TL: Rui88
The conversation within the gazebo continued.
MacDonald asked, “So, you believe the ancient war between humans and demons actually happened?”
Aldridge confird, “Yes, we believe this war is a true event.”
He stood up and walked to the edge of the pavilion, stroking his long beard as he gazed out at the nearby lake.
“Originally, I was indifferent as to whether this myth was true or not, but an accidental discovery four years ago forced to beco cautious.”
“Your accidental discovery?”
“Yes.” Aldridge turned back, his eyes revealing an aura that mixed determination, compassion, and an unyielding spirit. Combined with his status as the chief scholar of the Scholars’ Tower, MacDonald was suddenly filled with a sense of profound respect.
The old scholar took a piece of parchnt from within his robes, slowly unrolled it, and carefully placed it on the stone table.
MacDonald looked at the parchnt and saw a drawing of a shooting star. Around the star were so strange and peculiar symbols, which might have been a form of writing he did not recognise.
“What is this? A shooting star?”
“It is a shooting star, but no ordinary one. Or perhaps… we should call it the ‘Star of Calamity’.”
“The Star of Calamity?”
The na did not sound like a good thing.
A look of reminiscence appeared in Aldridge’s eyes. He said, “This was discovered in an ancient tomb in Zolf, back when I was only in my early twenties, just a young man who had recently entered the Scholars’ Tower.”
MacDonald said, “Zolf? I seem to have heard of it. I believe it is sowhere within the Empire’s territory.”
“Yes, but Zolf was once ho to an ancient civilization that has since perished. The image on this scroll was copied from a wall within one of its tombs. There was much other content, of course, but it was all in a script that ordinary people cannot read directly, so I am only showing you the drawing of this star.”
“My ntor at the ti, Lord Ortega, took on the task of deciphering this ancient script. Besides the text on the walls, there were also a great number of ancient scrolls made of hide in the tomb. As his student, I was fortunate enough to participate in this work.”
“As our research progressed, we gradually ca to understand the aning expressed by the words and pictures on the tomb walls.”
“The general aning was that a shooting star of this shape and colour was an on of disaster. Once it appeared in the night sky, a terrible natural or man-made catastrophe was certain to occur within the following one hundred years.”
“And in those ancient scrolls, the specific circumstances of one disaster personally experienced by the Zolf civilization were recorded.”
“The information left by the ancient Zolf civilization was incomplete. In my ntor’s experience, he felt there were missing pieces, like a beautiful painting that had lost several parts. But during the course of the research, my ntor passed away from illness, and I inherited his last wish…to uncover the true nature of this type of shooting star and to continue studying the materials left by the ancient Zolf civilization, in order to complete the final jigsaw puzzle.”
“At that ti, deep down, I didn’t actually care too much about any shooting star. I rely treated it as a research topic to begin my independent career as a scholar. After all, what civilization doesn’t have a prophecy or two about disaster or the end of the world? And tombs are places that are particularly fond of mystification; there were far too many similar things.”
“But because of my ntor’s last wish, I still set about collecting information about these kinds of shooting stars, attempting to restore the incomplete puzzle.”
“It was during this process that I ca into contact with magic and wizards. Oh, and just as people imagine them, wizards are always associated with words like ‘ancient’ and ‘mysterious,’ and I did indeed obtain many precious historical materials from them that are not found in the official histories of any nation.”
“I ford a deep friendship with one of these wizards…Sycor Hewitt. Hewitt was the leader of a group of wizards called the ‘Arcane Society.’ He himself ca from a wizarding family with a lineage stretching back thousands of years, and the Arcane Society was originally established around the Hewitt family. The leaders of each generation have almost all co from this family.”
At this point, Aldridge, who had maintained a serious expression, showed a slight smile. He looked at MacDonald and said, “Besides being a wizard and the leader of the Arcane Society, Sycor Hewitt had another identity. Do you know what it was?”
MacDonald’s mind raced. He thought of the question he had just asked Aldridge… “The Demon Race, humanity, Prince Antonio, and his witch mother, is there any connection between these things?”
“Let guess. This Hewitt was related to Prince Antonio and the prince’s mother?”
“Correct!” Aldridge nodded. “Sycor Hewitt was Prince Antonio’s maternal grandfather.”
“I see.” Understanding dawned on MacDonald.
“His Majesty, the current Emperor of the Empire…Bartley Griffin…was my student at the ti. Sycor Hewitt had a daughter, Sloane Hewitt. The two were of a similar age, and they saw each other often because of their teacher and father. In ti, romantic feelings developed between them.”
“Unfortunately, for political reasons, Bartley had to marry a daughter from the Dias Family as his official wife, so Hewitt’s daughter, Sloane, could only marry him as a concubine.”
Aldridge shook his head and spoke with no small amount of regret.
At this, MacDonald asked, “Did His Majesty know that the woman he loved was a witch?”
“As far as I know, he did not. Sycor and Sloane both hid it very well, never revealing the slightest trace of it in front of Bartley from beginning to end. Sloane, in particular, was afraid that her identity as a witch… would cause a rift with Bartley.”
MacDonald asked, “So, the claim that the prince is the son of a witch was likely… a rumour created by soone with ulterior motives, which just happened to coincide with the truth by a fluke?”
“I believe that is the case.” Aldridge nodded, agreeing with his assessnt.
That would probably be the Empress and the Dias Family behind her, MacDonald thought to himself. Prince Antonio’s mother had also died under mysterious circumstances, and many suspected she was a victim of court intrigue.
“Then the prince’s grandfather… where is he now?”
“Sycor Hewitt died while being hunted by the Holy See… Alas, the two of them, father and daughter…”
An expression of imnse grief crossed Aldridge’s face. In that mont, he recalled the faces and voices of his old friend Sycor and Sloane, whom he had regarded as a niece.
He knew that it was precisely because father and daughter had passed away one after another due to unnatural causes that the Arcane Society, which had long followed a principle of seclusion, was spurred into action. Thereafter, this once-loose group of spellcasters beca more and more strictly organised, and their style of conduct grew increasingly radical.
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