
“That I don’t know. I’ve never met him personally. He probably knows there are only two double divine beast contractors in history.”
Maximilian and Kaas.
If Magnus knew Kaas was actually a multi-divine beast contractor, he would be extremely surprised.
Linaria nodded, reflecting on this.
“Hm… Linaria, lend me that boy for a few days.”
“What do you intend to do?”
“Lock him up and perform a few experiments…”
“No.”
She refused outright.
Kaas had already endured cruel experiments.
She didn’t want to make him recall any trauma.
Magnus pouted.
“If that’s your opinion, I can’t help it. A few hypotheses come to mind. But we can’t test them individually, so it’ll take time.”
“That’s fine. It’s not causing immediate harm, and if we know the reason it’s good; if not, so be it.”
Perhaps it was a side effect of multiple divine beast contracts.
“Alright, I’ll investigate. But I’ll need a little of his blood.”
“Just take a single sample.”
“Not enough.”
“Tower Lord—”
“Fine, fine! At my age, what could I do by defeating you!”
Magnus picked up a new fork, as if retaliating, and attacked the cake.
Feeling guilty for restricting him too much, Linaria spoke softly.
“I am always grateful to you, Tower Lord.”
“No need for grand thanks.”
Munch, munch.
“That slave aside, treating Duke Ignas was really simple. I just made him drink condensed pure water. He did all the hard work.”
“But without you, Tower Lord, it wouldn’t have worked.”
“Y-Yeah! That’s right! Hmph!”
He seemed to brighten.
Engrossed in eating cake, he didn’t notice the cream on his lips.
Watching him, Linaria wondered: knowing a treatment method no one else did—was it simply because he was knowledgeable, or…?
“Linaria, aren’t you eating?”
Magnus looked at her, curious.
“Did the Tower Lord crave the divine beasts’ power?”
A similarity between Noah and Magnus: they lived like children, as if time had stopped.
“Since he wasn’t naturally long-lived, there must have been a reason. And I felt it while watching Duke Ignas.”
“….”
“If Duke Ignas could be healed, then the Tower Lord should be the same. If you did it deliberately, I apologize.”
“Linaria, my case is different from that child’s.”
“What’s different?”
“He had the Great Seal of the household head; I do not.”
He spoke in a low voice.
“So… I have no way to cure it. I just have to live like this, so don’t worry about me. And regarding craving the divine beasts’ power…”
“….”
“No. I never did.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine. You’d be curious. Outside, people constantly ask me why I’m not dead yet.”
Now she understood why Magnus’s face wasn’t publicly known.
“May I ask one more thing?”
“Go ahead. Hesitating doesn’t suit you.”
“You said the intermediary for contracting with the Time Divine Beast isn’t kin.”
“That’s right.”
“Then how can one contract with the Time Divine Beast?”
“They say if you’re desperate and have a very strong will, you can summon it. But I’ve never met it myself, so I’m not certain.”
“Yet I…”
“You were chosen from birth, maybe even before birth.”
Magnus said rather flatly.
“Likely a result of Margaret’s experiment.”
“Experiment?”
Linaria paused.
It didn’t sound pleasant.
“Why my mother…?”
“Hm. Perhaps.”
Magnus gave a short, thoughtful reply.
“She might have wanted to conquer the world.”
