Contacting the higher ups

As they headed towards the palace, Caroline tried to elicit more information from Claud, only to be skilfully deflected at every turn. She was clearly under the impression that there was some grudge between the Church of the White God and Claud, although the only reason why he didn't want Lily or himself to give testimony was because it was likely to create more dangers for them both.

There were many reasons why she would want to know such a thing, but given his eternally paranoid nature, Claud wasn't going to tell her anything. It would be better to keep her guessing on and on about the nature of this non-existent acrimony between him and the White Church for multiple reasons, which included the fact that no such grudge existed.

If the White Church came to look for trouble with him, it would be a tell-tale sign that Caroline didn't harbour goodwill towards him or the Moon Lords. Furthermore, since there actually wasn't any grudge, nothing untoward would happen if he played his cards right. Telling her this, therefore, would serve as a means of identifying her disposition towards this new associate organisation that had been appointed by Count Nightfall, as well as a means in which he and the others could skip out on dangerous work.

The last thing he needed were orders to hunt down the murderer, especially from people and organisations the Moon Lords couldn't refuse. It was one thing to refuse an order from the Nightfall administration, but another to refuse any church of the Coloured Gods.

After a few minutes of walking, they passed through the palace gates. The familiar, breath-taking sight of flowers everywhere entered Claud's eyes, and even Lily found herself perking up at that breath-taking landscape.

"As pretty as ever," Claud mumbled.

"Amazing how a random arrangement of seeds can yield such a wild, yet ordered field of flowers," Captain Blake observed.

"It wasn't this ordered when we first randomly scattered seeds, though. Flowers died and bloomed over multiple iterations to create something like this," Caroline replied. "Come on, we can admire this from higher up if you guys want to do so later."

Passing through the guards with absurd ease, Caroline led them into the mansion in the middle.

"Every territory that is ruled by a count has an artefact that can connect to this…shared information space. There are other organisations that have such an artefact, like the Folders' Association or the churches of the Coloured Gods," said Caroline. "That's how we're going to contact the Church of the White God."

"Are we also going to report to the Istrel Dukedom?" Claud asked.

"Yes, naturally. To prevent us from being bullied by one side, contacting multiple parties at once will help to restrain their behaviour." She paused. "Yes, bullying takes place even in noble society. Have I disillusioned you two?"

"No, not really."

Claud glanced at Lily, who was still maintaining her silence. She had been quiet ever since they entered Caroline's presence — normally, she would have warmed up to Caroline by now.

"I see." Caroline chuckled. "Seems like you already have your own experiences."

Leading them down a long hallway, the group of four stopped at the very end. A metal door had been built into the end, in stark contrast to the earlier doors made from rich oak that they had passed by earlier.

"This door looks very…special," Claud observed.

"Yes, it is—hmm?"

The metal door opened, and two short children walked out of the room, sporting an eyepatch on their left eyes. Together, they bowed to them, before jumping out of a nearby window without skipping a beat.

"Who were they?" Lily asked.

Claud glanced at her, and hid an urge to smile. Somehow, the appearance of two random, eyepatch-wearing children was enough to coax her out of her shell, and—

"Ah. I think I know who these fellows are," said Claud.

"Who?" Lily asked, glancing out of the window. The sound of guards running were in an odd cadence with the bells that were ringing frantically, but if his guess wasn't wrong, those two little kids wouldn't be easily caught.

"Well, they're kinda an urban legend," Claud replied. "The Monochromatic Twins. These two fellows actually paid a nocturnal visit to the count some time ago, and then drew panda eyes on him, since he was snoring. Incidentally, they also drew panda eyes on you, Farah and Risti at Triple-D."

"That was their doing?"

"Yes." Claud was about to chuckle when he noticed the petrified expression on Caroline's face. "I-is there something wrong?"

"This city is really scary! I thought Aran was just kidding when he told me about two kids who drew on his face!"

"Your Grace, be at ease. These children are relatively harmless, and—" Captain Blake stuttered as Caroline pointed at the metal door in silence. "Well, I don't know how they got inside, since I'm not one of the palace guards, but I think they might like the cold environment inside."

"This is unbelievable."

"Yes, I believe so too," the captain replied. "You, however, should question the palace guards about their security policies and see what went wrong there. I, unfortunately, am not in a place to comment about His Grace's security arrangements."

"This is unbelievable," Caroline muttered. "Forget it. I'll question the guards later. Let's handle the issue at hand first."

Claud shivered as he followed the count's fiancée and the vice-commander of the city guards into the room. The interior of this particular room was actually lined with metal, and save for a single, odd looking metal box in the very centre, there was virtually nothing else.

"What's this place?" Lily asked.

"There's no name for this place," Caroline replied. "But this here is an artefact that is issued by Emperor Grandis and Emperor Grandis only. It holds value beyond anything else that might exist in a county or even a dukedom, and is the means of formal communication between the higher nobles."

Claud eyed the artefact, which was the only thing in the room. "Why did you show us this? I don't think commoners like us are meant to know about this artefact, right?"

"I was using Sudden Inspiration this morning, and the hunch that I should be a bit more trusting of my allies came to me," Caroline replied.

"Sudden Inspiration?" Claud asked.

"Yes. It's a skill from the Church of the Blue God. The user gets suggestions related to issues that might crop up in one's destiny. That is, after all, the Blue God's domain." Caroline smiled. "I might not trust many people, but I do, at least, trust myself. It has saved me many times in ways I never expected, like avoiding a robbery by delaying my ride by an hour, or bringing extra guards to fend off a determined kidnap attempt."

Claud licked his lips. "That sounds really useful."

Caroline grimaced. "It is. It's a shame that buying this skill cost me ten platinum. But anyway, I had a hunch that letting the Moon Lords know about this room would help me or Aran down the line."

Claud rolled his eyes. "Captain Blake, you heard her. Please don't lock us up for knowing the secrets of Licencia, since she's the one who told us about all this."

"…that's out of my job scope, which is limited to security and safety of Licencia's people," Captain Blake replied. "We are the city guards, not the personal guards. Our loyalty is to the Emperor, not to the count."

He paused. "My apologies, Your Grace."

"N-no, it's fine, really. You aren't on our payroll, after all, and doing all this is already going the extra mile for us," Caroline replied. "Alright, enough idle chitchat. Take a deep breath, me, and just contact the Church of the White God…"

She paused. "Right, you two should stand over there, since you don't want to be implicated in this. Captain, might I trouble you to come over here, so that they can see your rank properly…"

After bustling around for a few more minutes, Caroline took another deep breath, before pushing the only button on the metal box. The glass panel on the metal box immediately lit up with a white light, and a faint humming filled the room.

"Wow," Claud whispered. "This thing looks like…I don't know. I don't have words for it."

Lily swallowed. "Does this thing really allow for people to communicate through entire counties and whatnot? I wonder if I can make one…"

"You could give it a try, but we might need to dismantle this one first," Claud replied with a grin.

"…never mind. It's probably a compound artefact or something. We'll need many people to make something like this," said Lily. "Forget it. My day is ruined, and my sorrow immeasurable…"

While Lily wallowed away in the knowledge that the chances of the Moon Lords becoming the Sun Lords were higher than her making this little box, Claud turned his attention back to Caroline, who was now touching the glass screen with her fingers.

"Moons," Claud muttered, "there's someone inside the box!"

Indeed. On the glass panel, there was actually two someone-s. Claud, who had never seen such trickery before, couldn't help but wonder if this box actually trapped someone's soul inside.

"Do you think Caroline will be alright?" Lily asked, worried. "What if the box takes her soul or something too?"

"…you ask me questions I cannot answer, Lily."