Traveling to the capital city

"What a pity. Mom can't come with us."

Inside the carriage, Tina who was looking at the window commented.

'Whose fault is it that Miss Deana can't come with us? It's your fault.'

Maric's pupils turned towards Tina as he continued to try to make himself comfortable from the shock of the carriage.

This was their first long journey in almost four years.

According to Eradel royal culture, when the Royal family felt that their kingdom had returned to peace, they would definitely celebrate a religious ceremony.

Thanking God for their blessings, all important nobles would be invited to the royal palace for the event.

The ceremony would last for at least a whole month with many events organized for the nobles.

From what Maric had heard, the end of the main event of the ceremony was the visit of the Royal family and representatives of the nobility to the holy land where the great tree believed to be given by God to humans.

They would pray for three days and then the event was officially over.

Despite knowing that the event was important and grand, for some reason Deana couldn't go.

"If our brother came, it would be a hassle because he's only one year old."

"Yeah, too bad... this might be your chance to brag about the event when our brother is older, right Tina?"

"I'm not planning to brag or anything, that's your habit, not mine."

"I don't have a habit of bragging either."

Tina who heard that then closed her mouth, she showed an expression as if she felt that she would definitely lose if she continued to follow Maric's game.

Recalling that the Noir family now had three successors. Maric was a little worried but it didn't seem like it would change anything in the Noir family.

There were no significant fights that could ruin the family's relationship, if Maric saw any signs of that, Maric would definitely put a stop to it. He was quite confident with his emotional control and Tina was no different, her sister was even very close to Deana.

For some reason too, Maric wouldn't care too much if the entire Noir family legacy was passed on by his newborn brother. After all, it was Franz and Deana's biological child.

He could not be selfish by asking for a portion of the Noir family fortune. Maric even began to question whether he had a motive to do so, the answer was clearly no.

He was not interested at all, how could he possibly do such a heinous thing to the family that had helped him all these years.

Maric had to prepare for him and Tina trying to find another way of life, all that mattered for now was the security of survival when he was helpless. This little boy's body, shackling Maric to do many things.

As Maric thought that, the excited Tina said to him.

"Big brother, you really have no talent..."

"I can beat you in a sword fight even when I have no talent."

"Someone who can only use one ordinary magic spell, telling me that? I can use three magic from two different elements, I'm stronger than you."

"Power is determined by who uses it, even if you have talent, it's useless if you don't know how to use it."

"Still, that doesn't change the fact that I'm stronger than you."

'Next time, if me and you fight again, I'll make sure that I will deliberately lose. Tina's swordsmanship is indeed far superior to mine, but her attack patterns are very easy to read. I'm tired and it's very troublesome to fight her when she keeps asking me to duel.'

It might have boosted Tina's confidence that she had an advantage over little girls her age. But that didn't mean that she was strong enough to fight some of the more experienced adult knights.

Maric was a little hesitant, if he had to give in to Tina, his sister might think that she was much stronger than others without realizing the true reality.

"Don't get your hopes up about your strength. Your sister may only be able to use one type of elemental magic but I can also use healing magic."

"What good is low-level healing magic? You failed to even become a spirit contractor."

There are three types of magic that all royal knights know.

The first is magic that uses spirit assistance. Usually the magicians who use spirit assistance can use non-elemental magic such as body strengthening and healing, it is still at a low level. At a higher level, a magician can contract directly with a spirit from the spirit world, it is called the spirit contractor.

In this type of magic, a spirit contractor does not need to cast spells using the Kislev language. Therefore, some spirit contractors can no longer be called wizards by some countries near the kingdom of Eradel.

The second type of magic is called ordinary witches or elemental witches. They used the Kislev language to cast spells. There was nothing quite special about them as they usually entered into the regular military of other kingdoms and countries.

The only thing that everyone could understand was the fact that they had so many different kinds of spells, that even someone with no magical talent had the chance to become a wizard if only that person tried hard. But that was only limited to a spell or two, at a higher level, a wizard was able to master five different elements of magic.

And finally, the third type of magic. Maric didn't know much about this type of magic, he had never seen it in person.

As far as what he knew, Maric found out that the third type of magic was called Blessings and curses. It was unclear whether that was an accurate word or not, but knowing that this type of magic used the ancient Kislev language meant that it was a forbidden type of magic.

Due to the lack of information people believed that it was related to the Servants and hero families. So only a few secret units of the kingdom knew about the ancient Kislev language and the mystery of the Blessings and curses type of magic, and also most likely those secret units did not even try to learn the ancient Kislev language because it was forbidden, they only knew about it to prevent disasters that might be caused by The Servant.

The legend about The Servant has been confirmed as true but the small details must be very different.

'Gosh, I only realized now that the history of the Noir family lineage is surprisingly long. The existence of the royal secret unit was only known by the heads of influential noble families. I only found out about it while reading some documents and family history.'

While watching the road from behind the carriage. Maric occasionally glanced at Franz who always showed a cold demeanor like someone who didn't really like talking.

'I doubt Mr. Franz has any close friends. With his attitude of only caring about work and family lineage, I wonder why he married the cheerful and innocent Miss Deana. A political marriage, perhaps?'

All this time, Maric had never seen a noble family trying to visit the Noir family mansion. If Franz really had close allies, there should be some noble families who would visit their mansion in order to maintain a relationship or coalition, but that didn't happen.

It made Maric wonder about what reputation the Noir family had in the eyes of other noble families?

But recalling Franz's cold demeanor, it was hard to imagine that the Noir family had close allies, unless-

-Building their own relationships from now on.

Instantly, Franz who noticed Maric's eyes then opened his mouth.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing, father. I just feel that two weeks of traveling is very long."

"You'll get used to it."

'Traveling from one town to another takes a few days to a week, I wouldn't be surprised to hear that the small merchants spend most of their lives traveling. It really feels like living in a primitive civilization where time is surprisingly short and also surprisingly long. This also explains why the economy can't simply recover in just a few years, because every inflammation between regions takes a long time.'

Swallowing his saliva, Maric then looked at Franz's demeanor which showed that he had something to tell Tina and Maric.

"Maric, Tina."

Hearing that, Maric and Tina immediately turned their heads.

"Yes, father."

"There will be tons of children of noble families attending the ball or some other event. Try to get along with them."

"I understand, I will. I'll try to get along with them."

Once again, Maric swallowed. Tina, who was beside Maric, acted as if she didn't understand anything.

'This girl is only 11 years old, she won't understand that what Mr. Franz really wanted to say wasn't that simple word.'

Many times, great things come out of things that most people don't realize.

Because most adults especially nobles lied with their sweet words for their own political interests. Maric could at least understand to some extent.

This all made perfect sense. The reason why Maric and Tina were adopted, it was probably true that it was because of the kind Miss Deana. But Maric doubted whether Franz could be that innocent.

There was no way that a professional and work-centered nobleman could be that naive, it was likely that Franz knew that he had flaws that he could not possibly cover up by himself.

In royal politics, the relationship between nobles is very important. Without personal closeness, all that existed between them was interest and that was sometimes very fragile.

The problem was, that closeness was very difficult to achieve when a soft-spoken noble like Franz tried to do it.

And that was the reason why Maric was brought to the capital.

'He wants me to build a connection to the Noir family? So that's the reason why he never once refused to adopt us, I even began to suspect that he had been preparing for it for years and then he found me.'

No matter, this was probably an equal exchange so that he could at least return the favor for something meaningful to the Noir family.

But the problem was, Maric had no idea where to start.