<h4>Chapter 266</h4>


    Walwiss thought themotion inside the magical tower would settle down, but on the contrary, it grew worse as time passed by. The number of people arguing for him to step down from his position increased. One of them was an attendee at the tower’s most critical meetings while others were skilled mages who came from lesser but still elite families. The magical tower was nowpletely divided into two fractions. There were still many people who supported Walwiss, but the size of their opposing force wasn’t negligible.


    As the opposing force grew bigger, attacks against Walwiss grew stronger and harsher. Even the meetings intended to resolve the confusion were filled with shouting.


    “That’s the current situation,” Ond said to Zich. The wrinkles on his forehead indicated that he was also suffering.


    As he listened, Zich’s expression also didn’t look pleased. “It’s strange. Even if they are the ones who brought this conspiracy upon themselves, the attacks made against the master of the magical tower have gone overboard. At this point, it doesn’t seem like they have anything to gain.”


    ‘That’s what I’m saying!’ Ond shouted inside his mind. Currently, he wanted to grab Zich’s cors and shake him.


    Ond was the one who created the current situation, but he had also simply followed Zich’s advice—he believed Zich’s words that the future would change ording to Zich’s evidence.


    ‘What kind of evidence is that, damn it!” At this point, Ond was dying to know what ‘this evidence’ was. If it wasn’t for the deaths of his coborators— the robed figures and Zich’s title as a Karuwiman Honorary Knight, Ond would have abandoned this n altogether long ago. Yet, Ond couldn’t sever his connection with Zich.


    He saw Zich lost in deep thought. As Zich’s lips twitched, Ond ground his teeth as if he was swallowing back the curses rising from his throat. Zich didn’t say it out loud, but his mouth shape was mentioning ‘the evidence’ again.


    ‘I don’t know what it is, but I can’t let him doubt his evidence.’


    “Perhaps…” Ond started to speak, and Zich stared at him.


    “Do you know what their intentions are?” Zich asked.


    “I have my guesses.” Ond racked through his head toe up with a likely reason.


    Zich’s eyes shone as he looked at him. “You really are amazing. I guess it was no ident that you gained a seat at the tower’s highest meetings at such a young age.” Zich sounded very impressed. However, his inner thoughts couldn’t have been any more different.


    ‘Yes, tell me your thoughts,’ Zich thought. Although Zich had something in mind, the future that he told Ond was nothing more than what he came up with on a whim. The story could sound unreasonable or unlikely, but Zich didn’t worry at all.


    ‘He is going to fill the holes in my story himself.’ Zich chuckled inside his mind as he imagined Ond sweating bullets toe up with a usible reasoning.


    On the other hand, Ond didn’t know Zich’s thoughts, and he felt a bit better. The Karuwiman’s Honorary Knight thought of him highly—this could help him now or even in the future. Ond said in a friendly tone, “I think there might be a self-coup.”


    “A self-coup?”


    “Yes. I think my father is nning to find all the people who are disloyal to him. After the incident, people who sympathized with the opposing forces began toe forward.”


    “Even those who are not part of the conspiracy?”


    “Yes, although my father is an impressive figure as the master of the magical tower, before this incident, he never did anything that could incite public criticism. Well, no matter what the situation is, I suppose there are people who are always dissatisfied.”


    “I suppose he’s trying to weed those people out.”


    “He might also be nning to mix some other families and mages from different groups. If more of them disappear, the power and authority of the master of the magical tower will grow stronger.”


    “Then, thest stage must be…”


    “Yes, a self-coup.” Although Ondo hade up with this exnation in a hurry, he was satisfied with his response. He was able to form a usible scheme by using one of the ns he had in mind for chasing away Walwiss and adding a reason to it.


    “Hmm, it’s certainly possible.”


    ‘Okay, I will go with the self-coup,’ Zich thought. As if he was picking fish from a market, Zich changed the direction of his scheme by the flow of the conversation. It waspletely ridiculous, but fortunately or unfortunately, no one realized Zich’s thinking—not even Ond who was in front of him.


    “Since it’s better the more evidence we have, I will continue to investigate the group coborating with my father. I might be able to retrieve another cryptic message.”


    ‘So send me lots, alrighty?’ Zich thought. Like Zich wanted, Ond thought he should send more secret codes to his coborators to increase the validity of his self-coup theory.


    “Yes, thanks to you knowing how to decipher the code. But I didn’t think you’d also know how to read it, Mr. Dwayne.”


    “I also didn’t think I would suddenly see a code I recognized.”


    Ond had ended up teaching Zich the code. Of course, he didn’t tell Zich everything; he simply said that it was at a level where he could decipher it if given the time. Although what they each wanted waspletely different, that exnation was enough for both Ond and Zich.


    “You said it was some writing from an ancient empire, right?”


    “Yes. I have quite an interest innguages. I didn’t think the research I did as a hobby would help me now.” Ond felt a bit anxious, wondering if he should’ve told Zich the code that he learned from the robed figures; but he quickly shook his head and thought, ‘It’s those guys who failed their missions and died anyways.’


    Ondpletely pushed the fault onto the robed figures.


    “However, since I’m still researching them, I haven’t decoded all the letters. It can’t be helped that I need more time.” Ond didn’t n to teach Zich all the codes. He felt no need to, and it was also better for him to gain the upper hand.


    Zich didn’t seem very interested in the codes, but he didn’t leave the responsibility of decoding the codes to just Ond. “One of mypanions, L, is also researching the codes. Sir, she’s also very impressed by your knowledge.”


    “It’s a bit embarrassing. I will work harder to be more helpful to my talented junior.”


    Even though this conversation seemed like they were both being considerate of each other, their real intentions werepletely different.


    ‘Since L is also researching the codes, don’t try to be smart and give me fake information about the codes.’ This was Zich’s intention.


    Since Ond didn’t know Zich’s dark thoughts, he was obviously unable to realize Zich’s real reason for mentioning L. However, it was enough to make him more cautious.


    ‘I won’t be able to clumsily manipte the codes to my advantage.’ Like this, Ond’s thoughts moved precisely ording to Zich’s ns.


    “But it really is fortunate. Sir, I was able to receive such big help from you. To be honest, I was very doubtful whether or not you would cooperate with me to investigate the master of the magical tower. He is your father after all.”


    “I will do my best to help you out, but I hope you don’t misunderstand.” Ond said with a tense voice, “I still believe my father, and even if my father’s crimes are revealed, I will not stop believing my father. I also won’t waver in my belief.”


    Ond was reenacting the scene of a kind son who loved his father deeply and had a very steadfast but sad trust in a close family member. Ond’s expression also looked very determined.


    Zich nodded his head and mocked Ond in his mind. ‘Yeah, sure, Whatever.’


    * * *


    As soon as Zich returned to his lodging, he passed several notes to L who was fervently scribbling something while sitting on a desk with all kinds of documents, papers, and books stacked all over the ce.


    “These are the codes I got today.”


    “Thanks.” L took the notes and put down the paper she was writing on.


    “How’s it going?”


    “It’s going much better than when I had no clues to work with.” L put down her pen and stretched her arms. She straightened up her body and turned her chair.


    Zich asked, “You’re nning to rest?”


    “A bit. My body feels stiff because I’ve been writing and sitting all day. My eyes are also getting tired.” She turned her shoulders and pressed down the sides of her eyes.


    “Take it easy. The codes are not an urgent matter, and we’re getting more clues now.”


    “I am taking it easy. I don’t have anything to do for a while anyway. In the first ce, I came to Sunewick to see if there was anything that could help me decipher these letters.”


    ‘Oh yeah, that was the reason why we came here.’ They had originallye to Sunewick to find information about the letters used by the Clowon Empire. ‘Since so many things happened, Ipletely forgot about the reason why we came here.’


    In a way, L was the only one who had been faithful to the original purpose ofing to this city. Then L asked, “Is your n going well?”


    “Yep. We’ll reach the climax soon. When that timees, Ond is going to climb to the highest peak and then….” Zich lifted his hand high up in the air and quickly mmed it down. “He wille crashing down.”


    “…Please try to give the least damage as possible to the other people.”


    “Don’t worry. I’ve engraved that deep into my mind.”


    However, Zich’s smiling face didn’t seem so trustworthy.


    “Ah, but this obviously doesn''t include bad guys, right?” He seemed even more untrustworthy because he said things like this. L held her head and nodded. Even though his actions seemed untrustworthy, he really didn’t hurt innocent people, so L trusted him. Of course, if people did wrong and became Zich’s target, Zich was merciless to them.


    L seemed to have taken enough of a break as she turned her chair back to decode again.


    “Have you made any progress?”


    “Somewhat. If I had just a few more clues, I’d be able to make faster progress.”


    “You don’t have to worry about them. I’ll continue to bring you more in the future.” As long as Ond continued to send more codes to his aplices, Zich would be able to bring more clues to L.


    “That’s fine then.” L waved her hand as if to tell Zich to leave, but Zich leaned closer and watched L continue her work. L didn’t say anything either.


    “That’s the tablet you got from the ancient ruins in Violuwin, right?”


    “Yeah. I think this one will have the most useful pieces of information. However, I don’t know if it’ll be that helpful. I need to be lucky. Since Icked paper, I didn’t copy all the letters written on the tablet. I didn’t know which sections were important, so I skipped a couple of lines.” L wasn’t expecting much. In the first ce, the amount of letters she copied was only a small fraction of the total amount of writings written on the tablets.


    ‘I should definitely revisit that ceter.’ L needed to somehow persuade Zich to go back to Violuwin’s ruins again.


    “Yeah, work hard.” Zich seemed to have lost interest as he left L’s room.


    L waved her hand without even looking up and went back to work again. It seemed as if her efforts weren’t in vain, because L was soon able to interpret one line. However, it was just one line, and L didn’t know what it meant.


    ‘I also could have interpreted it wrong.’ Was it a line about banning or preventing some kind of event?


    However, L stopped thinking more about this. Since she received clues to decode the ancient writings of the Clowon Empire, she had overextended herself and her mind and body were exhausted.


    ‘Should I rest a bit?’


    L stopped working and blew out the candlelight. But before the lightpletely disappeared, the candlelight used all its remaining strength to dimly light up the line that L had interpreted.


    [You must never use too much of it.]