Heh heh heh. My hunch was wrong, but things turned out even better than I could have hoped for. Claus is sure to be impressed.
Never in my wildest dreams could I have imagined that I’d get a letter of recommendation directly from Claus’s older brother.
I made my way back to the capital, holding on to the letter—along with Chris’s personal letter to his brother—carefully, as if they were priceless. Once I’d returned, I set off immediately to find Claus.
There had never once been a sword god who hadn’t made their mark on history. Essentially, that meant anyone who received the sword god blessing had to be extraordinarily gifted.
Even among the students at the Royal Training Academy, who were all gifted, the sword god stood out. And that was saying a lot, because this year’s Heaven’s Blessing Ceremony had apparently yielded an abnormally talented pool of young people—the sort of bumper crop harvest you’d see only once every few centuries.
It was no exaggeration to say that how much he liked you—or didn’t—could well define your entire future.
Thanks to how useful I was as a sage, I already had a pretty good relationship with him, but this letter from his brother was bound to cement that.
I headed for Claus’s room, unable to suppress the smile on my face.
I knocked, and he opened the door.
“Good evening, Claus,” I said. “Pardon the intrusion.”
“Mielle...? What’re you doing at my door so late at night?”
I entered Claus’s room and saw that we weren’t alone—a suspicious-looking man was here too.
I already knew from the informant’s intel who it was: Millwork, the leader of the Under Eye. He had a very distinctive face, with a deep scar that ran down the right side of it, and a tattoo that he’d gotten to try to cover it up.
His hood was drawn so low that I couldn’t see his eyes, but I could catch a whiff of drugs on him, and he had the aura of a seasoned murderer.
All of that, combined with the unusual badge that only Under Eye members wore, made me confident that he was indeed Millwork.
“I have something important to tell you. Can we get some privacy?” I asked Claus.
At this, Millwork made to leave, but Claus detained him.
“Actually, he was here first. If you can’t say what you came to with him here, then maybe we can save it for later?”
Has he lost his mind? I wondered. Not only was he not trying to hide his ties to the underworld, but he was putting one of its members before me, a sage!
If this jerk wasn’t a sword god, I’d want nothing to do with him.
“All right. Let him stay, then. We can discuss the matter now,” I said.
“Just keep it short, please.”
I whipped out Claus’s brother’s letters. I figured it would be more efficient to just let them speak for themselves.
“What’re these?”
“I think you’ll find them of great interest, considering their sender. Why don’t you give them a read and see?”
Claus took the letters, which had been folded roughly and sealed with only a bunch of weeds, and opened the first one. He inspected it with a suspicious look on his face.
I kept an eye on Millwork as I eagerly awaited Claus’s response.
But to my shock, he suddenly grew even angrier than before.
His grip on the letter tightened so much that he was practically clenching it. I thought he might rip it up at any moment.
I was so used to seeing Claus with either a polite smile or no expression at all that the sheer fury on his face caught me by surprise. His brow was furrowed, a vein was bulging out of his forehead, and his eyes showed red veins.
At this point, I was starting to get a really bad feeling about these letters...but there was nothing I could do now. I’d already handed them over.
Once he tore the letter he’d just read into shreds, he began to read the second one—which is to say, my letter of recommendation.
“Hold on just a—” I began, trying to stop him.
But it was too late.
Once he’d read over the letter of recommendation, he crumpled it in his fist and took several steps until he was standing right in front of me.
“Did you meet Chris, Mielle?” he asked me.
“Y-Yes? He said he was your older brother, so we just had a little chat, that’s all. I barely spoke to him.”
“Then what are you doing with these letters?”
“I have no idea what’s in them... Did he write something offensive?”
“Don’t play dumb with me, you filthy sow!”
“F-Filthy sow?”
“Get out of my sight! Don’t ever show yourself in front of me again... Unless you want to die.”
With that, Claus shoved me hard and expelled me from his room. As he was slamming the door in my face, I saw Millwork give me a condescending smirk.
Thanks to Claus’s push, I’d fallen over backward, flat on my butt, in the hallway. My mind had gone completely blank.
I don’t understand what just happened here...
I was baffled. Crossing paths with Claus’s brother should have solidified my standing with him. At least, that’s what was supposed to happen...
So, why had Claus gotten so upset and kicked me out of his room like that? Why had he said he never wanted to see me again?
Did that guy I met on the highway trick me? Was that not really his brother? I wondered. No, that can’t be right. They looked so alike, and there was no way he would have known all that he did if they weren’t brothers.
That meant it must have been the letters’ contents that were the problem.
I hadn’t been able to sneak a peek at them, since they were sealed with all those weeds, but maybe Claus’s brother had actually thrown mud on my name?
Ugh... I should have read them before giving them to Claus.
I hadn’t gotten the sense from Chris that he’d lied to me, and since he really did seem to be Claus’s brother, I’d made the mistake of trusting him.
These brothers are trouble, I thought.
Chris had probably been playing some sick game, getting my hopes up by saying he’d write me a letter of recommendation and then damning me to hell. He was probably imagining how furious his letters would make Claus and laughing to himself right now.