Riersha returned to the castle and paced her room with a grave expression.
I don’t even know what the test involves — so what exactly is being evaluated?
It was a genuine puzzle.
She had a rough idea of what was being assessed, but she had no clue who was doing the evaluating, or through what means.
And on top of that…
“Aska?”
Riersha slowly sounded out the name etched into the marble.
She had found it on the windowsill just moments ago.
It had been sitting there catching the light like someone had left it deliberately — practically begging to be noticed, glittering in a patch of afternoon sun.
“What even is this thing?”
She turned the marble over in her hands, examining it from every angle, but aside from the name inscribed on it, there was nothing obviously unusual.
…And yet it felt unmistakably significant.
She had no idea what it was for, but she tucked it carefully into the jewelry box in her drawer all the same.
Then she glanced around, checking whether anyone might have been watching.
For a moment, the tree outside the window seemed to rustle.
“…Okay. So now…”
Riersha unrolled the parchment that had been sitting beside the marble.
Inside was a brief message, written in clean, precise handwriting.
Problem 1. To proceed to the next stage of the trial, obtain a ‘passage right.’
Riersha read it and murmured blankly to herself.
“What. So there are more problems after this one?”
And to top it off, the instruction to submit a passage right came with absolutely no context whatsoever.
This was the most unhelpful question she had ever encountered in her life.
Where was she even supposed to find such a thing…?
Riersha was so baffled she couldn’t find the words.
“At this rate, I’m seriously going to fail the next trial, aren’t I?”
Now she finally understood why someone as proud as Riscal had gone so far as to dig through the ground with his bare hands. Riscal, who prided himself endlessly on his sharp mind — hadn’t he too been faced with a wall he couldn’t see past?
Riersha felt exactly the same.
“…I have absolutely no idea where to start.”
There was one thing she was fairly certain of, though.
It seemed the location of the next trial was not within the Arachrene direct territory.
After all, she had been told to bring a passage right needed to proceed to the next stage.
Which meant this problem was essentially saying —
“You want me to figure out where the next trial is and go there myself?!”
In that case, what was the marble on the windowsill for?
Riersha staggered and dropped down onto the floor with a thud.
“Ugh. This is a disaster… Where am I even supposed to begin looking?”
She had a sinking feeling that things were going to go very wrong.
She sat there mumbling passage right over and over in a daze — and then, all at once, a thought struck her like a spark and she shot to her feet.
Her rabbit-red eyes flew wide open and began to gleam.
“That’s it!!”
How had she not thought of it sooner?!
She sprang into motion, scrambling around the room on her hands and knees, digging through everything in sight.
⁂
Sona was on her way in carrying pudding when she found the room in disarray and approached with a puzzled tilt of her head.
“Miss Riersha, what are you doing?”
“Mm. …Just a second.”
Riersha’s face was utterly serious, a red colored pencil gripped in one hand.
Spread across the floor was a wide map of the Declair Empire.
Sona set the pudding on the table and peered down at the floor with curious eyes.
“Why did you take out a map?”
“I figured out something huge.”
“…Something huge?”
“Yep.”
“What is it?”
“Look, look. Do you know what these are?”
Riersha pointed to the map.
Sona widened her eyes and leaned in to study it.
Circles had been drawn around several specific regions scattered across the map.
And what those regions had in common was…
“Goodness… Every single one of them is a restricted zone that requires a passage right to enter!!”
Sona looked up at Riersha, barely daring to believe it.
A region that required a passage right meant, in plain terms, a place where one needed special permission to enter.
Those of Arachrene bloodline were generally free to move through most restricted zones without issue.
However, there were a select few restricted zones that were different.
Zones that even the imperial court had placed under strict control.
Their defining characteristic was one of two things — they were either extraordinarily dangerous, or they were extraordinarily sacred.
For the ducal house, there were exactly three such zones across the entire empire that required a passage right to enter.
The Sacred Ground of Rafella.
The Plains of the Magic Beasts.
The Forbidden Altar.
“It has to be one of these three!”
Riersha declared her conclusion with a bright, triumphant smile.
⁂
Arcmund’s bedchamber.
“Oh-ho, someone has already come forward to support Riersha? And one of the legion commanders, no less…! Cough, cough!”
Upon hearing the news about Riersha, Arcmund’s face lit up and he sat bolt upright — only to immediately double over coughing and collapse back into bed.
He repositioned the damp cloth that had slid off his forehead and let out a low, miserable groan.
The elder who had been delivering the report flinched and stumbled over his words.
“Y-yes! Miss Riersha has made a very smooth start to the trial. But, Your Grace — are you feeling unwell?”
“Cough… I think I may have pushed myself too hard lately. I seem to have come down with something.”
“If that is the case, I will go and fetch the court physician at once—”
“That won’t be necessary!”
The elder had never seen Arcmund like this before. He went pale and made to rush out of the room immediately.
Arcmund grabbed him in a panic.
Pernoa, who had been lounging in a chair nearby with his legs crossed and his arms folded, watching the scene unfold with detached amusement, finally let out a short, dry laugh.
“Ha.”
“S-Young Duke…?”
The young duke’s rather irreverent reaction left the elder visibly rattled, his shoulders jerking upward in discomfort.
His eyes flickered back and forth with an expression that could only be described as deeply complicated — the look of a man thinking, Why on earth did this have to happen the moment I came in to give my report?
Arcmund waved a hand at the elder, shooing him toward the door.
“I am perfectly fine. Report’s done, so you may go.”
“…Yes, my lord. I’ll return whenever you have need of me.”
The elder was still darting his eyes around, clearly trying to make sense of the situation, but the instant he made eye contact with Pernoa, he abandoned the effort entirely and left the bedchamber without once looking back.
Click.
The moment the door shut, Pernoa spoke with a dry edge to his voice.
“You seem remarkably energetic for someone who’s supposedly been bedridden with a chill for several days.”
“Instead of showing some concern, you mock me right in front of the elder?”
“Ah. So you do care about appearances.”
The faint smirk that had been pulling at the corner of Pernoa’s mouth flattened into a line.
He began recounting, in a calm and methodical tone, what had transpired that morning in Arcmund’s castle.
“I was so worried about Your Grace that I looked into things a little. It turns out that some fifteen empty dishes were removed from this room this morning alone.”
“…”
“Apparently you called for additional servings. Multiple times.”
“Ahem! …Hmm, hmm! That would be… that is a sign that I am recovering. My appetite is returning.”
“You can drop the performance, Your Grace.”
Pernoa exhaled.
“Otherwise, I will stop by the kitchens and have them told to prepare nothing but porridge until you are officially declared well.”
“You dare—!”
Smack!
Arcmund snatched up the damp cloth and hurled it at Pernoa’s face.
Regrettably, it sailed wide, slapped against the wall, and slid down to the floor in a thoroughly undignified heap.
“Then what do you expect me to do? That child came to me in person and pressed the name plaque into my hands… Was I supposed to look her in the eye and tell her no?”
“You should have done your utmost to dissuade Riersha.”
“So I’m to be the villain in every act?”
“…That is precisely why I am doing it this time.”
Pernoa rubbed a hand over his face.
Arcmund fell quiet in a way that was unusual for him.
“…That’s true.”
He acknowledged it — just this once.
A thoughtful look crossed Arcmund’s face.
This morning, he had read the proposal Pernoa had submitted for the next stage of the trial.
A forbidden zone that required a passage right.
That was where Pernoa intended to send Riersha.
Arcmund had already given his approval.
“There has never been a single successor who received the call of the ancestors in that place. Not even I heard it. Neither did you.”
Arcmund spoke as though gazing toward something in the past.
“And yet you ask her to bring back the mark of that calling. …What will you do if she actually succeeds?”
“There has not been a single successor in all of history who returned bearing the mark of the calling.”
“…”
“I hope this time will be no different.”
Pernoa meant every word.
This time, he had no intention of yielding to Riersha’s stubbornness.
“…Yes. I, too, want Riersha to be safe.”
In all honesty, Arcmund sincerely hoped that Riersha would fail to bring back the mark of the calling.
“Suddenly my head is beginning to ache.”
All of this had started after whatever that Archdemon’s staff — or whatever it was — had been brought in. That was what had ignited this cold war.
For the first time in his long life, Arcmund was watching his son and his granddaughter locked in a tense and unyielding standoff — and it made his temples throb.
