After that whole ordeal, Charlotte had decided to take it upon herself to investigate the four people who had died alongside Edwin.
Even if she was mostly an outsider in the case, no one could really stop her from doing so. Rian also didn’t know why she was still here, but appreciated the help nonetheless.
It was the first thing Rian thought to do as well, but with Charlotte on the case, there was little value in repeating her work. Suddenly, he had quite a bit of free time on his hands.
There were a million things to do. Though really, the first order of business...was to get stronger. Well, physically stronger.
Which was precisely why he was running laps around the training grounds right now, with Alicia staring at him like a strict drill instructor.
"Young Master, we’ll be here until nightfall before you can complete a full lap..."
Rian wheezed as he passed her, barely in a jog.
"Encouragement...would be...appreciated."
"I am encouraging you."
"You’re doing....a terrible...job."
Though as soon as the words left his mouth, Rian accidentally stepped on a stray pebble and fell flat on his face.
THUD—!
’Ahh...curse this weak body.’
Rian rolled to his side and opened his status panel, checking if any of his [Attributes] have gone up at all.
[STR: 2 → 4]
[SPD: 3 → 5]
[STAM: 2 → 4]
’Not bad, considering I was running for only two hours.’
Once again, Rian found himself grateful for the ancient dragon’s essence. Under ordinary circumstances, gaining even a single attribute point through training would have taken at least a week.
But the greedy demon that dwells inside every transmigrator, kept telling Rian that his progress could be even faster. There were various recipes of training elixirs and body-strengthening pills that could be made off the top of his head.
Yet the problem was...
Even if House Rosenheim did have a lot of money, being the former terminally-ill son did not help in proving the house’s whole "worthiness" motto. Naturally, Rian was only given enough to provide for his treatment, and not much in the way of allowance.
Definitely not enough to go and buy rare materials to create any cheats.
Rian sighed softly and lay flat along the training ground.
A moment later, Alicia’s face appeared above him. She had a defeated look on her face, but as his personal maid, she tried her best not to let it show.
"Young Master."
"Give me a moment. Let me catch my breath."
"You tripped over a pebble."
"Even a genius must occasionally be taught humility," he nodded. "Otherwise, he might become conceited in his ways."
Alicia frowned. "If only you were as talented at running as you are with inventing random philosophical lines."
Before Rian could defend himself, the soft click of approaching heels echoed across the training ground. Only one person in the estate would pay that much attention to how they walked.
"Why are you lying on the ground?" Charlotte asked.
"Young Master Rian collapsed after two hours of running."
"How far did he run?"
"...Half a lap."
"I see..." Charlotte unfolded a document in her hand. "Then I suppose I have time to report what I discovered before you finish the other half."
With the mention, Rian sat up straight immediately, his legs criss-crossed apple sauce while he listened intently. "You found something already?"
"Possibly."
Charlotte turned the document toward him. It contained a rough sketch of where one of the soldiers had died. But upon closer inspection, Rian had noticed something about the sketch.
Smeared unevenly across the floor near where the body was, there were two bloodied letters:
E.B
"One of the guards managed to write this in his own blood before he died," she explained. "We initially assumed they were someone’s name..."
"But?"
"I looked through a few registries and found out that no one connected to Edwin Voller—or any of the other four victims for that matter—had those initials."
Alicia crouched beside Rian and examined the sketch. "Then they could mean anything, couldn’t they?"
"Not quite," Charlotte produced another sheet, this time it was a military record. "The guard who wrote them was stationed in Eisenbran for six years. And within these records, the city is abbreviated as E.B"
"Eisenbran, huh?"
If Rian remembered correctly, it was a major commercial city just right along Rosenheim’s eastern border. It was maintained by Baron Eisenbran, one of Adrian’s direct vassals.
But more coincidentally...
’Eisenbran is where that mana crystal mine is at...’
Rian looked down at the sketch once more. "Were the deaths the same? Conditions and all?"
"Yes," Charlotte answered. "Their bodies were charred from within. None of their families heard so much as a scream, and all four deaths occurred within minutes of one another, despite their homes being scattered throughout the district surrounding the estate.
"The guard who left the message was wearing a military-issued ward," she added. "It shattered during his death. The physician believes it bought him several seconds."
"Then it probably wasn’t someone visiting them one by one."
Rian tapped the four names printed across the report. "These were the only four people who entered Edwin’s cell after he was confined. Whatever killed them must have marked them inside that dungeon."
Charlotte frowned and crossed her arms. "How would they know Edwin would be in that specific cell?"
Rian stared at the bloodied letter once more before coming up with some theories. "Either Edwin had somehow hidden another contingency spell with him. Which would make our guards look very incompetent."
"Or?"
"Or...we have another insider in our midst."
Alicia tilted her head. "Maybe the guard was trying to tell us that the traitor lived in Eisenbran?"
Charlotte glanced at Rian with an amused look on her face. "Conveniently, that is also where the mine you promised me is located."
"Ahh...let’s not be so hasty—"
"We’re going to Eisenbran."
"...I assumed as much."
Charlotte quickly gathered up the documents once more, before standing up and started to head out of the training grounds.
"Prepare what you need. Let’s leave before sunset."
"What?" Rian protested. "Can’t you give us at least a few days to prepare?"
"I can," Charlotte turned back, looking at the two of them. "But I trust that your maid is competent enough to prepare everything by today."
Alicia simply curtsied at the compliment before the both of them watched Lowenhardt’s heir disappear from the training grounds.
Rian looked at his maid beside him, then at the fence Charlotte had just opened to leave before sighing to himself.
"This is going to be troublesome, isn’t it?"