Finding the room with the throne was not difficult.
Perhaps out of consideration for the officials, a path lay openly cleared all the way to the center of the White Palace.
Upon reaching the central chamber, Lucian took a short, deep breath and, without hesitation, opened the door.
Creeeak—
The door, which had not been opened for nearly a thousand years, swung open smoothly, as if it had been freshly oiled in advance.
Stepping cautiously through the door that opened far more easily than expected, Lucian felt a red carpet beneath his feet.
Following the long stretch of carpet with his gaze, he soon discovered what he had been searching for.
"There it is."
At the end of the red carpet stood a pure white throne, as if carved from white jade. Lucian strode toward it without hesitation.
The moment he ascended the steps and grasped the armrest of the throne, an indescribably strange sensation wrapped around his entire body.
Wooooong—
"My lord!"
"I'm fine."
Lucian raised one hand to stop Felicia as she rushed toward him in alarm.
It was merely resonating in response to Lucian's blood—there was nothing else amiss.
"Under the throne, if I recall correctly."
Recalling his maternal grandfather's handwritten record, Lucian dropped to one knee and examined beneath the throne.
However, no matter how thoroughly he searched around it, there was nothing that could be called a keyhole.
Just in case, Lucian took the key from within his clothes and brought it close to the underside of the throne.
Shaaaak—
"Just as I thought!"
As he had seen in the basement of his grandfather's estate, the throne responded to the key and began to emit a brilliant light.
Judging by how the light climbed up to his wrist, it must require both the key and the bloodline possessed by the key's owner.
Srrrk—
A moment later, as the light from the throne faded, a small hidden staircase revealed itself.
It opened so quietly that, if one weren't watching with their own eyes, they wouldn't even realize something had happened.
'The door, and now this secret passage too—how can everything open so easily?'
It hadn't been maintained even once in a thousand years, yet it was not just smooth—so smooth it was as if fabric were brushing past.
Curiosity about ancient technology sparkled in his eyes, but confirming the legacy came first.
As Lucian moved to enter first, Felicia stepped forward with a hardened expression.
"My lord, I'll go in first."
"At this point, there shouldn't be any danger, so there's no need to—"
"I will go."
Felicia spoke firmly, her expression making it clear she would accept no objections.
Faced with that resolve, Lucian found himself nodding without realizing it.
"Tsk, such overprotectiveness."
A wry smile came to his lips, but it didn't feel bad.
After all, it meant he was receiving fervent loyalty from his retainer.
Felicia went ahead down the stairs, pulling oil paper and a flint from her bosom.
"It's dark. We'll probably need a torch. Please wait a moment—!?"
Fwaak—
Before Felicia could finish speaking, bright light burst forth from all directions.
Instinctively, both of them moved their hands to their waists, but soon realized that the light was nothing more than illumination.
After confirming the source of the light, Lucian muttered blankly.
"Glowing spheres?"
Round objects were embedded everywhere, softly lighting the interior.
After taking in the form of the lighting, Lucian frowned.
"So this was the lighting the House of Count Calyx stripped out. They weren't just trying to eliminate the light—these fixtures themselves are valuable, so they took them."
"What? You mean Calyx dared to take the Grimaldi legacy…?"
"If it had been assets made public, that'd be one thing. But since these were items hidden in an underground chamber, they probably thought it would be fine."
Using the name of Grimaldi as a pretext wasn't enough—they had even secretly siphoned off the property.
'They really do all sorts of things.'
He had planned to settle matters by forcing submission, so long as he could avoid physical conflict.
But judging by their actions, it now seemed necessary to crush them thoroughly—conflict or not.
It was just as Lucian's and Felicia's eyes were growing accustomed to the bright light.
"M-my lord. Over there…!"
Felicia pointed to one side with a look of utter shock.
Lucian, too, stood there dumbfounded, his mouth hanging open at the unbelievable sight spread before him.
"Medicinal herbs?"
This was an underground space with no light except for artificial illumination—no sunlight, no soil.
Yet all around them, the place was filled with every kind of medicinal herb imaginable.
Leaves of strange hues, flower buds of every color, even all manner of saplings.
"In a place with no nutrients, what is all this—?"
Fwaaak—
As he drew closer to the herbs, the dormant lights all flared on at once.
It seemed to be a system that detected people and responded accordingly.
As the once-dark space brightened, things other than the herbs came into view as well:
various metal ingots, assorted refining tools, countless gems and gold coins, and books preserved in pristine condition.
Nothing there was ordinary, but the most striking of all was the armament.
"By the heavens…"
Felicia muttered as if swallowing a scream, standing in for the speechless Lucian.
Lined up in the underground chamber were a thousand pieces of armament—enough to fully equip a thousand knights.
Lucian took out one of the armors from the pile of armaments and gently brushed his hand over it.
The armor, with not a speck of dust upon it, shimmered with a subtle light the moment his fingers touched it.
Looking more closely, he saw all kinds of runes engraved in places not easily visible from the outside.
'It's definitely the same type of armament used by the Red Wing Knight Order. I don't know what kind of magic is imbued in it, though.'
But if they had mass-produced armor and weapons this identical, they must have forged them with war in mind.
The magic embedded in the armaments was likely the kind whose power multiplied severalfold when activated simultaneously by many users.
'Jackpot.'
He would have been more than satisfied with just two hundred pieces of this kind of armament.
Yet there weren't merely two hundred—there were over a thousand.
'What would happen if all one thousand soldiers equipped with this armament activated the engraved magic at once?'
If he were to recreate the divine might the Red Wing Knight Order had displayed, even if only temporarily, but with several times their numbers…
If Lucian were to command those thousand men and smash through the enemy head-on…
Just imagining it sent a thrilling sensation crawling up his spine.
At that moment, Felicia approached Lucian carrying several books.
"My lord, I took a look through a few of the books, but…"
"Did you find out anything?"
"I'm sorry. They're all written in the ancient language, so I couldn't make sense of them."
"Is that so? Then give them to me—I'll read them."
"You've even learned the ancient language!?"
Felicia cried out in shock at Lucian's casual tone.
Though the ancient language was considered part of a noble's education, it was so difficult that only a handful could actually use it in practice.
And yet, to be able to read the ancient language perfectly at the age of sixteen…
"Well, I happened to learn it properly."
"That's incredible!"
Faced with Felicia's sparkling eyes, Lucian subtly averted his gaze.
He might have acted like a prodigy, but in truth, ancient language was something he had only barely mastered through blood-spitting effort in his previous life.
'Back when I was a mercenary, whenever negotiations started to go south, those bastards would mutter among themselves in ancient language.'
He still remembered how shocked he'd been when they suddenly attacked after exchanging opinions freely among themselves.
After experiencing that kind of thing over and over, even as an uneducated mercenary, he had no choice but to learn it with everything he had.
Fortunately, the tutor he hired had been competent and of good character, so at least the instruction itself had been solid.
And now, to think he'd be using that ancient language again here.
'You never know where life will take you, huh?'
With a wry smile, Lucian opened one of the books written in the ancient language.
The moment he grasped its contents, he froze on the spot.
"Methods for crafting magic tools…!"
What the book contained was a technology that could reproduce, in the modern age, magic tools that had gone extinct long ago.
Rustle, rustle—
And the book didn't contain only methods for crafting magic tools.
It also detailed the production of reagents required for magic, as well as the forging methods for armaments that had long since been lost to time.
Each and every one of them was knowledge powerful enough to shake the world—but there was one serious drawback.
'Magic is indispensable for crafting anything. No, even before that, if you're not a mage, fully interpreting this book would be difficult.'
Even if one could read the ancient language, that didn't mean they understood magic-related terminology as well.
By contrast, this book was filled with terms that required a certain depth of knowledge in magic to interpret.
'Unless I bring a mage under my command, it'll be hard to put this knowledge to proper use.'
Smacking his lips in regret, Lucian closed the book.
In any case, while the Emperor's eyes were fixed on him, he needed to refrain from building up his strength.
When an age of chaos arrived, the Emperor's surveillance would naturally weaken, and mages would come crawling out as well—waiting would resolve the problem on its own.
'Until then, those thousand sets of armament should be more than enough.'
After finishing a rough inspection, Lucian left the treasure vault together with Felicia.
The moment the two of them stepped out, the entrance closed silently, just as it had opened.
It was when Lucian, having achieved his objective, came back to the entrance with Felicia to check the situation outside.
"My lord, a troublesome matter has arisen."
"A troublesome matter?"
Raymond spoke with an awkward expression, prompting Lucian to tilt his head in confusion.
Everything important was already finished—what could possibly be troublesome now?
"Don't tell me the pilgrims and the garrison have clashed or something?"
"No, it's not that. There's an unruly fellow insisting on an audience with you, my lord, and it's difficult to turn him away…"
"What kind of fellow is he?"
"He's the second son of Count Harald."
"…"
At the appearance of an entirely unexpected figure, Lucian was momentarily left speechless.
No—at a time like this, shouldn't that brat be receiving successor training from Harald?
"…A baron's child can't exactly be ignored. Let's at least hear what he has to say."
"You just told the pilgrims that you'd be touring the White Palace alone. Would it be all right to let that fellow inside now?"
"There's no need to take him all the way to the chilly throne room. We don't have to bring him in—just talk to him here. Besides, Sir Glen's gaze is something to be mindful of."
Glen knew that Harald and Lucian had formed a close relationship in the North.
Given that connection, it wouldn't seem strange at all for Lucian to speak with Harald's second son.
If anything, hiding away to whisper as though there were something to hide would only invite unnecessary suspicion.
"Bring him here for now. First, I need to ask why he's here instead of with his father."
"Yes, my lord."
Having received the order, Raymond headed briefly toward the gate and returned with someone in tow.
When Lucian saw the man's face, his eyebrow twitched.
"So you're the second son of Count Harald?"
"It's good to see you again, Your Highness. My name is Thorkel Osgor."
The man smiling brightly was the very youth who had told Lucian to ascend the throne.
Letting out a hollow laugh, Lucian sat down on the steps and looked up at Thorkel.
"I've got a lot I want to say, but let's start with what I'm most curious about. Why did you come here instead of going to your father?"
"I did go once. I just ran away again."
"What?"
"At first, I heard my elder brother had done something foolish, so I thought I had no choice but to return. But then my father spoke to me about Your Highness."
The rightful heir of Grimaldi, and the master of Asagrim.
A man who enjoyed the Imperial Family's trust, yet also harbored ambitions to ascend the throne of a king.
A monster who, at the age of sixteen, had even defeated Harald head-on despite his use of a relic.
"I simply couldn't believe it. So I ran out to confirm it with my own eyes. I figured Your Highness would stop by the former duke's territory once, and then head straight for Asagrim."
Thorkel shrugged, saying that things had turned out exactly as he'd expected.
Having heard the reason, Lucian stared at him with a dumbfounded expression.
"So you ran all the way out here just to see my face a little sooner?"
"Yes."
"Even though you would've had plenty of chances to meet me later if you stayed with your father?"
At that, Thorkel shook his head, as if the situation were entirely different.
"Then it'd be obvious my father would leave me in charge as his proxy and go serve Your Highness himself. I had to run away before that—so that I could personally attend you."
…
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