The Doomed Fief’s Dying Lord (31)

I opened the door and glanced down the corridor.

There were no servants or officials walking around.

I hurried away.

The place I headed to was the Seowon of Denabi Castle.

Why is it called a seowon and not a study or library?

The study is used as Alejandro’s office, and the library stores the Administrative Office’s collections.

This place is not for such official business.

It was a very private space.

The annex of Denabi Castle.

I crossed its greenhouse and walked straight into the inner room.

Then I looked up at the old plaque hanging at the end.

‘Trastamara Seowon’

You must be hearing the name for the first time.

It makes sense that you haven’t heard it.

This room came from outside Denabi, and its owner was someone from outside Denabi as well.

Trastamara.

It was the maiden name of Beatrice Astrier, the late mother of the Shane brothers and Alejandro’s wife.

Beatrice’s room.

I threw open the door.

---

Right after the possession, I wandered around various places in Denabi Castle.

I needed to know what kind of world this was, didn’t I?

After wandering for about thirty minutes, I got a feel for it.

‘Wow! This is Denabi!’

It looked exactly like the Denabi Castle described in the novel.

But there was exactly one place.

One spot that wasn’t the same.

That was the Trastamara Seowon.

At the time it seemed suspicious so I didn’t go in, but humans are curious creatures, right?

So I went again.

But… now that I’m inside, isn’t this even more suspicious?

Portraits of a young woman were hung here and there in the room.

After looking around a bit, I realized.

They were Beatrice.

They were paintings depicting her before she married into Denabi.

The room’s interior was also very different from Denabi Castle.

So it was clear this was Beatrice’s private space.

The different architectural style made sense if it reflected Beatrice’s family home rather than Denabi.

That was a natural inference.

But how do you explain this?

I picked up a tool with a familiar appearance.

At first glance it looked like a lantern.

But inside, instead of a flame, there was a crystal emitting a blue light.

‘Mana crystal…?’

It wasn’t just that one lantern.

Blue light flickered all around.

It was the light of Mana crystals.

The room was full of tools made from Mana crystals.

The finishing touch was the bookshelf.

I pulled a book from it and skimmed the title.

I skimmed several more books, and the conclusion was the same.

All the books in this seowon were about magic.

My goodness, how transparent could this be?

This place was a magic workshop.

“Beatrice Astrier was a mage…?”

She was the protagonist’s mother, so I suspected something.

I didn’t expect her to be a mage.

‘But her sons clearly had no magical talent, did they?’

Jin and Reno are typical warriors.

They are as brave as their father.

So naturally the mother would be in the warrior line or…

I assumed she was just an ordinary woman.

But she was a mage.

Mages are quite rare in this world.

They’re not as uniquely powerful as a Gandalf-level figure, but it’s not a profession you can choose on a whim.

You’d need at least a fairly influential Lord to have one at your side.

You need talent first, and that talent is extremely rare.

Then a thought suddenly occurred to me.

‘Then isn’t there a possibility for me too?’

Shane really doesn’t resemble Alejandro at all.

His swordsmanship is terrible. (Of course, that might be my fault—Lee Jungwoo’s.)

Physically he’s not in great shape either.

So maybe Shane took after his mother rather than his father?

I examined Beatrice’s portrait closely.

As I thought.

I could see Shane’s features.

It was the moment my second dream was born.

‘Me, Lee Jungwoo, I’ve got a dream.’

Clear the fief easily on the backs of talent—easy mode, bliss.

That was the first dream.

A modest dream.

So the second dream could be a bit more ambitious, couldn’t it?

I’m the protagonist of my life, after all.

It would be boring if I didn’t get to shine.

‘If I could learn magic, that would be unbelievably great!’

Yeah.

It’d be amazing.

If only I could learn…

Beatrice’s secret and my new possibilities.

Amid the excitement they brought, I was forgetting something.

You see news like that sometimes.

‘21-year-old Kim passes the bar as the youngest ever.’

Geniuses who appear once in a decade.

But do you know something?

Even those geniuses study for at least a year.

What I mean is the essence of scholarship is ultimately like that.

You have to build it up.

Whether scholarship, swordsmanship, or magic, you need at least a year to become competent, don’t you think?

‘But I’m on a time attack right now!’

I realized it as soon as I opened the book ‘Introduction to Magic Studies.’

Ah, this won’t be done in a day or two.

This is genuine scholarship.

You need time to understand, memorize, and get used to it.

But I don’t have time.

Will I even still be alive next month?

I don’t even know that.

“Right. What second dream, you brat. Just work hard on the business…”

I lowered my head.

Ah, my second dream.

I’m sorry, but I have to give you up.

Still, it’s not easy to let go.

Thinking it might be my last chance, I skimmed through Beatrice’s bookshelf.

I grabbed a random book.

But this… the author is strange?

‘Correlation between somatic Mana crystal fusion rate and spell–Mana reactivity - Beatrice Astrier’

Beatrice?

Did Shane’s mother write this herself?

—

For two days after we returned to Denabi, the Denabi forces had already been carrying out the first operation.

The operation was initiated by Ronari and named as follows.

‘Belated Harvest Operation’

Kukuk-!

Alejandro’s throwing spear pierced the troll’s abdomen.

Swaek-!

Then Izack’s sword cut through the troll’s thigh.

A blue, translucent liquid poured from the troll’s severed artery.

It was liquefied Mana.

The liquid Mana vaporized the moment it touched the ground.

A blue mist rose.

“Kill it!”

Izack gave the charge order.

What sprang forward was his unit.

A squad led by Izack took the lead.

They cut the troll’s throat, and the remaining squad members pushed the front line forward.

Alejandro, who had been following, stood beside Izack.

Izack glanced at him.

A brief awkward tension hung in the air.

Izack asked Alejandro.

“Ale… no, Lord. How long until reinforcements arrive?”

“Maybe half a day.”

“Those guys are really coming to help us, right? Not to stab us in the back.”

“You don’t trust my son?”

“Huh. Who said I don’t trust him?”

Saying that, Izack smirked.

“He’s the young master my daughter trusts, so of course I trust him.”

“Then that’s settled. Let’s finish before the reinforcements arrive. I’ll leave this to you; I’ll push into the eastern side of the orchard.”

Alejandro acted as soon as he declared it.

When he gestured, a throwing spear flew from the adjutant.

He took the handed spear and shouted.

“Astrier unit, charge! Break through the left flank. Follow the Lord of Denabi!”

And the Lord’s second throwing spear pierced the center of the battlefield.

The spear lodged in the brow of a werewolf sweeping the left of the line.

It was like a landmark.

It pointed the soldiers toward their destination.

“Follow the Lord of Denabi!”

Alejandro shouted again.

A roar followed.

“Waaaaaaa!”

The footsteps of the entire Astrier unit poured onto the flank of the frontline.

Izack did not stay still either.

He surged into the middle of the line.

His sword sliced through the bodies of several monsters.

“Fight! You upper district scum! For your homes and families!”

Blood and steel danced.

Then, like a singing voice, one subordinate’s voice was heard.

“But Captain! What about if I don’t have a wife or children!”

“Then fight for your parents and siblings!”

Another subordinate said.

“But I’m an orphan!”

“Damn, you have nothing. Then fight for my daughter!”

“I thought I’d never marry…! Father! Please watch over me!”

“Who said I’m your father!”

The story quickly snowballed.

“Wait, if you kill a hundred you’ll be allowed to marry the captain’s daughter?”

“What about me? I’m a woman. And the captain doesn’t have a son?”

A groom candidate appeared for Ronari, and Izack suddenly had a son.

Ronari watched the inside of the orchard from the rear of the line with anxious eyes.

She bit her thumbnail with her front teeth.

Only a few officers remained around her.

Most unit officers had gone into battle regardless of their posts.

A young officer asked her.

“What are you worried about?”

“No… there shouldn’t be a problem. We’ve sufficiently assessed enemy strength in advance.”

“Then stop biting your nails. You’ll draw blood.”

“Ah.”

Ronari released her thumb from her mouth.

Her thumbnail was already ragged.

It was natural since she had been chewing it earlier.

Doing that was the only way to ease her anxiety.

She crossed her arms and began to look over the operation map again.

‘There are no gaps in the plan. I’ve reviewed it two or three times. The Astrier and Arenta units alone can clear the orchard grounds. If needed, the Varni unit can step in.’

If everything goes as expected, finishing the operation before the reinforcements arrive won’t be difficult.

Yet why won’t the unease go away?

There was a separate reason.

Because she herself could not fight.

She was a tactician.

Once the final planning meeting ends and the real operation begins, everything leaves her hands.

‘Whatever variables arise, whatever accidents occur, there’s nothing I can do. At most I can receive reports and devise means of support…’

At least when doing Administrator work, she had that sense.

The feeling that the work started and ended in her hands.

But having to entrust everything to others in this situation made her anxious.

‘What if a horde of monsters suddenly crawled up from the Dungeon entrance…’

“…No way. It won’t happen, but still.“

She couldn’t help it and began biting her nails again.

She wished the young master were here at times like this.

“No, no.”

‘I must handle this on my own.’

Shane is resting now.

And this task is what Shane entrusted to Ronari.

If she leaned on Shane even for this emotional issue, it would prove Ronari’s own incompetence.

She once more reviewed the possible variables in the operation.

She also prepared countermeasures for those variables.

She lifted her head.

“Everyone, please listen for a moment.”

“What is it?”

The young officer, Pietro, and the rest of the staff focused their attention on Ronari.

“The Astrier unit is advancing to the east of the apple orchard right now. It’s too close to the Dungeon entrance. It’s better to keep the Varni unit in reserve behind them.”

Ronari’s suggestion immediately met with opposition.

“Wasn’t that already discussed? If the Arenta unit’s line collapses, the operation will be over. We should proceed as planned. The Varni unit should be with the Arenta unit.”

Ronari sensed that the ensuing argument would be difficult.

Until now she had been able to plan relatively freely.

Because she could transcend ranks with Shane’s and Pietro’s support.

‘But in this situation, I really miss the young master.’

But she couldn’t move forward without overcoming it.

She spoke again.

To defeat the version of herself that only received help.

To shake off the slightest unease within her.

---

I was still sitting under the shadow of the Trastamara Seowon.

Relying on the dim light of a Mana crystal lantern, I was reading that book from earlier.

‘Correlation between somatic Mana crystal fusion rate and spell–Mana reactivity’

Honestly, the contents of the book were a labyrinth.

What did you expect?

This is what happens when you ask a non-specialist to read a thesis.

Still, I tried to understand.

I looked up various magical terms in other books or got by on intuition for tough phrasing.

After all, it was written by the same person.

It wasn’t that there were no parts I could understand.

At least I could grasp the title.

This.

‘Somatic Mana crystal fusion rate’

This refers to the degree of the body’s crystallization.

And ‘spell–Mana reactivity’

This concerns the precision or power of magical spells.

That part wasn’t hard.

The problem was the conclusion.

In the end, the degree of bodily crystallization is correlated with magic.

The question is what that correlation is.

I only figured out what it was relatively recently.

I put the conclusion I drew into words.

“…As the extent of a person’s Mana crystal crystallization increases, the power of spells increases proportionally, and the structuring of magical knowledge required to cast spells… that is, the use of magical catalysts, chanting spells, drawing magic circles, and other such processes can be partially replaced. Ha…“

Conclusion: Those infected by Mana crystal crystallization can use high-power magic without tedious procedures.

I leaned back against the chair.

I covered my face with the book.

And I let out a scream of joy.

“Kkyaaaaak!”

No way.

Such a crazy, amazing bonus?

Magic is free for the infected?

“They threw me into this crappy world with a time limit and drip-fed me mediocre abilities and information! Now I’m finally getting something proper!”

The conclusion was shocking.

That the Mana crystals in the body could substitute for mana reservoirs, magical knowledge, and magical wands!

I jumped up and down in a stranger’s empty room.

Hooray! Hooray!

I’m saved now!

Spring has come for me too!

But in that moment of joy, a sudden question arose.

‘But… does such a convenient story really exist in this world?’

I calmed my excitement for a moment.

Having stopped the commotion.

Beatrice stared back at me.

The portrait of the young lady of the lord’s household.

‘Why did you make such a great discovery and not publish it earlier?’

You could make great use of this, couldn’t you?

The fief’s crystallization-infected people would all become mages.

Denabi could even have a mage unit.

So why?

Why did Beatrice let this research gather dust?

‘Did she die suddenly right before publication?’

That would also be odd.

Why did she die in the first place?

In the original work, the reason for Beatrice’s death isn’t revealed.

I figured she must have died for reasons similar to Vittorio.

I thought she might have died before an epidemic broke out because a bad place got crystallized.

“But… what if that’s not it?”