At that moment, only one thought crossed Ai’er’s mind:
‘Looks like that black-robed person earlier wasn’t wrong to call Tina an Apostle.’
Apostle and Agent… although the latter sounds like it has higher authority, literally speaking, they both work for the Black God.
But no matter what, as an Agent, I should have higher authority…
Then why…
Why does this Saintess even know that my lifespan is only half a year?!
“Hmm~ Looks like I guessed right~ The High Priest only said that the Agent Lord’s time is limited, but I didn’t expect it to mean this~”
She tricked me into speaking—no, she read my expression!
Damn it! This evil woman!
How does the Holy Church even choose people?! How can someone like this become a Saintess? QAQ?!
“You… what are you trying to say!”
“I’m not trying to say anything~ The messenger I sent should have told you: If you have any needs, you can come to the tavern.
I’m still waiting for your needs.”
As Tina spoke, she even tilted her head slightly, as if she were completely innocent, and gently curled the corner of her mouth.
…I can’t let this woman keep leading me around by the nose.
Taking a deep breath, Ai’er restrained her expression.
“Let me ask a question first.
Do you know that this Monster Tide… isn’t a real Monster Tide?”
“Oh, that? Yes, we do know~
Because we’re cooperating with Marquis Sirius. This Monster Tide is just an experiment, an experiment—to prove that Marquis Sirius really can control magical beasts.
And this experiment is also meant to get Miss Elena to return to the Duchy as quickly as possible.”
Without holding anything back, as if talking about something ordinary, Tina very directly revealed the matters behind the Duchy.
“I can probably guess what you’re thinking right now.
You might have wanted the Black God Church to step in and help Miss Elena repel the Monster Tide.
But after finding out that the Black God Church is cooperating with Sirius, you don’t know how to bring it up anymore, right—”
“First, answer me. What exactly is your goal?”
But after this question, Tina showed a surprised expression.
As if she had heard something incredible, or had never expected Ai’er to ask that.
“Goal? What are you talking about?
Didn’t the Black God tell you? Aren’t you getting close to Miss Elena to achieve some purpose?
Don’t you…
want to make Elena and Leviathan fight each other?”
Make, make Elena and Leviathan fight?!
Tina’s playful smile had disappeared.
In its place were her wide-open eyes, eyes filled with the word “I don’t understand.”
“Don’t you… know what Miss Elena’s mana actually is?
Don’t you know that the power Miss Elena possesses is actually a fragment that fuses the power of the Black God and the White God?
You, you really don’t know? You’re really an Agent—no.
Your mana is indeed pitch black, pure black… You must be an Agent, that can’t be wrong! But why… why did the Black God…”
…What?
What is she, what is she talking about?
What fragment? Black God? White God?
What is all this?! What is she talking about?!
Looking at Tina, who was muttering to herself like a madwoman, Ai’er, with wide eyes, instinctively took a step back.
But soon, Tina stopped her manic muttering.
She looked back at the silver-haired girl, as if confirming something, expressionless.
“To provide resources to Marquis Sirius, let him experiment with methods to control Leviathan, let him keep driving magical beasts onto the coast, and completely deplete the Duchy’s Magic Stone Bombs.
But the key is to let Sirius successfully dominate Leviathan.
And then…
On the day Miss Elena turns 20, after letting her completely fuse with the fragment of the divine power within her—
Then let Miss Elena and Leviathan, who also possesses a fragment of divine power, fight in an absolutely fair environment—
Finally, no matter who wins and further fuses the divine power fragment…
At that gap when the final winner is fusing the fragment, make a move, seize the further fused fragment, and offer it to the Black God!
…Did the Black God not give you this mission?”
[Current Stage Task:]
“Didn’t the Black God make you get close to Miss Elena just so you could—”
[Make the Witch of Time, Elena White—]
“Kill her?” [“Kill” yourself.]
…
On the carriage heading to the Marquis’s Mansion.
Elena was still flipping through—flipping through the documents Sebastian had handed her that afternoon.
The Duchy’s magic stone mining had indeed always been restricted by the Empire.
The sheer number and “cruelty” of the restriction methods were things Elena had never carefully understood before.
“Bribery, assassination, replacing key personnel…
Setting up dedicated informants to report the amount of mined magic stones to the Empire in advance, then modifying the published data to raise the price of magic stones in the Duchy while shipping large amounts of ‘appearing out of nowhere’ magic stones to the Empire.”
On the surface, it was said that the Duchy only needed to hand over a portion of the mined magic stones to the Empire each year, but in reality, they secretly kept increasing the Duchy’s mining output. Publicly, they announced that the mining volume was decreasing, and even charged the Duchy a so-called “shortfall compensation fee for mining quotas.”
This wasn’t even treating the Duchy as a vassal state—it was treating it as a lamb to be slaughtered, freely squeezed for oil!
At this moment, the tips of Elena’s fingers gripping the edge of the document turned even whiter.
Perhaps the Empire didn’t care at all about Leviathan or the Monster Tide. As long as they could finish mining the magic stones on this land quickly, they could completely abandon the Duchy!
“How can they talk about granting this land to my father… This is just a cover!”
When the Empire granted this land to Duke White back then, they had never lost their ambition for the magic stone trade.
The Empire did this just to give a proper position to the Hero in the eyes of the people.
But these atrocities by the Empire were not the biggest problem Elena faced at the moment.
The things mentioned above were difficulties that had existed since the Duchy was established.
But the documents showed that this situation seemed to have started changing about nineteen years ago, and around ten years ago, it had been largely brought under control…
And although Elena regarded Sirius as an enemy, she had to accept one fact—
In the years since he became Regent, Sirius had indeed done some things for the Duchy.
“But this doesn’t make sense…”
Sirius was only the Regent. The Empire couldn’t possibly have taken no countermeasures against his actions.
But from these documents, it seemed the Empire hadn’t interfered with Sirius’s actions.
If so, there was only one possibility—
“If the Empire is demanding magic stones to forge Magic Weapons and unify the entire Western Continent…”
Then Sirius might have proposed some method to replace the forging of Magic Weapons with high-purity magic stones, or to provide even more powerful weapons—
At this moment, Elena thought of the past events Anna had told her about.
“A drug that can attract magical beasts…”
And the books about the Black God Church she had found in the box, this abnormal Monster Tide…
All of this seemed to point to a near-fantastical conclusion.
“Sirius is trying to control Leviathan?”
Although Elena found this conclusion utterly absurd, she still couldn’t help but feel a chill in her heart.
But according to Sebastian’s intelligence, Sirius had already left the Duchy.
“But that’s fine too.”
Although she couldn’t confront Sirius face to face, how did this Marquis, who was not in the Duchy, plan to face the meeting being held in his mansion tonight?
Elena temporarily closed her eyes.
At this moment, under the night sky where the sun had completely disappeared, the carriages of the Duchy’s nobles kept surging toward Sirius’s mansion…