Chapter 25: Spirit awakening.

Gabriel expected the Night Pack to move quickly because of how well he paid them, the information he gave them was also quite juicy so they were probably eager to use it straight away. But as it turned out, they were more patient than he thought. That, or they were just more thorough.

"The information you requested has been gathered. The tree with eight holes, hole number five from the bottom."

A little over a week after he put in the request, the stud earring he got from the Night Pack finally whirred to life. The message was short, the voice belonging to their gorilla-masked leader. It was already quite late when he got the message so he took the chance to leave his room and sneak into the hallway.

He used the secret passages hidden in the walls to make his way through the mansion. If they finished one task then it likely meant that they had finished the other one at the same time, and in that case there should be a reaction right about now.

Crack

He heard the sound he hoped for before he even got close enough to see her room. When he finally reached a spot from which he could peek into Marion’s room, the desk she usually would sit at was already broken. It was split down the middle, but there were several deep dents and cracks in both sections.

She still sat on her chair, her nightgown covered by a silk robe. Someone who probably worked for her information agency stood in front of her, their head lowered slightly as a soft tremble ran through their body. Marion’s gaze was transfixed on the logbook in her hand, the pages slowly turning as her grip on the book only tightened.

"Is it verified?""I’m afraid so."

The informant answered her question so quickly that they almost seemed afraid to be even a second late. But honestly, it was probably justified in this case. The information in the logbook was tied directly to her brother, and it went against everything she stood for. Illegal selling of demons, kidnapping and selling of people in the slums, farming and distributing opium on a large scale.

If this got out, and the information was actually verified by the imperial family, then Leonardo would not be able to escape the death sentence. Naturally, this all relied on the existence of proof, the proof she was holding in her hands. Marion knew this, so after sucking in a deep breath, she clutched the book tightly.

"Round them all up. The farmers, the traders, the slavers. Don’t miss a single one, take their arms and legs if you must. But make it quiet, no one else must be allowed to learn of this. I’ll request for an audience with the Emperor, if we present them all to him and are willing to make some sacrifices then we may be able to get Leonardo down from a death sentence to life in prison."

The informant hurriedly nodded his head, Gabriel observing them both from his hiding spot with a slight curve of the lips. Yes, this was the kind of person Marion was, had to be. She could get rid of the evidence right here, but her conscience wouldn’t allow that. No, Leonardo had to pay for what he had done, that was the law. The best she could do was alter the circumstances slightly, before the situation had the chance to blow up.

The things she would do to him before she dragged him in front of the emperor, perhaps he would think death was preferable. That was why Alice and Marion couldn’t get along in the show, Marion could not accept the villain that her sister became and thus fought against her with everything she had.

"I must go meet with Father. Go, start straight away, involve the entire guild. And find out who delivered the information!"

Marion spat out orders as she marched out of the room, Gabriel following her as she headed for the duke’s office. But he didn’t actually dare to enter the duke’s office through the secret passageways. The duke was the only one here who knew about them, and if he tried to use magic to hide then there was a good chance that they would discover him. So he lingered just outside the office, just close enough to listen in on them.

Things went about as he expected, Marion reported the situation and the duke listened grimly. He agreed with her decision to bring Leonardo in front of the emperor, they just couldn’t let him go freely after this. But the duke thought a bit further ahead as well.

"We’ll need an event."

Gabriel’s ears perked up when he heard the weary sigh. This was what he had been waiting for.

"You did the right thing when you tried to cover it up immediately, but the fact that the information was delivered to you means that someone else already has it in their hands. Even if you start acting now, there’s probably an 80% chance that word of it will still spread. Even if it’s nothing but unfounded rumours, it will still become a stain on the territory’s name, people will whisper about it for as long as they can. We need an event to distract them, to lessen at least some of the whispering while we lock up Leonardo and talk with Arthas about a suitable excuse to give the public."

Arthas De Earhart, Emperor of the Earhart kingdom, only the dukes and the head of the eastern family could call him by his name.

Even if they gave Leonardo the death sentence as the law dictated, people would still whisper about the things that went down in this territory, whisper about the incompetent Vritara. Some of those in the other ducal families would make sure of that. So they needed a distraction while they worked on an excuse that could somewhat lessen the whispering. And lessen really was the goal here. The duke knew that eliminating it was impossible, the damage was already done. He could only seek to minimise it as best he could.

A short silence fell over the room, or at least it seemed so from what Gabriel could hear, the duke’s voice eventually leaking into the secret passage again.

"…The Crown Princess. Our Patricia is close in age to her is she not?"

Gabriel’s head couldn’t help but tilt for a moment after the duke spoke. He searched through his memories, but he couldn’t recall anyone related to the Vritara family who went by the name of Patricia. But Marion cleared up his confusion.

"Alice, yes. I believe there is about half a year difference between them. Are you planning on having them become playmates?"

Gabriel wanted to click his tongue but decided against it, limiting the amount of noise he made here would be for the best. Marion’s voice sounded a bit sceptical, a duke’s child and the emperor’s daughter becoming playmates was just too normal of an event.

"No. It’s a secret, but Arthas has already tested his daughter’s aptitude, she will definitely call forth and contract at least a Disaster-grade spirit. He originally wanted to wait longer before he did the ceremony, but I’ll talk with him about pushing it forward, he shouldn’t deny the request of a friend. We can use the excuse that I’m so eager to see what sort of spirit Alicia will awaken that I can’t wait, Arthas can then hop on and say that he’ll bring along his own daughter so that Alicia won’t feel too lonely. The subsequent awakening should remove at least a few of the whispers."

The duke sounded tired. He also wasn’t speaking the full truth. Not only would people talk about the crown princess awakening a great spirit, but they would also compare her to Alice at the same time. So whether or not Alice awakened a higher or lower-grade spirit didn’t actually matter. If it was a higher-ranked, good, people would talk about the attraction of the Vritara bloodline. If it was lower-ranked, still good, people would talk about Alice rather than Leonardo. After all, everyone loved talking down to someone who was worse off.

Gabriel listened for a bit more, slowly making his way back to his room a bit after Marion left the office. The duke sounded a bit uncertain at times, but with the relationship Gabriel had seen in the show it was basically guaranteed that the awakening ceremony would be pushed forward. He’d already spent the last few days teaching Alice about Spirits so they should be able to avoid the worst case scenario of her summoning a spirit that would instantly go rampant.

With that, one of the future events he kick-started fell into place. But there was still one more event he needed to properly set up, for both Alice and Lawrence’s sake. So he touched the stud earring and used a bit of mana to activate the magic formation inside it.

"The news you sneakily read in the logbook, you can start spreading and selling it as you please after two weeks, especially in the northern lands. I won’t ask for royalties on the information, but you can leave two Magic Enhancing pills in the same spot as last time. They need to contain enough mana for a General-grade spell each."

He had never strictly forbidden the Night Pack from reading what was in Leonardo’s logbook, but the unspoken rule in their line of business was to play it straight and never check the package. But that gorilla-masked man would definitely have read the logbook despite that standard, he’d just go about using it very sneakily. That was the expected, and desired, outcome, but Gabriel wasn’t above getting some value out of it despite that.

He received an affirmative reply and cut contact with the Night Pack. With that, all that was left was to wait for Leonardo to act as he should, and for the northern duchy to act as they should. He’d take care of the rest, just as he always did. Until then, it was time to wait and sharpen his fangs, there was still plenty of training to do.

He’d made plans and prepared for the situations based on what he knew, he was as ready as he would be at the moment. But there was one variable he hadn’t taken into account, the ‘villainess’ he was helping, and how desperate the duke was to get his distraction. And because of that, he was completely taken aback when she burst into his room five days later, patting her chest triumphantly.

"Gabriel, I was just called in by the duke! He’s decided to push forward my spirit awakening ceremony, the emperor has apparently even agreed to let his daughter do his at the same time! But I managed to force him to accept a condition of mine, you have to get your own spirit awakening ceremony at the same time!"