I Became the Childhood Friend of the Northern Duchess – Chapter 207

It was two days later that I successfully removed the curse hanging over Kelrag’s body.

When Minette displayed the dark mass she had fished out to those gathered, their expressions twisted in disgust.

It looked as if it were a living heart, throbbing in her grasp and radiating a dark aura that evoked a visceral revulsion in humans.

“This is the curse, huh?”

“Indeed.”

Minette nodded, eyeing Kelrag, who was lying down in a cold sweat with sympathy.

Just a moment ago, he had been completely bedridden from the fierce struggle against that curse.

Yet, the curse was gone now, so I expected he would recover his strength within a day and soon be off his bed.

“So from now, we’ll compare that to Albrecht’s magical power, huh?”

“Well, to do that, we need to acquire that man’s magical power from somewhere, right?”

“Don’t you worry. I’m not dull enough to overlook even that option.”

Minette walked over to the corner of the room, flashing a confident smile in response to Ariel’s concerns, and returned with something in her hands.

It was nothing other than a plain-looking book.

“I never thought a day like this would come… but I’m glad it’s useful.”

“You plan to compare this with Albrecht’s magic?”

“Yes, exactly. It’s just an ordinary spellbook, but there’s something special contained in it.”

Something special?

At the vague response, everyone tilted their heads in unison.

Thinking it would be faster to show rather than explain, Minette opened the bookmarked section of the book.

Swish.

“What is…?”

“This is a fragment of Albrecht Bertus’s magical power.”

“What!? How did you…?”

Ariel blinked in surprise at the unexpected treasure, having never heard that Minette had any connection with him.

Just how did she come by such an item?

With a wistful smile, Minette began to explain, her eyes glistening with nostalgia.

“Though it appears to be a normal spellbook, it’s actually a magical tool created by my lover. It has the ability to distinguish the soul contained within magical power.”

“What do you mean by that? Isn’t magical power essentially the soul?”

Ariel questioned her, troubled by the contradictory information.

This made sense, as there’s a saying in magic studies that magical power is a shard of the soul.

But Minette shook her head slightly, denying that fact.

“It’s actually a bit different. I’ve never seen it in person, but… there’s a theory that if you replace the vessel with something sinister like dark magic, the properties of the magical power change too. I actually finished proving this to some extent while I was in the Mage Tower.”

The group frowned at Minette’s explanation.

It was an even harder-to-understand addition to the conversation.

What could “replacing the vessel” even mean? If the soul is water, the body is the vessel. It’s a grace bestowed to humans, given only one each.

“Wait a moment, Minette. I have a question: what does it mean to replace the vessel?”

Unable to hold back the question, Yulken stepped forward, and the others nodded in agreement.

Even Ariel, who was the most knowledgeable about magic, found it perplexing, so the rest must have been even more confused.

“Among dark magic, there exists a way to insert one’s soul into the vessel of a living person. Of course, I’ve only seen it in books, and no magician has ever dared to cross that line…”

“So you’re suggesting that Albrecht might have dabbled in it?”

Edgar picked up from where Minette had left off, providing the additional hint that everyone understood her intended message.

Thanks to that, they grasped what she was trying to convey, yet a fundamental question remained.

Even if this magical tool can distinguish the souls with the changed magical power, why was it created in the first place?

And how did Albrecht’s magical power end up being contained within this tool?

“Actually, when I was working in the Mage Tower, such speculation circulated among the scholars, myself included.”

“What was it?”

“The theory that the Master of the Mage Tower, Mephisto, and the head of the Bertus Family, Albrecht, are the same person.”

“…That’s quite a startling rumor.”

Yulken had heard that Albrecht was close to Mephisto and frequently visited the Mage Tower, but he had never guessed such rumors circulated internally.

That meant, at least at the suspicion level, they had dismissed it or managed to suppress the gossip from leaking outwards.

“It was a small joke that sparked this. It was based on the fact that nobody had ever seen the two together or that on days when Mephisto invited Albrecht, no one was allowed to enter that room.”

“That kind of coincidence can happen easily enough, right?”

“Sure. That’s why I didn’t pay much attention to it at first.”

Upon hearing the phrase “at first,” Edgar realized that there must have been some reason why she had later become interested.

What Minette was about to say would likely explain that detailed background.

“I had a lover back then, a man named Karun, who was one of the scholars of the Mage Tower. He had the ability to see magical power.”

“What, like a magic eye?”

“It’s a bit different. It’s not a naturally occurring magic eye but a trait that develops from looking at mana for extended periods. It was a skill gained while serving in the Mage Tower. Thanks to that, it was a secret only I knew.”

Having finally released her pent-up words, Minette realized her throat was dry and took a sip from a glass of water on the table.

Clearing her throat a couple of times, she continued speaking.

“Then one day, Karun suddenly said something. He felt that the magical powers of Albrecht and Mephisto resembled each other. But it’s quite unlikely for magical powers to be similar, even if they can be the same.”

“…I see. Given that it was a time when rumors were rampant, it would have raised even more suspicion.”

Minette nodded slightly in response to Yulken’s murmured thoughts.

Moreover, since the scholars of the Mage Tower knew that dark magic could change magical powers, Karun’s doubts would have been further amplified.

“So, Karun immersed himself in creating a magical tool to uncover the truth. He figured that if he couldn’t differentiate by magical power, he should distinguish it by something even more fundamental.”

“So the item that resulted from that is this, huh…”

But Albrecht’s magical power was only contained here, and the man Karun was dead.

After that, no news had leaked out, and considering that both Albrecht and Mephisto were still alive, Edgar could roughly guess what had happened.

Observing the calm depths of his gaze, a faint wry smile lingered on Minette’s lips.

He’s annoyingly clever. Just from this story, he’s managed to infer what’s likely to come next.

“That’s right. He succeeded in capturing Albrecht’s magical power here, but afterward, he approached Mephisto and met his demise.”

That was, in fact, merely an assumption.

After declaring that he would reveal their true identities, Karun had vanished the following day, never appearing at the Mage Tower again, only to be found as a cold corpse somewhere.

When Minette had visited the homes of other scholars that night to convey the news, the rumor that Mephisto and Albrecht were the same person had already been completely forgotten in their minds.

“It was terrifying. If those of us who were once referred to as scholars ended up like that, I couldn’t help but think, ‘Am I next?’ So I packed my things and ran away that same day.”

“So that’s why you suggested that I hide you back then. And you never asked anyone to share this information…”

Recalling their first meeting, Yulken nodded in understanding.

Originally, Minette’s name wasn’t Minette.

When she was in the Mage Tower, her name was Levy, and she looked very different back then.

Her current appearance was just a magical guise, prepared for the eventuality that this truth might leak out.

Only Yulken and Minette knew this fact.

Even Helene and Ariel knew about Minette’s identity but were unaware of her birth name and original appearance.

They never could have imagined such a hidden backstory, hence their expressions were a picture of astonishment.

“At first, I tried to discourage him. I said we shouldn’t get involved in unnecessary things. Even if they tampered with dark magic, as long as we ignored it, they wouldn’t have any reason to touch us. But he didn’t listen and ultimately met a foolish death.”

Minette forced a smile, on the verge of tears, as she recollected.

Though that man was no longer by her side, she didn’t need to weep since this remained.

And the keepsake he left behind had become a dagger that would pierce the heart of their enemies.

What enveloped her heart didn’t come from sorrow over his absence, but rather from the overwhelming feeling that she could finally take revenge with the mark he left.

“It’s still too early to get overwhelmed. It’s uncertain whether the item he left behind will even work, and there’s a chance that the man who cast this curse isn’t Albrecht.”

“…We just need to prove it from now on. To show that the time your lover spent wasn’t in vain.”

Ariel squeezed her hand tightly, encouraging her, and the others nodded, smiling in agreement.

Just as she said. Only the living can prove the life of the lion’s heart.

Let the brave man who sought to expose the villain that tried to dabble in dark magic shine, even if it is just now.

“…We’ll inscribe the power of this curse into here. He said that if blue light emerges, then the souls are in sync.”

“Then let’s get to it.”

Edgar stepped forward, holding the magical tool, and placed it before Minette, who gently set the shard of the curse onto it.

Soon, the purple magic mingled with the black curse, and the curse, which had been writhing as if alive, quickly stilled.

And then…

“Ah…”

“It seems it was not in vain.”

As the blue light burst forth, filling the pages, Minette could no longer hold back her emotions and covered her mouth.

The life of the man who had left behind everything even in death was finally substantiated, now, all this time later.