13 - Chapter 13

Burris was vaguely aware that the atmosphere was a bit strange. The previous conversation seemed to touch something they had never talked about. He was hesitating whether he should ask or not. At this time, Estel hesitated and said: “Mentor, I know that Otarot believers can’t get along with us. But…But Sir Naylor’s situation is rather special. I didn’t want to tell you, but now that I have said that…”

Burris slammed the table and stood up, startling Roth and the dog. “What? What do you mean?” The mage stared at the raven on the bookshelf. “Are you pregnant?!”

“No!” Estel almost screamed. “Why do you think that?”

“Then what do you mean? What is the special situation?”

“It’s like this. Ten days later, it is my mother’s birthday, and there is a banquet in the palace as usual. Those few days happen to be the day when Sir Naylor returns to the capital to report on his duties. Not long ago, I received a letter from him. He usually doesn’t talk much, but when he wrote, he became jealous and very affectionate…In short, what he meant is that he would carefully prepare a gift for my mother, and might ask me…he might…ask me to marry him…”

“Do you want to accept?” Asked Burris.

Maybe Estel was a little embarrassed, so she didn’t answer directly: “I am the first heir to the throne. According to the ancestral system, I can’t marry out of the family. Sir Naylor is the second son and he can just enter the royal family. He also mentioned this in the letter, it can be seen that he is indeed very sincere…What I am worried about now is that Black Cliff Castle is remote, and Sir Naylor probably hadn’t heard those rumors when he wrote the letter. Once he returns to the capital, there will definitely be some nobles gossiping around him…What if he believes the rumors? What If he really thinks that I had tryst with the ‘son of the necromancer’?… It’s a small matter whether he asks or not, what is more important is that he won’t trust me anymore, and he might even pursue my uncle’s daughter Tarina instead…If he and Tarina become engaged, my uncle’s power will expand further…”

“You are thinking too much. As far as I know, your cousin is only thirteen years old.”

“My mother was engaged to my father when she was fourteen.”

Burris thought for a moment and said: “All right, I understand what you mean. Estel, I may be able to help you clarify the rumors, but I need you to help me again…”

“Do you still need the access permission of the secret floor of the Grand Library? No problem, Mentor.”

“Long term multiple access permission.”

The princess thought for a moment: “This may be a little troublesome, I will try my best. So, do you plan to come to the royal capital to attend my mother’s birthday party?”

“Yes, the more open you are, the less room for rumors. It just happened that recently I was thinking about the future. I can’t keep hiding like this, sooner or later, the outside world will get acquainted with my new identity –Kreve Gershaw, that name is all right. Estel, get me an invitation. I’ll prepare a gift for your mother, which can be regarded as a gift from the mage Burris who can’t be present.”

“Two invitations!” Roth said immediately. “I want to go too.”

Estel didn’t speak, waiting for her mentor to give her final instructions.

“Well, two. Lord Roth will go with me.” Burris sighed. Anyway, he didn’t need to worry about leaving the Skeleton King alone in the tower.

After discussing everything, Estel bid farewell to her mentor, and the metal raven flapped its wings and flew out of the tower. Roth looked at the bird’s back and asked: “Does she always use a sound-transmitting construct? Why doesn’t she use teleporting spells, crystal balls or something like that?”

Burris said: “Metal constructs have the least fluctuations of magic. There are also spellcasters in the palace, and Estel doesn’t want to be found out as a mage.”

Roth still didn’t understand: “I know that the nobles in the past would not be tainted with mystical practices, but now that there are mages in the court, why can’t the princess learn magic?”

“Because the princess can’t get tainted with anything ‘improper’.” Burris replied. “For example, there are carpenters, tailors and cooks in the court. There is nothing wrong with these occupations, but if the princess does carpentry, sewing and cooking, it will be considered very improper. What is more, Estel has been as involved as I am in necromancy research, so she has to be more cautious in terms of hiding her abilities. Even in the spellcaster community, there are those who only acknowledge elemental research and sensory illusions and oppose the studies of necromancy and other planes.”

Roth nodded and thought of another question: “By the way, why do you hate Otarot believers so much?”

“You know why.” Burris smiled bitterly. “Do you remember the knights around me sixty years ago? They had the holy emblem of the God of Silence on their black armor. In fact, they were quite gentle and polite to me, at least they treated as a person…If it had been more than a hundred years ago, the followers of Otarot would have killed all the necromancers.”

“And now? They don’t kill all the necromancers?”

“They kill them, but not casually. Now they will investigate you first, then file a lawsuit and go to trial…The verdict is very open to discussion, with death penalty in the most serious cases and a fine if it’s something unimportant. In the past, the study of necromancy was a sin. Later, the Confederation of Ten Nations and the Arcane Federation issued a set of regulations that prohibited killing without trial, legalized the study of necromancy and banned several types of necromancy. No one is allowed to cast, study, teach or carry any enchanted item related to forbidden magic. As long as you do not break the law, you will not be convicted. Of course, this set of regulations is full of loopholes. Some mages will be arrested for personal feuds, and some mages can use their connections and influence to escape supervision.”

“Are you one that escapes supervision?”

Burris smiled: “Sometimes… In fact, most accomplished mages are.”

After a few seconds of silence, Roth asked again: “I was thinking about it… Actually, you are not especially opposed to Estel and the knight, are you? You say you don’t agree, but I can see that your attitude is not tough at all.”

Burris said helplessly: “Because Estel is a silly child who really likes Sir Naylor. My lord, do you remember what the princess looks like?”

“Of course, she’s pretty. What’s the matter? ”

“Remember carefully, is there anything wrong with her face?”

Roth looked up for a moment rather seriously, as if nothing had occurred to him. “Maybe her expression is too cold and arrogant…She always looks sullen, maybe the princess is like this.”

Burris said: “That’s it. My lord, she can’t smile.”

“What?”

“She can’t smile. It’s not that she is cold, she really can’t smile. As I told you, she was poisoned before she was born, and she almost didn’t live to be fourteen years old. In fact, she hasn’t really recovered… When she was twelve or thirteen years old, she was critically ill several times. I had to use some extreme drugs to save her life. The toxins and drugs had side effects in her body and affected her face… A few years later, her condition became stable, but left her with the sequelae of not being able to smile.”

Thinking of this, Burris sighed deeply and then said: “Among the nobles in the royal capital, she has long had the title of the ‘Princess who doesn’t smile’. Many people regard ‘making Estel smile’ as a challenge. Others think that someone who can make her smile is likely to be chosen by her as her husband…that’s referring to Sir Naylor. I saw him for the first time on Estel’s twentieth birthday. His Majesty Passia gave her a grazing land and a dozen of horses, so her birthday party was moved to the palace outside the grazing land. Sir Naylor and his brother performed a long spear duel and prepared a small military parade for Estel…At that time, I found out Estel’s expression was a little wrong when she looked at him. Before the evening party, I discovered that Estel had secretly used a spell on herself…She used a manipulation spell, which allows the subject to make various expressions and movements, as long as it doesn’t exceed the limit of the subject’s body. Usually we use this spell to control corpses, let them make normal postures and expressions to disguise as living people…It can also be used for real living people, but it’s difficult to do it successfully, and the subject will feel pain and numbness on their face… I had never seen anyone use this on themselves, Estel was the first one I have ever seen.”

Roth listened very seriously: “Why did she do this? To pursue that man?”

“You could say so.” Burris said. “I saw Sir Naylor talking to her that afternoon, and the two of them agreed to dance together at the ball, so that no man would have the opportunity to invite Estel, and no woman would have the opportunity to hold Naylor. After the ball began, Estel danced with Naylor one piece of music after another according to the agreement, and she would smile from time to time. Although she had a stiff smile, everyone saw it, she really smiled. Estel’s spell had a time limit. She hadn’t finished the last dance yet, and hurriedly escaped from the palace like Cinderella in the story… Although she is the future owner of the palace, the knight would be the chosen Cinderella. Since that day, people have assumed that in the future the two of them will be bound together, which is probably what Estel intended.”

Roth absorbed energy from the love story and now he was more energetic. “I understand. She has a deep affection for that knight, and their relationship is anticipated and blessed by everyone. You understand very well that no matter how much you warn them, they are unlikely to separate… However, their relationship is also very dangerous. The knight and the princess have contrary beliefs, and the princess blindly rely on concealment to gain his trust…if they go on like this, their best result is to break up, the worst result is to turn into enemies, and the even worse result is…”

Saying this, Roth paused and put Count Hrolf, who was not sleeping well in his arms, on the carpet at his feet. “Whatever the result is… it will be difficult to end this way anyway.”

“So, I want to take a look.” Burris said. “First, I really want a long-term access permit for the secret floor of the grand library; second, the excessive proliferation of rumors is not good for anyone. I may be able to extinguish those rumors by appearing with my current looks; third, I would like to get in touch with that Sir Naylor. I need to confirm…whether he will become a potential enemy.”

“That said, his relationship with the princess is the last thing to consider?” Roth asked.

“That’s between them, what should I consider?” There was a little impatience in Burris’s tone. “As long there is not a major event, no fatal result, or something that affects Estel’s future, they will be together if they love to be together, and they will break up if they have to break up. If you let me tell you the truth, I really don’t support mages and common people together. I have seen a lot of excellent young apprentices being delayed because of marrying normal people. Even if you don’t want to find a mage, you should at least find a potion-brewer, or healer or something…if not, a merchant of the Trading Company of Spellcasting Materials is barely acceptable… In short, common people will restrain you, no matter how much they respect you, they will still restrain you. They will never understand what we love to do, they don’t even want to understand. They will persuade you by telling you that plain days are the real life… But it’s because they can only choose plain days. Even if you don’t want to escape, they will use love like hooks to drag your feet.”

Burris’s angry look made Roth find it very interesting. “I understand. It’s because you have never been married that you have become a famous mage.”

Burris immediately refuted: “Your causality was not accurately expressed. I chose to devote myself to my research and gave up getting involved in marriage, but I didn’t become a mage because I of that. The current speaker of the Arcane Federation has a happy family, and her husband is a historian.”

“It’s not uncommon to be unmarried, I haven’t been married at this age. But…have you ever been in love?”

Burris’s face twitched and he stared at the parchment in front of him in silence for a while before replying: “People are not interested in those things when they are old. It’s all about young people…”

“I’m surprised.” Roth sat down on the table again and leaned forward enthusiastically. “When you were talking to Her Royal Highness just now, I noticed that you said this… ‘I have lived more than eighty years old and I have seen countless people fall in love’…What a strange thing to say. Why didn’t you say ‘I have been in love so many times’? How can you just watch others fall in love?”

“It was just a casual remark, not the point of my conversation with her…” Burris felt dizzy and wanted to escape.

“The more casually someone speaks, the more it reflects a person’s true thoughts.” And Roth chased after him.

Thanks for reading! 🙂

And the dance is coming… :3