Still, a technology being introduced by the witch didn’t mean it should be ignored. The barriers sealing the Forbidden Cities, the spell the princess used to restore my flesh, and the Heavenly Swords the royal family gave the Twelve Saints were all based on her knowledge. Even the fact I was still around three centuries later was due to the power of undeath she had granted me.
“I understand your surprise, Lady Astrantia, but we haven’t even reached the main topic yet,” I whispered to the princess. She took a deep breath to compose herself, then nodded.
“Were you thinking you could utilize the Grave Keeper of the Golden City in the same way, Lady Nemophila?” Astrantia asked.
“It was my family, to be precise. We had confirmed that it was fond of the golden flowers and that it created and manipulated different plants to ward off intruders. If we could find a way to harness that power, we would be able to make a fortune.” Being able to create an unlimited number of plants could certainly make you rich. You could manufacture mass quantities of potions that required rare plants or create cotton, hemp, vegetables, and grains at will. I could come up with endless ways to use such a power. However, thinking you could use one of the Twelve Corpses for commercial purposes seemed a little naive to me. “One day, my father ordered me to enter the city as the bodyguard of the person who was to negotiate with the Grave Keeper of the Golden City. You can probably imagine how that turned out.”
“Negotiations failed. And that was when you lost your holy knight.” Orlaya really didn’t mince words.
“That is correct, Lady Orlaya. Both the negotiator and my holy knight were dried out like mummies in an instant. All that remained were desiccated corpses, as though the plants had used them for sustenance.” I had figured as much. The blue-haired asshole was the one who had killed Nemophila’s first holy knight. Now he was her second holy knight. What was she thinking? “Things became quite strange after that. After seeing my face, it knelt before me.”
“He called you ‘Princess’ before,” I interjected, remembering when we had crossed swords.
“As you say, it seems to view me as its princess.” Although the blue-haired holy knight’s loyalty seemed genuine, Nemophila treated him as merely a tool. Now I finally understood why. His loyalty was real, but it wasn’t for Nemophila. It was loyalty for someone he had once served mistakenly directed at her. It was a more precarious situation than I’d expected.
“That’s why I wasn’t killed. After I somehow managed to return home, I was able to piece together the fragments it had told me to reach a conclusion.” Nemophila took a deep breath before continuing. “The head of our family, his wife, and their children remained in the city during the incident three hundred years ago. The records state that our bloodline continued only because the younger brother of the head who had been staying at their estate in the capital succeeded the family. Of the children who remained in the city, two were girls around my age.”
“So the head of your family three hundred years ago happened to have a daughter who looked like you? And the Grave Keeper of the Golden City, a knight who served them, mistook you for her?” the princess asked, the look on her face revealing her disbelief.
“I suspect so. We must look quite alike for it to mistake us.” Since she had the same blood running through her veins, it wouldn’t be far-fetched to think they might have had extremely similar faces. Nemophila had only survived because of her resemblance to a young noblewoman from three centuries ago. While it was a remarkable coincidence, it was hard to say if it was a fortunate one. “As for the revival spell Lady Astrantia and Lady Orlaya are so concerned about, it has been passed down in my family as well.”
“Wha—” The princess cried out in shock, and even Orlaya knit her eyebrows.
“To be precise, the materials were discovered when the ruins of our estate in the Golden City were explored long ago.”
“Wh-What do you mean?” the princess asked.
“Someone in her family was connected to the Eternal Witch three hundred years ago,” Orlaya said to her bewildered sister. I had kind of expected as much, so I wasn’t surprised. The Eternal Witch had to have had collaborators, and apparently one of Nemophila’s ancestors was one of them. After her family had discovered the spell, they’d waited for any chance to use it. Now, in Nemophila’s time, the opportunity had arrived.
That meant the witch’s collaborators could likely be found across the country. With the exception of Nemophila’s family, they had probably feared being discovered and had hidden their ties to the witch. That was why only the princess’s family was detested for their relation to the witch. I’d never heard of any other family being scorned for that reason. They’d hidden their tracks well.
“Based on our discussion thus far, I have a request I’d like to make of you, Lady Astrantia.” We didn’t expect her to have called us here just to share information. Nemophila was finally getting down to the real reason she had invited us.
“What is it?”
“I’m sure you’re all quite uneasy right now. We don’t know when its delusions will come to an end. It may obey me for now, but that won’t last forever.” She was right. The only reason Nemophila had control over the grave keeper was because he wasn’t in his right mind. He thought she was his master from three centuries ago. Who knew what would happen when he finally realized his mistake. If it happened in the middle of town, it could result in a massacre. Yet Nemophila had brought him outside the Forbidden City knowing the danger he posed. Her mental state was just as dangerous as his.
The two members of Blizzard, who were supposed to be part of the Twelve Saints, humanity’s greatest hope, were a threat to mankind. And now Nemophila had a request for us.
“I would like Sir Albert to kill it.”