Chapter 490

“I didn’t take Lord Annunziata for that kind of person.”

Elias turned toward me with a lazy swagger.

“Narke said earlier that Annunziata Orsini isn’t the duke, but the heir, right? It’s strange that the Duke of Orsini is supposedly sick, too. If Annunziata Orsini is around sixty, wouldn’t that make the duke around a hundred? But he’s already sick?”

“He’s at an age where he can get sick enough if he wants to go early.”

“Is that so?”

Elias accepted that without a second thought. I lifted Matteo Orsini and asked, “How much would you have to give someone to cause brain damage with alcohol?”

“You gave him the liquor I gave you? That stuff was expensive.”

“He’s a noble, too, so I’m sure he has a taste for expensive liquor.”

“Fair enough.”

Elias answered casually, then grabbed Matteo Orsini by the collar and slammed him into the wall. I winced at the sickening sound. Elias lifted Matteo again, apparently intending to hit him one more time, and said, “Unless you’re going to make him drink about ten bottles at once, it’s hard to expect alcohol to make him stupid. Just slam his head into the wall.”

“Hmm…”

He was definitely like this before, too. Still, I didn’t think doing this would necessarily make him forget his memories. Sometimes Elias’s methods caught me off guard, but he was merciless toward anyone who got in the way of achieving his goals. He was always consistent about that. He gave people within or even on the edge of his boundaries a chance—in other words, individuals he had personally chosen to place his hopes in, as well as people in general—but such people were rare for him. More importantly, the people Elias had allowed into his boundaries almost never actually became an obstacle to him.

I checked whether Matteo’s head was bleeding and took him away from Elias. To be honest, I had no intention of hurting him this badly. Unless the situation was urgent enough to put my safety or someone else’s at risk, I didn’t want to attack anyone in the first place. Going too far rarely led to a good outcome, and humanly speaking, it just didn’t feel right.

Even though I hadn’t explained anything about Matteo Orsini, Elias quickly figured it out and asked, “Wasn’t he supposed to have his memory erased?”

“Yeah. But before we resort to physical methods like this, let’s have Narke try. He was with the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, so he should be more skilled at it than I am.”

“Well, alright.”

Elias shrugged as if either way was fine with him. I rubbed my chin and looked around the archives.

“If we’re going to punish the culprit, we need evidence. No matter how much judicial authority Narke has, we can’t just throw someone in a cell without the letter from the Secretariat of State.”

“Narke actually has judicial authority?! Damn, the Papal See still uses the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith as an Inquisition…”

Elias stopped there, pretended to be interested in something else, and changed the subject.

“Yeah, well. We need to find the evidence. Besides, if there really is a culprit in the Secretariat of State, then we should find out who sent the letter.”

“Maybe the Secretariat of State was just one link in the chain. It could be a smokescreen, with another Orsini cardinal behind it as the real culprit. Then, at least three people are working together—”

Elias smacked me on the back.

“There it is again. Luka, you never stop thinking.”

“Is it really that bad?”

“Yeah. That bad.”

Elias answered as he stretched my cheek. I nodded and patted him on the shoulder.

“Annunziata Orsini should’ve gone to the Forum Romanum. We need to search his room now. I’ll search his room, so you look for any hidden rooms in the archives.”

Before Elias could even nod, I smiled and beat him to it.

“That’s your specialty, right?”

“Oh, obviously.”

Elias seemed excited at the prospect of finding a hidden room. He drew in an audible breath of anticipation and changed his wand back into a staff. He usually used a wand more often than a staff because a staff got in the way when he moved around, but apparently this was one of those times when a staff was more convenient.

I hadn’t used magic that interfered with someone’s mind much until now, but from this point on, I intended to use it more actively. When the mansion had been full of people, using magic had been difficult. Not technically difficult, but socially difficult. Could I really put all those people to sleep and search the house safely? What would I do about the aftermath? I could do it if necessary, but there was no reason to take on that much risk at every turn.

In the end, even if someone discovered that something had gone wrong at the house, whether or not I had secured a way in and a way out made a huge difference. That was why things were different now from before I broke the Pythia of Delphi. Unlike earlier, when everything had been orderly and peaceful, everyone was now out of place and scattered. At the same time, the higher-ranking servants would likely have followed their master to the Forum Romanum and the Papal See, leaving only the minimum guards and lower-ranking servants behind.

Of course, the best outcome would be to avoid having any reason to use divine power at all and naturally blend in as a messenger from outside. All I could do was hope the clothes I was wearing and Matteo’s divine power pocket watch would help.

I set Matteo down in the archives, pulled a suitable letter from the bookshelf, and slipped it into my bag. As I left the archives, I tapped the artifact to contact Narke.

“ Narke. Find anything?”

— [There are documents from the Secretariat of State here in the archives. But they’re all ordinary documents.]

As I’d already realized, he had seen through my plan and was acting accordingly. If all they had were ordinary documents, then the theory that the culprit was in the Monterotondo residence was becoming more and more likely. I gave Narke one last instruction.

“Just in case, search the other rooms too. They might keep important documents and letters in their rooms rather than in the archives.”

— [Of course. Be careful, Lukas.]

I told him I would.

Now it was time to find Annunziata’s study. I wandered around the first floor of the main building, peeking into several rooms that looked like drawing rooms before heading upstairs. The servants in black dresses and suits were wandering around the residence in utter confusion. Among themselves, they speculated about why their master had suddenly stormed out. Since he had taken a carriage instead of warping, they even wondered if he might be on his way to an important meeting with another family.

No. They were wrong. The fragments breaking didn’t necessarily mean that the Pythia had been broken. Annunziata Orsini and his close aides had discussed the matter among themselves and gone to the Forum Romanum to check, just in case. They hadn’t immediately realized that the Pythia had been broken and rushed there.

A young servant in neatly pressed clothes approached me. He glanced at the gold watch chain on my waistcoat before asking, “I don’t believe we have met before. May I ask what brings you here?”

So he wasn’t going to mistake me for one of the servants after all. I kept my face expressionless and took a letter from my bag.

“I have come from Conti to deliver a letter. I need to see His Excellency Annunziata Orsini.”

To make up for my poor Italian, I let divine power seep into the surrounding space. A subtle cognitive distortion settled over the area, making it difficult to distinguish what came before from what came after. Thanks to it, the servant answered me politely without sensing the slightest bit of oddness.

“His Excellency is away at the moment. I can deliver it for you.”

“No. It is confidential, so I must deliver it personally. I have also come to convey what was discussed on Conti’s side regarding the reason for his current absence. I will wait in his study.”

“Then perhaps you could wait in the drawing room—”

“Is that how the Orsini treat envoys assigned to matters of such importance?”

“…….”

The servant looked bewildered for a moment—which was understandable—then turned away with a troubled expression and looked to his colleagues for help. But perhaps there was no more experienced servant around, because the three or four servants on this floor all wore the same uncertain expression and simply watched us in silence.

The servant eventually led me into Annunziata Orsini’s study. He was probably going to stand guard outside the door and keep an eye on me, so the moment I sat down, I crooked a finger at him and gave him an order.

“Bring me a usable notebook and a pen. And when His Excellency Annunziata Orsini returns, I want to be able to discuss this with him immediately, so have the servants on this floor move to the foyer or elsewhere.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Oh, and a latte would be nice.”

The young servant left without asking what I needed the notebook and pen for. He could have at least offered to bring me a cup of coffee to have with his master when he returned, but apparently he hadn’t been trained that far yet.

In any case, I’d expanded the servant’s errand all the way to the kitchen, so now was the time to make use of the time I’d bought. I quickly drew my wand and rolled it between my fingers. As I slammed the staff, now extended to its full length, against the carpet, divine power began to flow.

— Seek, and you shall find.

“Secretariat of State.”

Nothing. No new light appeared anywhere.

“Vatican.”

Only then did lights begin to appear here and there. I quickly looked through the documents and confirmed that they were nothing more than completely unimportant official notices.

This time, I searched through the books on the shelves and pulled out the ones with particularly worn spines. Nothing happened. There was no secret room. I pressed my shoes firmly against the carpet and searched every inch of it. There were no raised sections or grooves, nor any loose floorboards. I checked beneath the bookcases in the study as well, but found nothing useful.

In other words, Annunziata Orsini hadn’t kept any letters from the Secretariat of State in his study either.

Before the young servant could return with the notebook and pen for his guest, I began opening the other doors nearby. Instead of the study, I searched the other rooms. I passed through two of them, but both were simply rooms where Annunziata kept his belongings and went about his daily life. There were no letters from the Secretariat of State in either his bedroom or his library.

The room I had just entered seemed to be a dressing room containing nothing but his formal clothes. Once again, I recited the same spell.

— Seek, and you shall find.

“Secretariat of State.”

Naturally, there were no letters here either.

However, I became interested in the tricorn hat and white pantaloon mask hanging on one wall, so I took them down to examine them. Since the cloak was hanging with them as a set, they appeared to be an outfit and mask worn for the Venice Carnival¹. The festival was already over, but it seemed Annunziata had attended a few months ago. Thinking that, I purified the mask, cloak, and tricorn before putting them into my bag. I took one for Elias as well. I tapped my artifact to call Elias.

“Elias.”

— [Hm?]

“Is there another room?”

— [There is. No letter from the Secretariat of State there either?]

“Nothing.”

— [Yeah, that’s a shame. The door here won’t open with wire, so I’ll have to break it down with a hammer or something. Bring me a useful tool.]

“Sure.”

I poked around the garden and picked up one of the tools the gardener had left lying around before heading back to the archives. There was no hammer, so I brought a saw instead.

The moment I arrived, Elias pointed toward a door in the corner of the first floor, at the far end of the circular building, hidden between the bookshelves. I shook my head and handed him the mask and cloak.

Even after searching the room of Annunziata Orsini, the temporary head of the household, and finding nothing, there were still three possibilities left. Since I intended to test one of them, it was time for the two of us to start concealing our identities.

Elias obediently put on the mask and pointed at the door again. I handed him the tool, meaning for him to take care of it. He looked slightly taken aback—apparently he hadn’t expected me to bring a saw—then shoved it into the wider gap on the left and began sawing through the hinges.

I watched with my arms crossed before casually remarking, “Couldn’t you have just scratched it up a little, put some mana into your leg, and kicked it down? Or broken it with your fist?”

“Luka. Humans are supposed to use tools.”

“…Hm. Right. Using less strength is nice.”

I never thought I’d hear something like that from Elias. The thought had barely crossed my mind when Elias removed two of the four hinges and, apparently having already forgotten what he’d just said, kicked the door down and neatly secured the room.

When I looked at him as if to ask what he was doing, he tilted his head. I turned away and said, “If there’s nothing here either, there are three possibilities left. One is that, simply put, there’s no culprit in the Secretariat of State.”

“Wow~ If Einsiedel’s going to give us clues that lame, tell him not to give us any more.”

Elias spoke in a chilly voice. He firmly believed that Einsiedel must have packed multiple meanings into every clue. I also thought it was highly likely, if Einsiedel was someone who thought on the same level, but I felt we still had to leave room for the possibility that he hadn’t.

I changed my wand back into a staff and continued.

“The second is that Annunziata Orsini received a letter from the Secretariat of State and burned it immediately. But there isn’t even an ordinary notice from the Secretariat, so he must be keeping them somewhere. And it wouldn’t make sense for him to keep them at the Theater of Marcellus residence. The two Orsinis may be family, but they clearly live in separate households.”

“Yeah. If they have to share documents delivered to their respective homes, that’s asking for trouble. It’d be like me living in the same house as the yellow-haired bunch… or like you living with Isabella Askanien.”

Elias said, stroking his chin. Moving the letters elsewhere was certainly possible, but that would be like his family storing their mail at Albertina Hohenzollern’s house just because they wanted to hide some important documents. I stepped into the other room in the archive, and the moment I did, I felt everything behind me turn pitch-black. This new room had been isolated by spatial magic. I brought my staff down hard.

― Seek, and you shall find.

“Secretariat of State.”

Once again, nothing changed.

I smiled. So even though it was inside the estate, there was no way they could hide the letters in the archive shared by every Orsini in the house… Unfortunately, there were no letters in the room used by Annunziata Orsini, either. Elias spoke up.

“You realize you’ve only mentioned two possibilities so far, right?”

“I know.”

“The other one is… I think I get it.”

Good. At least he understood.

The fact that there were no letters here meant that Annunziata Orsini wasn’t the culprit. It meant the culprit was the Duke of Orsini, who was lying in bed sick. The fact that the duke was bedridden didn’t matter. The Duke of Orsini was deceiving his own children—and everyone else.

Then we heard footsteps from behind us. A rumbling voice drifted toward us.

“I was told that someone who knows the world before Babel would be coming.”

We quickly turned around. An elder was walking toward us. His eyes were bloodshot, and he held his staff like a cane with a trembling hand. While we were taken aback by his appearance, he began chanting something that sounded like a spell in a strange voice.

“Penitenziagite²…”

My mind went cold. I recalled what I had just heard. What exactly had I heard? I knew the word didn’t exist in this world, but I had actually read it somewhere before. A chill slowly crept over me from there. Yes. I knew that word. Why did I know it?

I glanced sideways. Elias was trying to decipher its meaning, his eyes slightly sharpened with caution. The elder’s voice continued without end, the words trailing off into indistinct sounds. His dry lips kept muttering the curse-like chant. What he was saying was, in a word, gibberish, made up of all sorts of languages and dialects.

It wasn’t clear, but it sounded like he was telling us to repent. I could recognize words like Jesus Christ, Diavolo, and Amen from their pronunciation, and I could vaguely make out other words that seemed to have Latin origins, though I couldn’t understand them clearly. Elias had studied enough to probably recognize them as well. But the elder seemed to mix different languages together and string them into sentences that made no sense…

And when my thoughts reached that point, I finally realized what he was saying. These were lines from The Name of the Rose, a novel I had read before coming here. And it was a 20th century work. There was no way it should exist in this world at this time.

Translator Note

1. A famous annual festival in Venice, known worldwide for its stunning period costumes, grand masquerade balls, and intricate, historic masks. ↩︎
2. Means ‘repent’ or ‘do penance’. It comes from a vulgar Latin corruption of ‘Poenitentiam agite, appropinquavit enim regnum caelorum’, which means ‘Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand’. ↩︎