“You probably should’ve been more direct and told her, ‘Hey, I’m worried, so don’t wait up and go to sleep,’ don’cha think?” Once Claudio exited Rosemarie’s room, Fritz gave an exaggerated shrug and sighed.
“—Do you ever shut up? I hope you didn’t come here just to ask that. I’m short on time. Hurry and say what you’re here for. You’ve made progress on what I had you investigate, I take it?” Claudio pressed Fritz while beginning to walk and glancing at him. Fritz’s face instantly took a more serious turn.
“‘Progress’ is a way to put it, I suppose... But I assume you’re aware that Archbishop Kastner has been sticking his nose into Master Edel’s and your business and sniffing around, right?”
“Yeah, I was even assaulted in town the other day. It didn’t seem they were out to kill me, though.” He had left the assailant in town for the patrol knights to take care of, but had been informed that the prisoner slipped past their defenses and made a getaway. The patrol knights weren’t so incompetent as to let something like that happen. If he had to guess, his assumption was on a second person making the assailant’s escape possible.
“And you were apparently assaulted while walking by yourself after finishing work the day before yesterday, right?”
“Right. We caught him and tried to get him to spill who sent him, but he wouldn’t crack. I mean, not that we don’t know who sent him, of course.” That little fiasco ended up making Rosemarie stay up through the night waiting for him.
“Yeesh, and I’m betting Alto had the honor of trying. Boy, you know his methods can be rather nasty. Him not spilling the beans even after that is impressive.” Fritz gritted his teeth and twitched his cheek, to which Claudio gave a smirk in agreement.
“And so? What is your point here?”
“It would appear that the Archbishop wants to make certain of something.”
“Oh-ho, make certain of something, you say,” Claudio said in a display of forced-sounding adoration. If he was trying to make certain of something, it could had only been one thing. That one thing being: whether Crown Prince Claudio had mana or not.
“The minimum requirement to accede the throne is to be in possession of mana. I haven’t behaved in a way that would say otherwise up until now, but he might have acquired some intel. —In which case, I’m going to have to deal with him.”
“Now you’re speaking my language.” Fritz smiled in earnest enjoyment. He then scanned around them to confirm that no one was around.
“Aah, right, and one more thing. I’m not quite sure what he’s trying to accomplish with this, but... The person that the Archbishop is trying to support for the bid to be crown prince doesn’t seem to have any mana of his own.”
Claudio raised an eyebrow, perplexed.
“What do you mean by that? How is he doing that in spite of blaming me for not having mana? What, is his plot to get a sorcerer on board and pretend that they have magical powers like I’m doing?” However, that was a herculean task made possible only by the presence of Edeltraud, the individual with enough prowess to serve as Archmagus. Even if he did have a sorcerer on his side who could rival Edeltraud, Archbishop Kastner’s extremely vocal distaste for mages made it hard to believe any would be willing to serve him. Plus...
“Still, considering the facts, even if they could accede to the rank of crown prince, they could never accede to the throne.”
“Yeah, and that’s what I’m not gettin’ here.”
Claudio diverted his attention away from Fritz as he shrugged his shoulders, stumped, and folded his arms in a contemplative pose.
Acceding to the throne without possessing mana—if such a feat were possible, then he would have gone through with it a long time ago.
“I can’t really imagine a guy who’s so prejudiced against mages would be knowledgeable about magic...” As he racked his brain, Fritz quickly took some distance, probably picking up on someone coming. It would have been a conflict of interests if Fritz was seen hanging around Claudio when he was supposed to be serving the Archbishop.
“At any rate, we may not be certain that they’re devoid of mana of their own, but he might try to stir something up soon. Just watch your back out there.”
Claudio made a final inquiry toward Fritz as he started to walk away.
“Fritz. Are you really okay with possibly losing your superior?”
“Superior? You’re supposed to be my superior around here, Your Highness, but might y’have any plans of going away?”
“Afraid I don’t.”
Fritz grinned, turned around, and walked off in the opposite direction of Claudio.