Chapter: 34
Foreman Barony.
“Leo!”
Sylvia, the granddaughter of Baron Foreman, ran over.
“What’s going on here… oh, Grandfather?”
Sylvia’s eyes widened as she jumped slightly.
“Where on earth have you been? You left only a single letter saying you’d be away for a while on the order of His Grace the Grand Duke, and then disappeared like that! Not a single message for all this time!”
Baron Foreman had not informed even his family of his whereabouts.
“I didn’t expect to be away from the territory for this long either, Sylvia. And Leo is here too.”
Leopold appeared behind Baron Foreman. He gave a half-hearted greeting.
“You’re as loud as ever, Sylvia.”
Baron Foreman lived with his son’s family, and among them, his only granddaughter was Sylvia. In other words, she was Leopold’s only cousin.
“And you’re just as rude as ever, Leo.”
Sylvia shrugged and fired back as usual, then asked Baron Foreman,
“Grandfather, so you’ve been with Leo all this time?”
Sylvia was a fourteen-year-old girl, the same age as Leopold.
Baron Foreman ignored his granddaughter’s question entirely and asked casually,
“Anything unusual in the territory?”
“Of course there is. It’s been exactly 63 days since I begged Father to let me get engaged.”
Hearing Sylvia’s words, Baron Foreman let out a deep sigh.
The granddaughter who would one day inherit this territory was, unlike Leopold, very immature. After entering the academy he had sent her to study, she became close with a boy—and now she was insisting on getting engaged.
“Mathis and I are destined. I want to get engaged.”
“Sylvia, get a grip.”
“But if I don’t decide now, I might end up marrying someone who only cares about my background! Father is already receiving tons of marriage proposals for me! Honestly, they don’t even know my face!”
“And so you want to get engaged at fourteen?”
“It’s the perfect age for engagement! Brisa Sears got engaged at seven…”
Leopold casually cut her off.
“She still ended up breaking it off. Sylvia, I also oppose early engagements.”
“Really? Do you seriously think that? On your honor and face?”
“No.”
Leopold corrected himself indifferently.
“Actually, I don’t really care.”
“Of course you don’t. What do you care about my destiny?”
Sylvia crossed her arms and scoffed.
“The great Leopold Nozen already has his own ‘destiny,’ after all.”
“Is Uncle in the library?”
Ignoring Sylvia, Leopold strode into the mansion.
“I came to check something in the library.”
The Foreman estate library contained a vast collection of materials. Sylvia’s father, Baron Foreman’s only son, was the director of the “Nozen Magic Library.”
There were about ten “magic libraries” in the Empire. The capital academy and the Magic Tower’s library were among them.
And the “Nozen Magic Library” in the Foreman Barony was also one of those magic libraries.
There were many libraries that simply stored books. But magic libraries were uniquely special, as all books and papers were automatically stored in subspace and could be searched by title and author.
“Got 2 gold ready?”
Sylvia demanded an entrance fee from her cousin without hesitation.
“You know there’s no family discount, right? Especially not for a richer family member than me.”
“I’m not interested in discounts. Just like your destiny.”
Leopold tossed the words and walked away.
“As expected. Your destiny matters more than mine.”
Sylvia stuck her tongue out at his back.
After Leopold disappeared into the library, Baron Foreman lowered his voice and asked Sylvia,
“What? ‘Destiny’? What are you talking about?”
“Just what I said—destiny.”
Sylvia chuckled.
“While he was at the academy, Leo was desperately searching for someone. He kept going to the library, looking for traces of that ‘destiny.’”
Amused, she continued,
“If His Grace the Grand Duke wants Leo to marry soon, he should pray that the ‘destiny’ Leo is searching for is a girl his age.”
“What are you talking about?”
Baron Foreman stomped his foot, breathing heavily.
Sylvia shrugged.
“I mean exactly that. There’s someone Leo wants to meet. He doesn’t even know their face, age, or gender.”
“What kind of person is that?”
“I don’t really know either, but I think they’re a paper author. Or rather, a ‘paper factory’—they’ve written tons of papers.”
“A paper factory?”
“Do you think Leo is the type to explain things in detail? I only know this much because it’s me.”
“If such a person exists, why can’t he find them?”
“I heard that author uses a pseudonym.”
Sylvia tilted her head.
“So he says he just can’t figure out their identity.”
“What’s the pseudonym?”
“How would I know? I’m not going to ask and risk getting a proper answer. Honestly, I don’t care that much.”
Baron Foreman nodded. As expected, they were a normal pair of cousins.
“By the way, Grandfather, where did you even go?”
“Enough of that. Do we have potatoes in the house?”
“I think so? Should I have them prepared for a late-night snack?”
“Yes. It would be nice to have small fish as well.”
“Yes!”
Sylvia ran off to the kitchen energetically.
Baron Foreman waited impatiently for the snack. When he finally ate the potatoes, he muttered,
“This isn’t it…”
At that moment,
“Grandfather.”
Leopold, having returned from the library, stood before him.
Leopold asked,
“You looked into Brisa Sears, didn’t you?”
“You’re quick to ask.”
Baron Foreman replied while taking another bite of potato.
“I like that girl.”
“I see.”
Leopold said he wasn’t interested in his grandfather’s opinion, then added anxiously,
“I want to meet her as soon as possible.”
Baron Foreman finally looked up from his plate. In Leopold’s hand was a paper.
Southern wheat…
“And these wheat types aren’t from the West. I think they’re Southern wheat. Anyway, investigate it.”
When Brisa had said that, Baron Foreman also thought it was meaningful information. Why choose Southern wheat, which had higher distribution costs than Western wheat?
Moreover, the South was not even functioning properly as a territory right now.
In other words, the black mages captured at the Western port were connected to the South. At least, their main base had to be in the South.
“If we’re going to investigate the South, we’ll have to wait until the warp system is operational.”
Baron Foreman swallowed his food and said,
“There’s nothing we can do for now.”
“No, this isn’t about Southern wheat.”
Leopold held out the paper.
“A review paper on Southern wheat might help too. <Characteristics and Study of Southern Wheat Varieties>. That’s the only paper dealing exclusively with Southern wheat.”
It was a paper Brisa had recommended last time.
“You’re not seriously telling your grandfather, who just returned after hardship and is finally eating potatoes, to read this, are you?”
Baron Foreman asked. Leopold quietly pointed to the author’s name.
“Hm?”
Baron Foreman narrowed his eyes.
The author’s name was just one letter: ‘L.’
“I am looking for this person.”
“…And what does that have to do with the Marquess Sears’ young lady?”
“Grandfather, papers by this person are hard to find. Because the name is just one letter.”
Every magic library had a search magic service.
Baron Foreman finally understood Leopold’s meaning.
Names containing ‘L’ were countless.
At the Magic Tower, as long as formatting was correct, papers were automatically registered. So searching “L” alone would return millions of results.
“I didn’t expect Brisa Sears to know this person’s paper.”
Leopold said seriously.
“If she knows more about this person’s work, I need to find even a small clue.”
