“…You’re asking if I know anything about the Demon Dragon’s Staff?”
“Mm-hm.”
Riersha went straight to Riscal.
Riscal had a hobby of collecting rare and precious objects — one he pursued with enough dedication to run his own auction house. It stood to reason he would have heard of the Demon Dragon’s Staff.
And she was right.
Riscal nodded immediately, confirming that he did know of it.
“I know it well. I put it up as the final lot at my auction house not long ago.”
“Really? Are you sure?”
Riersha’s face lit up as she asked, and Riscal nodded again with certainty.
“Positive. Because that day…”
Just thinking about it made Riscal’s expression sour with displeasure.
Understandably so — it had been the single greatest financial loss in all his years of running the auction.
No matter how many times he thought about it, the wound still stung.
“Someone bid twice the highest offer and won the lot — then vanished into thin air.”
“…”
“Said they didn’t have the cash on hand. Or something to that effect.”
Cash transactions on the spot were the standard at the auction house.
Of course, if a bidder held a sufficiently trustworthy identity, it was possible to arrange a separate meeting afterward to collect payment.
The problem was that even that had proven impossible.
“We couldn’t even properly identify who the winning bidder was. The whole thing just dissolved into nothing.”
“…Their identity, too?”
“Yes. It was one of the largest sums we’d ever seen across all our auctions. A terrible waste.”
Riscal let out a sigh.
With every word she heard, Riersha grew more certain.
The person who had tried to claim the Demon Dragon’s Staff at the highest bid…
It had to be the Tower Master. It had to be Sion.
“So…did the staff end up being sold?”
Riersha asked, her voice tight with anxiety.
Riscal studied her with a puzzled look.
It struck him as strange — the way she had suddenly come asking about the Demon Dragon’s Staff, curious about its whereabouts.
“Riersha, don’t tell me you’re actually interested in that thing?”
“Mm-hm, exactly. I want it.”
“Absolutely not.”
Riscal shook his head with a firm, unyielding expression. No question about it.
Whatever else she might want, that particular object was far too dangerous.
“During the process of preparing it for auction, several people started behaving strangely. …Fortunately, they all returned to normal eventually, but…”
According to the manager’s report, they hadn’t even touched it directly. They had simply been near the Demon Dragon’s Staff.
“I want to know who was trying to win that bid.”
“And who was it?”
“Sion.”
“…Hm? You don’t mean Sion Senuart, do you?”
“I do.”
Riscal looked at her with disbelief.
“Don’t tell me — you’re planning to use that staff as bait to strike a deal with the Tower Master?”
Riersha smiled, slow and knowing.
Riscal stared at his young little sister for a long, silent moment.
⁂
Shortly after, the auction house’s operations manager arrived in response to Riscal’s summons.
“The Demon Dragon’s Staff is still in the auction house’s storage. The second-highest bidder from that day had a sudden change of heart and…withdrew their offer.”
“Then where is the item now?”
“…For the time being, it is being kept in the underground vault in exactly the same condition it was in when we originally acquired it.”
The underground vault — that meant the basement of the Declair Capital Auction House. Beneath the auction floor itself lay a storage space of equal size, stocked with enough rare and coveted items to fill at least a year’s worth of auctions.
Riersha had been listening to the manager’s report when she tilted her head.
It wasn’t that someone had found the Demon Dragon’s Staff and brought it in…
“You purchased it?”
Someone had sold the Demon Dragon’s Staff?
At Riersha’s question, the manager seemed to search his memory before nodding.
“Yes, that is correct. At the time, an elderly man came in saying he had found what appeared to be a very old object and wished to have it appraised. As luck would have it, Riscal-nim happened to be visiting the auction house that day, and…we were able to proceed with the transaction for the Demon Dragon’s Staff without incident.”
“That’s right. The dark magic radiating from it was absolutely suffocating. Even ordinary people could apparently sense the energy — they kept instinctively moving away from it.”
Riscal shook his head with a look of pure revulsion at the memory.
“…But how was that old man able to carry it here in the first place?”
“I believe it had to do with the case the Demon Dragon’s Staff was stored in. I’m not entirely certain, but it seemed to suppress the flow of dark magic to some degree.”
“…Then where did that old man find it?”
The more she learned, the more suspicious it all seemed.
Based on what Riscal was describing, the Demon Dragon’s Staff appeared to have been deliberately sealed away by someone.
“I don’t know that part. I simply recognized what it was — I have a great interest in these things — and paid for it.”
In the end, the identity of the old man remained a mystery as well.
They exchanged glances and sat in puzzled silence.
Then, without warning, the door swung open and Pernoa walked in.
“However it ended up outside, that object should by rights be kept within the Imperial Palace.”
“…Father?”
Both Riersha and Riscal spun around in surprise.
Pernoa crossed the room with long, unhurried strides and settled into the seat beside Riersha.
“It is also the last remaining Demon Dragon’s Staff in existence.”
“…What do you mean by that?”
Why would the Demon Dragon’s Staff need to be kept in the Imperial Palace?
Riersha’s expression said she didn’t understand.
“The owner of that Demon Dragon’s Staff is the sixth-generation Senuart, Riersha.”
“The sixth-generation Senuart…surely you don’t mean Abel Senuart?”
Riscal asked, his voice skeptical.
Abel Senuart.
A war hero who had saved the Declair Empire from ruin roughly a hundred years ago.
“That’s right. And Abel Senuart is the very person who created the Demon Dragon’s Staff.”
“…”
“If my suspicion is correct, Abel Senuart is still alive.”
But Riscal shook his head — it was impossible, utterly impossible.
Because…
“That can’t be, Father. Abel Senuart was executed long ago.”
The man had been put to death a hundred years ago. For any ordinary person, there wouldn’t even be bones left by now.
But Riersha’s thoughts ran in a different direction.
He might actually be alive.
Dark magic defied the natural order of things. It made the impossible possible.
Whatever the cost might be, if one was willing to pay it — eternal life might not be out of reach.
If Abel Senuart had somehow lived on to this day, there was nothing inherently impossible about it.
Hadn’t the Divine Beast said as much?
The person who had crafted the suppression collar used in the temple would exist in a state neither truly alive nor truly dead.
No — he’s alive. I’m certain of it.
The suppression collar around the Divine Beast’s neck was still functioning. That alone made it highly likely the sorcerer who had made it was still living.
And when she turned it over in her mind, she could think of no one else capable of making all of this possible — no one but Abel Senuart himself.
Riersha looked at Pernoa with a grave expression.
“…Could this be the secret Sion Senuart has been hiding all along? That Abel Senuart is still alive?”
“Most likely.”
“…Then the one who placed the dark magic on Prince Adrian…”
Was it the sixth-generation Senuart?
But for what possible reason?
“I can’t say for certain, but that is the most probable explanation.”
Riersha’s eyes went wide.
Then…
Was that why Sion had wanted the Demon Dragon’s Staff?
If Abel Senuart was searching for the staff he had once wielded himself — the one he had created with his own hands —
And if, for whatever reason, Sion had cause to find Abel Senuart…
Then everything fell into place.
“That’s why Sion was trying to get the Demon Dragon’s Staff.”
Finding Abel Senuart directly was, at present, impossible. No one knew what form he was walking around in, or where.
But if one possessed the Demon Dragon’s Staff — that changed everything.
Sooner or later, Abel Senuart would come forward and reveal himself.
Riscal, piecing it all together a beat behind Riersha, let his jaw drop open.
