65 The Concert 1 (1/2)

Sard seemed to be a bit slow and his eyes were dull, however, his smile was still very gentle and nice. He did not respond to Orvarit and Natasha’s question immediately, but followed his own pace to tell the story.

“Several months ago, some of our night watchers successfully targeted a sorcerer from the congress, which is very rare, since most of them who came to Aalto before never stayed here long, not to mention trying to contact the many hiding sorcerers in Aalto. After all, their shared goal was to find the remains of the ancient magic empire in the Dark Mountain Range.”

“Well…” Orvarit rubbed his chin thoughtfully, “maybe they were also trying to have more sorcerers and sorceresses in Aalto to know and join their congress in order to grow and expand. As far as I know, that’s something that the congress has been working on for more than two hundred years.” As a pious believer, the grand duke definitely knew much more about sorcerers than most other people did.

Several nobles sitting behind were paying close attention to what Sard, the grand duke and the princess were talking about. Their faces looked odd, as if there was something on their mind, but all of them decided to remain silent.

“You’re right, Your Highness.” Sard adjusted his sitting position a bit and continued, “Unfortunately, the night watchers failed to catch him alive, and the sorcerer destroyed himself.” Then he took a glance at the tall and strong saint knight standing beside him, letting the knight continue with the rest of the explanation.

Only the church knights can be called saint knights.

The knight’s face was fully covered by his protection mask, through which his dull voice came, “We think the sorcerer who called himself ‘professor’ came here for the same reason, and maybe also to investigate what happened to the last sorcerer.”

Sitting in and leaning against her seat, Natasha looked pretty relaxed. Now she was looking in another direction with a hint of a smile on her face, “It seems like you know a lot about what the sorcerers are doing in Aalto, don’t you?”

She was not being disrespectful, actually, her piousness was acknowledged before by Sard himself, and her teacher was the chief commander of Sword Brothers serving the church. However, except when she was praying in front of the God of Truth, Natasha was always quite casual about almost everything.

“Your Highness, the church has been tracking them for years, and the sorcerers never hid themselves in front of the church perfectly,” the knight lowered his head, “so did the so-called ‘Professor’. Some clues are showing that he follows the contemporary magic system, and that’s why we speculate that Professor is from the congress. It seems like he does not really trust the sorcerers in Aalto. He was being very careful, so although we have two people spying on them, what we know about Professor is still relatively limited. The church decided to be more cautious.”

In the hundreds of years in Aalto, a few sorcerers betraying their belief and turning to work for the church was not something new. Knowing that the sorcerer groups in Aalto were too small to cause them much trouble, instead of destroying them all at once, the church decided to leave them in Aalto in order to play a long game with the Congress of Magic.

“Well… at this point, the mysterious Professor is not a big deal yet, as far as I’m concerned. What makes me feel worried is Argent Horn. I wonder what they are planning in Aalto.” Orvarit cupped his chin in his hand.

“As you wish, your majesty, ” the knight slightly bowed, “We will leave the junior night watchers to trace the case of Professor, and the main force of the church keeps investigating the heresy.”

“Still haven’t found Rosan Aaron?” Twirling her long purple hair with her finger breezily, Natasha asked.

“Not yet. We’re trying our best,” answered the saint knight.

The orchestra was ready.

At this time, a young, purple-haired man entered the balcony. His facial features were a bit similar to that of Natasha, but he was even taller than her. His suit was emblazoned with the coat of arms of the Violet family.

The young man nodded to the nobles in the balcony, smiling. Then he walked toward the first row of seats in the front, saluting the grand duke and the cardinal respectfully in the knight manner.

“My dear cousin, you’re late.” Natasha waved to him.

This young man was the nephew of the grand duke, the chief commander of Aalto’s city guard, Count Verdi.

“Sorry.” He sat down relatively close to Natasha, “Just got some news about Argent Horn, but it turned out to be quite useless… Lucien Evans… the composer of Fate? I never heard this name before.”