Night—Lord’s Study.
The candlelight flickered on the heavy silver candlestick, casting shifting shadows across Vincent’s face, twisted by excitement.
A deep, uncontrollable laugh rumbled from his throat, low and filled with delight.
“Fool! Naive little fool!” he growled at the empty air, his voice buzzing through the study packed with ledgers and luxurious ornaments, brimming with the ecstasy of having everything under control. “Just a little trick and you took the bait! Truly a naive, foolish little girl. You think you can fight me for this territory? The gods? The drought? Ha!”
He strode to the window and roughly pulled open a narrow gap.
Outside, above the deathly silent village, the stars glittered coldly, and the night sky was so dry there wasn’t a hint of moisture.
He took a deep breath of the dusty night air, a cruel, confident grin spreading across his face. “Tomorrow? Rain? Tomorrow will only bring a fiercer sun! Hotter than a furnace!”
The drought had lasted for half a year—how could there possibly be such a coincidence as rain tomorrow?
His gaze shifted toward the plaza in front of the Lord’s Mansion, as if he could already see the crowd that would gather there tomorrow, whipped into a frenzy.
“The fire at the Grain Storehouse… I’ve already arranged it. When the thick smoke rises, when those ignorant fools find their last stores of food reduced to ashes in the flames, and their so-called ‘savior’ brings only deeper despair…”
“Irene, what face will you have left to stay here?”
“Offend the marquis?”
He sneered, turned back to his desk, and pulled from the most hidden drawer a secret letter stamped with the golden imperial eagle. He greedily caressed the cold emblem with his fingertip. “That old hag’s fury will soon become nothing but a powerless roar. Just a few more days… just a few more days!”
A fanatic light blazed in his eyes. “Once the Empire’s official decree arrives, who will care about some border territory, or if the people starve to death? What does that have to do with me?”
He carefully put the letter away, as if it were the key to paradise.
Outside the window, an owl let out a shrill cry, splitting the silence, as if heralding the prelude to his ambition.
*****
Meanwhile, in a raucous tavern in a bustling town dozens of miles from the Lord’s Mansion, the atmosphere was entirely different.
The air was thick with the smell of cheap ale, sweat, and coarse laughter and cursing.
At a greasy table in the corner, a few men, dressed in ragged peasant clothes but far too sturdy to be simple villagers, were raising huge wooden mugs and drinking heartily.
The leader, Scarface, his cheeks flushed unnaturally red, slapped the table hard.
“Damn, this job’s a breeze!” Scarface belched loudly, spittle flying. “Just act like starving peasants for a few days, shout a couple ‘Divine Punishments’, and the gold comes pouring in! Way better than risking our lives on the border against those red-eyed demon brats!”
Next to him, Baldy chuckled, spearing the last bit of cold meat with his knife. “Ain’t that the truth! That Irene lady, tsk, she’s a real beauty, but her brains are the opposite of her looks!”
“After we stirred things up and listened to the wailing Vincent arranged, she took the bait right away. Even claimed she could ‘hear Divine Revelation’—rain? In this blasted weather, if a single drop falls, I’ll write my name backwards!”
He lewdly licked the tip of his knife. “Too green! Way too green! Are all noble ladies this easy to fool?”
“Exactly!” a woman chimed in, her breath reeking of alcohol. “When has the Order of Black Hunt ever had such an easy job? Lord Vincent sure is generous! Brothers, drink your fill tonight, and tomorrow let’s watch that lady get torn apart by the ‘villagers’! Hahaha…”
Rain? Who’d believe that! One taunt and she blurts out something so reckless—little girls will be little girls, too naive! Ridiculous!
Their crude laughter rang especially harsh in the noisy tavern.
Just as they raised their mugs again, ready to gulp down the murky ale, a figure appeared at their table as silently as a ghost blending into shadow, without warning.
He wore dark, close-fitting hunter’s garb, easy for movement, with a plain gray cloak draped over his shoulders.
A gentle smile played on his face, making him look like just another traveler seeking a seat.
But those eyes, glinting with a strange light in the dimness, pierced through the tavern’s noise and the mercenaries’ drunkenness like ice picks.
“Good evening, everyone,” Ansel’s voice was not loud, but it cut through the din with chilling clarity, polite enough to make one’s spine tingle. “The topic you were just discussing… sounds rather interesting.”
He tilted his head slightly, his smile widening to reveal neat white teeth. “About Lady Irene, and Lord Vincent’s… ‘business’. Mind if I join in?”
Scarface’s drunkenness vanished in an instant, the woman’s hand on her knife tightened, and Baldy instinctively reached for the hatchet hidden under the table.
The air froze, the rest of the tavern’s noise seemingly blocked by an invisible barrier. The Order of Black Hunt’s members were like frogs pinned by a venomous snake, unable to move.
Ansel’s gentle smile was, at this moment, deadlier than any threat.
“Get him! Don’t let this brat leave alive!!”
“Oh, quite the opposite. The young lady wants live captives.”
*****
On the other side of the Lord’s Mansion, the room where Irene was temporarily staying was thick with tension.
The lamplight shone steadily on several clumps of ore, freshly brought up from the depths of the mine and still caked in dirt, and a small handful of shriveled wheat seeds.
Helga, dusty from travel, had a sharp, mission-accomplished glint in her eyes. “Irene, these two rocks—I swiped them after sneaking into the mine. Odd thing is, it’s just an iron mine, nothing valuable in theory, but the guards are strict as hell. It took a lot to get in there.”
Her fingertip brushed the rough, cold surface of the ore. A faint golden shimmer, barely visible to the naked eye, flickered where her finger touched the stone.
Fragments of knowledge vast as the starry sea, belonging to the Magus, surged and awakened.
The molecular structure, the elemental makeup of the ore, unfolded in her mind as clear as a diagram.
‘Appraisal’—a skill supposedly only alchemists could master. Yet, oddly enough, Irene, a so-called magicless and powerless girl, learned it instantly.
“This…” Irene’s pupils contracted sharply. She looked up, her eyes now icy and piercing. “On the outside, it’s ordinary hematite, but inside… there’s at least thirty percent raw mithril! The purity’s extremely high!”
Helga gasped. “Thirty percent mithril?! That’s worth a hundred times more than regular iron! Vincent, he…”
“Ah, yes. Selling precious mithril ore as iron—that’s what he’s doing. There’s no way he didn’t realize its value, which means he’s doing it on purpose!”
Irene sat down, pressing her forehead, recalling what she’d seen that day.
That merchant she brushed past, that strange ‘imperial accent’—it all pointed to a terrifying truth!
If that merchant was from the Empire, with secret channels to ship ore there, then what Vincent was doing wasn’t just harming the territory, but betraying the entire kingdom!
“And this, Irene, these are seeds I borrowed from the villagers. I found something odd. The drought didn’t happen overnight, but nothing’s sprouted in half a year—something’s fishy. Look here…”
She picked up a wheat seed, pinched it lightly, and the grain cracked open, revealing a germ that was already dead, cooked to an unnaturally ripe state.
“The seeds…”
Irene’s voice trembled almost imperceptibly—an icy edge from the depths of her fury. “They’ve been boiled. Cooked. Rain or no rain, drought or not, they’d never sprout! The so-called ‘Divine Punishment’ causing crop failure is a blatant lie!”
In order to drive the villagers to mine those ‘worthless’ hills, this man’s scheme was nothing short of vicious!
Irene was truly angry now.
Helga’s face darkened as she rubbed her chin, thinking. “Opening the Grain Storehouse to help the villagers was just to buy their loyalty, build his image as a loving lord—it was all a carefully set trap!”
“Using the territory’s mithril and future harvests to pave his own way, while spreading rumors to blame you and ‘Divine Punishment’ for everything! What a hypocritical viper!”
A cold murderous intent and the weight of conspiracy hung between the two.
In the corner, Rita’s little mouth was agape, her eyes wide, glancing at Irene, then Helga, then the stones and seeds on the table, her face full of “Who am I? Where am I? What are they talking about?” confusion.
Rita understood every word, but together it made little sense. Wasn’t Mr. Vincent supposed to be a kind uncle? How did he turn into a villain?
Such complex political intrigue was like an alien language to her.
In the shadows, Grandpa Wenster, who’d been silently puffing his dry pipe, had a sharp glint in his cloudy old eyes.
A barely perceptible smile, filled with resolve and hope, flickered at the corner of his mouth.
His murky gaze swept over his bewildered granddaughter Rita, then returned to Irene, a thought burning in his heart like kindling catching a spark—perhaps meeting Miss Irene here truly was the goddess’s will.
*****
The next day, just after noon.
The sky blazed like a giant red-hot iron, the merciless sun roasting the earth, the air shimmering with heat, every breath burning.
No wind, no clouds. The “fiercer sun” Vincent predicted last night had arrived, right on cue.
The plaza in front of the Lord’s Mansion was packed with a black mass of people, driven here by rumors Vincent’s minions had spread, their fury at Irene rising like a tidal wave.
Sweat soaked their tattered clothes, filling the air with a desperate, feverish energy.
“Liar! Blasphemer!”
“Get out of our land! Witch, you brought this disaster!”
“Give us back our rain! Give us back our food!”
“Divine Punishment! This is Divine Punishment! Even her Divine Revelation yesterday was blasphemy!”
The angry shouts rose higher and higher, stones and rotten vegetables flying at the tightly shut doors and walls of the Lord’s Mansion.
Vincent stood on the second-floor balcony, overlooking the seething “will of the people.”
He wore a plain but clean old robe, his face the picture of just the right amount of pain and anxiety, hands raised as if to calm the crowd, but deep in his eyes there was a gloating coldness he could not hide. Everything was unfolding perfectly, just as he’d scripted.
At that moment, a trusted henchman in guard’s leather armor scrambled onto the balcony, face twisted in terror just as Vincent had instructed, voice shrill enough to pierce the sky. “My lord! Bad news! The Grain Storehouse… it’s on fire! The flames are out of control!”
“What?!” Vincent spun around, his face instantly filled with “shock” and “heartbroken anguish,” his voice trembling just so. “The Grain Storehouse… that was our last stockpile! How could this happen… Oh heavens!”
He pounded the railing in “grief and rage,” turning to the crowd below, which had fallen into shocked silence and then erupted in even greater panic. “Quiet! Everyone, quiet! Listen to me! We must put out the fire—”
“Put out the fire?” a shrill voice exploded from the crowd, wild with despair. “With what? The wells are dry! The riverbeds are cracked! There’s not a drop of water left! It’s her! It’s this disaster-bringer’s fault!”
All blame turned to Irene.
“Burn her! Sacrifice her blood to the gods!”
“Divine Punishment! The Grain Storehouse is gone! We’ll all starve!”
“Lord Vincent! Save us!”
The people’s fear and rage were fully ignited, like a wildfire out of control, with only one target left—Irene Raven.
With his back to the crowd, Vincent’s lips curled into a cruel, uncontrollable smile.
It worked! The fire was perfectly timed!
At that moment, the heavy doors of the Lord’s Mansion slowly opened.
Irene walked out.
She wore a simple white dress, bringing a touch of coolness to the scorching sun.
Her steps were calm and unhurried, her face showing none of the panic, fear, or guilt the people expected—she was as tranquil as the eye of a storm. This almost indifferent composure, to the desperate and furious crowd, seemed like pure arrogance and provocation.
“Look! She’s still pretending!”
“Not a hint of remorse! Demon!”
“Get out! Burn her!”
Curses and abuse shot at her like poisoned arrows.
Irene’s gaze swept over the furious, contorted crowd, finally landing on Vincent’s “anxious” face on the balcony. Her eyes were clear and deep, as if she’d seen through all his falsehoods.
Just as the people’s rage was about to break all bounds, and Vincent’s joy reached its peak—
“CRACK—!!!”
A blinding, bone-white bolt of lightning tore through the crimson sky without warning! A split-second later, a deafening thunderclap roared, as if to split the earth itself!
RUMBLE—!!!
The sound was so loud, so sudden, it drowned out every shout and curse in the plaza.
Everyone flinched under the might of heaven and earth, instinctively looking up.
The next moment, fat, icy raindrops poured down as if the gods had upturned a giant basin, drumming violently on everything!
On the scorched stone, the rain hissed up clouds of steam; on parched skin, it stung with the ecstasy of long-awaited relief; on the burning Grain Storehouse, the smoke thickened, but was swiftly beaten down!
Rain! Torrential rain!
The crowd, who’d been howling in rage a heartbeat ago, froze as if petrified.
Their fury solidified, twisted, and was finally replaced by a vast, indescribable bewilderment and shock.
Rain soaked their hair and clothes, streaming down their stunned faces.
On the balcony, Vincent’s look of pain and anxiety froze instantly.
The triumphant smile that had just begun to bloom was cut short, twisted into an expression of disbelief and horror.
His hand, raised to “calm” the crowd, was stuck in midair, rain dripping from his fingertips.
He stared at the downpour from the sky, then jerked his gaze to the white figure still standing tall in the rain, his pupils shrinking to pinpoints in terror.
Impossible! Absolutely impossible! The sun—where was his blazing sun?! How could it actually rain, just as that woman predicted?!
A chill, colder than the rain, shot up from his feet to the top of his head.
The world was drowned in rain, the only sound the endless rush of water.
The people’s rage, Vincent’s cold smile—both were utterly extinguished and frozen by this sudden deluge.
Irene raised her hand, gently brushing the rain from her cheek. Her voice was not loud, but in the roar of the downpour and the absolute silence, it carried to every ear, filled with the weight of judgment:
“The rain has come.”
“Now, it’s time to settle everything, Vincent, acting lord.”