FJ 20

Chapter: 20

The rain that had been pouring down without warning stopped just as suddenly.

“Wait.”

At that moment, Rennox Carlisle, who had been riding toward his townhouse in the capital, abruptly pulled his horse to a halt.

Prff.
The duke’s steed, which had been running ahead, tossed its head lightly.

“My lord?”

“What is it?”

The knights following him naturally stopped as well.

When they looked at him with puzzled expressions, the duke instead frowned back at them in confusion.

“Can’t you hear it?”

“…Pardon?”

“Hear what—”

Then they truly heard it. Faint, but unmistakable—a low, humming sound.

“I hear it!”

The one who answered was Jude Hayon, the youngest member of the order. Jude loosened his scabbard.

The sound was coming from the knights’ swords—more precisely, from the mana stone embedded in his blade.

“Resonance,” Hardin said, nodding.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means mana is flowing somewhere nearby, within the capital.”

“That way.”

The Duke of Carlisle’s magic sword rang out loudly, guiding them toward the outskirts of the capital.

By the time they neared the forest, the noise was painful to the ears.

The destination indicated by the swords’ resonance was an abandoned stone structure on the edge of the city. The capital was home to many ancient temple ruins to begin with.

But what could possibly be here?

With the moon hidden behind clouds, it was difficult to clearly see their surroundings.

“Huh?”

The first to spot a figure was Jude.

“There’s someone over there!”

He was right. In the center of the collapsed stone ruins—wide like an open clearing—something that looked like a swarm of fireflies drifted through the air. Beneath them knelt a human figure.

The slender silhouette appeared to belong to a woman.

Jude dismounted and pushed aside the bushes, about to run forward—then stopped short.

What had looked like shadows covering the stone floor of the ruins turned out to be something dark and sticky, smeared everywhere, as though someone had recklessly splashed oil paint all over the ground.

“My lord, I suggest caution,” Hardin warned quietly.

“There are bodies over there.”

Rennox had already seen what Hardin was referring to.

Four corpses lay abandoned in a corner, along with the wreckage of a single broken carriage.

The bodies appeared to be those of a well-dressed noble couple, along with what looked like their servant and coachman. Four people in total.

Then is that woman their daughter?

The sticky substance covering the rain-soaked stone floor was, of course, not paint.

Rennox dismounted and walked toward the woman standing motionless in the center of the ruins.

At that moment, the large full moon, previously hidden by clouds, revealed itself once more.

“…!”

It was grotesque enough that even battle-hardened knights reflexively reached for their swords.

What had dried onto the stone floor was an enormous amount of blood, and what they had mistaken for fireflies was a swarm of tiny butterflies, no bigger than fingernails, scattering light as they flew.

And beneath them sat a woman, collapsed and powerless.

Rennox approached her and lifted her up. The arm he grabbed was burning hot, as if her entire body were feverish.

The pale blue dress that must once have been beautiful was soaked and ruined with blood, and her long hair hung loose and unkempt. Still, he thought calmly.

I had a feeling it would be her.

He would have bet on it—that this was the woman who had fled the banquet as though running from him.

He was certain he had never met her before, yet there was something oddly familiar about her.

Have we met somewhere before?

But where?

The woman, her expression unfocused and dazed, lifted her blue eyes to look at him.

What is this?

Juliet was delirious with fever and no longer in her right mind.

When she came to her senses, she found herself left alone in this place.

The thugs who had laughed crudely, talking about selling her off, had suddenly vanished after letting out horrific, dying screams.

Perhaps she wasn’t truly alone. Small fluttering lights flew around her, chattering incessantly as they had been for some time.

<Contract. Now.>
<Can. You. Hear. Us?>

Her entire body burned with heat, and moving even a finger felt as difficult as if her limbs were broken. So she simply stayed where she was—until suddenly, a cool hand appeared and pulled her to her feet.

That’s cool.

Dazed, Juliet slowly raised her head to see who the owner of the large hand was.

Ah.

She met the crimson eyes of a familiar man who was gripping her shoulder firmly to keep her steady.

“No—!”

The woman desperately tried to pull away from him, but like a puppet with its strings cut, she lost consciousness and collapsed.

“Did you hear? About the Count of Monad.”

The morning after bringing the unconscious woman back to his estate, Rennox slowed his steps as he exited the imperial audience chamber.

“Yes. They still haven’t found them.”

“The entire family disappeared, didn’t they? The count, his wife, and their only daughter.”

Their conversation drifted in from beyond a curtained balcony.

“How tragic. What are the chances any of them are still alive?”

Since the entire capital was abuzz over the count’s family that had gone missing the previous night, Rennox Carlisle naturally learned everything there was to know about the woman he had brought back—and about House Monad—within half a day.

The count was known for his gentle disposition, not the type to make enemies, and the countess, originally from the eastern provinces, was said to be a warm-hearted beauty.

And because the loving couple had struggled to have a child, their only daughter had been betrothed early, with a future son-in-law already chosen.

Bringing the woman to his estate had been an impulsive decision, but Rennox now knew everything about her—her name and background—despite her never telling him herself.

Except for why she ran away from the banquet that day.

However, among all the rumors circulating, there was no mention of House Monad’s heirloom being an artifact that sealed something utterly absurd.

“My lord?”

At the servant’s prompt, Rennox left the palace behind, putting the gossiping voices out of his mind.

Though his trip to the capital had been decided on suddenly to confirm information from his spies, his official reason for visiting was business, so he at least had to pretend to work.

He had only thought up a flimsy excuse about inspecting merchant guilds in the capital to deceive the emperor, but his loyal aides had eagerly handed him a mountain of real work to handle while he was there.

Yet as he made his way to the clubhouse after leaving the palace, skimming through dense quarterly reports filled with numbers, his thoughts kept drifting back to the woman he had brought to his estate the night before.

Juliet Monad—the one who had awakened something she never should have.

So she was a count’s daughter.

Beings bound to artifacts typically obey the person who summons them and lend them their power.

That was why artifact users were often called spirit callers.

In that sense, they were no different from spirit mages, who summoned mostly harmless, human-friendly beings from other dimensions and borrowed their strength.

Some wealthy individuals collected artifacts to flaunt their riches and influence, or even hired artifact users and kept them like jesters.

So it wasn’t surprising that Juliet Monad possessed a talent she herself hadn’t known about, nor that she had accidentally awakened a being sealed within an artifact at the moment her life was in danger.

The problem is that it wasn’t an ordinary spirit.

Rennox sighed and rubbed his mouth.

Most beings bound to artifacts were harmless and simple enough to be called “spirits,” but on extremely rare occasions, there existed powerful entities that harbored malice toward humans.

Evil gods from other dimensions, summoned in the distant past and sealed within artifacts, who came to hate humanity.

The very object Rennox had been searching for over a decade was just as dangerous as the one belonging to House Monad.

So dangerous that even the mere fact of its existence, if revealed, would become a fatal weakness for the ducal family.

The older and more dangerous the entity dwelling within an artifact, the more often it released powerful mana. The Carlisle family had long used that as a signal to track down artifacts whose whereabouts had been lost.

This time, there had even been information about a tiara similar to one worn by a blonde woman, so he had thought perhaps—

But the mana detected near the capital had clearly come from the artifact owned by House Monad.

He suddenly recalled the woman from the night before, soaked in blood, staggering into his arms before collapsing.

He had only held her briefly, but at a glance, Juliet Monad’s mana level had been pathetically low.

What Juliet Monad had awakened was an absurdly powerful and malevolent being.

If it had been an ordinary spirit, there would have been no problem. But the monsters she had awakened would soon lose their patience, reveal their true nature, and devour her whole.

What a headache.

Rennox smiled faintly, indifferently. If he left her alone, how much longer would she last?

The pale blue dress, the white nape of her neck, and her light-colored hair briefly clouded his mind—but his eyes remained cold.

Well, it’s none of my concern.

With that, Rennox completely erased the woman from his thoughts.