Too far away (1)

Sia was the starting point.

It was simply helping someone who was being chased.

The man who had been chasing Sia had attacked Calian and had been arrested. When that man was questioned, the name of Blue Warbler came out of that man's mouth.

And Blue Warbler gave him another name.

Hale Latran.

Calian thought of the man who had become the centre of the indicidences so far as he raced through the rain atop the borrowed horse.

As he was hit by the cold rain, Calian was able to organise his thoughts a little. As a result, it wasn't difficult to infer the reason for buying and collecting Divine Items.

Calian peaked at his ring, which was still exuding mana and said,

—It's Randell. By trading Divine Items with Tensil, he continues his connection with Randell. Since he is technically in Franz's faction, he has to do it secretly, which is why he uses Secretia's spies and even buys them for a higher price than anyone else.

Calian could hear Alan laughing as he continued speaking,

—So with a string connected to Randell through the Divine Items, he remains publicly on the side of Franz and was even one of the first to send me a gift. He was even selling information about Kyris to the spies from Secretia.

—What an amazing scheme.

—First, I should return to the castle quickly.

Those who stand on Randell's side may be enemies with Calian. Because of that he was anxious.

—I keep thinking that when I put him to sleep during the banquet, he might not have been drunk.

Wasn't he someone who had a lot of secrets?

If he had tried to figure out how Calian would treat him or had pretended to be drunk with other intentions then he might figure out what Calian had done.

—Did you put a normal person to sleep before going out?

—Well, if he wasn't drunk then that does seem to be the case.

The horse Calian had rented was already racing through the rain as fast as it could.

—I don't know why this horse is so slow. If it was Raven, we would have arrived already!

—Please ride slowly. You might break your neck at this rate.

He simply pretended to acknowledge Alan, who showed his worry in his own casual way, Calian only continued to speed up.

In the meantime, Alan arrived outside his own mansion, passed the singing statue and finally entered his house. He started to make a cup of coffee in the kitchen.

Calian's words once again came through as he was leisurely savouring the scent of the slowly dripping black coffee.

—By the way, what was the name of the Priest who was sent here?

—Malcolm Chetish. Rumein said he would likely be a butler.

Water dropped down from Calian's hair and onto his frowning face,

Wasn't the butler the same person who looked helpless when Calian had asked Latran about the Divine Item?

—I thought Count Latran was so restless because he was rude. But if not that, then he must have been lying.

Since Alan could say nothing more about him, Alan asked another question.

—Did you make sure to properly shut the mouth of the spy you spoke to?

Calian nodded even though Alan couldn't see him.

—Yes. If it's known among the spies that they came all the way here to Latran and even secretly met the Prince of Kyris it wouldn't be good for the spy either. They'll be sure to keep their mouths closed.

Calian slowed down his running horse because the castle of the territory's lord was coming into view.

The horse had run so fast that it felt like hot steam was rising from its body. Calian felt too impatient to wait for the guard knights to come forward and take the horse from him so he left the reigns to Kyrie and Yan who had followed behind and returned to his room – even more conscious of whether there were any eyes around him.

****

"I told you that his highness is on a walk right now! Is this behaviour not too persistent?"

After he had returned to the room, he had changed his clothes and used magic to remove any signs of mud and marks on the window frames and outer walls.

Just as he had finished, he heard the sound of an angry voice and realised it was Yan – sounding as sharp as he could.

"The Count really wanted to apologise for the irreverent appearance during the banquet so he really wanted to see the Prince before the night was over. So if you could just tell me when he will be returning…"

It was the butler, Malcolm, who replied with these words.

'That person was supposed to be the priest'

Malcolm was persistently sticking on to Yan, while Calian was on his walk. Perhaps Hale Latran had sent Malcolm at this time to check on his actions, while saying he wanted to apologise to Calian.

"Isn't this attitude an attempt to cover up imperfections instead? Since when was a Count's butler able to question after the Prince's movements?"

Yan's voice was very coldly reprimanding the butler.

For now, Calian, whose priority was to send the butler back first, quickly kicked his robes behind the door and loosened the a button on his shirt, running hand through his hair, he messed it up slightly, making sure it was dry before making a very annoyed expressions and yanking the door open.

"…!"