“What’s this now? A mystery well-wisher?” Felix took the parchment and read it as well.
Sylvester was meanwhile in more confusion than he had begun with. The short message could mean many things, but what gave him the headache was the big question. ‘Who and why?’
As far as he remembered, he had no real friends in such places where they could help him. Inquisitor high lord would have solved the case if that was the case. So, who was this secret helper now? And does this mean he has infiltrated high places?
He had more questions than answers. Not to mention, there was another possibility; it could just be a ploy by someone to steer his investigation away.
“Boy, who gave this to you? Can you describe him?” Sylvester focused on the kid, likely ten years old.
The boy was clearly scared of the tall and armoured bunch of them. So Sylvester knelt down and handed him a silver coin. “Tell me, and you can have another.”
“Tall man! He was very tall and wore big black robes with a hood. I only saw his long white beard, but not his face. He gave me one gold grace and asked me to give you the thing.” The boy answered while his eyes remained on the coin.
“Did he tell you anything about himself?”
“No.” The boy shook his head firmly. “He give me money, and I work. I made more money than I would in two months. This is my happy month.”
Of course, the boy didn’t know what he did or what it meant. A commoner’s life starts with surviving and ends the same way. So the boy’s happiness was understandable.
Sylvester smelled no lies, so being honest with his words, he handed him two Silver Crowns. “Don’t spend it all, kid. Give it to your mother and tell her to buy food with it.”
“I will, my lord. Bye-bye.” The boy ran away quickly.
Sylvester got up and looked back seriously. “I don’t know who is behind this. Let’s move on and discuss our next steps in Lady Aurora’s carriage.”
He knew he was very smart, but Lady Aurora and Bishop Lazark were too, and above all, they were more experienced. So he decided to include them in the suggestions.
They all arrived back inside the carriage as it had excellent noise insulation. Then, around the little table in the middle, they talked about the message.
“The message clearly tells you to go for the highest seat in the kingdom.” Felix started.
“But it could also be talking about the highest seat in the Duchy or the County,” Gabriel chimed in.
Sylvester rubbed his chin and didn’t ignore the remaining part of the message. “It talked about somewhere I would never sit. Somewhere I shouldn’t look—Somewhere high on the social ladder. That leaves us the highest nobles of the kingdom. The King and the Dukes. Me being a clergyman of ordinary background, even if I were to leave the church somehow, I would never get to be in their shoes.”
“King and Crown Prince, perhaps?” Lady Aurora blurted.
“No!” Isabella opposed. They were talking about her brothers, after all.
Sylvester patted her shoulder and shook his head. “You can’t say that you know your brothers well, Isabella. Everyone has two sides, one they show to family and one they let out when they hold power. Every noble is under suspicion, and until we haven’t caught the culprit, we shall keep looking for him in all castle halls.”
“B-But… why would my brothers do something like this?”
“Only they can answer it,” Sylvester replied and made up his mind. He wanted to ignore the message he had received as there was a high chance it was meant to mislead him. But, seeing the initials printed on it, S.S.R., it meant that the person behind it wanted him to find him out.
Not that he had any other choice, either. 𝙚𝙤𝙫𝙚𝒍.𝒐𝙧𝙜
“We’re close to the Duke, so let’s pay him a visit.” Sylvester decided. “And Isabella, do not think we’re going out of our way to incriminate your family. We’re only doing our job; if you can’t set aside your personal feelings, you better return to Green City.”
She vigorously shook her head. “No, I cut my hair and did all this to help you investigate. If one of my brothers is found to be behind this, then I will gladly accept any punishment you inflict on me—us.”
Without furthering the discussion, Sylvester went out and ordered the crusaders to move out. But they were going to spend the night there again as they were already too late.
“Crusade Commanders Eros, Hartwin, Gibbins and Torfin, report to me in my tent.” Sylvester moved away after ordering a group of crusaders.
These four were the crusade commanders that Sylvester had selected after the past few days of close observation. He looked for intelligence, presence of mind, magical and knightly abilities, and above all, the origin. He avoided any nobles as he believed they were the fastest to go corrupt. Meanwhile, the commoners had suffered the plight themselves, so they didn’t readily inflict it upon others.
These four men each commanded a battalion of 250 men. And Sylvester was training these four, so they could pass on the teachings to other soldiers. All in the hopes that one day they’d become his elite troops—only loyal to him.
But he also knew that to win loyalty, he first needed to do something worthy of it.
“Maxy, can I go and see the market?” Miraj spoke as they were alone in his tent.
Sylvester looked at the furry boy. “The last time you went, you nearly died. You still want to go? Fine, but do not enter the castle. Who knows what magical means they have? It’s always unpredictable.”
“Aye, Aye, Maxy. I will bring you some fruits too.” Miraj quickly ran off.
‘You mean a banana.’ Sylvester thought and silently worked on a few parchments.
Thud!
“My lord, you called us?”
Soon, the four men arrived in front of Sylvester. Each of them came from a varying background, either in service of some merchant group or some lord before starting the crusade.
“At least take seats,” Sylvester ordered them and extended the four parchments he was writing on.
“I have something to discuss with you three. Since I’ve been training you in leadership and battle warfare, I’ve only focused on marching and teamwork. Now the time has come to begin the actual battle training and various formations. Also, skills in how to deal with various conditions and fight an enemy with a larger army. How to create traps for the enemies. These documents contain such things, and you must memorise them before burning them away.”
The four men silently read them for a few minutes and nodded. Eros, among them, was a big burly man, smart and always serious. Meanwhile, Hartwin was a tall, serious man. Gibbins was the youngest, and Torfin was a tall, cheerful black man.
“This is easy, my lord,” Torfin spoke.
“It’s easy to memorise, but when it comes to the actual battlefield and managing hundreds of soldiers, it’s not as easy,” Sylvester warned them. After all, it wasn’t just them who had to memorise the formations. Their job was to teach them to other soldiers too.
“You have until tomorrow morning to memorise everything. Good luck.” Sylvester dismissed them as his own time to train was coming.
“Understood, lord bard.” They saluted with arms crossed on their chests and left quickly.
Soon, Sylvester also put his things away. ‘I should start working on my next strong move. I hope Lady Aurora will be good enough to help.’
Sylvester had realised by now that he stood at a unique place in history as a man with an extreme amount of light magic affinity and a strong affinity with all other elements. He had the opportunity to come up with unique attacks never seen before.
But, the Wrath of Heavens had its own shortcomings. It was small, too precise, and the move was wasted if missed. Hence, he wished to have something that could damage a large area in a single action.
So, he soon arrived in an open field far away from the town and the Baron. The field had its crops recently harvested, so they had enough space to fight. The weather was also great, sunny and warm.
“Ready?” Lady Aurora lazily stood a few metres away from Sylvester, not taking him seriously.
Sylvester held his spear in his right hand, ready to act. “Let’s make this one count.”
“Woohoo! Beat her ass, Max!” Felix was shouting from the distant side.
‘I don’t think I can. Hmm… I need a strategy.’ Sylvester thought, knowing the difference between him and Lady Aurora was huge. He’d need to live for decades to reach her level, and that is if he went all out in pursuit of power. Otherwise, it’d require a century.
This was not a spar. This was going to be a real half-serious fight where they were allowed to injure one another as long as it was not a mortal wound. But, of course, they were taking this risk only because Isabella was there to heal them.
“Make the first move, blondie.”
Sylvester grunted. ‘Alright, I’ll have to make her bleed at least and shut her mouth.’
Sylvester knew that the difference in their physical strength was enormous too. And most likely, Lady Aurora had experience fighting against all elemental wizards in the past. So, he decided to use a light element, one she had probably never fought against.
‘First comes the disturbance.’
Sylvester didn’t charge ahead. Instead, he started running around Lady Aurora, making a large circle and releasing tens of Whirling Fire Storms. The tornadoes provided good space to remain out of Lady Aurora’s sight.
“Haha, you want to beat me with this?” She boomed.
Sylvester didn’t respond and kept running, slowly inching closer to her by making the circle smaller. ‘Now comes the clones.’
Woosh!
He tried it for the first time but believed it should work. So he used light magic to the fullest and covered his entire body with light, so much so that he only appeared as a humanoid body made of light.
But that was only the beginning, as he used light magic to create similar humanoid bodies around himself, identical in height and size. There were twenty in total, his limit.
‘Good, I smell doubt now.’ He cheered, sensing Lady Aurora could not tell which was the real him.
“Hiding now, Blondie?”
‘Try all you want, I shall not speak.’ He knew she was trying to find the real him.
‘Now the next step—attack!’
Twenty light clones started running in circles as well and slowly inched closer, now faster. They were all identical, so there was no telling which one was real.
“Ha!”
Finally, Lady Aurora made a move as she used her sword to send a slicing blade made of wind magic.
Shh…!
It passed right through a few of the clones. She then repeated it, wishing to hit all clones.
But Sylvester had prepared something else. His aim was to push himself, after all. So he tried to replicate the Wrath of Heaven from each of his clones.
Boom!
Twenty beams of light got sent off towards her in the middle. The light was so intense that everything else outside the close vicinity seemed black. Meanwhile, the heat was menacing.
“Not today!” She scoffed, and just as the beams of light were about to strike her, she jumped into the air.
But…
“Hah! Got you!” Sylvester boomed and swung his spear, as right above her head he appeared.
Slash!
________________________
750 GT = 1 Bonus chapter.
1 Super Gift = 1 Bonus chapter.
APE TOGETHER STRONG!