"Who knew such a strong person was hiding inside." Avilia sighed, pretending as if she had just survived a calamity. "Good thing I dodged in time or I would've been killed."
"Yeah. Who knew. If I had known, I never would've sent you first," Gabriel agreed. "Still it's good. After you dodged, I got the opportunity to deal with his attack. I should thank you."
Both of them knew that the other person knew what they were thinking, but none of them outright accepted it.
"Now that you've killed the Guardian of Arecia, what's your next plan? Reveal this news to the citizens?" The young Priestess inquired. If Gabriel went out now, he could use the Duke as a witness to claim that he was attacked and he already had the Saint Knight's body as evidence.
Everyone knew that the Saint Knight stayed inside the Royal Castle as well. There was no way for Gabriel to kill him inside the Royal Castle without making some noise. That could only mean the story about Saint Knight entering the Duke's castle was true. All he had to do was present the body and his path was set.
"Not yet. I'll wait a little. Isn't tomorrow the meeting with all the Nobles? It'll be time to solve all grievances then," Gabriel responded as he kept the body of the Saint Knight in his storage. "I'll make sure to give you a nice show tomorrow."
"Anyway, there's some blood in this room. It's better if you take another room. The next room should be clean. I'll be downstairs if you need anything."
He left the room, keeping the four cornerstones back in his storage as well. Gabriel went to the ground floor, leaving Avilia back to rest.
He selected a room on the ground floor to have a more direct access to the Duke.
It was already four in the night when everything was settled and Gabriel couldn't fall asleep anymore. Outside the mansion, the sun had already started rising, brightening up the horizon.
After a few hours, Duke Callum also returned, with some documents in his hand.
He arranged hundreds of documents properly in a file. After finding Gabriel, he handed over the file.
"This should have all the details about that incident that I was able to find. The first half contains the details about the destruction of the Arecia Clan and all Clans that were a part of it."
Along with the file, he gave Gabriel a brief introduction so that Gabriel could go through the part that interested him first.
"As for the second half, it contains the blueprint of the Royal Palace, a list of treasures and their whereabouts along with the information about all Royal Family members."
"Did you go out to meet your informer in the Royal Palace for the information? It seems very detailed," Gabriel opened the file, finding it to be very detailed. It didn't look as if it was made in any haste at all. He could feel that Callum was quite capable
Callum nodded. "In tomorrow's meeting, more than half of the Noble Clan leaders are people who took active part in the extermination of the Arecia Clan. I've marked their names. As for the others, they more or less stayed out of the conflict entirely. That's also why they aren't as close to the current Royal Clan as the others."
"I'll go through the information. You can prepare for our departure for this meeting. Oh, and I have prepared a gift for the Nobles. Make sure to pack it well."
"A gift?" Callum frowned, wondering what Gabriel meant by gift. For some reason, he had a feeling that it wasn't an ordinary gift at all.
"It should be in the room on the left. I'll leave it to you." Gabriel immersed himself in the document, going through the details of the destruction of the Arecia Clan.
"Rebellion led by the Alecton Clan. If I'm not wrong, that should be the current Royal Family. These people are truly something, aren't they? It seems they weren't even a Noble Clan at the start. They only became a Noble Clan after a daughter from their Clan managed to win the heart of Arecia Clan's Eldest Prince."
"The Prince married the girl and in one fell swoop, that woman became the Queen of the Empire after the Prince inherited the throne from his father. So that's where the bad times of Arecia Clan began... They led a wolf straight to their home..."
The more Gabriel read through the Alecton Clan's history, the more surprised he became. Things were more complicated than he thought.
"Unlike the Nobles who lived in luxury, the Alecton Clan had risen from the bottom, so their greed for power was definitely strong. Thanks to the Queen, their clan rose in power and eventually became a Noble Clan, getting even more power in the Empire."
"Instead of being grateful to the Arecia Clan, the Alecton Clan desired to swallow even more power. If I'm not wrong, the Queen of Arecia was the pawn that caused this downfall so her family could rise. She had everything as a Queen. Her son would've been the next King, but this girl... She really did as her family asked. How stupid..."
"If I were to guess, she must also be the one who stole the Sword of Ulien and gave her family an excuse to create trouble. Since the Arecia Clan already had a queen in place, no one would have thought that they wanted to be the Royal Family since the next King would've been a son of their daughter after all. That gave them a free pass, clearing them of any suspicions when the rebellion rose up."
"Argh, these guys really made a nice web and the Arecia Clan fell right in the middle. I don't even know who to entirely blame in this situation."
"Even though Arecia Clan was the descendants of Novius, how could they be so stupid to not even guard the Holy Sword properly? They didn't even find out about this scheme until it was too late. It was as if they were making mistakes one after another..."
Gabriel could only sigh at the situation, feeling disappointed. He was sure that even Novius would've been angry to know how stupid his clan was being. However, even then the real blame was on the Alecton Clan.
One after another, Gabriel went through the details of the Noble Clans, memorising every detail. It was only at the end that he read the details of the Royal Family members.
"Shia Alecton? Why does that name sound familiar?"
