Chapter 85

Chapter 85
## Chapter 85

“What on earth is—!”

In a sudden panic, the guards whipped out their blades in unison.

However, the radiant streaks merely shimmered without causing any injury. After a heartbeat, as the glare subsided and their vision returned, Lucian and his companions managed to identify the origin of the glow.

“My lord, there are glowing paths etched into the ground!”

“I perceive them as well. However…”

Lucian scrutinized the designs of the puzzle upon the lit floorboards. Absurdly, the light had been traced erratically, possessing no connection to the actual riddle. It appeared as though a child had scrawled over a masterpiece.

“…There was no hidden mechanism in the puzzle at all. It was a distraction.”

“A tactic frequently employed in the old era. They would fashion a counterfeit keyhole on a portal that required no key, while concealing the true locking device elsewhere,” Hugo pointed out.

“I suppose the logic of men remains unchanged from then to now.”

“It is certainly potent. By some stroke of luck, we avoided the snare, but it appears the idiots who preceded us were thoroughly hoodwinked.”

Lucian offered a cynical grin and gave a nod to Hugo’s observation. They had likely colored it with convincing hues, but no amount of effort spent solving the puzzle would have finished the image. It was nothing more than a facade intended to mislead trespassers without any functional purpose. Even if a miracle had allowed someone to solve it, they would have been left with nothing but an aesthetic mural.

“My lord, observe that area.”

Raymond indicated the far wall. In the distant reaches of the expansive grotto, which had been shrouded in shadows until now, sat a collection of chisels, shears, and mallets. These were evidently gathered not for artistry, but for demolition.

“It appears their goal was to smash the flooring of this grotto if they ran out of options.”

“Do you believe those individuals were merely stalling for time earlier so they could infiltrate this chamber?”

“It is a possibility.”

Initially, Lucian assumed they were seeking a signet or some token of authority. The stewards of the estate were not yet aware that Lucian had reclaimed Asagrim. It would have been logical for them to attempt to undermine Lucian’s standing for their superior’s benefit. But looking at it now, it seemed far more plausible that they were creating a diversion to access the cellar and wreck these tiles.

“It is truly farcical. Especially given that these floorboards are merely ornamental.”

“That brings to mind—why did the actual bolt suddenly disengage? We performed no action.”

“I am equally uncertain. I did nothing more than brush the floor once; surely such a gesture couldn’t have been the genuine trigger.”

*Click.*

As the words left his mouth, the grinding of a hidden apparatus resonated from the flank. When Lucian’s party shifted their gaze, they observed a segment of the masonry sliding aside. Once more, it was situated in a nook beneath the cellar stairs, entirely disconnected from the riddle. Lucian was struck by the thoroughness of the grotto’s builder.

With the passage placed there, they wouldn’t have dared to attempt a forced entry. The staircase would have buckled if they had. For whatever reason, they were hell-bent on keeping this concealed.

“My lord, what is our course of action?”

Lucian responded to Felicia’s inquiry without hesitation.

“We enter.”

“We are ignorant of what lies within. Will you be safe?”

“If their intent was to ensnare us, they would have triggered it by this point. Furthermore, this location remained undisturbed even while the House of Calix was in its prime.”

They had violently uprooted the lamps, shifted the puzzle components at random, and even stood ready to demolish the site. Seeing as there wasn’t so much as a lingering bloodstain despite all that interference, it was a safe bet that no hazards remained.

“It is one thing to mask the doorway so it remains undiscovered, but it would be peculiar to place snares exclusively beyond the threshold. Let us investigate and depart swiftly before Sir Glen locates us.”

“That is valid. Moreover, considering how meticulously they veiled the entrance while leaving the rest of the room vulnerable… Hmm.”

Hugo swallowed the rest of his thought and shifted his gaze as if it were trivial. Though he moved on, Lucian had a general grasp of what Hugo intended to say.

*This area feels strangely incomplete.*

Despite its massive scale, the chamber held nothing but a gargantuan puzzle to sidetrack thieves and a concealed hatch. There wasn’t a single legitimate ornament to draw the eye, let alone a pitfall. A location that was spacious but hollow was typically the mark of a structure abandoned due to a depleted treasury.

In a sense, this very void might represent the decline of Grimaldi.

Lucian gave a sorrowful smile and walked toward the yawning door beneath the steps. The explanation for why this area was constructed likely waited inside.

—

Lucian and his retinue were stunned into silence as they crossed the secret threshold. Beyond was a reasonably sized chamber, but the contents were pathetically sparse.

A shelf, a few books missing their bindings, some ink, a few scraps of parchment, and a solitary key?

The bookcase was merely a piece of dated, plain woodwork, and the volumes appeared to have been crudely stitched together with twine and paper. The writing materials were likewise low-grade items found in any common stall. The only object of note was the key stored within a fine display box, though its function was a mystery.

“My lord, allow me to inspect… Gah!?”

*Zap!*

Raymond reached toward the box, only to flinch away as a bolt of electricity surged forth. Though he reacted swiftly, the shock was intense enough to have scorched his skin.

“Sorcery?! This is a mystical relic!”

“Good heavens. They lacked even decent furniture, yet the protection is impenetrable.”

Lucian made a clicking sound with his tongue and retrieved one of the volumes from the shelf. Since the protection was limited to the display box, there was no issue in handling the book.

—*Turned away once more. Much like the one before him, the reigning Emperor refuses to grant the return of Asagrim… For how much longer are we to wait? Former splendor… already crumbled. How much longer… I am becoming exhausted.*

Asagrim?

The majority of the script on the aged parchment was faded and unreadable. It wasn’t done on purpose; it was simply the result of poor upkeep. Lucian delicately flipped the pages, which were so parched they seemed ready to disintegrate at a touch.

*The ancient texts are nearly impossible to decipher, but the entries penned more recently remain legible.*

Upon reviewing the text, Lucian realized exactly what these records were. They were the personal accounts left by the consecutive leaders of the House of Grimaldi. However, since keeping them wasn’t a requirement, there were intervals of a century or two between entries depending on the patriarch.

Weary of trying to decode the archaic prose, Lucian flipped to the most contemporary journal.

*This is the latest one, so it should be clear… What? It’s entirely obscured?*

Lucian was stunned to find pages drenched in black, as if ink had been purposefully poured over the lines. The ink had bled in every direction, rendering it unreadable. Fortunately, the final page appeared to have been added after the book was defaced, and the script there was sharp.

—*Grimaldi has reached its end. Now that my girl has departed from the clan, there is no blood left to carry my name. The Empire has at last endured for a millennium and triumphed over Grimaldi. The ambitions of our forefathers will dissipate along with the ruin of our lineage. It is a bitter pill, but in a way, it brings peace.*

Lucian gave a start at the word “ruin.” Based on his findings, the House of Grimaldi had been passed down through direct heirs for ages without the need for adoption. The only time the succession was threatened was during the life of Lucian’s maternal grandfather, who was left with only a daughter. If it mentioned having no blood to take up the legacy, then this entry must have been penned by his grandfather.

—*The heritage of the ancestors now exists only in text, and even those accounts are nearly lost to time. The drive to hold onto the old legacy died long ago. I am tired of bearing the weight of those who came before without any prospect of success or gain. How can the diminished Grimaldi ever hope to take back Asagrim? Even if the Empire collapsed, some other power would surely claim it and cast us out.*

That was an objective truth. As the former seat of a kingdom, the position of Asagrim was nothing short of ideal. Barring a figure from holy myth, no one would ever hand back such a vital stronghold to its previous masters without a heavy price.

—*I have never laid eyes on Asagrim in my life. I cannot view the land of my ancestors as my own territory now. My home is here. I shall exist here and be interred here. I harbor no remorse regarding that reality and even feel a sense of relief, but it is a shame that the sovereign heritage will be entombed forever beneath the seat of power.*

“…!”

What could this imply? The treasure of the Northern Royal Family was under the throne? Lucian steadied his quickening pulse and scanned the following line.

—*I have chosen to preserve the key. It would be petty to show my own bitterness by destroying it. But at the same time, I wonder what the use is. I am the final member of the main line, and even the potential branch kin will conclude with my grandson. If one possesses the key but lacks the right to wield it, it is a trifle; perhaps the heirs will only hold a grudge against me.*

“…Right?”

—*Just in case, I have wiped away the errors of my youth but left this concluding leaf. If there is someone in the days to come who unearths this vault and can claim the key, take it and place it beneath the throne of the White Palace in Asagrim. The heritage of the old royalty waits in silence beneath it. If it has all rotted away after so long, then so be it.*

The final leaf of the account ended there. Lucian softly shut the volume and stood up.

The key and the right, and the main and secondary bloodlines. Suddenly, a phrase he had encountered recently resurfaced in his mind.

—*The second-born cannot utilize mystical relics that are only functional for the rightful blood of the Imperial Family.*

The Emperor had definitely stated that in his correspondence. Mystical relics functional only for the rightful Imperial blood. When he first read that, he assumed it was a lost science held exclusively by the Imperial Family. But reading his grandfather’s account now, a different theory took root.

If magical safeguards that trigger only for a specific lineage were commonplace a millennium ago… and if other noble houses besides the Imperial Family utilized such science…

Concluding his train of thought, Lucian walked toward the key. His confident stride alarmed the guards, who had been maintaining a respectful distance.

“My lord, it is peril—!?”

Before the retainers could stop him, Lucian placed his hand firmly onto the display box holding the key. As if the shock from earlier was a hallucination, the box welcomed Lucian’s hand without any hostility. A few moments later, with a faint glow, the bolt in the heart of the case clicked open.

*Click.*

“…!?”

“Exactly as I suspected.”

While the others stood frozen by the impossible turn of events, Lucian smirked and took hold of the key. He was unsure of the metal it was forged from, but seeing as it hadn’t collected a speck of corrosion over the centuries, it was clearly no common tool.

“W-what just occurred?”

“See for yourselves.”

Lucian passed his grandfather’s journal to the stunned Raymond and the rest of the guard. After scanning the text, the retainers all gazed at Lucian with tense expressions.

“My lord.”

“You need not explain. I have a firm grasp of the situation. It almost certainly pertains to my ancestry.”

Simultaneously, he felt he finally grasped why the Emperor had clung to Asagrim and refused to relinquish it until this moment. Until now, he assumed it was merely to stop the secession of the North, which was already isolated. Since the Grimaldi blood remained, its symbolic power was vast.

But it appeared that wasn’t the sole motive.

The Imperial Family had been cautious. They dreaded the prospect that other noble houses might harbor hidden strengths just as they did.