After getting information that was worth getting, namely what this Charles' everyday life is like, how many friends he has, how he is doing in the Aethernum, in his apprenticeship, and in the temple, Anette left. Having gone the length of coming here, she did feel like it was a waste to leave just like that, but from what she learned from Arc, he would not be back until later in the afternoon, if not quite possibly somewhere in the evening, so she believed that instead of wasting precious hours, because they were precious, she decided to leave. Leaving like that made her wish she had made the duo at least wait for her, but upon further pondering, she realized that it actually wasn’t that bad of a decision, since what she needed next from a coachman was something that required someone more familiar with the city.
Hiring one of the many carriages waiting on the corners outside the temple grounds, she had herself taken toward the mercantile district. The carriage she chose was much smaller than the one that had escorted her earlier. It was a tiny two-seater pulled by a single horse, and her legs barely fit inside. Two models existed. One was open to the sky, exposing its passenger to every eye on the street. The other had a roof and curtains, offering just enough privacy for those who valued discretion. She had naturally chosen the curtained version. As they rolled along, she nudged the fabric aside and watched the passing traffic. Dozens of similar carriages filled the boulevards. They seemed to be one of the city’s preferred means of transport.
The service technically existed in Leirden as well, but it had never flourished there. Most people preferred to walk, and Leirden was not so large a city that walking was inconvenient; at a steady pace, one could cross it end to end in under four hours. Only nobles and the wealthy bothered with hired carriages, and there were as few of them as there were patrons. Here, however, the situation was completely different. The clientele looked similar, but the number of carriages was astonishing. They were everywhere, exactly what one would expect from a holy city. She had two reasons for heading to the mercantile district. The first was simple necessity. After nearly a month here, she had realized how underprepared she was in terms of clothing. She had left in such a rush that she could barely blame herself. The second reason was more pleasant. She wanted to eat, and good restaurants could usually be found in any city’s mercantile section. She doubted this place would prove an exception.
After securing the clothes and having a much-deserved scrumptious lunch, she had the carriage she rented take her on a tour of the city, or to be specific, to a corner of the city that interested her, that being the corner where the local "garden" was. And sure enough, she caught sight of it.
As the carriage, under her seemingly random direction, arrived in the vicinity of the place, her eyes drawn to the towering structure, she asked, “What is that place?”
The driver, a grizzled man with a sun-leathered neck and hands thick from work, glanced over his shoulder briefly to look at what she was pointing at before returning his eyes to the road.
“That’d be the Floravelle, m’lady,” he said, voice rough but tempered with deference. “A house of... fine company, if you take my meaning.”
She watched the golden flags, each marked with a strange sigil, flutter in the wind. The symbol could easily be mistaken for the logo of an eatery: a plate, a fork, and, set neatly atop them, thorned vines encircling a flower.
Pretending to be surprised, she murmured, “A brothel?”
“Aye,” he answered naturally. “The grandest in the capital. A place where filthy rich Highbr—erm, priests and nobles go to forget what they are, if you follow,” casting a glance back at her, he cleared his throat nervously. The reason she could easily imagine.
In the Land of Men, being Highbreed is more often than not associated with nobility or being part of the faith, mainly the latter, which tends to equal being well-off, at the very least compared to the general peon population, which makes up the majority of humanity. So she could see why there was a certain level of hesitation in the driver’s voice; after all, in a city like this, with how she hired him outside the temple and how she dressed today, one would more likely assume her to be Highbreed than not.
“I see,” she murmured, studying the structure for a moment before adding, “This is a place like that, huh? And is it allowed to stand that tall in a city like this one?”
He let out a quiet laugh. “Well, when sons of the noble families and their fathers spend half their fortune there, and some of the highest-ranking members of the faith are regular customers instead of average people like me… let’s just say their spire standing that tall is tolerated. What’s the saying again? Something about gold and virtue..."
"Gold opens doors that virtue cannot.”
"Yes, that!
She smiled faintly, the corners of her lips curling in quiet amusement.
“Begging your pardon, m'lady. Didn’t mean no offense,” he said, misunderstanding her silence.
“None taken,” she said. “Thank you for the answer.”
He tipped his head, respectful again. “Of course, m'lady. Just say the word if you’d rather take a different route.”
“No need. I find the view... enlightening.”
The carriage rolled on, wheels clattering like whispers on the street. Still hoping to learn something from him, she struck up more small talk with the driver about the place. A few hours later, as the sun sank quickly behind the city’s towering walls, she realized how fast the day had passed to her.
Arms full of impromptu shopping bags, she entered the lobby and headed toward the reception desk to confirm her room. But something in the corner of her eye made her stop.
She turned toward the fireplace, where a pair of chairs faced each other. In them sat two people deep in conversation: a man in his fifties, cane in hand, and a younger figure, who from his height was likely around her age.
The younger man looked in her direction first. A moment later, the older man followed his gaze.
She froze.
Recognition flickered between them. The young man gave a simple nod of acknowledgment. She returned it in kind, small and restrained.
Abandoning the idea of going to the reception, she headed straight for her room.
No sooner had she stepped inside than the door shut behind her.
She barely had time to turn before someone rushed in after her, snatching the bags from her hands with practiced ease.
“Need help with these, my lady?”
“You’re a little late to offer,” she said, raising a brow.
“My apologies,” he replied unapologetically, sauntering into her room. He placed the bags neatly on the table, then turned to face her, a wide grin spreading across his face.
“I heard you were looking for me, so here I am,” he said, arms wide open, as if expecting her to run into them.
But she didn’t.
Instead, she opened her arms, waiting.
He hesitated only a second before crossing the room and embracing her, as if fulfilling an unspoken duty.
“Hi, Henri. Or do you prefer that I call you Charles now?”
“Hi, Big Sis. It’s been a while.”
She patted his back, missing the spot she was initially going for entirely, his recent growth spurt had thrown off her sense of where his shoulders used to be.
“It sure has.”
As he pulled back, a broad smile stretched across his face.
“It’s been so long. Let me take a good look at you,” she said.
Despite his height, which had led many to assume, since he was twelve, that he was three or four years older than he actually was, he was still young. Curly blonde hair framed a kind face, now caught in the awkward tug-of-war of puberty. Acne dotted his cheeks like stubborn buttons. She paused, staring for a moment, trying to spot what else had changed.
“What? Is there something on my face?” he asked.
“Yes,” she thought, but she kept that to herself. “You got my message pretty quick. I wasn’t expecting you until tomorrow.”
“We must’ve missed each other by an hour, at best,” Henri replied. “I came back to the temple and heard about this very beautiful cousin visiting Archie. Then when I met the guy, he said she wasn’t a cousin at all, but actually you. Can you imagine my surprise?”
“Sorry,” she grimaced. “I was trying to surprise you. But when I realized you weren't in the temple, I also realized that meeting you in such a public place, like the temple, wasn’t the smartest idea. After all, you’re supposed to be Charles, an abandoned child with no family ties whatsoever. I could’ve said I was someone raised in the same orphanage as you, but that’s the kind of thing that could be verified, so…”
“So instead you decided to be the cousin of some poor guy you stumbled into?”
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
“Distant cousin,” she corrected. “One that, by tomorrow at midnight, will become a vague and soon forgotten detail in his life. I’m sorry if I had to mess up with your friend. That was the only solution I could come up with on the spot.”
“Hm.” Henri nodded, glancing at the bags he had carried in and the luggage tucked into the corner.
“When did you arrive?”
“Halfway through the morning.”
“Halfway through the morning, and you went straight to the temple?”
“Yep,” she nodded, walking to the table and pulling out a chair for him. “Then headed for a bit of shopping afterward.”
“You’ve been busy.”
“Very.”
“You’re not tired?”
“I am,” she admitted, tapping her forehead. “But you know me. I have the means to bear through something as mundane as fatigue.”
Henri approached her, gently taking her hand and slipping off her glove.
“I’ll concede that,” he said softly, his tone quieter now, almost tired. “You do have a way of ignoring things just because they’re inconvenient. Pain, fatigue or even emotion. You shove it aside and pretend it’s gone. But pretending doesn’t make them disappear. Ignoring exhaustion doesn’t refill your strength.”
The rasp of his teenage voice, so earnest in its scolding, only made her smile.
“You sound like a healer.”
“That’s because I am,” he said proudly.
He squeezed her hand gently, then pressed both palms together. A warm green glow enveloped their clasped hands and spread across her body. She felt the soothing wave ripple through her, not a stat boost, not a full recovery, but a simple breath of calm.
Her HP didn’t shift, already full. But everything else in her body felt lighter.
“I don’t have the skill to improve fatigue percentage directly,” he admitted. “But I do have ones that make you feel like I did. Just like you with your abilities.”
“I guess it runs in the family,” she chuckled.
Then she added, “Can I appraise you?”
Appraisal was one of the System’s more useful skills, allowing someone to peek at another person’s status screen. But it came with a drawback, it left the target feeling unpleasantly exposed, even violated some say. She’d acquired a counter-skill to dull that side effect, but when it came to people she trusted, she still preferred to ask.
Henri nodded. So she activated it.
—
Name: Oscar
Level: 3
Race: Highbreed
Class: Healer
Title: Warm Presence
[Status]
- HP: 7 / 7
- MP: 31 / 38
- SP: 3 / 3
- Defense: 7
- Offense: 6
[Skills]
- Soothing Light: Level ??? [Appraisal Level Insufficient]
- Appraisal: Level ??? [Appraisal Level Insufficient]
- Lesser Light: Level ??? [Appraisal Level Insufficient]
- Healing Magic: Level ??? [Appraisal Level Insufficient]
- Therapist Touch: Level ??? [Appraisal Level Insufficient]
Abilities:
[Appraisal Level Insufficient]
—
“Oh. Hm… impressive.”
“So?” he grinned. “What’s your verdict?”
“As far as stats go,” she said with a teasing smirk, “I’d say I didn’t waste my money funding your education here in that glorious Academy.”
“That doesn’t sound like a very sincere compliment.” He pouted, then perked up. “Oh! That reminds me, what are you doing here?”
“Just visiting my cute little brother, whom I’ve missed very greatly.”
“Why do I feel like that’s not the main reason?”
She winced. “I wish it was. I really do.”
“You’re here for work, right?”
She nodded.
“The Wardenpost Guild?”
She shook her head.
“So it’s for them, then.”
She gave a slow, reluctant nod.
“But it’s not just for them,” she said gently. “Henri… I think you’d better sit. Because this involves you too.”
She hesitated.
“Unfortunately.”
***
"So let me recap it, the reason you’re here is because some random noble came to you with that request, that we investigate the case of missing Flowers. Is that right?"
"Almost. You missed an important detail. It was not a random noble," the image of Lord Lucas flashed in her mind.
"Alright, a very important noble, that might be someone of the Crownlord families, a Crownlord that heard about you and me, and thus has expectations of us."
Regrettably she nodded, but ultimately reassured, "The expectation might not be of you specifically, as a person, but rather of you as an apprentice, because that's the only part about you mentioned when he talked about you."
"I don't know if I should feel relieved or not at all by that... How did he even hear about my apprenti—No, now that I think about it, shouldn't the question be how did he make the link between my status as Master's apprentice and me being your brother? Because he approached you first, meaning that he made that link somehow."
"Oh, that... I think the Chairman’s letters might have helped a lot in that matter."
"Letters..."
She thought for a moment, hesitating to explain since it was something that involved the Inquisitorum Regiae, but seeing no way out of this, began to explain.
A moment later, as she was done explaining the organisation’s situation, Henri nodded in a strange enlightenment, "I see, so the Inquisitorum Regiae’s situation is that bad."
"It is. As it stands, the only hope for it to survive is to change. Lord Lucas is one of those who can make that happen."
The Inquisitorum Regiae exists to eliminate any threat to the peace of the One and Only Era. At its inception, it was founded for a single purpose: to hunt down the remnants of the old regime. This mandate included erasing all traces of the imperial dynasty, the various royal bloodlines, and the noble families who had remained loyal to them—basically anyone whose very existence threatened the new era’s stability.
Needless to say, the Inquisitorum Regiae is responsible for a little genocide, but for them it was a worthy sacrifice for the greater good, as leaving these people to their devices would only mean allowing chaos to bloom in the future. By weeding them out as they did, the Era of Kings has, for the past 125 years, been a very peaceful era. All that at the cost of a decade or so of thorough and merciless inquisition, but in the grand scale of things, this is nothing and definitely worthy.
There is no denying that the Inquisitorum Regiae remains unapologetic, proud, even, of everything it has done. But the peace it created came with an irony they could not ignore: it marked the start of an age in which the organisation itself was no longer needed. With the enemies of the monarchs and the Crownlord families gone, exterminated by them, there is not much left that justifies the existence of such an organisation, which still costs a lot to maintain. Many of the noble families backing the organisation withdrew their active and passive funding, leaving the organisation to adopt the current system, the one that mainly relies on the support of the Wardenpost Guild, which acts as a front organisation for all the Inquisitorum Regiae sections, and the occasional patronage of the carefully chosen Amulet wielders. But still, the organisation is left with just barely anything to scrape by.
To high-rank inquisitors like the Chairman, and his equals and superiors, the only way for the Inquisitorum Regiae to not end up like the line of work that was once the Handlers, which has been led to extinction by the apparition of the Adventurer Guild, is to adapt, evolve, something the Handlers weren’t able to do. To survive, the organisation has to evolve, and from the way the higher-ups see it, it is to make the organisation similar to the Adventurer Guild in how quests are received and issued, in other words, making the Inquisitorum Regiae’s service more "public," or at the very least making it so that their clientele isn’t as restrained.
In other words, their plan is to expand their clientele which, when viewed in the grand scheme of things, means the Inquisitorum Regiae may cease to be the Inquisitorum Regiae at all. Instead, it risks becoming something closer to an Assassination Service—for that is the service the organisation is best at, the one thing it truly knows how to do. They have even chosen a name for this future incarnation, though it has yet to be adopted, if only because they are still waiting for approval from those who must authorize it.
For the Inquisitorum Regiae to undergo such an evolution, they would need the backing of at least a Crownlord or, ideally, one of the Kings. But that was not going to happen. Those figures no longer concerned themselves with mundane affairs, which was precisely why the Chairman had been so desperate to win Lord Lucas’ favor. He might be the one capable of allowing the Assassin Guild to be born.
"I see... But Ana?s..."
Henri seemed hesitant, so, "What is it?" she asked.
"I couldn’t help but notice how concerned you are with the matter of the Inquisitorum Regiae going under. Wouldn’t that actually be for the best... for you?"
Hearing this, Anette could hardly suppress the concern of being overheard. That was not something you wanted someone to hear.
"Of course not, I don’t know what you’re talking about."
"I..."
"I am an Inquisitor, even though I am not “that” kind of inquisitor. I’ve only ever had this life..."
She had to admit that, with this envisioned evolution of the Inquisitorum Regiae, it might no longer be the organisation she once knew. Instead, as the proposed name suggested, it would become a place for assassins rather than a gathering of peacekeepers. Yet, despite that, her loyalty remained.
"I, at least, owe it this much." With a chuckle she added, "I owe it my beautiful house. I also owe it your education. I owe it our everything."
He looked like he still had something to add but ultimately chose not to, simply sighing and conceding to her point.
"Anyway... my point was that this person, this Lord Lucas, is not someone that we could say no to."
"That reminds me of someone."
She made no comment, only chuckled. "And that person has expectations."
"That I have to meet," Henri grimaced.
"No!" she sharply cut.
"No?"
"Yes, no. Or at the very least not to you directly. Remember, you're not an inquisitor. You are a member of the faith—a healer, an clerical apprentice to a Shepherd of the Flock. If he had expectations of you, he should have come to you directly. Instead, he came to me."
Henri frowned. "But..."
"There's no but. I'm sure you've already begun imagining having to do something, so wipe that thought out of your mind."
"I... I'm... I'm confused. So you want me to do nothing?"
"Exactly. Or, to be exact, there is something I expect you to do, and that something is nothing."
Anette didn’t know why this particular problem with the garden mattered so much to Lord Lucas. Perhaps he had a personal interest in it and simply wanted it to run smoothly. Perhaps a lover frequented the garden, and he only desired peace there. Or maybe he acted out of genuine benevolence, having heard of the missing girls, he wanted to prevent such tragedies from happening again. While possible, Anette could only treat this as a mere possibility, she had little reason to believe it could be so simple. Having worked with nobles, she knew that nothing was ever simple with them, especially high-ranking nobles like Lord Lucas.
The most plausible explanation, as suggested by the Chairman, was one she had initially dismissed. Shaken by the request, she hadn’t given it much thought, but now it made sense: this might be a test for the Inquisitorum Regiae, a way for Lord Lucas to determine whether the organisation was worth salvaging and reshaping according to the new vision the Chairman and his fellow high-ranking inquisitors had for it. And as for why she had been chosen? The Chairman’s theory was simple: unfortunate circumstance, her brother happened to be the apprentice of a very particular cleric.
Even so, the theory had glaring flaws. If this was a test, why not assign a more seasoned inquisitor to accompany her? If the goal was to prove the Inquisitorum Regiae’s worth, wouldn’t it make sense to deploy a veteran? Anette had no shame in calling herself an inquisitor, but she had to admit one thing: she had never led a descent. She had been involved in one, yes, but otherwise, her work had mostly revolved around bureaucratic duties and a few minor tasks.
So while that explanation was still the most plausible, it remained a conjecture that couldn’t be confirmed. And though she had no confirmation, no firm answer as to why, she knew what he wanted. And it seemed they had to give it to him.
Rectification, she had to give it to him.
"There is one thing, perhaps, that I expect of you, and that's to have your eyes peeled. You hear that, Henri? You do nothing but that."
"It sounds like a threat."
She reached for his cheeks, like she used to when he was a much chubbier child. "It is a threat. Want me to prove how it’s not an empty one?"
Wincing, he reached out and gently grabbed her hands, keeping them away from his face. "I get it, I get it. I won't do anything I wouldn’t typically do as an apprentice. That's why they mentioned me in the first place—it's because I'm Master's apprentice and nothing else."
She nodded.
"But since it's going to be the case, does that mean you..."
"I'm going to handle this."
"Alone."
"I'm going to handle this flawlessly," she corrected. "I'll be on the move tomorrow. I've already mapped out the place. Tomorrow I might try a little bit of scouting. Tonight I’ll just hear everything there is to hear about the garden from you, an insider. No, what am I saying... I meant semi-infiltrée."
