The Ogre Strength Fairy and the Eldest 'Son'-Chapter 344 - Haunted In Nobility, Bloodstained In Conscience

Chapter 344: Chapter 344 - Haunted In Nobility, Bloodstained In Conscience

Madrigil straightened his back and rolled tension from his shoulders. Two weeks of seeking out the path these brooches took across six different outposts had yielded a pattern. They primarily appeared in greater numbers wherever the Ironclad Order had recently stationed.

Particularly... in forts where a certain rising Yecine swordsman had been deployed.

"The reports?"

"Ah, yes."

Aleck had been sent to retrieve - which meant hand copying - reports of the inventory of all supplies distributed to the defensive lines. Madrigil snatched the papers, eyes scanning rapidly for the marks made next to the handful of brooches being sent in ’suspicious’ numbers.

His finger jabbed at a particular entry with force that tore through the paper the other cultivator had just spend a couple hours on.

"There! They received a shipment three days ago. And where is the heroic Qatrand er Yecine currently stationed?"

"The latest intelligence I looked up before I came in suggests... also that same fort, my lord."

A smile spread across the noble’s face. After years - YEARS - of searching for the mind behind these revolutionary sigils... he was finally closing in. More than that, the wedding energy display he’d dismissed months ago now seemed far less coincidental.

"The Goltbred girl... should have known their talk of Divinity blessings wasn’t just puffed up superstitious nonsense of a backwater region. Why would one of them not give their own green light to such a genius?"

"...My lord?"

"Hm? Nothing. Assistant, prepare for travel at first light. I believe it’s time I paid my respects to the Continental Army’s newest hero. And perhaps... meet his equally illustrious spouse."

The meteor hammer wielder was ecstatic, but tempered his emotions. It wasn’t something he actually learned from the noble himself... rather, it was a way of dealing with being around him. Something that Aleck picked up from seeing the way Leysah blanked her face when her own noblewoman was on a tirade.

’Don’t show how excited you are!’

"Ahem. During a Descent, my lord? The roads... are perilous."

Which meant fighting, and danger, and no more of this tedium for the martial focused cultivator! Madrigil just stared at the brooch, listening to a chorus of voices only he could hear. Its sigil patterns reflected their complexity in his eyes like endless reiterating fractals.

"For this level of sigil mastery? I’d brave the Void itself and rudely proposition the Silver."

As his confused as usual *assistant* departed to make arrangements to ’bodyguard’ him towards the fort they needed to go to, the exiled noble activated the brooch with a pulse of essence. In the spot... that turned it from a passive effect to a channeled one. freewёbnoνel.com

The micro-sigils flared, releasing a gentle but invisible healing aura that washed over his hand. Spirit stimulated physical energy. Quickly easing the bit of fatigue in his wrist from hours of holding his magnification tool in the same position.

To the sigil obsessed noble... the gem held mysteries and layers, within enigmas and anarchy. Quite like the voices in his head. But replicable! As if someone had found the blueprint to his existence and developed a feasible methodology around it.

"Who are you, truly? No mere ’local prodigy’ creates work like this. I don’t even create work like this..."

His fingers closed around the brooch with a grip that could be seen as excessive. Ruining the small bit of healing that had occurred moments before. Whatever resources it required, whatever dangers stood in his path...

He would meet the mind behind these creations. After decades of exile from the centers of cultivation knowledge on his continent, he’d finally found something worthy of his obsession. A mind as warped and magnificent as his own hidden away in-

"They say she is still small, but what should I care? I was outperforming adults in mental tasks well before her age. So at the very least she should be more fun to talk to than anyone else I’ve met."

And the path that would lead to his target was also being traveled by another seeker. A scout carrying an artifact of far greater significance... than the brooches. Something Elua er Goltbred, in her past life, was ridiculed seven times over by teachers for wasting her time making.

For large scale healing formations were much more effective than little ’graffiti laden’ trinkets - something the heiress herself knew and agreed with. But they were far less marketable! At least not without revealing more than she truly wanted to... or going through more effort that would take attention away from Qat desired~

⟠ ⟠ ⟠

The sprawling fortress that housed the Continental Army’s eastern support division had never been designed to keep out a human cultivator trained as an assassin and working as a scout. As darkness fell, Sevra slipped past the outer sentries with ease, after using her Walk Astralism to scout ahead and check their patrol scheduling.

During the Descent, even non-combatants were assigned specific roles. Tarem had secured a position handling supply coordination... work that kept him safely behind walls while still contributing. More than she felt like she was doing, anyway.

Finding her brother’s quarters wasn’t difficult. His small room was tucked away in a corner of the administrative wing, marked only by a simple wooden nameplate. Sevra pressed her ear against the door to confirm he was alone before using a thin blade tool to toggle the lock mechanism.

When she slipped inside, Tarem was hunched over a desk covered with supply manifests. A small candle cast some flickering shadows along the focused profile of his face. He didn’t look up or over when she cleared her throat.

"If that requisition isn’t approved by morning, then I’ve already told you-"

"You’ve told them what?"

His head snapped up before a smile, all teeth, was bared. He pushed back from the desk with a screech of chair legs and rose up to embrace her.

"Sister! What are you doing here? There are alot of safer places to be during..."

He trailed mid-sentence, pulling back to study her face. Without warning, he reached up and grabbed the side of her ear to turn it toward the lamp’s light where he could see her eyes better. The familiar gesture from childhood made her wince.

"What did you have to do this time?"

His voice softened, recognizing the shadow behind her eyes. The kind that only appeared after certain kinds of missions. Ones he thought would stop when she joined the Shadow Whisker, but merely changed form.

"There were... ’survivors’ from the caravan. Two of them that I encountered."

Sevra pulled away from his touch before dropping onto the edge of his cot. She stared at her hands, still feeling the phantom stickiness from checking to see if she could just cut it out. But it had been too long, wounds too deep, and they were just mortals who wouldn’t have survived that treatment.

"Terrible Voidling wounds. Nothing to be done. Except what I did."

Tarem sat right beside her, his shoulder pressing against hers. In silent understanding. At least for a bit, before quietly echoing the family code they’d both been raised with.

"No one deserves the kind of suffering that can be ended with a blade stroke, with no one willing to wield it."

"I keep seeing their faces when I close my eyes."

He squeezed her hand hard. Wanting to empathize, but he hadn’t been the one of an age to be used by their family before their Elder disappeared. With no one to seal her memories, the brother could only provide platitudes.

"You will for a while. Then less. Suddenly more or suddenly none. But you’ll live. What else did you find? Talking about this shouldn’t be why you sought me out."

Sevra took a deep breath, centering herself. Personal feelings about taking lives again couldn’t overshadow the importance of what she’d discovered. And talking to him about it was the whole reason she had traveled this way.

"An artifact. Construction like nothing I’ve seen before in Guil archives. Sigil work that predates... a lot."

"Where is it now?"

"Hidden outside the fort. I couldn’t risk bringing it in with so many cultivators around. I don’t know what it does or how it might activate, but spirit and essence is usually a trigger for a ritual."

Tarem nodded at the woman while approving of her caution. While he formulated another question, she reached into her inner pocket and produced a folded scrap of paper.

"I found this with it. It mentions delivery to ’A.Y.’ from someone designated only as ’T.’ - and I only know of one person in these sort of circles that marks his caravans with a frog."

The man rubbed his brow as he examined the paper she held up to his face.

"Teovar. That merchant who’s been circling cultivator families for years. And the other one... is perhaps Anper er Yecine?"

"The same thought occurred to me. I can’t say what it is, but I think the Yecine elders are planning something, brother. Something that required this artifact. And I think it came from the last contract I took."

"...You’re sure it’s what the Saltfire Guild sent you to help find?"

"Almost sure. No doubt, but no proof."

He leaned back and contemplated. To come to him first with all of this meant she was worried about something. And honestly, there was only one thing his sister was ever concerned deeply enough with to come seek guidance and comfort from him... lately.

"You haven’t reported back to the Shadow Whiskers yet."

"No."

It wasn’t actually phrased as a question, but Sevra answered quickly anyway.

"...Where do you plan to take it?"

Leaning back against the cot with him, she looked at the ceiling for a while. Then she turned her face and met his eyes steadily.

"To Elua er Goltbred."

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